Driftwood in Motion

“I’ll take it to go but I won’t be leaving.” It was the strangest thing Niamh had heard that day but it she suspected it wouldn’t hold the title for very long. The pressure was set.

Clack, clack, clack.

Three tugs on the hopper handle and enough ground coffee filled the portafilter.

Thump.

Tamped in. Over now to the group head.

Bang, click, twist.

She slammed the portafilter handle firmly with the palm of her hand and the seal was formed.

Click, beep.

The dose was selected.

Hiss.

The pressured water poured. The smell of fresh espresso filled the air as it trickled into the waiting cup. On to the milk. A knob at the end of the machine was twisted with a flourish and the wand descended into the milk, angled slightly below the milk line in the stainless-steel jug. The milk screamed as the wand blasted steam into it and then the wand sank beneath the tumbling foaming waves, stifling the screams and leaving only a slightly metallic wail. Seconds ticked by the jug was turned, cocked and when the wail reached a fever pitch it was rapidly twisted off. Twist, wipe, twist, hiss. The wand was wiped clean.

Bang.

The jug knocked onto the wooden table knocking the air from it.

Bang.

A pause. Satisfied, she poured the milk slowly into the angled cup that held the still-steaming espresso. The silken white milk mixed with the delicate caramel-coloured espresso. They swirled together, chasing one another, momentarily losing their selves in the combined colour and shape. The cup turned, the jug flicked, paused, and poured again. After several deft motions, the coffee reached the brim. One last trickle of velvety milk lanced through the centre of the white island in the caramel sea, and it was complete. A drink born in sound, pressure, and heat.

“Three sixty-five, please.”

“Bit steep that.”

“Cup charge.”

“That must be it.” Beep.

“Thank you.” Twist, wipe, twist, hiss.

“Yes please?”

“Uh… Latte, soy please.”

“Size?”

“Uh… regular, normal one.” The customer then put their hands approximately anywhere from five to ten inches apart. Ah, that size. The size that the secret consensus has decided is “normal”. The exact measurements may change from establishment to establishment but as long as it is somewhere between the proposed measurements projected by two flat hands suspended six to ten inches apart then it is acceptable.

Clack, thump, bang, click, twist, palm, scream, twist, hiss, pour, flick, twist, pour.

“Three forty, please.” Beep, but a negative one.

“Hmmm. Try again.” A more cheerful beep.

“Phew, had me worried there.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“There is money on the card you know.”

“Yeah, it just does that sometimes.”

“I just used it earlier and it was fine.”

“Yeah, it’s not an issue.”

“Yeah.”

“Cheers.”

Twist, wipe, twist, hiss.

Niamh glanced back up the bar to see who was waiting. The man who was weird about the price for his flat white was still there, his takeout cup on the bar in front of him. He was in a long navy-blue overcoat buttoned up to the chest. A red scarf was bundled tightly around his neck. He was watching her clean with a slight smile that he wore like someone who had just found out a million dirty secrets but wouldn’t share them with anyone. Or had just cracked some puzzle he had been working on for a while but didn’t want to celebrate too loudly or else he would have to explain it and lord knows he didn’t want to have to explain it again. She gave him a flash of a smile back, out of politeness, hoping that her acknowledgement of his staring might make him stop. It didn’t. She began wiping the espresso machine down, flushing the group heads, and wiping the filters. He was still watching, his coffee left untouched in front of him. The thin inviting trail of steam that rose from the cup previously had dissipated.

“Can I help you with anything?” He found that question amusing.

“No, not yet. I’m happy enough to watch you play this one out.” The man said and then began chuckling as if she had said something overtly hilarious. He glanced around the room at the uninterested faces as if in a search for confirmation of how funny what Niamh had said was. Niamh was taken aback.

“What?” Was all she could muster. Fortunately, the room appeared to ignore him. She didn’t fancy having to deal with the awkwardness of apologising to each person like last week when that dog pissed in the doorway, or, when that poor old person fell down the stairs and the paramedics shut the shop down. There have been two signs and hazard stripes adorning the steps ever since. It hadn’t happened again, but then again, it hadn’t happened before either. But what kind of sign do you put up for someone like this?

