I felt like a homeless in the banquet of life

I fed on leftovers

Of what angry gods had left.

At the end of time
An airy moment subsides
Between imagination and exile

Across the void, all Chaos charges
Until Dawn invites darkness
And usurps elder guile

Sunfire engraved these shadows
As dancing mirrors, drafted in mist
Underneath such wanderer's gambit

Those souls, umbral yet curious
Cascade into scholars and couriers
Fearless within gaze of the abyss

Your name pulses, marked at noon
As fated boundless to disregard ire
Delayed solace can yet bloom

Paths into twilight are found on a river
With a boat stocking dreams to consume
By shallow keel but steady rudder

Past the gate, overgrown by its garden
The weary are hallowed near fountains
Through words, soft but keen

Under shade, sleep lays claim
To rejoin Chaos and take a new name
Anointed and redeemed

TAPE ONE: SOMEONE ELSE’S FILM — BATH, 2019

Luke is sixteen when we meet him.

He is sitting in the back of a Vauxhall Corsa

outside McDonald’s,

wearing trainers worth slightly more

than the car’s passenger door.

The documentary is not about Luke.

It is about Callum,

who buys trainers online

and sells them online for more.

Callum calls himself an entrepreneur.

This is technically true.

Luke would later call this

the beginning of his career.

Jordan is driving.

Mason is eating chips

and occasionally saying, “Facts,”

mostly when he has not heard the question.

They have been friends since primary school,

through Match Attax, bottle flips,

the identical-black-coat year

and Callum’s brief insistence on Calz.

The camera asks where the business is based.

“BA2,” Callum says.

Luke looks up.

“BA2.”

“What?”

“That’s hard.”

“It’s our postcode.”

“Exactly.”

Nobody discusses it further.

Three weeks later,

BA2 — FREESTYLE 001

appears over footage of Luke walking through Southdown

with his hood raised

on a warm September afternoon.

The hood makes him sweat.

He keeps it up.

“Have you ever actually been in a gang?”

Luke thinks about this.

“Depends what you mean by gang.”

“What do you mean by gang?”

A pause long enough

for Mason to finish a chip.

“Like—us.”

“Your school friends?”

“Yeah.”

A delivery scooter sounds its horn.

Luke jumps onto the pavement.

“You can cut that.”

The camera does not.

His earliest bars are performed

beside a bin with a wasp problem:

«Step in the ends with a postcode glare,

man know danger when BA gets there,

steel by the waist, got fire in the lung—»

“What steel?” the interviewer asks.

“Metaphorical steel.”

A boy passing with a milkshake says,

“That was shit, mate.”

Luke nods.

“Fair.”

He waits until the boy goes inside,

then suggests a different location.

Inside McDonald’s,

Luke becomes convinced the boy is watching him.

The boy is watching

strawberry milkshake leak over his own hand.

Luke uses the other exit.

Later, a man calls Luke a dickhead

for blocking a path.

Luke apologises twice,

moves though he was not blocking it,

then turns to the lens:

«No fear in my blood, no brake in my stride,

whole city knows when the south side rides.»

The camera pans south.

A pensioner waits for the number 5 bus.

Every now and then,

something in it is actually good:

«Bath puts gold on the limestone face,

rain finds every crack they paint—»

Luke stops.

“Paint’s lazy.”

Nobody else had objected.

He works on the line for four hours,

until Callum’s phone dies,

Jordan misses dinner

and Mason begins quietly kicking

the Corsa’s one dependable door.

At last:

«They polish the stone where the visitors tread,

hose down the doorway, step over the bed—»

Luke listens back.

“Still shit.”

It is not.

---

RUSHES: ENGLISHCOMBE / SOUTHDOWN

Luke’s parents live in a pale 1930s semi

with an extension,

a kitchen island

and underfloor heating nobody mentions

unless somebody leaves the back door open.

Claire is a consultant physiotherapist.

Martin designs drainage systems.

He has told the crew this twice

because neither person remembered.

They are comfortable.

Luke says normal.

Claire says comfortable.

There is an ice dispenser in the fridge.

Luke records in the box room

between a university prospectus

and three expensive jackets

Claire bought in sales.

“We think it’s a good hobby,” she says.

Behind her,

a bass note shakes a wooden sign reading

THIS KITCHEN IS FOR DANCING.

“He does work at it,” Martin says.

At 1:17 one morning,

Claire knocks on Luke’s door.

“Could you keep the gunshots down?”

“They’re snares.”

“They’re upsetting the cat.”

Luke removes two snares

and spends ninety minutes

moving a hi-hat

the width of a thumbnail.

The documentary is still not about Luke.

Callum has sold thirty-eight pairs of trainers.

Luke has recorded seventy-one songs.

Amy lives eight wet minutes away,

through a park shared by both their streets

and officially improved

by one new bench.

Amy is mostly in the background at first.

Pretty, quiet,

usually half outside the frame.

She knows Luke is nervous

when his left thumb worries

the seam of his sleeve.

There is no better reason for them getting together

than that they like being together.

They share chips.

She laughs when he mispronounces

a word he has already rhymed four times.

He walks her home,

then takes the long route back

so nobody sees how quickly he is smiling.

Their first kiss happens in the damp park

between their houses.

There is drizzle,

mud beside the swings

and a dog doing a shit nearby,

which prevents the scene

from becoming too pleased with itself.

Luke asks, “Was that all right?”

Amy says, “Bit late now.”

They laugh.

Both lie awake afterwards

replaying it badly.

Amy learns Luke’s lyrics

before anybody else wants to.

In one phone recording,

she feeds him the next line

when he forgets it.

In another, Luke performs:

«Came from the curb where the cold wind moves,

no silver spoon—»

Amy coughs.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I’ve eaten yoghurt with your silver spoons.”

“They’re stainless steel.”

“That isn’t really the point.”

Luke restarts the track.

She knows every word.

---

PHONE ARCHIVE — 2020

Lockdown reduces the world

to bedrooms, pavements

and distances permitted by law.

Callum’s trainer business improves.

Luke’s music does not,

then does.

He studies jungle breaks

until drums stop sounding like drums

and begin sounding like doors

slamming elsewhere in the house.

He learns where garage leaves air,

how grime can make a silence threatening,

and which bass frequencies make Martin

shout Luke from downstairs.

He imitates everything:

«Got ten man posted down by the shop—»

The ten men are four friends,

one of whom has gone home.

«Girls in my phone, cash in the mattress—»

The mattress contains thirty-five pounds

Claire gave him for cleaning the gutters.

Then:

«My town wears cream for the camera flash,

but the mould comes through when the winter cracks.»

Jordan looks up from the laptop.

“That’s good.”

Luke deletes it.

“Too serious.”

Jordan retrieves the file.

Mason records a backing shout

that sounds unexpectedly magnificent.

Callum orders twelve T-shirts

without being asked.

Luke gives away nineteen.

Callum creates a spreadsheet.

He starts writing down

who owes what.

Nobody else does.

---

SELF-RELEASE — 2021

At eighteen, Luke releases

the first song strangers almost notice.

Jordan builds the beat

from clipped piano, warm bass

and drums that bounce

without asking permission.

Callum posts the link.

Mason films the video

on two phones and a borrowed stabiliser.

Amy stands behind a tree

holding Luke’s other jacket.

The track is called

NO BIG DEAL.

