story
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When he’s nostalgic, it’s pale blue like seaside cottages. Circling seagulls in morning harbours, old-fashioned cream cakes, the damp wood of rickety beach-huts. Ease is liquid green, like late summer afternoons. The lazy buzz of insects in settled heat, the sweet anticipation of the evening ahead. Anxious is the colour of commuters in a cold
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I started this story a few years ago in a Roomers workshop. We were using the Lawrence Ferlinghetti poem ‘I Am Waiting’ as a writing prompt. I posted a version here in November 2015. This week I’ve been revisiting the piece. *** He’s waiting for the tram, at the junction. It’s the last of the
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Look at him working. The way he smiles at every customer. He’s impeccable. But when he goes to his room at the back, at the side of the kitchen, the smile is gone. He sips clear liquor from a teacup, mutters under his breath, and watches everything through the round glass in the top of
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Yesterday I got chatting with an older man in a pub. I’m not sure why I was drawn to him. Something in his eyes, perhaps. I did very little of the talking. You know me. But I listened, as I like to, as tends to be my way. The Summer 2020 issue of Roomers magazine
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