There’s the buzz of the fridge and then the wind is gusty outside our home and during the times it dies away I can hear cars in the distance and think of the people inside them; the families they might be driving towards or away from; the suburbs filled with thousands and thousands of people, sleeping or not and – in the insomnia-inspired thought-linking I’ve become used to – images continue to gather inside my head to contrast this tiny space I occupy against the billions and billions of others that become a tidal wave of meaninglessness and in that wonder and despair – and in the light of the past few hours – I think back to my own childhood night terrors, waking from a recurrent dream, crying uncontrollably for reasons I’m not even sure of and wandering around the house, hovering between sleep and wakefulness with a feeling of utter ruin and horror in my gut and although I’m somehow aware of my Mother being there, I don’t really see her or hear her until I wake fully, and as I leave my childhood and come back to my place on the mattress with Tyson my memories become fleeting images from a long time ago and I’m searching for one kind of image in particular but I can only remember my Mother getting me water, rubbing my back, talking to me, lifting me into bed; I have no memories at all of her losing her temper with me.