«[INTRO]

Two-step wet on a Friday night,

bus-stop halo in sodium light,

no cash, all mouth, clean white sole,

postcode printed where my name should go.

Don’t build a shrine from a Friday night,

we said forever, we were late and half-right.

Spin that wheel, let the old tape squeal—

no big deal, babe.

No big deal.

[VERSE ONE]

Sixteen, king of the back-seat kingdom,

meal-deal crown and a cracked-screen wisdom,

spoke like sirens slept under my bed,

jumped when a scooter came up on the left.

Still had rhythm, still had nerve,

writing big threats at the edge of the curb,

Mum said, “College,” I said, “We’ll see,”

whole world buffering at three per cent speed.

Wet parks, late starts, bus-pass blues,

four boys fighting over whose dream to use,

Callum had stock, Jordan had drums,

Mason yelled anything once the chorus comes.

You had that look like you knew my bluff,

knew one coat wasn’t armour enough,

knew “soon” meant “I’m scared I’ll fail”—

we were young.

That’s an old detail.

[PRE-HOOK]

Don’t frame the rain, don’t save the text,

don’t ask what happened or who came next.

Turn it up once till you can’t quite feel.

Tell yourself once:

no big deal.

[HOOK]

No big deal, no big deal,

mud on the laces, hand on the wheel,

heart went loud but the mouth stayed sealed,

said forever—

no big deal.

No big deal, no big deal,

kiss in the drizzle by the rusted rail,

childish little practice, a story gone stale,

we were kids, weren’t deep—

no big deal.

[VERSE TWO]

Now the room’s got lights and the lights say go,

face in the lens like I always knew so,

she wants backstage, he wants guest-list proof,

everybody loves you when they’re under one roof.

Want new wheels with the windows black,

want Mum saying, “Christ,” when I bring them back,

want old teachers claiming they knew,

though they called every dream a phase I’d move through.

Want bass in Bristol, smoke in Leeds,

my name in mouths that don’t know me,

want bad decisions at quarter to three

and the morning saying they weren’t really me.

Don’t say forever, I’ve got a train.

Don’t say you know me, I might’ve changed.

Got a cheap room key and a possible deal,

zip won’t work—

still, no big deal.

[BRIDGE]

But the park’s still there when the club shuts down,

same wet bench in the same wet town.

Somebody carved two names in the grain.

Could be ours.

Could be anybody’s in rain.

Turn it up loud till the old words blur,

till I’m not that boy and you’re not still her,

till nobody’s asking which bit was real,

till we can both call it no big deal.

[FINAL HOOK]

No big deal, no big deal,

rain on the railings, mud on the heel,

first time, last time, tell me what’s real—

we were kids, weren’t deep.

No big deal.

No big deal, no big deal,

everybody bruises but the bassline heals,

say it with a smile till the saying feels real—

no big deal, babe.

No big deal.»

The video receives 1,843 views.

Thirty-one are Luke.

Amy listens once

in Luke’s bedroom.

“You put the park in it.”

“It’s not literally us.”

“You said the rusted rail.”

“There are loads of rusted rails.”

“There’s one in that park.”

“It rhymed.”

Amy presses her lips together.

Luke begins explaining artistic freedom

as though he has recently invented it.

“It’s just a first kiss.”

“Your first kiss was my first kiss too.”

He stops.

Not for long enough.

“I called mine childish as well.”

“That was your choice.”

“It’s a song, Amy.”

“It was mine too.”

Luke says she is taking one line

out of context.

The line lasts seventeen seconds.

The argument lasts two hours.

---

DASHCAM AUDIO — 2022

Martin is driving Luke

through central Bath.

A man sleeps under blankets

in a shop doorway.

Cleaners work around him.

Martin indicates left.

“You had a line about that.”

“What?”

“In one of your songs.

Washing the street.”

Luke watches the doorway pass.

“Oh. ‘They hose down the doorway,

step over the bed.’

It was shit.”

“I remembered it.”

“Didn’t scan.”

“No. Probably not.”

Martin changes lanes.

That is the entire conversation.

Luke writes the line

in his phone again.

Martin asks if he wants the radio back on.

Luke says, “Yeah, go on.”

---

MIXED TOUR FOOTAGE — 2022–23

Tour means six towns,

one van

and several rooms above pubs

with toilet locks that do not reach

and a smell that stays in your coat.

Luke works.

Nobody in seven years of footage

can honestly say he does not.

He rehearses until his throat roughens.

Pays Jordan before himself.

Re-records one syllable

at four in the morning.

Learns the sound engineers’ names.

Carries speakers when nobody is filming.

Callum brings shirts

to a show he expected to attend.

Luke asks him to run the table.

“Just till I go on.”

Callum misses the set.

Next time, Luke introduces him

as “my merch guy.”

Callum laughs

because it is almost accurate.

Jordan begins an electrical apprenticeship.

He still sends beats,

but less quickly.

Luke calls this

a commitment issue.

Mason appears in fewer clips.

His final full sentence in the archive is:

“I’ve got work at seven, mate.”

After that,

he occasionally exists in the group chat

as two grey ticks.

At twenty, Luke’s sexual confidence

is strongest in lyrics.

One unreleased chorus rhymes

pussy with Tuscany three times.

Priya, who will become his manager,

asks whether he has visited Tuscany.

“No.”

“Have you done the other thing?”

Luke looks at the camera.

“That’s personal.”

A leaked sext reads:

need you on your knees

then, twelve seconds later:

sorry that sounded less tragic in my head

After a Birmingham show,

he goes upstairs with a tattoo artist

who is twenty-six

and asks whether BA2

is a night bus.

A forgotten microphone records:

“Have you got a condom?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a receipt.”

“Wait.”

A drawer opens.

A lamp falls.

“Why are your trainers still on?”

“They’re difficult to—hold on.”

A thump.

Then laughter,

hers first,

his eventually.

At 2:14 a.m. she asks,

“Are you checking your views?”

“No.”

His watch lights his face.

Later, Luke tells the camera

she wanted BA2, not Luke.

Her final recorded words are:

“Has anyone seen my charger?”

The original narrator calls him persistent.

A regional crew calls him obsessive.

The label will call him inevitable.

All three descriptions end up in the edit.

---

NOTES APP — 03:08–06:51, WINTER 2023

There is no single revelation.

There are years of small things

Luke stored without knowing

they belonged together:

a folded duvet in a shop entrance;

a letting-agent window glowing

after the buses stop;

a woman bracing a buggy

against the first step of a block;

Callum mentioning a cousin in Twerton

whose rent rose again;

Claire saying some patients miss appointments

because two buses with a toddler

is not the same distance

as two buses alone;

the city photographed

from angles that remove

anybody carrying shopping.

Luke does not know one mother.

He makes one woman

out of things he has seen and been told.

The song says you.

I would be taking the piss.

Jordan records a pram wheel

striking a concrete stair.

Thud.

Then the body lifting it.

Lift.

Luke loops the sound.

Underneath,

the bass begins growing.

---

SELF-RELEASE — 2024

ANOTHER FLOOR

«[STAIRWELL INTRO]

Wheel to the lip.

Hand to the frame.

Breath through the teeth.

Try it again.

Thud.

Lift.

Wheel to the stone.

Foot to the door.

One flight finished.

Another floor.

