The shade plays figures across my skin. A slow ripple of old casts, thrown off last winter festival. It’s an old game. Children gather at the riverside and watch their broken bones depart. It was like this the year before, and the year before then. It will always be like this.

Sometimes summer arrives early and I cry for days. My tears run into the wooden floor of the house. It follows the cracks and seams, soaks into red dirt, coal dust, mud. I was once here. Salt trails along aged timber, the dead corpse of forest gods.

I left early in the morning, before the dew had left the roofs. I followed an old bike trail. I listened to the silent clamour of pre-dawn. It was like a stream, the black edges of an open wound. Blood had yet to reach out, touch existence and harden.

The casts sink to the bottom of the river. The children scream and laugh, leaping through the air waving cattails. The shade shifts and I find myself awake, thirsty and without direction. I have forgotten my own name, a place without season, the sight of blossoms.

I am alone, waiting for someone. I am walking beneath thick wires humming with power. I am holding a hand, sitting atop a bus shelter, watching harbour lights diffuse the water’s surface golden.

There are two black figures now. They reach towards one another but cannot touch. To touch is to lose form. I lie staring into the absence of myself, watching petals fall on my skin. Clouds break.

It was sudden. A bright clap of electricity, before a downpour. We ran down the street, jumped through your open window and rolled onto our backs. The air was humid from the day, and without thinking I kicked the shutter down. We laughed and laughed, until our voices found themselves still, close and warm. Your cheeks flushed, breath caught on the ceiling. I kissed your neck as you unbuttoned your shirt, following the openings your fingers left.

There were days I wandered, a black whirr, a sprawl without end. My fingers would reach out until they lost feeling, and then, definition. I wish I’d been there when your body failed you. I wish I’d gathered your broken bones and dashed them against the river, but I know now, they were the only thing keeping you whole.

Some children run after their casts. They descend the mountain into a wild darkness and trawl the river bottom for their memories. They are the poorer ones. They are the ones worth knowing.

It is dark. The figures have blurred into one.