WARNING: IGNORE THIS WANKER

just didn’t have a government approval ring to it. What would a sign like that look like anyway? An outline of this prick on a yellow background with bold black lettering, or just a giant silhouetted cock and balls in a red circle with a line through it? Either are good options, but then doesn’t a sign telling you to ignore something defeat the point the signs trying to make? Another customer arrived, shaking Niamh from this tangent she found herself on.

“Americano, large, to go, extra hot.”

“No problem.” She lied, of course, that was a problem. How can you make water ‘extra hot’? What does he want? “Here you are sir, it’s just vapour because the waters boiled away. Sorry about that.” No, she couldn’t do that. She simply made the drink as normal and popped two sleeves over the takeout cup.

Clack, thump, bang, click, twist, palm, flick, pour.

“Careful.” She said with a theatrical quiver in her voice. “It’s extra hot.” The customer didn’t question it. “Two sixty, please. Contactless?”

“No, no, I’ll pay on my watch.” Ooo, space-age.

“Of course.” Beep.

“Can I have a stamp?”

“Yes, of course. There you are.” Stamp. “Thank you, have a nice day.” She said, but he was already out the door. She ritualistically cleaned the machine again and glanced over at the stranger still sitting at the end of the bar. “Can I help you?” Something shifted in the stranger then. A slight tug on the corners of his mouth, a flicker in the wrinkles by his eyes. He froze for a second like someone had just his pause on him as if he was unaware of the continuous motion of the rest of the world. He began to chuckle. Then sipped his now definitely cold coffee.

“Mmm! This is a good flat white! Milk consistency is good, espresso is strong, punchy. A good cup.” He spoke as if he hadn’t just said something obscenely bizarre. He put the cup back down and let out a long sigh of relief like someone taking a sip of beer after the longest week of their life. Niamh struggled to find a reply that would match the stranger's enthusiasm without sounding wholly patronising or sarcastic. She put on her best customer-facing smile and thanked him whilst also cleaning an already clean jug just so she didn’t have to put all her attention on this weirdo. Something in his eyes was acutely unnerving. They sat like deeply sunken holes in a sheer cliff face. They looked to have no earthly business being on his face at all, they certainly didn’t look like they enjoyed being there. When he brought up his hand to wipe them, he looked about ready to plunge his fingers into his sockets and pull them out like ingrown hairs. There was also a paleness to his skin that gave it a somewhat translucent appearance as if in the right light and angle you would be able to see his veins working or whatever was directly behind him albeit through a kind of gooey, fleshy lens. It made her shudder involuntarily, she hoped he hadn’t noticed. “You’ve got a real talent for this, y’know. This one was a good one for you. Detailed. Lived in, like a good sofa. You know the ones where your ass just fits into a nice groove? You can’t buy that!” He set the cup down again and swirled the foam a little. He suddenly became lost in the shifting pattern, like it had become a window to some distant place or time. A range of emotions danced across his tired face, skirting around the depths of his eyes so as not to fall in. “I’m sorry I was so rude earlier.” He offered without looking up from the cup. Too much had been said in too short a space of time that Niamh had no choice but to latch onto the last thing said and just rebuild the conversation from there.

“It’s no bother, I’ve had worse.” She answered, gauging if she could abandon the conversation at this point or if she’d have to linger for the sake of face. He took another exaggerated sip. There surely wasn’t any liquid left in that cup. This man was supping straight foam.

“Mmm just fine, that. Just fine.” He added and then cleared his throat, as Niamh had feared, the conversation was not finished. “Do I not raise some questions to you?” He asked.

“A few, maybe more than someone else.” Niamh did a cursory glance of the room to search for jobs, two cups almost done, no customers waiting, nothing spilt. Damn. She sighed internally and pulled up next to the stranger, leaning on the counter on her elbows with her head cupped in her palms. “It’s not weird to be a little curious about your customers, is it? Like, this one time, we had a guy who used to come in two-three times a week with his tiny, adorable son. He usually had the same thing; his son always had a juice and some story for us about what a cartoon pig had been up to this week. It was real cute, honestly. Then, one week he didn’t show up. You don’t think much of it, people move, and times change. It happens. Then he started coming in alone. He looked older, haggard like he’d age ten years in a week. His order changed for a few weeks then he just stopped turning up altogether. Haven’t seen him for months now. I don’t think I need to tell you the stories we came up with.” The stranger listened intently.