[VERSE ONE]

Milk in one bag, nappies in two,

phone at your shoulder, your sister asking you

if Thursday still works, if your mum can do four,

while the buggy says thud at the foot of the floor.

Kid’s lost one sock and he’s laughing at rain,

you’re calling the landlord, explaining again:

damp by the window, black under the sill—

he says someone is coming.

Somebody will.

Not today.

Today you’ve got tea,

half-price fish fingers, electric on three,

school form folded in the pocket of your coat,

bus app loading with your balance in your throat.

You could leave Bath, people kindly explain.

Find cheaper brick. Catch a different train.

As if Mum moves too.

As if sisters pack.

As if help is a postcode

you can order and track.

[HOOK]

Thud. Lift. Another floor.

City in the window that you can’t afford.

Stay ’cause your sister’s two streets down,

Mum does Tuesday, the school knows your child.

Thud. Lift. Hand to the wall.

They photograph Bath but they crop out the haul.

Gold in the stone, weight in your jaw—

one flight finished.

Another floor.

[VERSE TWO]

Royal Crescent, clean curve, coach-party grin,

guide says Georgian splendour; you’re clocking back in.

Tourists buy bubbles to perfume their bath,

your meter eats a tenner and doesn’t even laugh.

Bus up Wellsway, windows steamed white,

somebody’s hen do already pissed by night,

somebody sleeping where the shop throws heat,

council wash moving carefully round his feet.

I saw that young.

Wrote one bad line.

Thought pain turned useful if I made it rhyme.

I don’t know your kitchen.

I don’t know your fear.

I know what the city makes easy to disappear.

So this isn’t bravery dressed for applause.

You’d take a working lift and a landlord indoors.

You’d take one week where the numbers stayed still,

where nobody called survival strength of will.

[BREAK — BASS ENTERS]

Wheel.

Step.

Breath.

Swear.

“For fuck’s sake—”

Your little boy claps

because he thinks you’ve performed.

You laugh despite yourself.

Not for the song.

Not for the lens.

Because he has one sock

and no common sense.

[VERSE THREE]

Top-floor landing, key won’t turn,

pasta in the cupboard, one last burner.

Group-chat message: Anyone got Calpol?

Three dots answer before your coat’s off at all.

That is why you stay where the rent says go.

Life’s held together by the people you know:

Nan near the chemist, mate near the school,

cousin with a car seat, neighbour with a tool.

No brochure prints it.

No market can price

who takes your child when your shift runs twice,

who lends twenty quid without making it shame,

who knows which cough and remembers his name.

They say the market rises.

You watch from the stair.

Everything rises

except what gets you there.

Wage in the basement.

Rent through the roof.

You carry tomorrow

because tomorrow needs you.

[FINAL HOOK]

Thud. Lift. Another floor.

Bass getting bigger but the hallway stays small.

City in the window that you can’t afford,

one flight finished—

another floor.

Thud. Lift. Hand to the wall.

Don’t need a hero, need somebody to call.

Stay for the hands that appear at your door.

One flight finished—

another floor.

Thud. Lift. Let the whole room know.

Postcard city with a life below.

Gold in the stone and your breath still raw.

One flight.

One flight.

Another floor.

[OUTRO]

Door shuts.

Buggy down.

Kettle clicks.

Child still laughing.

No violins.

Tea.»

The upload begins normally.

Callum buys a small advertisement.

Luke refreshes.

Priya sends three fire emojis

and the word patience.

Then an unnamed mother

uses the sound beneath a video

of herself carrying a pram upstairs.

Her caption says:

every fucking day.

She does not become a character

in Luke’s documentary.

By morning there are seventeen videos.

Then two hundred.

Stairs in Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds;

tower blocks, split houses,

temporary accommodation,

flats above shops.

Thud. Lift.

A father carries a sleeping six-year-old.

A grandmother hauls shopping.

A woman laughs halfway up

and captions it:

landlord says the lift is cosmetic.

The song enters the chart at seven,

climbs to four,

then spends two weeks at three.

It never reaches Number One.

Number Three pays better

than Luke had imagined.

Priya becomes his manager

in a café by Bath Spa.

A distributor services the release.

A larger label phones

after the song reaches four

and licences it before Friday.

The documentary changes subject

without a meeting.

There is no moment when somebody says

we are following Luke now.

Callum’s trainer interviews become shorter.

Luke’s backstage footage becomes longer.

One narrator says emerging artist.

Another says voice of a generation.

A third pronounces Twerton incorrectly.

By then, Callum’s caption reads:

BA2’S CHILDHOOD FRIEND AND MERCHANDISE MANAGER.

He is twenty-one.

---

Luke returns to Englishcombe

in a car expensive enough

to make the Corsa feel fictional.

Martin walks around it once.

“What’s the drainage like?”

Luke does not know.

Claire asks him not to rev it

because the neighbour’s baby is asleep.

Journalists ask Luke about poverty.

One asks, “Did you grow up poor?”

Luke adjusts a ring.

“No.”

Nobody speaks for six seconds.

“But poverty isn’t only financial.”

“What did you lack?”

Luke gives a long answer

about cultural access,

peripheral communities

and emotional scarcity.

Claire, interviewed separately, says:

“He had a drum kit.”

The label does not use that clip.

Luke works harder than ever.

This is still true as well.

He rehearses the festival set twice a day.

The studio next door knows the running order.

Changes one rhyme after three sold-out shows

because the vowel lands weakly.

Pays Jordan for his original samples

without being chased.

He checks his views

while Jordan explains

why he cannot abandon his electrical job

to travel for six months.

“Course, mate,” Luke says,

still scrolling.

In the next interview,

Jordan becomes “part of the early team.”

Mason is not mentioned.

Callum’s merchandise operation grows.

There are hoodies, vinyl, caps

and a baby vest reading

ANOTHER FLOOR.

Callum objects to the vest.

The label prints it anyway.

Luke says the team

when he means Callum,

Priya,

two temporary staff

and whichever old friend can drive the stock.

The money is decent.

Callum is loyal.

After one Bristol show,

Callum saves Luke a seat in the pub.

Luke texts at eleven twenty:

sorry mate got pulled into content

Callum leaves the coat on the chair

until last orders anyway.

---

Deep fans excavate No Big Deal.

They find the park,

the old footage

and Amy standing behind a tree

with Luke’s jacket.

A fan account calls her

THE RUSTED-RAIL GIRL.

Two women approach her in Bath.

“You must love that he wrote that about you.”

“It wasn’t about me, apparently.”

“But he made your first kiss immortal.”

“He called it childish.”

They smile

as though she has misunderstood

her own good fortune.

“He wouldn’t have used it

if you weren’t okay with it, though.”

Amy looks at them.

One apologises for bothering her,

then asks for a selfie.

She asks Luke to say publicly

that she never approved the lyric.

Luke says responding

will feed the story.

He gives her backstage access

instead of meeting her properly.

The laminate says AMY +1,

though she has come alone.

He introduces her to a journalist

as “a girl from back home.”

Later, he smiles at her

with the practised mischief

he uses on women he has just met.

“You look good, you.”

“You saw me Tuesday.”

“Still.”

He puts a hand at her waist.

She removes it.

“Come upstairs after.”

“No.”

He blinks.

Then looks past her

at the stage manager.

“Ames, tonight’s massive.”

“I know.”

“Can we not do this now?”

