Lost

I have lost something and I can't find it.

I look every day, starting with the morning. When the sun's rays first penetrate my foggy mind and greet me "huomenta", I begin looking, under the pillows, in the blanket, it must be somewhere in the warmth of the bed.

I know it is not in the kitchen. That's a cold place, with the window always open and the smell of spices and too much sun. It's a place of stiff dish cloths and plates with filmy water soaking. No warmth, no comfort, and I never go there. Only friends cook. So I can't have lost it in there.

Perhaps it's in the bathroom. It's a small but cosy room. Animals dance on the shower curtain and tiles. If only they could raise their snouts from the painted surface, and tell me where to find what I am looking for.

Of course I search outside the flat. I look in earnest in the movement of the sea, in the new leaves on the branches, in the squirrels running past me, especially in brave sparrows that hop in front of me. They don't know the location, but it is as if they have clues to what I've lost.

I look deep into people's faces. Do they know, do they have, are they keeeping...? But they are the blank faces of strangers that don't stare back. They are expressionless. Eyes do not meet on trains, buses or the street. If they knew anything that could help, they would not tell me.

I return home, exhausted from the pursuit of nothing, from trying to catch a ghost. In bed, only there at the last minute before the sun rises again, my eyes dry from watching a computer screen, a silent phone. In bed, just before my eyes close a final time I remember to look one last time for what I have lost.

I have lost something.
Perhaps I never had it.