I posted this image onto the Ink Sweat and Tears sight on the day of The Royal Wedding to accompany a short story by Sarah Bower.  The words at the back are too small to see and don’t relate to the RW, they relate to me: “The first picture shows a child balanced on a see-saw looking at a doll; the second shows how more blood goes to her brain and her head sinks when she thinks or works out a sum.”  Martin says that he is probably the smiling evil little boy holding up the sum, in this particular equation.

When Martin first met me he would try to help me with ‘simple’ maths – but numbers do not stick inside my head at all.  I can feel my brain physically hurt as the synapses try and fail to make connections in what feels like an old fashioned telephone exchange operated by a rabbit, eyes fixed on looming  headlights.  And always the wrong number, every number is the wrong number.