Sugar

Can I have some brown sugar for my porridge pls. There are two texts waiting for me on my phone this morning when I wake. The one about sugar was at 8.08. In a separate message, 7.27, he asks: how is snow. No question mark.
All of this is good – he’s considering looking after himself, thinking about others too. Outside, I watch two gulls riding the thermals above the frosted fields, a crow outlined perfectly against a pale sky. There’s real weather up here in Anglesey – over the mountains, the estuary, the farmland, it is bright and clear in places, snow blurred and dark in others.
Mark – who was asked for ID while buying alcohol in the Premiere Shop last night – is still asleep on the sofa. I half-envy his innocence. Between the Roland Barthes and the Raymond Carver, there’s an empty bottle of Teachers, a scraped out pot of hummus, a chunk of stilton cheese and the cooking wine’s been drunk. Snagged between the open Thesaurus and an AL Kennedy, there’s an empty bread packet, crumbs gathered in the folds of the pages.
In the kitchen, the kettle boils, bacon fries on the range. I wonder if there's any porridge.