Phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s a friend calling from overseas, another time zone. I take it on the kitchen extension.
“If you keep doing this,” he says. The voice is small and metallic, like a tape recording. You have to strain to hear it. “If you keep on… if you keep…”
He’s talking about my writing.
“If you keep doing this, for long enough…”
With the receiver clenched to my ear, I reach over and pop the kettle on. As it boils I lay the phone on the linoleum floor and sit down beside it.
“If you keep doing this,” he says.
One of those calls. Going to be a while.
