I would like to imagine that you are there, waiting for signs of life. I can honestly say that the past seven weeks have been unimaginable in so many uncertain ways. Let me begin.

Language has not come to me, but rather I have gone towards it, crawling like a small child, seeking it under things, corners, my fingers searching for sparks, for soft squishy things, for sound. My throat has seized up, I no longer understand the words that come out of my mouth and I am therefore unable to speak. I cannot seem to see the sentence and its arc of words, its supine back. Perhaps I have to learn to speak in the dark?

“Language has not come to me, but rather I have gone towards it, crawling like a small child, seeking it under things, corners, my fingers searching for sparks, for soft squishy things, for sound.”

Know that I have thought of you fondly and often, but when the hours bleed into each other, I am incapable of knowing when day turns into night as the daydreams and night dreams merge into one big glowing ball. Is the sun still there? I dreamt of a red bicycle last night, which I rode about in a town with endless bridges, much like the first time I was lost in Amsterdam, but there were no people, the canals had eyes and smelt of lime.

My neighbour leaves things outside my door sometimes. A cluster of grapes, some bright oranges, a knob of soft cheese with rye bread. I disinfect everything of course. My eyes are beleaguered from the hours of watching the screen, and I eat numbly, my fingers tearing bread and lumping cheese upon it. I watch movies from my childhood, I hum the songs that accompany them, I cry into my shirt and think of my dead father. He too, was tall.

I dream of gargantuan meals I know I cannot cook. My teeth cracking shellfish of crab, lobster and fat, river prawns. Red shells. I suck at the morsels of white meat stuck inside crevices, I stick my tongue into limbs, I squeeze them out with my teeth, teasing and slurping with my tongue. I imagine the sweet, spicy, salty juices. I salivate in my sleep and wake up starving.

“I must learn to speak again. Do you see?”

But I am not only thinking of crustaceans, I also think of bats and jellyfish and trees. Most of all, trees. I want to breathe in the scent of leaves and firm bark, run my fingers up and down bark. Close my eyes lean in and put my heart against the bark. My hands will then encircle the trunk and I will press my cheek into it, and feel its roughness pressing into my jaw. I will press in even harder and feel the indentations on my flesh. Then I will turn my other cheek. I think of that magnificent tree in Congo Park in New Orleans, do you remember that time? I remember feeling its structure, smelling the scent of history in its hollow places, caressing its thick holy roots. My friends, they laughed at me. One took a picture. Do you know that trees sing to each other?

Know that I will be fine, I will endeavour to write about all the terrible things happening on the outside, soon. Of the refugees at sea, of the incarcerated children, of the hungry, of the now and many dead.

I will remain here for a long time. As time is all I have. I will try to decipher its newness, discover its meaning, its curvature, its language, its scent, hear its sound, find its will, its wants, its failures, follow its new horizons. I will pick up the pen again, I promise, but first I need to learn this new language, for I am without certain faculties at this very moment. I must learn to speak again. Do you see?

My dear reader, for now, and for now, I send you my love, for in this time of horror, I hope you find promise in my words, know that perhaps only this will save me and I can say with gladness, thank you and thank you, for being in this, the world.

Yours,

B

Vertaling: Nadia de Vries