Tom Wiggins, Letter Carver & Writer

An extremely handsome and well-dressed man is stood outside HMV in Gloucester.  It’s mid-December.  He looks and listens as the shoppers walk by.  The hum of Christmas. ‘I’m going into Superdrug to get some eyelashes, then I’ll meet you in Primark,’ one woman says to another as they pass.  He smiles.  He notices the accent more now.  It slides back onto the man’s tongue whenever he’s home.  He no longer lives in Gloucester, but is a stone’s throw from the Gloucestershire border.  He loves that border.  He’s proud that he didn’t need to go far to find his dream job.  The drive back into his home county is like sliding into a warm bath.  He refocuses, observes.  If you turned the scene upside down, ticked and unticked shopping lists would flutter down like snow.  Not just snow but Christmas snow.  Pillow-soft, whiter-than-white movie snow ...

--> After I wonder what I’d say if the Haim Sisters walk into the hotel.   It’s possible.   It’s more than possible.   It’s the hotel closest to the gig venue and the support act has just walked in.   We ask at reception.   They can’t say either way.   They think we’re mad.   We might be.   We sit back down.   My eyes are fixed on the automatic doors.   I could be a Haim Husband by this time next week.   They open.   Is it HAIM?   Not this time.   They open again.   Is it HAIM?   Not this time.   They open again.   Is it HAIM? Not this time. But at least I can put it to rhyme. Before ‘I want to go on a boat,’ I told my friend.   ‘A boat?’ ‘Yeah, a boat.’ ‘What kind of boat?’ ‘You know, the floaty kind.’ ‘With sails or without sails?   Oars or…’ ‘Either/oar.   OAR.   Get it?   ‘Very good.   Leave it ...

i.  Saturday I don't often listen to the radio in bed, but last night something compelled me to switch it on.  I needed voices in the background to ease me to sleep.  It was doing its job admirably for half an hour or so.  If falling asleep is a journey guided by nodding trees to a cabin in the woods, or a riverboat ride to a special place from childhood, or a steep ascent on a mythical bird up, up and up, then I was as good as there - wherever there was.  I'd felt sleep's fingertips, but then - then they slipped away.  Something magical was playing on the radio and it steered me back to wakefulness.  My need to sleep was strong, but my need to know this song was stronger.  If I didn't get up now, the song would be lost in the black hole of lost songs, or at least that's how it felt.   I walked to the kitchen in a daze and found the radio show's playlist.  I found her on Spotify.  I can't remember walking back to bed, but ...