Hot Milk

by Deborah Levy

It was my special skill to make my day smaller so as to make her day bigger.

When I note down ideas for field studies, I don’t know whether I’m writing in the past or present tense or both of them at the same time.

Meeting Ingrid is an assignment that had been scheduled without either of us writing it down. It was there anyway, like a bruise before a fall.

Is Donald Duck a child or a hormonal teenager or an immature adult? Or is he all of those things at the same time, like I probably am? Does he ever weep? What effect does rain have on his mood? When does he say no and when does he say yes?

Am I self-destructive, or pathetically passive, or reckless, or just experimental, or am I a rigorous cultural anthropologist, or am I in love?

I confess that I am often lost in all the dimensions of time, that the past sometimes feels nearer than the present and I often fear the future has already happened.