“So, what happened to the son?” Niamh shrugged.

“Divorce we think, Fay who runs the flower shop down the road made up some story that he was buying funeral lilies but she’s full of crap. I thought I saw the kid with a woman in a red coat the other day which honestly made me feel a little better. But, yeah, didn’t feel like it was our place to ask him directly, y’know?” The stranger seemed a little disappointed. He looked about to ask further questions but just said.

“That’s a shame.”

“Possibly,” Niamh replied. She suddenly felt energised, it wasn’t often someone took a genuine interest in her people-watching. “So, that guy earlier, the one who stammered a little with his soy latte?” The stranger nodded. “He has an interview here once, one of those creative type interviews where whatever company he’s been interviewed for doesn’t exactly have an office or if they do it's some crap-bollocks open plan type thing that their daddy pays rent for, right? Some bearded guy in a shirt and a hairline that’s so far back its still using dial up internet sits him down, asks him some questions and, Jesus Christ, the guy's a trembling wreck! Latte spilt everywhere, cup rattling around, his glasses were fogging up in the corners. Man, it was rough! I’m guessing he got the job though because he’s started getting syrup in his coffee and he gets a pastry at the end of the month.” Niamh stopped to take a breath and took a big sip of water. “Syrup is sure sign of a pay rise.” The stranger was hanging on her every word.

“Is it now? How do you remember so much about everyone here?” He took another long sip. The cup appeared to have been refilled, but Niamh didn’t remember doing that.

“Honestly, I guess it helps pass the time, people are interesting, sometimes. A lot more interesting than staring at coffee grounds all day. If I didn’t do this sort of thing, I’d hate this job even more.” She let out a sharp burst of laughter that didn’t come from any actual joy, just the noise of someone that’s confessing far more than they intended. Exposing themselves a little too much and needs to reassure the listener that ‘it’s okay’! This is just a joke, see? See how I laughed? That was a laugh, a human laugh that humans do. Hilarious. The stranger smiled and nodded in reply, raising his eyebrows and clicking his tongue then falling silent. Niamh considered the conversation over and went back to the milk jugs, cleaning them and trying pointlessly to blast the heat discolouration from the steel.

“So, when are you moving forward?” Niamh froze and the milk jug in her hand fell with a loud clatter. The kind of clattering that goes on far longer than your understanding of gravity and physics should allow for.

“What?”

“This looks like fun for you, but it’s been done. This isn’t where…” He carried on speaking, but Niamh was no longer listening. She had just realised the door to the shop had disappeared. The long glass window that took up most of the wall had extended and now filled the space where the door had been. People still walked by the window and the customers in the shop still sipped their drinks and turned the pages of novels they wanted to be seen reading as if they would be able to leave when they were finished. Poor bastards.

“Niamh? It’s time.” The stranger said with a sharp click of his fingers. The man’s expression was one of curiosity that was partway through the metamorphosis to pity. Niamh loathed this expression.

“Fuck. Off.” She said bluntly and slammed the recovered milk jug on the countertop. To her surprise, the countertop bent inwards from the impact and then began to recover its former shape like a memory foam mattress. “I really don’t need this right now.” She said. “I really fucking don’t.” She added. A quiver had been added to her voice now, a tremble that preceded a big angry sob that she didn’t want to happen at this moment. Her hands tensed and untensed a few times to try and steel herself. “It’s a busy Saturday night.” She began. “You’re getting in the way.”

She was in a nightclub bathed in purple and green spotlights that jerked left to right in sync with the crash and rumble of the music in the adjacent room. Crowds gathered around the bar in colourful clothes and wild hair that Niamh didn’t understand but it looked cool. She was pouring shots from the bottle without a measurer, she spilt tequila on the tabletop and cursed at what a pain that was going to be to clean later.

“Eleven fifty, pal.” A phone begins to rapidly tap every conceivable angle of the card reader like they were trying to batter an army of ants pouring from every gap in the plastic casing. “At the top, the top. The top. No, not there. Here! Jesus Christ!”

“Ohhh. Did that go through, yeah?” A pair of eyes that were locked onto her breasts asked. Niamh confirmed it with a nod and a scowl and moved on.

“Who’s waiting?” A chorus of voices cried out for her attention, a sea of arms and elbows on bar tops splayed out before her. A cute girl with an undercut and choker caught her eye and began ordering before Niamh had even asked.

