The doors had been locked for as long as anyone could remember. The curtains were always drawn. There was a new mayor in there now, apparently. No one knew what this would mean, but it was all anyone talked about for a week.
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Notes:
1. Written between May 11th and May 17th
2. Although quite why it took so long to write three lines I do not know
“There it is!” Claire called out. “I saw it!”
“Where?” said Ethel.
“There!”
“That’s just a rock, Claire,” Tina said.
“It’s not a rock. It’s the whale!”
“If it’s the whale, why isn’t it moving?”
“Because it’s dead!”
“If it was dead it’d sink,” Daniel said. “And it’s bones would become a castle.”
“For mermaids!” Ethel said.
“Mermaids don’t exist, Ethel,” Claire said. “And dead things float, Daniel!”
“The whale is not dead, Claire,” Tina said. “So stop saying it is. I’ll get upset.”
“You’re always getting upset,” Claire said. She sat down on the grass with the others and started brushing her hair. “Anyway, maybe it is a stupid rock AND the whale is dead. That way we can both be unhappy.”
“Can I be unhappy?” Ethel asked.
“No!”
“Well, that’s not fair at all,” Ethel said.
They all sat there in silence, and dreamt of whales, bones, castles, mermaids.
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Notes:
1. Written on May 14th, 2021
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The bus stops at the edge of town. Two feet step down onto the cracked pavement. Black leather shoes as shiny tar. Look up, see the suit, the shirt, the hair, the smile. The eyes. The eyes. The camera lingers there for longer than it should. But you can’t blame it. You could lose yourself in those eyes, you really could.
Even when the shot cuts away, showing him in miniature against the immensity of the landscape and the grand sweep of the town, as he disappears into the greyness and the murk where we all live, it’s those eyes you remember, those eyes that remain.
A thousand silent movies bloom in your mind.
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Notes:
1. Written on May 12th, 2021
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Transcript from the inaugural Sunday Afternoon Book Club
Organiser: Ethel
Curator: Daniel
Chair: Claire
Actually On The Chair: The Cat
Stenographer: Tina
Catering: Mum
Audience: The Dolls
Daniel (reading from notes): The book I chose for us to talk about is Hansel and Gretel. I like Hansel and Gretel because sometimes I wish our house was made out of cake and we could eat it. But we can’t. What do YOU think about Hansel and Gretel?
Claire: I think Hansel and Gretel are useless. Everything they do is stupid. They get lost in the woods. Twice! And then when they get locked up they don’t even think about eating their way out. Idiots. They deserved to be eaten.
Ethel: They didn’t get eaten. The witch got eaten. Hansel and Gretel baked her in the oven and the crows ate her.
Claire: That never happened.
Ethel: It did! But not in the book. It happened in my head.
Claire: Well that doesn’t count. Anything can happen in your head. That’s cheating.
Ethel: It is not cheating.
Claire: It is! Why did you even make us read this book if you were just going to imagine things?
Ethel: Anna goes to a book club.
Claire: That’s not an answer!
Ethel: I thought this would be fun.
Claire: Well, it’s not.
Claire sits down on the chair. The cat runs away. The Sunday Afternoon Book Club is soon after abandoned.
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Notes:
1. Written on May 11th, 2021
2. It’s officially winter now
3. In the town
4. If not in the world
Oya leaves a new poem here every day. Beneath where the pictures used to hang, in the ash of obliterated art. If the wind and rain don’t wash the old ones away, a single brush of her boot does the rest.
She doesn’t mind that no one sees her words. The ephemerality of it all is the point. No-one suspects a thing.
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Notes:
1. Written between the 7th and the 10th of May, 2021
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