You can always count on me by Stella Turner

 It had started on Wednesday September 19 th 1982 at twenty-two hundred

hours, the day I was born. I could tell you how many seconds I’ve been living,

how many miles I have travelled but that might be too much information.

Its nine steps from the bed to the bathroom. Twenty-six from the bathroom to

the kitchen, thirty-two steps from the kettle to the sofa. One hundred and

eighty steps from the front door to the post box. When people ask me for

directions I always start with how many steps it will take them.

I count sheep in my sleep and alpacas whilst I’m dozing. It drives my wife to

distraction. She says she hears me all the time muttering numbers. She still

hasn’t forgiven me when the chip pan caught fire, my fault, and I carried her

out of the house in a fireman’s lift and announced seventy nine steps to the

applause of our neighbours. She didn’t go out for twenty-two days, thirty-three

minutes and fifty-six seconds.