I can hear Jenny’s voice, she is no doubt sitting at the bottom of the stairs where she makes calls when she wants privacy. I can hear her voice but I can’t make out exactly what she is saying, however I can tell from its tone that she is apologizing. I slice an avocado down its length and I breathe a soft sigh of relief that there is a certain give in its flesh. Too many times I am faced with unripe avocados. I begin to worry about the world’s current lack of the fruit. How much can I expect to pay for an avocado in the future? I take a tub of natural yoghurt from the fridge and I spoon a generous amount into the clear bowl, I crush garlic, I squeeze lime. I am on automatic pilot.

I grab my wallet and as I pass Jenny at the end of the stairs I go to touch her but she flinches. Her head is down and her long fingers are twirling her hair. I head over to the Centra to buy tortilla chips.

They don’t have plain tortilla chips so I settle for cheese-flavoured. I buy a lottery ticket and I avoid small talk with Geraldine, at the till, I just don’t have it in me today.

On the way back I meet my neighbour and he tries to engage me in a conversation about the hedge that divides our gardens. I tell him that the hedge as it is holds little interest for me. I walk on back to the house. The kids are out on the green playing tag and I shout that I am making lunch. There is no response, I wave the bag of tortillas, I sense young feet behind me.

Jenny is gone from the stairs. I can see her through the kitchen window out in the back garden. Crouched down, she has her back to me and she is weeding the flowerbed by the tree. She is also smoking. The kids want to know where lunch is, I tell them that it is in mid-production. I open the tortillas. I put a pot of water on to boil and then I take out a bag of pasta. The children watch television as the kitchen window steams up.

Destruction, she calls it. I have a good mind to start another conversation with Jenny. To tell her that the use of the word destruction in my mind seems awfully dramatic when one is talking about a few drawings, a wooden sculpture of a bird. Destruction seems more appropriate if one were to consider, perhaps, the collapse of a city. I sometimes forget that Jenny has a tendency towards exaggeration.