I took some time out after the terrifying events of my last blog. Upon returning I was confronted not as before with the dangers of inadequate information, but rather how personal Tinder exchanges are and the risk of mishandling this information.

I received a message. It said “tell me three interesting things about your life.”

Recently, I’d detached myself from the interactions and watched them with the curious interest of an observer. It was quite liberating. The Nausea didn’t come as often.

“I’m writing a novel. I can map the UK rivers. I managed to get up before 8, so today is a win!” Safe bet: interesting–quirky–funny.

He was Greek, a naval soldier and had studied history. I made the mistake of mentioning I played tennis for my college, and he suggested we go fell-running. Joint running inevitably involves someone adjusting their pace and I envisaged him chatting away and me hulking phlegm, mobility scooters overtaking.

I developed “plantar fasciitis” and was unable to go… suggesting instead a short walk around the walls.

It was busy with tourists and we had to climb onto ledges to get by. He knew a lot. “…originally built as a roman fort in 71AD, turned from wood to stone in the medieval era…” I loved watching his face, that of anyone who is passionate about something.

I was distracted from his tour by jazz. Trills bled into failing light and crept along the trees. It sounded like Stan Tracey’s Starless and Bible Black from Under Milk Wood.  It reminded me of when I used to play. I looked through the thin apertures designed as cruciform arrow slits. Squinted my eyes until everything was watery.

“Shall we follow the jazz?” I asked.

He grinned and said why not.

We picked through remains of daffodils. The sax grew louder and more sombre. A few cars turned slowly in the street and moved off. The notes twisted through alleys, emerging in front of the cathedral, where someone was sitting on a bench. What at first looked like a saxophone was a terrier sitting on the old man’s lap. The music had stopped.

My date preferred it that we didn’t find the saxophonist and I understood that it would remain for him in this way magic, some kind of ideal.

*

On his windowsill was a row of very convincing plants which surprised me given his love of the outdoors and all things organic.

—He was never there to water them and didn’t like to watch things die.

That summer was hot; late August we came down the tow path in the rain, which was welcome, the kind which drips down your neck and gets into everything. The wheels flung up sycamore seeds and I felt the miniature helicopters stuck to my ankles. I cycled slower approaching the house.

There was no softness to him: even his toes were strung with muscle. And it made me self-conscious about, well, all of me. The first time, I had the urge to punch him in the stomach and see if my knuckles broke.

But my own body had hardened into something strong enough to weather his unforgiving.

This is what was said. Feeling was weakness. He would be away for 8 months. What was the point in being faithful to an idea? For him personally, his job was not a job, but a mindset. It enabled survival in conflict. But in the conflicts of the small and quiet surrenders sweated out beyond the straining of the body, what then? He rolled over and showed me his “job” look.

I made him leave then. (And sent a torrent of texts which I now regret.)

He’d been right that it was a thing of ideas; I was dispatched in my own way to writing things and when I got angry with his suggestion that the conversation might end up on some forum maybe I was a hypocrite. I wanted him because I wasn’t done writing him and my only fear about the forum was the taking of things out of context, the fact that it wouldn’t be my telling. I scoured the internet, split between Action–me and Sleep–me. I thought about the plant I hadn’t had chance to give him.

Last night, she took the alpine phlox
which had lost most of its heads,
grasping either side of the pot like a face
it went dripping across the floor,
the spilling yellow moon was pissing into the wind.
Phlox feeds off water, it quivers
in the waterfall, runs up fells. In the kitchen
it gave the faintest impression of movement
like the river on a dry day.
She returned and said nothing. I heard
scrubbing and drains. In the rising water
her nails were black, she saw the plant, drowned,
its silvery spots staring up accusingly
borne back like the wind in the moon’s face
to soil her.

When I finally went down in the morning the helicopters were still stuck to the shoes, staring up through the skylight.