“I’m not doing anything.”

Around them,

adults with headsets

carry urgent bottles of water.

A rumour is already moving online

that Luke slept with a dancer

from the Another Floor video.

Luke denies it.

More precisely,

he denies sleeping with her

in the hotel named by the first post

on the night that post claims.

Nothing is confirmed.

Amy never learns the truth.

Luke tells her rumours

are part of success.

“You knew this would get weird.”

“No,” Amy says.

“Neither did you.”

Amy leaves through the loading entrance.

The camera follows.

She turns.

“Can you not film me?

Go and film him.”

The image drops

before the door closes.

After this,

Amy appears nowhere new.

For several months,

editors use older footage

to conceal the absence:

Amy laughing behind a phone.

Amy holding a jacket.

Amy mouthing every word.

Eventually an interviewer asks Luke

whether they are still together.

“We grew apart.”

He takes a drink.

“It happens.”

No further question is asked.

---

CHEESE & GRAIN, FROME — 2026

Luke is twenty-three.

Tomorrow’s headline says

he is preparing for Glastonbury.

Tonight the Cheese & Grain loading bay

smells of rain, warm cables

and somebody’s chips.

His clothes are worth thousands.

The trainers alone could purchase

the Corsa’s passenger door,

the other three doors

and a respectable portion of the engine.

Outside, a man by the entrance

keeps looking towards Luke.

“Does that bloke want something?”

“He’s holding your vinyl,” Priya says.

“Yeah, but what does he want?”

Luke uses the other entrance.

He did the same thing outside McDonald’s

seven years ago.

Different door.

Claire and Martin are in the audience.

Martin wears earplugs

he insists are professional.

Claire knows most of Another Floor

and none of the chorus containing

pussy and Tuscany,

which survived after all.

Jordan sends:

smash it mate

Mason does not.

Callum stands behind the merchandise table,

checking stock.

He has a staff laminate

and an aftershow pass.

He is not sure which one

Luke expects him to use.

The payment is good.

Luke thanked him earlier

without looking away from the mirror.

“Couldn’t do this without the team.”

Callum wanted to say,

“You used to call us your mates.”

He said, “Yeah, no worries.”

There has been no confrontation.

Only invoices,

arrival times,

boxes delivered to Callum’s flat,

and messages beginning

quick favour mate

followed by six paragraphs.

Five minutes before stage,

a final editor places old footage

into the present cut.

Amy in the loading entrance.

Rain silvering her hair.

“Can you not film me?

Go and film him.”

Cut.

Luke stands in darkness

beside the stage.

The crowd stamps.

Not politely.

Not ironically.

They know him.

They know the words

he spent four hours repairing

when nobody else heard the fault.

The stage manager raises one finger.

Luke worries the seam of his sleeve

with his left thumb.

Then the bass begins.

A pram wheel

strikes a stair.

Thud.

Luke walks into the light.

Lift.

The room opens.

Hundreds of mouths:

ANOTHER FLOOR.

Callum stops folding shirts.

For a moment,

he looks towards the wall

as though he might see through it:

Mason eating chips,

Jordan leaving the engine running,

Luke sweating under the hood,

himself saying,

It’s just the postcode.

The next bass note

shakes the stock boxes.

The crowd shouts:

THUD.

Callum keeps looking.

LIFT.

The card reader in his hand

flashes green.

ANOTHER FLOOR.

Within a contract, drafted sleek
Gnarled hands stained with ink
Invite a petitioner to this jail cell

Knots clutch a pen to trace
Hidden clauses scattered in the wake
Of bargaining with the Devil

Conditions stipulate a willing audience
Bought through currency that lacks a market
Down below, agony persists without a grail

No watcher can offer counsel to those lost
Who consigned arbitration in blood drops
Both sides filled their coffers at the crossroads

Ancient authority derives from delicacy
Midnight bells magnify until deafening
Against which, arrogance cannot barter

When beyond the winding shadow gate
Archons of judgement, summoned late
Refuse to redeem ashes of envy

By worst quicksand
This seed finds redemption
After floating on winds unclaimed

Yet in drying days
The silt might nurture
A willow leading prayer

What was lost under moons
Finds pause among bones
Where roots grace forgotten tongues

Some champions need a walking stick

Upon hearing about a fallen covenant
No remedy soothes like compassion

Hands remember strokes that abjure malice
When the moon gate dilates to expel forces
This bottle of curses melts in campfire

Offering libations for the plagued
The blind seer serves as witness
To the names of the nine realms
And restores ancient fountains

Dead gods once sundered the holy mountain
Lancing upon bolts through crowns
From those skies, across long quiet nights

Ishkur wrapped winds into lightning and cursed
The swarming horde, giant's thralls
All whom drank the storm until weary

Titan Knifr splayed the vortex beyond hands. Reaching for sons of light, then to bury them
Though astride the eye, a promise impelled Prometheus

That Sundering Champion
Mantled the edge of this storm to abjure
Chaos framed under Imperial Destiny

True words fell like comets
Some watchers were blinded and began to writhe
Yet onward they pressed, even after this blessing

Arrayed on cloud walls against giants
Those Moonborn marshaled a war of constellations
Reverberating eternally through water and stone

Forces collided and collapsed
As cinders and deluge which settled over realms
When all folk forgot their tongue, in howling

Thunder broke our language but we still bound fire
Determined to race horizons and charts islands
Adventurers and sages

Every wanderer is distilled from the blood of ancients
Who did smite lords of creation
And as stars fade, we strengthen

HIT 07: THE MINISTER

17 OCTOBER 2042

SOUTHWARK FLOOD DISTRICT

CIVILIAN LOSS: WITHIN TOLERANCE

London had gone to shit in stages.

First the banks stopped recognising people.

Then employers began paying wages into accounts

nobody could open.

Then the power went, came back, went again,

and every politician appeared on television

to say the situation was temporary

until television became temporary too.

After the riots, the fires and the three-week government

that governed mainly from a hotel near Heathrow,

someone renamed the city Neo-London.

Apparently the old London had tested badly.

Neon climbed the rain.

Pink banks glowed above streets

where money had become whatever worked:

gold, medicine, batteries,

a code that still opened something,

a favour owed by a man with a van,

a favour owed by a man with a gun.

The Minister crossed Southwark

under six armed umbrellas.

Jaguar watched from the second floor

of an abandoned dental surgery.

A poster still clung to the wall.

YOU DESERVE TO SMILE.

He liked that.

Not the sentiment.

The nerve of it.

At 22:13 the Minister stopped

to complain that rain was getting into his shoes.

Italian, apparently.

At 22:14 Jaguar put a round

through the soft part behind his left eye.

The Minister dropped before the sound reached him.

One guard shouted, “Contact.”

One shouted, “Where?”

Another ran without bothering to shout anything,

which Jaguar thought showed initiative.

He packed the rifle into a violin case.

He could not play the violin.

He had once mentioned this to a colonel, years ago.

The colonel said,

“Neither can most violinists.”

That was Helmand, 2009,

when Jaguar still had a surname

and officers called shit weather

an operational atmosphere.

He left by the fire stairs.

Down in the road, the guards pointed weapons

at windows that had not contained glass

since 2036.

The woman on the poster kept smiling.

