She’s not an easy person to live with.
At home she follows me from room to room.
When I go out she tags along:
to the college where I work as a library assistant,
to the supermarket where I buy my single serve ready meals,
to the cemetery where I put flowers on my mother’s grave.
However fast I walk she’s always right beside me
and she never
ever
stops talking.
At night I lie awake,
her voice droning on through the wall
that separates my room from hers.
Lately I’ve stopped going out.
I sit on the sofa with the curtains drawn.
The sound of the TV muffles her voice.
She arrived three years ago, not long after my mother died.
I never even put an ad in the paper;
she just turned up on the doorstep one day.
‘Hi,’ she said, holding out her hand for me to shake.
‘I’ve come to live with you. My name’s Phobia.’
© Helen Whittaker http://theduckside.com
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