Cat
One night a cat appears. It does not leave. It lives here now. Nothing we say will change its mind.
Fox
One day a fox appears. It leaves. It’s gone now. We never see it again.
Others
They say things they do not mean. We do not forgive them. They linger. They leave.
Us
We say things we mean exactly. They do not forget them. We do not leave. We fester.
__________
Notes
1. Written January 4th 2023
__________Pumped in extra thick, 40/60 mix, euphorics for a sullen crew. Out past Jupiter the hallucinations kick in, open sky visions, phantom smell of rain, insectoid hums, gravitational tugs on calcium-filled bones, nostalgic visions scraped thin off childhood media memories.
You’d think we’d be used to the dark now, used to the float. But in my dreams I still scream as I fall.
Wake up.
Fall some more.
__________
Notes:
1. Written on October 19th, 2022
__________We took the boat out on the river.
It wasn’t our boat. It wasn’t even our river. We had no idea idea what we were doing. It was amazing we’d ever got it started, let alone kept it going.
“Imagine owning your own boat,” I said, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
“Where would you even put it?” Sam said. “You know, when you’d got where you were going.”
“Maybe they have boat parks,” I suggested. “Pay and display multi-boaties.”
“Maybe no one owns boats,” Sam suggested. “Maybe they’re all stolen!”
She spilled half a bottle of red wine down her life jacket and giggled. She didn’t care. It was stolen too. The wine and the jacket and everything else. Especially the jaunty little captain’s hat.
“Maybe they aren’t even boats!” I said deliriously. “Maybe they all just for show. ‘Oooooh look, I’ve got a boat! Aren’t I rich! Aren’t I clever!'”
“Pretend boats,” Sam said slowly, as if she was quoting something. “Are ships.”
It didn’t make any sense, but we laughed anyway. I spun the wheel or whatever it was called and made us drive around in circles, great arcs of spray splattering around us like rainbows. I fired a flare up into the sky. Part of me didn’t really believe flares existed, but here we were. They were just like in a film, but without the whooshing sound, and not as bright, because it was the middle of the day. No one fires flares off in the day in films. What’d be the point?
“We should steal a plane tomorrow,” Sam suggested, as she vomited into a bright yellow rubber boot that happened, purely by luck, to be between her feet. “Or a tank!”
But by then we were lost, a long way out to sea, sinking, unable to swim. No one ever saw us again. No one ever even knew it was us who stole the boat.
__________
Notes:
1. Written in the summer of 2020 sometime.
__________Inside the safe is:
£100
Watch
List of everyone I ever loved
Several previously unrevealed fears
Passport
Book of passwords
Keys to several long lost doors
And a map to an undisclosed location
Go ahead. Try all you like. If you can open it, they’re yours.
_________
Notes:
1. Written on March 17th, 2023
__________