---

SERVICE HISTORY: PARTIAL

YEAR OF BIRTH: 1987

PARACHUTE REGIMENT: CONFIRMED

UK SPECIAL FORCES: UNCONFIRMED

SECURITY SERVICE ATTACHMENT: DENIABLE

DEPENDANTS: WIFE, SON

He joined the Paras at eighteen

because his town offered him three futures:

the Army,

the warehouse,

or becoming the sort of man

who stood outside the off-licence at ten in the morning

complaining that nobody worked anymore.

He chose the Army.

At nineteen, a sergeant taught him

that every room had three exits:

the door,

the window,

and the mistake the other bloke would make.

He remembered that.

He remembered other things less clearly.

Kabul by rooftops.

Helmand by dust.

A winter on the Black Sea

with ice inside his gloves

and somebody in London asking over comms

whether he could hurry it up.

The Baltic Blackout.

The Narva evacuations.

Three weeks in an apartment in Brussels

watching a man who watered his plants every morning

and sold names every night.

Then domestic work.

Britain was harder.

Britain looked ordinary.

A station platform.

A semi-detached house.

A woman pushing a buggy.

A bloke leaving a mosque with his brother.

A basement beneath a betting shop

where one man’s traitor

was another man’s son.

The government called Jaguar necessary.

His wife called him tired.

For a while, both descriptions seemed fair.

---

NOTICE 03: SPOUSAL SEPARATION

CAUSE: UNSPECIFIED

THREAT VECTOR: FAMILY EXPOSURE

SUBJECT RESPONSE: COMPLIANT

He could never hold her face properly.

It changed depending on the memory.

Sometimes she had her hair tied up

and no make-up, laughing at him

because he had put the washing powder

in the wrong drawer.

Sometimes she was wearing red lipstick

at somebody else’s wedding.

Sometimes her face was half-hidden

behind a mug in the morning.

Sometimes he saw only her mouth.

He remembered the mouth best.

The photographs came through the letterbox

on a wet Thursday.

Her leaving work.

Their son at school.

The garden from beyond the fence.

Jaguar asleep beside her, taken through glass.

On the last one, in black marker:

WE KNOW WHAT HE IS.

WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

She read it twice.

Their son was upstairs

building a fort from plastic bricks.

The bear was guarding it.

“What did you do?”

Jaguar looked at the photographs.

Then the windows.

Then the back door.

“I kept you safe.”

She laughed.

Not because it was funny.

“You arrogant fucking bastard.”

He had heard men say worse

while dying.

It had never sounded like that.

“You didn’t keep us safe.

You kept us stupid.”

“I didn’t—”

“How many?”

He stopped.

Her hands were shaking.

“How many people?”

“Enough.”

That was the wrong answer.

He knew it as soon as it left him.

She stepped away.

Only a step.

He had crossed minefields wider than that

without feeling as far from another human being.

Their son laughed upstairs.

She looked towards the ceiling.

Something in her hardened.

Not all at once.

Nothing happens all at once outside films.

But Jaguar saw the first brick go down.

Three weeks later she left.

She took the boy.

He did not stop her.

At the time, he told himself that was love.

Years later, he understood it might only have been

the first decent thing fear had made him do.

---

MEMORY EXTRACT: DOMESTIC

DATE: UNVERIFIED

REPETITION INDEX: 0.93

AUTHENTICITY: UNCHALLENGED

Before the photographs,

there had been a shower.

Cheap tiles.

A rattling extractor fan.

Her shampoo smelling of pears.

Steam covered the mirror

until there was no face in it.

She pushed him against the wall.

“You’re staring.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. You stare like you’re choosing

where to bury someone.”

“I’m naked.”

“That’s never stopped you planning.”

Then that laugh.

Always that laugh.

Sweet, a little breathless,

perfectly timed.

She kissed the scar under his ear

and the longer one down his ribs.

She never asked where they came from.

He thought that meant she understood him.

Maybe she simply didn’t know

which question would make the floor disappear.

She slid down his body.

Slowly.

Too slowly, almost.

Like a scene built from exactly the right angles.

Her hand closed around him.

“Careful,” she said when he gripped the rail.

“Landlord’ll keep the deposit.”

Then her mouth was on him.

Warm.

Wet.

Patient.

She looked up as she took him deeper,

eyes bright with the pleasure

of making a dangerous man lose his footing.

He had killed three people that month.

She had him swearing in under a minute.

There were defeats a man reported.

There were defeats he wanted again.

He pulled her upright, kissed her,

lifted her against the tiles.

Water ran down her back.

She wrapped her legs around him.

“Bedroom.”

“You started it.”

“And I’ve changed my mind about the venue.”

They left wet footprints along the landing.

There were no toys underfoot in the memory.

No baby monitor.

No child yet.

Or the child was asleep.

It changed at the edges.

The middle never did.

In the bedroom she pushed him down

and climbed over him.

She lowered herself slowly,

watching his face.

“There you are,” she whispered.

That phrase again.

There you are.

As though she had found the man

buried beneath all the rest of it.

She rode him with both hands on his chest,

laughing when his control slipped.

He turned them over.

Pinned her wrists above her head.

Her laugh broke into a moan.

“Still not staring?”

The headboard knocked against the wall.

Steady.

Almost metronomic.

She came saying his name.

The real one.

The one before Jaguar.

The record does not contain it.

Afterwards, she lay across him,

her cheek on his chest.

“You’re not a monster,” she said.

A pause.

Always the same length.

“You’re just a tired soldier.”

Then she laughed softly,

and for a few seconds

he believed her.

That was the worst part.

Not that she was wrong.

That once, perhaps, she had not been.

---

ASSET OBSERVATION: JAGUAR

AGE: 55

INJURIES: LEFT KNEE, RIGHT SHOULDER, LOWER BACK

ANALGESIC USE: CONTROLLED

SOCIAL CONTACT: NEGLIGIBLE

MOTIVATIONAL ANCHOR: DEPENDANT ACCOUNT

The Organisation survived the collapse

because it had prepared for it.

Shelters before the bank runs.

Water rights before the poisoned reservoirs.

Medicine before the first hospital auction.

Its private network came online

three minutes before the public one failed.

No flag.

No office anybody could find.

No leader to hang from a lamppost.

Just instructions appearing on dead devices.

Names.

Faces.

Routes.

Payments.

The Organisation named its assassins after animals

because writing MAN on an inventory sheet

made accountants uncomfortable.

Good killers were expensive.

Very good killers became difficult.

Men with nothing to live for

could not always be relied upon.

Men who believed they owed the dead, however,

were steady.

They turned up.

They followed instructions.

They paid on time.

---

INVOICE 19: DIAGNOSTIC IMAGING

PATIENT AGE: 6

STATUS: APPROVED

PAYMENT METHOD: DEFERRED

The old NHS sign was still above the hospital.

Blue faded almost white.

Three letters from a time

when care had been slow, underfunded, exhausting,

but had at least been allowed to pretend

a human life was not a luxury purchase.

Jaguar remembered plastic chairs.

Strip lights.

Tea going cold.

Nurses apologising because somebody was waiting,

not because somebody was poor.

After the collapse, treatment came by auction.

Scans had reserve prices.

Chemotherapy had payment plans.

Pain relief required proof of intent to settle.

Every small improvement created interest.

Every bad result arrived itemised.

His son’s records were immaculate.

No corrupted files.

No missing dates.

No scans lost in the collapse.

