I’ll get new rubber gloves on the way down to the rocks. This last pair has holes in both thumbs. I usually only wear through the right one. I’ll want them for the seaweed. This way they’ll be strong for the morning, too. A human can do filthy things with rubber gloves on. I myself have wrung chicken necks and stripped the feathers from the flopping corpse and shoved half my arm into the hot cavity to rip out the lights without flinching or blinking. Without a shudder, because of the gloves. Because when I run the yellow rubber under the tap the mess streams away and I peel away the act with the glove and put my clean hand directly to my face without thinking. I wear the gloves to kill slugs and smash snails. If I ever murder a human being it will be because they’ve enraged me while I’m wearing gloves.

6:00 p.m.

Now I’m tired. Got a wheelbarrow full of red weed, a plastic sack of periwinkles, and a bloody gash in my left calf. I used to love the rocks. Last year I was still good at walking over them. They were slippery today. Things aren’t going right lately. Maybe it’s part of getting older.

I was nervous today. There’s that story in all the shops about the new nun at Stella Maris slipping on those rocks and being dragged out to sea. Made me nervous for my life. Ha. I suppose the milkman would notice after a couple of days. They’d find the wheelbarrow and I’d probably wash up beneath Tower Hill in a week or so. There I’d be with my skirt pinned up to my belt like a diaper and my bun undone. At least the goldfish would have starved to death by that time.