“Double rum and coke, please. Oh, can I just get a pint of water too? It’s not for me, I’m fine, it’s for my friend… They’re fine, they don’t drink. They’re having a good time though, and so am I too but… Yeah.” She was babbling but she had a nice voice, a bit lighter than Niamh’s voice. A breeze whereas Niamh’s could be a storm. It was a nice voice. It cut through the cyclone of noise. Niamh paused for a second longer ensuring the girl had noticed her reaction, then, with a wry smile she turned to the spirits and grabbed the most piratey-looking bottle. She turned back and the bottle fell out of her hands, exploding onto the floor creating a swell of “aayyyyy!” from the gathered crowd.

“You.” She said. There he was, the weirdo from the coffee shop in the same outfit, with the same half-finished flat white in a takeout cup that couldn’t have looked more out of place in this environment unless it had grown wings, scales and was singing the Spanish national anthem.

“Yes, me. Are you ready? I don’t think this one is even yours.” The stranger said, his voice cutting through the clamour of customers and the roar of the music. It sounded as if he was talking directly into her head, even echoing slightly as the sound reverberated in her skull and impacted the soft grey jelly of her brain.

“I told you before, I don’t want to go yet,” Niamh said and stormed down the length of the bar, away from the customers whose angry yells were becoming demonic. A young guy with a shaved head tried to stop her screaming something but she pushed through him. He split down the middle and swung open like a saloon door in a Western film. She kept walking, the length of the bar extending infinitely always several steps ahead. The crowds duplicated, faces and shirts and hair changing to add some variety, but the same wide mouths and red eyes slapped on every face, lips twisting in cavernous, fanged screams as they demanded service from her.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING

Niamh was sprinting, full pelt as fast as she could drawing stale beer-stained air in huge gulps. Tears streamed down her face, the trails of them running along her face into her hair. Someone threw a drink at her. She ran through the spray of rum and coke and ice and it slapped her skin like a salty sea breeze.

The sun was dipping behind the endless horizon casting purple and orange waves along the infinite sky that was dappled with whiffs of silver cloud. Niamh held onto the ship rigging with one foot resting on the portside railing. She took a deep breath and felt the cold, salty air slip into her lungs. The air filled and connected her with this beautiful place. All around her, she heard the orchestra of whaling, the constant crash and lapping of water against the ships hull, the creak of wooden panels bending and reforming to the undulating ocean and the cry of the dozen or so gulls that followed the ship on their journey hoping for scraps of the great carcass. A bell chimed discordantly toward the prow. Niamh had always hated that bell. Alphonse said it kept the fog at bay but declined to ever explain how it did that. The deck was nearly empty, a few deckhands here and there sluggishly hauling ropes or moving crates from one place to the next. A tall fellow with hairy arms was tightening a knot that was clearly having some sort of effect on the main mast, but Niamh couldn’t confirm what that effect was. With a contented sigh, she turned away from the horizon and headed toward the steps to the inner galley. She passed the hairy-armed man who was grunting with extreme exertion as he tugged hard on the rope.

“Need a hand, fella?” She asked, stopping near him and rolling up her sleeves in preparation. The man swore loudly and stamped his foot before releasing the rope. It sprang back to the mast, wrapping itself around the thick wooden beam with a satisfying whip-like crack.

“Not sure you could be helpin’ me, miss.” He started, his voice was wet and cavernous and he seemed to need to wipe his face with every other syllable like the words were coming from his nose rather than his mouth. Which, considering the density of his black beard could be the case. “Since you’re none the wiser about what I’m even doing, aye?” He added. Niamh held firm, leaning in slightly and frowning.

“You what?” She asked, giving the sailor a chance to change his tone. The sailor turned and as he did so reformed into the man from the coffee shop. Same clothes, face, sunken eyes and in his hand, yes, the same flat white that had now congealed into a sweet sludge at the bottom of the cup.

“Your knowledge of ships and sailing is based on a cursory glance at Moby Dick in year eight and the film Master and Commander which, although you enjoyed it greatly and is quite historically accurate as far as naval conflict films go, you haven’t seen it since you were thirteen. None of this makes any sense, your terminology is all wrong, surely you realised that? I mean, what exactly am I doing?”