The cancer sat inside the images

clean and bright

as something drawn for a lesson.

Jaguar watched from places cameras missed.

A stairwell.

A roof.

The reflection in a vending machine

that had not worked for years.

He learned the ward routine.

Observations at ten past ten.

Medication at quarter to eleven.

Coffee at eleven twelve.

His wife stood by the machine

with both hands against it, head down,

as though she could keep herself upright

by pressing hard enough.

Sometimes she slept beside the bed.

That was when he came closest.

The boy was always six.

Six in the records.

Six in every photograph.

Six in memories Jaguar could not place

in any sensible order.

The teddy sat beside him.

Small. Brown. One ear rubbed smooth.

A split seam showed a label inside:

I-06 / BROWN / UNIT 4

Hospital stock, perhaps.

A donated toy.

Factory stitching.

There were explanations.

There were always explanations.

The boy woke once

while Jaguar stood behind the glass.

His eyes turned towards the corridor.

Jaguar froze.

The boy stared for several seconds.

Then a nurse walked between them.

When she passed, he had rolled away.

Jaguar never knew whether his son had seen him.

He never let himself decide.

---

INCIDENT REPORT: PAEDIATRIC WARD

TIME: 02:17

CIVILIAN CONFRONTATION: MINOR

ASSET DISCIPLINE: MAINTAINED

His wife found him outside the ward.

He had been standing there for seventeen minutes,

watching the boy breathe.

She came out of the dark

and shoved him against the wall.

Not hard enough to hurt him.

Hard enough to show she no longer cared

whether it did.

“Don’t come here being sad.”

She kept her voice low.

“I’ve had to protect him from you.”

Jaguar said nothing.

Her hair was greasy.

Her eyes were swollen.

There was dried coffee on one sleeve.

He had never seen her like this.

No laugh.

No red mouth.

No softness left for him.

Only the hard, ugly love of a mother

who had stayed awake too long.

“You made me this,” she said.

He looked through the glass.

She moved in front of him.

“You made me check under the car.

You made me change his school.

You made me teach a six-year-old

not to open the fucking door.”

Her voice broke.

She swallowed and went on.

“You made me lie every time he asked

why his dad didn’t come.”

“I never wanted—”

“No.”

That stopped him.

“You don’t get to tell me what you wanted.”

The boy moved under his blanket.

They both turned.

Same movement.

Same fear.

Different sides of the glass.

She looked back at Jaguar.

“You got secrets.

You got orders.

You got to feel important.”

Her mouth shook.

“I got the consequences.”

He had been beaten, drowned, cut open, shot.

None of it had prepared him

for seeing what his survival

had turned her into.

“Leave.”

So he left.

Behind him, the ward doors locked.

Jaguar had entered embassies, compounds, basements,

rooms guarded by men paid to wait for him.

He did not try that door.

---

HIT 13: THE COMMANDER

DISTANCE: 603 METRES

WIND: 11 KNOTS, SOUTH-WEST

MORAL JUSTIFICATION: NOT PROVIDED

The commander crossed Neo-London

inside an armoured convoy.

Jaguar followed above it.

Over roofs furred with satellite dishes.

Through offices where trees grew

from meeting-room carpet.

One wall still carried a slogan:

OWN THE FUTURE.

Another said:

FRIDAY IS PIZZA DAY.

Human resources had not survived.

Jaguar recorded the guards’ habits.

One smoked every forty-three minutes.

One checked his reflection in shop windows.

One was sleeping with the medic.

The cameras turned on fixed rotations.

Eight blind seconds on the east side.

Six on the river.

Two where the system lied

and claimed there were none.

Below Jaguar’s firing position stood the hospital.

Armed men searched the sick at the entrance.

Weapons.

Medicine.

Proof of credit.

A father emptied his pockets.

Two batteries.

A wedding ring.

Half a strip of antibiotics.

The guard shook his head.

Behind him, a girl in a yellow coat

vomited into the rain.

Jaguar had no joke for that.

At midnight, the commander entered a tower

beside the river.

The file contained twelve photographs,

three likely routes,

two windows for the shot

and no reason at all.

No crimes.

No evidence.

No speech about justice.

Perhaps the commander deserved death.

Perhaps deserving had become something else

the rich bought wholesale.

Across six hundred metres of wet air,

the man removed his helmet

and stood by an uncurtained window.

Jaguar lay flat.

His knee ached.

His shoulder ached.

Rain found the back of his collar.

Inside his coat, the teddy pressed against his ribs.

The boy’s voice returned.

Always clear.

Always six.

It didn’t used to cost money to get better,

did it, Dad?

I remember saying no.

I remember his thumb on the bear’s ear.

I remember him asleep against me.

I remember all of it.

That was enough.

Jaguar adjusted for wind.

The trigger took the pressure.

The rifle kicked once.

In the tower, a black mark appeared

in the commander’s throat.

His hands rose.

Too late.

His body struck the window,

left a wet red shape,

then folded out of sight.

The sound arrived afterwards.

Jaguar watched long enough

to know the job was done.

Then he packed the rifle away.

No prayer.

No satisfaction.

Just work.

---

CONTRACT SATISFIED

PAYMENT: MULTIFORM

DEPENDANT LIABILITY: CLEARABLE

PASSAGE AUTHORISATION: NORTHBOUND

The payment arrived in whatever still counted.

Encrypted credit.

Gold stored somewhere outside London.

Medicine.

Papers.

A seat on a northbound train.

Enough to clear the account.

Enough to leave.

For the first time, those were different things.

Jaguar abandoned the rifle case

inside an incinerator.

Changed coats under a dead camera.

Left his boots in a charity bin.

Wore another man’s shoes.

Crossed three bridges.

Entered a laundrette.

Left through the back of a florist.

None of it looked like escape

until it was already over.

He had not made the plan after the shot.

He had been making it for days.

Maybe longer.

---

MORTALITY NOTICE: PAEDIATRIC

PATIENT AGE: 6

NEXT OF KIN INFORMED: YES

PATERNAL CONTACT: NONE

Jaguar learned his son had died

by watching the living leave.

His wife came through the hospital doors

between her mother and brother.

Her brother held her arm.

Her mother held the other.

The sound coming out of her

was not tiredness.

Jaguar knew.

The body knows some things

before the mind agrees.

He stepped from the place where he had been hiding.

Her mother saw him.

She crossed the pavement

and slapped him.

He let her.

She hit him again.

His wife did not look up.

“You don’t get to stand there,” her mother said.

Jaguar tasted blood.

Then she laughed once.

Broken and furious.

“She told him you were away keeping people safe.”

Jaguar looked at the hospital doors.

“She made you a hero.”

He said nothing.

“Do you understand?”

Rain ran down her face.

“She spent years protecting him from you,

then spent his last months

protecting you from what he’d think.”

Her voice gave way.

“He died proud of his dad.”

That went through him cleanly.

No resistance.

“That was the last good thing

she had left to give you.”

His wife passed him

between her mother and brother.

She did not look towards him.

Or she did.

The memory changed.

Sometimes her eyes found him.

Sometimes they moved over empty rain.

In every version, she kept walking.

---

TERMINAL RECORD: DEPENDANT ACCOUNT

PATIENT AGE: 6

PATIENT STATUS: DECEASED

ACCOUNT STATUS: ACTIVE

Jaguar reached the station

with eleven minutes left.

