Dec 2013
It’s that awkward time between 5 and 6 pm where his eyes are the colour of mocha brown stained novel pages and finger tips callused and crinkled with years of practicing and gripping too tight on a black biro pen.
He turns the corner of the street and we make a narrow escape to the highway where careful mothers have their children strapped to seats wailing with voices so shrill yet so untouched and pure..
And I turn and I look out the window and plaster on a sad look like I’ve been copy pasted out of a sad music video about boys and breakups and lost loves, reminiscent of the paraphernalia of stories and soaps and television shows my mother used to watch.
Slowly I turn and I feel a tap on my shoulder blades and he asks me if I’m ok but secretly I’m wishing and hoping that there’s more to life than this god forsaken city but I still say I’m fine anyway.
"The city looks really nice this time of day" he says and I just don’t see it because everything around me is illuminated in fake fluorescence and wired in with the hands of a man who’s just lost his wife and swears his depression is just a phase.
"Squint and you’ll see it" he insists but I can’t because the world is in monochrome and the concrete of the buildings are the tombstones of chivalry and manners, filled to the brim with office workers hunched over stacks of papers and lists.
He turns left at the third intersection and laughs at a man squabbling drunk cursing the world on the side of the road and I hope he doesn't know that it was what I'd do if he let me grab the bottle of Jack from the trunk.
"Goodnight and godspeed," he laughs and I say "*******" in exchange for a hug and so another day passes in the presence of car windows and rolling cityscapes.
He turns the corner of the street and we make a narrow escape to the highway where careful mothers have their children strapped to seats wailing with voices so shrill yet so untouched and pure..
And I turn and I look out the window and plaster on a sad look like I’ve been copy pasted out of a sad music video about boys and breakups and lost loves, reminiscent of the paraphernalia of stories and soaps and television shows my mother used to watch.
Slowly I turn and I feel a tap on my shoulder blades and he asks me if I’m ok but secretly I’m wishing and hoping that there’s more to life than this god forsaken city but I still say I’m fine anyway.
"The city looks really nice this time of day" he says and I just don’t see it because everything around me is illuminated in fake fluorescence and wired in with the hands of a man who’s just lost his wife and swears his depression is just a phase.
"Squint and you’ll see it" he insists but I can’t because the world is in monochrome and the concrete of the buildings are the tombstones of chivalry and manners, filled to the brim with office workers hunched over stacks of papers and lists.
He turns left at the third intersection and laughs at a man squabbling drunk cursing the world on the side of the road and I hope he doesn't know that it was what I'd do if he let me grab the bottle of Jack from the trunk.
"Goodnight and godspeed," he laughs and I say "*******" in exchange for a hug and so another day passes in the presence of car windows and rolling cityscapes.
