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He stopped swimming, and floated in the middle of the pool. I watched him closely, the long thin line of body broken by the blue of his swimming trunks. Then I imagined the trunks gone. It was easy, really, but almost unbearable. He started to swim again, towards me, then tumbled over at the end,
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He feels the pressure of opposition, and he has to go somewhere, get off the street. Anywhere will do, as long as it’s quiet. A quiet interior. He walks around, looking for the right kind of place, all the while feeling as if there’s something in his chest about to fly out screaming. He finds
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It was a short-term lease, and now their couch is gone from out the front. Some nights they’d sit there in underwear, onesies, crazy hats; talking, but only to each other, and smoking and playing. And by early morning the night’s detritus of notebooks, clothes, packets, bottles, would be strewn in still life over the
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Gin drains her glass, and winces. ‘That was too sweet,’ she says. He’s standing an arm’s length away, polishing the bar. ‘You were smacking your lips earlier,’ he says. ‘Well I’m not smacking them now,’ she says. ‘You mixed it too sweet.’ ‘I always mix it the same,’ he says. He moves further down the
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The others leave, one by one, and it ends up being just me and Ginger at the steps by the river, sipping from the bottle in lukewarm turns and staring out to the monstrous city lights that seem close but are worlds away. ‘Let’s get some chips,’ he says. ‘You go,’ I say, resigned. I
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