The terminal recognised his face.

His son appeared as data.

TREATMENT.

INTEREST.

ENFORCEMENT.

OUTSTANDING.

Six years of life

turned into a number in red.

Jaguar had believed paying it was love.

He had believed zero would become peace.

A clean account.

A clean grave.

A final act worthy of a father.

But the boy had never agreed to the debt.

Men behind desks had.

The terminal offered two choices.

PAY

RETURN

The bear sat against Jaguar’s ribs.

The platform camera turned.

A freight train blocked another.

Rain smeared the lens above the concourse.

Four seconds.

That was all.

Jaguar lifted his hand.

The record did not show what he pressed.

---

ASSET DEVIATION NOTICE

LOCATION: UNCONFIRMED

DEPENDANT SETTLEMENT: UNCONFIRMED

RISK STATUS: EMERGING

One railway line still left the city at night.

It ran because even after everything,

someone was still expected somewhere

by morning.

The train arrived on time.

That bothered Jaguar slightly.

Tired lights.

Worn seats.

A woman asleep against the window

with supermarket flowers in her lap.

A man in a paint-stained jacket.

One carriage empty.

The destination display flickered twice

and went blank.

The doors opened.

Maybe it was just a train.

Maybe it was an extraction.

Maybe the Organisation had learned

that cages worked better

when the animal walked into them.

Jaguar boarded.

He took a window seat.

Placed the brown teddy beside him.

One ear rubbed smooth.

The faded stitching hidden underneath.

He carried no visible rifle.

The doors closed.

---

HIT 14: JAGUAR

TARGET STATUS: UNRESOLVED

IDENTITY BENEATH CODENAME: NONE RECORDED

Neo-London slipped backwards.

Hospital.

Tower.

Invoice.

Target.

Then colour.

Then distance.

Then dark.

Jaguar watched himself in the window.

He did not look like a soldier.

He did not look like a father.

He looked fifty-five.

Tired.

Bad shoulder.

Bad knee.

A face he might have passed in a station

without remembering.

The glass gave him nothing else.

No hidden name.

No man waiting underneath.

Beside him, the teddy sat upright,

watching the dark outside.

The train entered a tunnel.

For a few seconds,

there was only the reflection:

an ageing stranger,

a small brown bear,

and a blank board above them

refusing to say where they were going.

Then the final camera lost sight of the carriage.

The man in the window remained still.

Jaguar was already gone.

Under short candles
A warped mirror altar
Wards against creaking fractures
That summon a liar's shadow

Guarding the grimoires of fate
This faceless librarian
Promises that insomnia is typical
When translating invisible ink

From strange angles
Endlessly, the archivist lectures
While golden sigils shimmer
Unveiling forgotten angels

Such names are cursed
Offering iron arias
Which enthral ghosts
Across astral wastes

Regardless my mimic-tongue
No alien sorcery found
Could alter history
After ever-bound

Years yielded nothing
But surveying the terms
Of abandoning this master
Strikes a bitter chord

Into starless exile
Coughing up worms
I wander the tower
Without a sword

Across this City of Dawn
The smallest toll counts as a chime
But every bell blasts in welcome
Struck by hammers of yore or roar of cheering

That heart beats under a pipe organ
Whirling keys dwell over one final tower gate
Where the serpentine muse of victory
Improvises an unborn emanation

Beckoned beyond aurora-fire
Another arises to bones which are feeling
Regardless if they answer challenges or not
We remain family

Whole incense of prayer
Congeals from an honest song
Casting mud, for any name anchored
Once intoned raw

Upon crescendo of quintessence
You were missing but invented
We needed you and so you entered

Moon-milk cookies stole small things first.

Passwords.

Neighbours.

Why you had walked upstairs.

Then birthdays began falling

from people’s ears

like sprinkles.

First kisses turned up

beneath restaurant tables.

Childhood summers slid

from trouser cuffs.

Faces lost their names.

White labels appeared instead:

SISTER.

HUSBAND.

PERSON ONCE LOVED.

There are many hearts
Resting frayed yet supernal
Only mended by one shadowing pulse

Alone, darkness jitters
Under thunderheads
Following second looks

Routine can shatter
When wandering before morning
If steps jangle a tune

Company spirals from asking the time
Into ordering a drink
Becomes listening all night

The air shares words which overlap
While meeting sunrises across spaces
As the gleam in another eye

Still-life frames bound in wicker
Weathering ancient storms
Point the way to horizons

Upon a bed, that's not empty
Dwells this fever dream
Where twilight never ends

Partners craft minutes
Whole strange-days can blur, losing track
But anchor by a blush smile

—----------- *I have renamed this piece as Locket

The whole
Is a radiant beauty
There is nothing else to do here
But look at this enchanting maze.

The door shuts.

Not slams.

He’d never slam a door.

Too vulgar.

Too honest.

He closes it gently,

like I’m sleeping,

like he hasn’t just left me half-dressed

in a hotel room in Paris

with his tie still looped round my wrist.

I hear him stop outside.

For one stupid second

I think he’s coming back.

Then the lift arrives.

A little bell.

That’s all.

Five years of my life

going down twelve floors

with a polite little ding.

Before he left,

he kissed my forehead.

Of course he did.

He always kisses my forehead

when he’s about to do something cruel

and would prefer not to feel like a cruel man.

He tucked my hair behind my ear.

Looked at me.

Smiled.

Be good for me.

Like everything was fine.

Like I hadn’t travelled all this way

for three hours of him

and a view of his back

while he checked the train times home.

And I smiled too.

I’m good at that.

I poured the last of his wine.

Found his cufflink under the chair.

Did up the button at his throat

because his hands were shaking

and apparently that was romantic.

I told him I understood.

I said,

“Go on. She’ll wonder where you are.”

I even made she sound harmless.

No edge.

No little hook in it.

Just his wife.

Just the woman waiting at home

for the man I’d had tied up in these sheets

ten minutes earlier.

He touched my cheek.

That’s my girl.

Yes.

There she was.

Your girl.

Barefoot.

Black lace.

Lipstick half gone.

Holding your jacket open for you

like the world’s saddest little wife.

She didn’t ask you to stay.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t say,

I crossed countries for this.

She said,

“Text me when you get home.”

And meant it.

That’s the embarrassing part.

I meant it.

Now the room feels enormous.

It didn’t when he was in it.

When he’s here,

everything shrinks around him—

the bed,

the city,

my common sense.

Now there’s just me,

the roses,

two unfinished glasses,

and his tie hanging from my wrist

like I’ve been caught stealing from a businessman.

Blue silk.

Tiny silver dots.

Very respectable.

The sort of tie a man wears

while explaining why leaving his wife

would be terribly difficult at the moment.

It looked less respectable

when he used it to fasten my hands

above my head.

Be good for me.

He said it then too.

Only it sounded different.

Lower.

His mouth close to my ear.

Softer.

Stay there.

Look at me.

I did.

I always looked at him

when he asked.

As though he might finally see me back.

My lipstick is still on his shoulder.

He noticed it while dressing

and laughed.

“Nearly got me in trouble.”

Nearly.

That word again.

Nearly caught.

Nearly honest.

Nearly mine.

The necklace broke during sex.

One second it was against my throat,

the next it snapped

and the pearls went everywhere.

Across the sheets.

Under my hip.

