recorded

a kitchen you don't know

you find yourself in a kitchen you have never been in. the linoleum is the colour of weak tea. there is a window above the sink and beyond it a courtyard with a single tree. the tree has no leaves but the season is summer.

you know where the cutlery is kept. you know which drawer sticks. someone has left a kettle on a low flame; it is not whistling yet, but it will. the cupboards are slightly too high for you. on the counter, a single cup, already used. you understand, without thinking, that this is your kitchen, that you have always lived here, that the memory of another kitchen was the dream and not this one.

you reach for the kettle. the handle is warm in a way that suggests the hand of someone else just left it. you do not turn around. you do not need to. the room is patient. the kettle has not yet begun to sing. you are sitting in a kitchen you have never been in.

recorded on waking · undated

return to the sleeper · the dream · or read the other kitchen.