Last night

When I finally went to bed last night, I just lay there, my body clenched into a tiny ball of a fist against the cold air and J-F's sleep-moans, swinging against as yet undreamed nightmares about having disturbed authorial tone and leaving some participles dangling in my wake.

I couldn't sleep. I couldn't brave leaving my coccoon to retrieve Middlemarch or The Dodecahedron. Instead I reached my hand out cautiously and settled on Stefan Grabinski's The Dark Domain, giving way to a fitfully dark place indeed.

I slept eventually. I dreamed about a dodecahedron, and about AS Byatt — her book's ribs struggling to hold their intended shape, holding boxes within boxes within boxes, contents under pressure, and Alice was inside.

I held the dodecahedron in the palm of my hand, admiring the elegance of its geometry, even if the edges are a bit rough. It could almost fold in on itself. It's made of metal scraps, hollow inside. The air whistles through it. Alice wants it.