Vienna.

I now realise the paradox which is at the heart of many human transactions - yet I lack the words to describe it fully.

Bluefish has been and gone: the house is strewn with her possessions, and I am working my way through the book about Ern Malley which she bought for me.

It is, in other words, almost as though she is still here: memories still breathing, more real than anything I've ever dreamed. There is a connection between events and my recollection of them which will certainly decay over the course of the next few months:-

I was scared of the Bratislava-Vienna train. The door was heavy, alien, and there was no obvious way of getting it open once it had slammed shut. I didn't like the sheer drop between the edge of the carriage and the platform - a good foot or eighteen inches further off the floor than on English trains.

So when we arrived at the station, my instinct was to put distance between myself and the strange vehicle which had carried me there. As soon as the door opened - I struggled to make it do so, not seeing the push-button over my left shoulder - I leapt out of it, complete with one piece of luggage, maybe two.

I landed awkwardly, scattering people on the platform as they tried not to bump into the gibberish-speaking, angry-looking foreigner who had just fallen out of the door.

Bluefish couldn't stop laughing, and, once I'd got over the initial realisation of what an idiot I
must have looked, enjoyed mocking myself as well.

Without too much strain on my behalf, I am able to recall quite specific details about the moment when I made a fool of myself. It is this proximity to the very recent past which sets the trap of the paradox - when memories are alive and breathing, the events to which they refer are not closed.

It is as if the consequences and conclusions which are the natural endpoints to past events are yet to be fully realised - as though they are provisional. It would seem that it takes time for a memory to fully 'set' - the past in some way re-arranging the present and even the future with its ghostly appendages.

The time between an event occurring and its memory 'setting' brings (for me) a closeness to the objects and people which composed the event. So I feel as though I orbit Bluefish particularly closely in these days - a house pockmarked with things belonging to her, and a recent history which has still to fully reveal itself.