Retellings
Somewhere someone is sitting in a car outside a bar, the rug of their life pulled out beneath them just this morning. Somewhere someone is running out of battery. Somewhere someone is closing down a project with a winking promise to re-start it twenty five years from now. Somewhere someone is weeping into their bowl of barley soup, tears chalking their tastebuds. Somewhere someone is genuflecting at the trunk of a prolific ginkgo. Somewhere someone is selling clothes on a Saturday. Somewhere someone is surfing with seals. Somewhere someone is removing an item from their carefully-calculated shopping basket. Somewhere someone is lying under the ground, roses still fragrant about them. Somewhere someone is climbing a mountain they shouldn’t be climbing. Somewhere someone is reckoning with unflattering feedback. Somewhere someone is finally stripping off that wood chip wallpaper. Somewhere someone is listening to a man’s ugly bellow, eyes glazing over in a contradiction of frozen flight. Somewhere someone is shivering on a concrete floor in unwashed clothes, skin raw with fungus and fear. Somewhere someone is browsing flights back home for Christmas on SkyScanner. Somewhere someone is attending a market research screening of a locally-produced film starring Daniel Radcliffe. Somewhere someone is sharing their coins. Somewhere someone is counting the number of different yellows in a winter valley. Somewhere someone is waking a child up from a nap and half-listening to their day’s retellings.