I sneezed so hard once that my sneeze went and knocked on the front door of a house across the street
A middle-aged man answered and I ran shouting in my sneeze’s wake to apologise
I asked the man at the door if I could collect my sneeze, but he said it was now part of the finder’s keepers rule
He went into his kitchen and found an empty jar and then pushed the jar into the air as though trying to catch my sneeze like a butterfly
He asked me to sit down by the breakfast bar and to keep very still,
I thought his face looked very strange in its expression of determination
His eyebrows limped in a shrug
His cheeks pocketed with air
When his lips pursed as though in a mighty kiss, he closed the jar with a cork type lid, his two hands pressing together to make the lid root
He then knowingly found some blue ribbon from a drawer containing tin foil and tea-towels, and he took a length of ribbon to wrap around the jar and finish in a bow
Quickly he glanced at his watch and then at the clock in the kitchen,
Making time of his actions, drawing comparisons and making me feel uneasy
I looked at my feet
I told him that I better be going,
I said that I was sorry for sneezing so hard and that I would do better in the future to keep my hands tighter around my nose and mouth area.
He walked me to the door
I wiped my shoes on the welcome mat in my exit
I then skulked across the road and heard the smash of glass fall just short of my heels
‘Bless you!’ the man called after me
His face a vault of burnt candles
I picked up the blue ribbon from around the pieces of broken glass that looked so precious against the black of the tarmac
The ribbon felt damaged, its bow unfairly arranged.
I placed it in my pocket next to a tissue, and I thought about the sanity of my neighbour as he stood in his porch, still, with an open-topped jar, as though waiting to catch another diverting sneeze.