“Oh, fuck off, will you?” Niamh shouted exacerbated. The stranger smiled mirthlessly.

“This has gone on long enough, Niamh. It’s time to move on.” He said. There was a defeated sadness in his voice, like someone telling their dog who is having the time of their life bounding through knee-high buttercups that it's time to put the lead back on. You don’t really want to do it, you were really enjoying seeing their little face cresting the waves of soft yellow flowers in the golden evening light but it has to be done. Dinners on, and its time to get home.

Niamh was sitting on an uncomfortable chair in a room she had not been in before. The walls were painted a dark, mossy green and the floor was uncarpeted wood. A window on the far side of the room was slightly open, a wheezy breath of wind slightly shifted the thin net curtains. The walls were covered in black framed pictures but the images in them were difficult to make out. The longer Niamh stared at these the more they seemed to dance and shift like a holographic trading card. A door that was not there but now was opened with a loud creak; it bumped on the floor where the wood had warped as it swung open. There was a slight dent on the wall in the shape of the door handle. The stranger entered. The flat white swapped for a clipboard that his attention was focussed on rather than Niamh. He sat down opposite her, a chair quite the same as Niamh’s forming beneath his descent. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his fingers clinging on for dear life above the sunken pits of his eyes and put the clipboard on the floor beneath his chair. He then brought his translucent pale fingers to a steeple, resting his elbows on his knees and leant forward.

“I get it, believe me, I do. It’s a lot to take in and you’re not the first or the last to run away from your own life.” The stranger said. Niamh shifted in the chair that was so hard it seemed to be attempting to compress her ass back into her body. This was the level of pressure and compression geological structures are made of. This chair could turn coal into diamonds. Her ass would not survive this chair.

“So, I’m dead?” She asked, which is an odd question to ask out loud and not a question someone dead should be able to ask which in a way should offer a small amount of comfort to anyone who finds themselves in a situation where this question could be asked. The stranger shook his head.

“No. You’re just sort of stuck, bouncing from life to life. Some of them your own and some of them other peoples, some of them are just dreams, not lives at all.” He leant back on the chair and winced; Niamh took some degree of satisfaction knowing he was as uncomfortable on these awful chairs as she was. “It’s my role to get you back to your own life. To tell you to stop living in other people's as they sort of need them back. Do you understand where I’m going with this?” Niamh nodded like her head had become disconnected from her body. It was less a nod of agreement, more like the question demanded a physical response and this was all she could do.

“So, what, you’re like a guardian angel type of thing?” She ventured. The stranger scrunched up his face in thought and weighed the accuracy of that statement with his hands.

“Not really, more like a guidance counsellor or a race marshal or a friendly critic. I’m just putting you back to where you should be.” He answered putting emphasis on the ‘you’ by pointing at Niamh each time he said it. Niamh put her head in her hands and exhaled a wavering breath. She felt suspended. Held up naked in a great ring by each limb above the earth like the Vitruvian Man.

“Why?” Was the best question she could ask in lieu of something more poignant and considered.

“Because you’ve lost your way. Not too badly, you just don’t know where you’re going. Living your life through the lenses of strangers and memories half-formed that you’re not even sure you lived. You were a barista for a bit, yes, but that was a long time ago. You’ve moved on since then.” The stranger said.

“I was happy doing that...” Niamh’s voice was like a whisper heard in the next room. “There was joy in that, structure, routine. I got free coffee any time I wanted as well. I worked with some really nice people, I’ve…” The words were stuck and needed hauling out by strings tied to the syllables. “I’ve not had anything like that since.”

“I know.” The stranger began with a sigh. “But you don’t do that anymore. The bar, that’s not yours. You never worked in a nightclub bar, but you wanted to. You had friends that did that, and you envied the late starts and lie-ins and all the exciting and possibly, as you might put it, 'fuckable' folks walking in the door. We’ve been to other places too, you and I but you might not remember. There was a zoo once, you looked after the tigers and named one Jake. You did know a Jake at one point but they were not a tiger.” The room had begun to fade, the moss green painted walls becoming moss-painted stone stippled with deep pitted shadows. A small crackling campfire formed in the space between the two of them and Niamh felt a cold chill blow from an opening behind her. The chair was now dry, coarse sand and her ass thanked her for it, or it would once it regained feeling. She sank her bare feet beneath the sand and brought them up watching the grains tumble in rivers through her toes.

