Monday morning. The pitter-patter of birdsong. The echo of a hangover on my shoulder that resembles a Siamese cat. Walking around, the river that cuts through town returns to the source, and without realising, I’m back where I started. The shadow of the old Blockbuster store looms somewhere over the heads of those who surround me. It’s not really there. Neither are they. Neither are my hands for that matter. They’re just like wet tissue paper, floating in puddles by the side of the road noticed by an audience of no one. The cigarette slips from my fingers. The police station opposite the café whispers guilty secrets, but I turn a blind eye. The avenues lead away, like a tattooed spider web on the leg of a woman who used to be a girl. The wind stirs the hangover. It tickles me the way I tickle her. Her legs widen, and as the rushing sounds of the sea crash within my ears, the fabric of who I am comes about at the seams. That old store with its reel of celluloid memories. I remember the smell of it on Friday nights as a kid looking for 16-bit adventure. The odour of nostalgia and hot chips—those wishful dreams of a world not real but as real as I allowed it to be. The birds in the sky are sleepy. My lungs dry. Nausea is the shadow of imagination. It follows my every step, tripping me up as I go.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US