writes.casa

It had been more than a million hours since the declaration justifying a homeland for people that Britain othered, because they would not love them as their neighbours. It had been over 650,000 hours since they backed the partitioning of that land at the expense of other othered people who had been there all along, whom Britain felt even more unneighbourly towards. It had been almost half a million hours since they stuck their fingers in their ears so they could not hear the munitions they and neighbours had sold being used to enlarge the homeland. It had been about 300,000 hours since one of the other others declared the steadily shrinking remnant of his own land a State. Britain backed its on-going diminishment anyway. They said the homeland helped keep their economic windpipe open, you see.

But then Britain had a change of heart. And the hour before the tanks and bulldozers rolled in to crush the remnants, and make it their home, Britain managed to recognise the State.

The hour before I'd been in a work meeting, with the pressure of deadlines and emails and messages all clamouring for my attention.

Half an hour before I'd been at my doctor's office being prodded and poked as we tried to discover how I'd injured myself this time.

Ten minutes before I'd been making the X-ray technician laugh as they lined me up for a series of pictures where it didn't matter if my eyes were open or if I smiled.

An hour later I was picking my daughter up from school, giggling at her jokes and making sure we got home safely through the wild traffic...

Waiting for the phone to ring with the results of an hour before.