COMMENTARIES, 6

The sun crept through a crack in the curtain, climbed and caught Jimmy's closed eyes, then turned and crossed the covers on spotting me crouched in the corner, waiting for him to wake. I didn't say a word, just got up, stretched, and went over and sat down beside him on the mattress, chin resting in the cup of my hands. The sun seemed to like what it saw, quickly deciding to do all it could to help me wake Jimmy, for he didn't look like budging anytime soon. So the sun sent its wild waking force through the crack, through the glass of the window, through the flimsy machine patterned material of the curtains, and then sooner rather than later, Jimmy opened his eyes. Then together we listened to the morning mail fall through the slot in the door downstairs and onto the handstitched rug that was a wedding present from my much travelled grandfather, and I smiled and put a finger to his slowly parting lips. Then watching the crack under the bedroom door I listened to his footsteps falling away, then return, more steadily. He closed the door behind him and held up two envelopes. The rest at best were firestarters, he said. He sat back up in bed, slipped his feet under the sheets and thumbed the first envelope open. It was from the university. He was accepted. I remember grinning, shaking my head, and saying over and over: I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. And I took the piece of paper from his cold hands and read it over myself, and then again, while he went about opening the other, smaller envelope, finding inside - wait for it - yes, a postcard, but no, I don't have it and I don't know where it is. Jimmy might know but you'll have to ask him. Of course, you'll have to find him first too. As far as I can recall, the card had no greeting, no words at all for that matter, just a painting, a watercolour if I remember rightly, depicting, as far as could be told, according to Jimmy, the discovery of precious jadeite beneath the surface of the earth by three masked prospectors, whose skeletons could be seen on the outside of their skin, as they stood atop pools of blood which seeped into the colourless soil all around them. That's what I remember at least. And I remember how it was that painting more than anything to do with the university that got Jimmy jumping out of the bed that morning and into the shower so as to be ready to catch the 8.23. Or, like I said, at least that's how I remember it. You'll have to ask Jimmy. If you find him. Is that what you wanted to know? Is that why you came back here? My name is Elise Blayney. This is my statement. Will that do?