1. Bank Holiday
It was so busy it was like an anxiety attack. Mums and dads, kids in packs, dogs having snacks, babies causing traffic jams in their two seater prams, on May Day, at the beach and in the park and all the way through the town.
The only way to escape was to swim out to sea and dream of quiet, some isolated bay without even mermaids to bother you.
2. Antoine
Antoine hovers in the record shop, a weird certainty that he bought this exact same CD the last time he was here, last year, every year.
He buys it again, just in case he’s wrong.
3. Ethel
Ethel knows that lying is wrong. But she also knows that it’s surprisingly fun.
4. Claire
Claire looked at her feet. Black leather shoes with a silver buckle, ice cream melting off the toes and onto the lush red carpet in the hallway. In time, this memory would become divorced from the moment, exist purely as an image so vivid her mind would return to it time after time for years. Red, white, black, as pure and lurid as the detail in some Baroque scene.
But right now all she could do was stand as still as can be, hold in her tears, and try not to howl out her fury and despair into the empty cone she still held in her hand.
5. Selene
Selene dreams
of spaceships
and satellites
of loneliness
and sadness
in endless utopian fields.
Disconnected memories
of the moon
and the stars
Little postcards
from the distant past.
6. Lucy
The sun shone. The wind blew. Occasional spring showers throughout the day. It was the perfect weather to stand at the end of the pier and brood.
7. The Cat
The cat stretched out in the sun, yawned, rolled over, and stretched some more.
8. Lucas
Lucas smiled at everyone that went past his mirror. He didn’t have to, but he did.
When you were a ghost, you could be as disconcerting as you pleased.
9. Eleonora
On the way home from work there was straw all across the road, and when the cars drove past it swirled and moved like waves leaving ripples in the sand. An image so oddly beautiful it seemed at odds with the mundanity of the rest of her day.
10. Daniel
Daniel was doing handstands and ignoring the news that he was no longer a boy, because of course he was a boy. He knew.
11. Tina
Upstairs in her room
Tina plans to write
the tiniest
poem
ever
12. Agnes
Her presents were mostly things she didn’t really like and already had. Her cake was a chocolate caterpillar, out of date and stale, so crumbly it was almost impossible to slice. There was no wine.
But no one argued, and no one cried, and only a couple of things got spilled all over the floor, so she counted it as one of the more successful birthdays of her entire life.
13. Bank Holiday
It was so busy it was like an anxiety attack. Mermen and mermums, merkids in their merpacks, merdogs having mersnacks, merbabies causing traffic jams in their two seater merprams, on Mer Day, out at sea and under the waves and all the way across the entire ocean.
The only way to escape was to swim in to shore and dream of quiet, some isolated cove without even humans to bother you.
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Notes:
1. Written in March, April and May 2025
2. Except for a bit that was written in April 2023
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