“So, if I’m not doing any of that what should I be doing?” Niamh asked. The stranger shrugged.

“Not my job to decide that.” He said, taking a sip from the now steaming cup of coffee that had re-materialised in his hand.

“Great. That’s not very guidance counsellor of you,” Niamh said and a long tumbling sigh fell out of her. She felt herself sinking through the sand hoping whatever was at the bottom of it would pull her up to a new inverted world. “This is going nowhere.” The man grinned and clicked his tongue.

“No, I suppose you aren’t.” Was all he offered. “You just need to be doing something that is you, that’s all. Just something that is forwards, a step away from the shore and into the mainland. You have become stuck in a life that isn’t yours, or more accurately, one you did not choose to be yours. It happens to all of us at some point and sometimes we just need a bit of nudge back into our own lives.” He stood up and gestured for her to do the same.

“I don’t know how to do that…” She said in a voice that was almost a whisper in a hurricane. The sand she had been voluntarily sinking into rejected her, pushing her up to the surface level with a gentle almost pneumatic force. Her legs felt weak from the chair, but she cautiously followed the stranger out of the cave.

It was dark, a moonless night lit by a thousand distant stars whose light did not quite stretch this far. Niamh could hear the sea lapping against the sand close to them, the wind rustled through leaves and disturbed clouds of the dryer sand further up the banks out of reach of the tide. The night gave the scene a purple/blue haze that was gentle on the eyes. An endless dark sea cut up by grey waves arced into a shore littered with shadows. Further up the curve of the beach, the land rose exposing white rock topped with dry, green grass. A light squatted atop a tower of silver and black on this cliff edge, the light swirled gently in a continuous loop, momentarily blinding Niamh each time it swung over her. It reminded her of the lights above a stage that jerked and flashed vaguely in time with whatever music was being performed but occasionally it landed on you, chose you, and for a brief ephemeral moment you are the only face in the swell. “You’ve washed up here, guided by a torch that is imprisoned lightning. Others are here too, you know. Do you see them?” He made a slow, sweeping gesture to the shadowed detritus on the shore. What were once fragments of wreckage and smoothed-out branches began to shape themselves and twist into figures, arms and legs grasping at the sodden sand, hauling themselves toward the banks that loomed like the towering buildings of a city skyline. “See these lost, tempest-tossed souls? You are amongst them.” Niamh froze at what she saw. What did any of this mean? She pictured herself frozen then. Locked out of a room she needed to be in. A train door closing and moving endlessly onwards, never stopping to let her board. An image of herself, clear as day emerged, formed in the transient moments of flashing light from passing train windows. She was so hopelessly sad. She would do anything to not be that person.

“But what am I supposed to do?” She felt tears in her eyes, a pain in her head. She wanted to sleep, to leave this crazy dream and come down from whatever the fuck had put her up here. The stranger was slipping away, crumbling a few inches at a time in the sand. His voice was still clear, coming from a hundred places at once like a chorus of birds outside the bedroom window, heralding the dawn but you have just got home.

“You already know, you just haven’t done it yet.” The voices said. “Claw up the shoreline. Exit the cave. Pour the drink, pay the bill, sleep in, wake up, work out, take a day off, work hard, slack off, fuck well, fuck badly, drink, don’t drink, smoke, quit, plan, impulse. Anything. But for the love of yourself and everything in this life just get up and move forward.”

Niamh felt sand on her face, sticking to her skin where the tides lapped against her. In the dark middle distance sat the light, bright and pulsing like a racing heartbeat. Inviting silhouettes moving in a lit warm window on a cold night. A passing car in a storm, safe and dry. She reached, grasping at the sand, and began crawling. She kept the light in her eye line as she crawled. Fragments of lives lived and known reforming and collapsing and reforming again in the hazy kaleidoscopic vision of that light, like a constellation visible in a clear midday sky. The overfilled wardrobe of her life opened, bursting, a cloud of colour and dust sparkling in a summer light tumbling out of it. Patchwork flowers pushed through cracks in the concrete rising to be as tall as mountains. Young ripples in a clear lake extending out to touch the roots of ancient trees. A mosaic of mundane memories and joys of a life lived and to be lived formed a map to take her home.