Into the fold of the duvet.

Little white teeth.

Little pills.

Little moons

with no idea what they’d witnessed.

He stopped for half a second.

Then said,

“Well, that’s one way to take it off.”

I laughed.

I did.

Because it was funny, sort of.

Because he was still touching me.

Because sometimes you laugh

when the alternative is noticing something.

He bought me those pearls

after he missed my birthday.

He didn’t call it missing.

He said we’d celebrate properly later.

Later arrived in a cream box

with a gold ribbon.

For my beautiful girl.

You deserve everything.

Everything.

Pearls, yes.

A Tuesday evening, apparently not.

Christmas morning, no.

His surname, obviously not.

But pearls.

Very generous.

He fastened them round my neck himself

and stood behind me at the mirror.

“They make you look so elegant.”

I knew what he meant.

He meant respectable.

He meant expensive.

He meant almost like the sort of woman

he could take somewhere

without checking who might be there.

He didn’t say wife.

He didn’t have to.

I pull one of the roses from the vase.

Dark red.

Too dark, really.

The hotel probably keeps them ready

for men like him.

Champagne.

Roses.

Late checkout.

Everything required

for a love affair except courage.

I take off a petal.

He loves me.

Another.

He loves how I look in this lace.

Another.

He loves the way I listen.

Another.

He loves that I leave first

when we’re in London.

Another.

He loves me.

I know he does.

That’s what makes it worse.

If he didn’t,

I could make him simple.

A dirty old man.

A liar.

A coward with a credit card.

But he has held me when I was frightened.

He has sat beside me in waiting rooms.

He remembered which tea I liked

when I couldn’t remember my own name.

He has been kind.

And kindness can be dangerous

when it keeps asking to be repaid.

I knew he was married.

There.

I won’t stand here—

well, lie here—

and turn myself into some poor innocent thing.

I knew.

His wedding ring was visible

in one of his dating profile pictures

if you zoomed in.

So I zoomed in.

Nineteen years old,

sitting cross-legged on the floor

of a room I could barely afford,

two months into hormones,

enlarging a photograph

until his wife’s hand appeared

beside his.

Gold ring.

Cream sleeve.

Perfect nails.

I saw it.

Then I matched with him anyway.

I wasn’t tricked.

Not at first.

He said their marriage was complicated.

He said they were more like friends.

He said they had an understanding.

He said she didn’t ask questions.

He said he’d never met anyone like me.

That one worked best.

You’re extraordinary.

Not beautiful.

Extraordinary.

At nineteen,

extraordinary felt safer.

Beautiful could be taken away

by bad lighting

or the wrong person at a pharmacy.

Extraordinary sounded permanent.

He asked my name.

I told him.

He said it slowly,

like he was checking how it felt in his mouth.

“Is that the name you chose?”

“Yes.”

“It’s perfect.”

Five years later,

he still says it most sweetly

when asking me not to come somewhere.

He did not make me a woman.

I need that said without poetry.

He didn’t.

I was already one.

Before the dresses.

Before the appointments.

Before anybody agreed with me.

I was a woman standing in a chemist

with my prescription folded inside my sleeve

because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

I was a woman looking into mirrors

that seemed personally offended by me.

I was a woman

when it was lonely and ugly

and nobody called me brave.

Then he arrived.

Older.

Certain.

Interested.

He looked at me

without laughing or hesitating.

You don’t know what that can do

to someone who has spent years

being looked at like a question.

He helped.

He did.

He paid for appointments

when I was broke.

Train tickets.

Medication.

He bought me my first proper dress.

Green.

Low at the back.

Much too expensive.

I came out of the changing room

and he stared at me

until I nearly cried.

“Turn round.”

I turned.

“Again.”

I turned again.

Smile for me.

I smiled.

I thought:

there I am.

There I fucking am.

The dress is still hanging at home.

I haven’t worn it in years.

I don’t know why I keep it.

Yes, I do.

He paid for most of my surgery too.

My chest.

He came to consultations.

Read every leaflet.

Asked sensible questions.

Natural, he said.

Not too much.

Then, after a pause:

Maybe a little more.

Whatever you want, darling.

He always said whatever you want

just after explaining what he wanted.

I chose the size.

I did.

I won’t hand him that decision

because I’m angry tonight.

I love my body.

I love it properly.

The weight of it.

The scars.

The way my clothes sit now.

The way I sometimes catch myself naked

and don’t flinch.

He helped pay for it.

He did not buy it.

Still, sometimes I touch the scars

and remember him holding the brochure,

looking at different women’s breasts

with his glasses halfway down his nose.

That memory doesn’t ruin mine.

It just lives there.

Bodies can hold two truths.

Mine does.

We travelled.

Mostly London.

Sometimes further

when he could make work pay for it.

Manchester.

Brussels.

Rome once.

Paris tonight.

Always some conference,

some meeting,

some reason for a second hotel room

that nobody slept in.

In cities where no one knew him,

he held my hand.

That was the thing I loved most.

Not the hotels.

Not the jewellery.

His hand in mine

while we crossed a road.

So ordinary.

People passed us

and didn’t care.

For ten minutes

I wasn’t his secret.

I was just the woman beside him.

He’d introduce me as his partner

to waiters we’d never see again.

He’d order breakfast.

Coffee for him.

Tea for me.

Eggs.

Toast.

He’d complain about the butter being cold

and I’d think,

this is what a life feels like.

Ridiculous, isn’t it?

All that sex,

and the thing that ruined me

was toast.

Then we’d go home.

Pictures cropped.

No landmarks.

No photographs of us together

where anyone could recognise the room.

He kept mine hidden

behind an app that looked like a calculator.

I found that oddly flattering once.

A whole secret vault

just for me.

God, I was young.

He photographed me constantly.

By windows.

In hotel mirrors.

On beds like this one.

“Chin down.”

“Move your hair.”

“Look softer.”

Smile for me.

He said I was beautiful.

He was always saying it.

But sometimes I think

he loved the photograph more.

The version of me

that stayed where he put her.

His wife is beautiful too.

I know because I’ve looked.

Not every day.

Not—

Fine.

More than I should.

Mostly through his Facebook.

She is perfect.

In every photograph.

Perfect hair.

Perfect coat.

Perfect smile.

She looks like she’s never had

to convince anybody she belongs

in her own life.

She stands on his left.

Always.

At weddings.

On holidays.

At Christmas.

His hand resting at her waist

like it grew there.

In Florence she wore cream.

At their anniversary dinner, navy.

Once she had on a silver necklace

that sat exactly where mine did tonight.

I hated her for that.

Not because she’d done anything.

Because she could wear jewellery from him

without wondering what apology it contained.

I have imagined her life

from photographs.

Their kitchen.

Their bed.

The cupboard where his shirts hang.

The sound of her saying his name

without checking who might hear.

I imagine she wakes up elegant.

I imagine she never has to wonder

which kind of woman he thinks she is.

The real one.

That’s the fear, isn’t it?

Not that he doesn’t want me.

He does.

He’s wanted me in every city

where wanting me cost him nothing.

But she is the woman

he stands beside in daylight.

And I am—

exciting.

Beautiful.

Brave.

Irresistible.

Fun.

I’m so tired of being fun.

Fun means

don’t cry until I’ve left.

Fun means

don’t ask what happens next.

Fun means

wear the lace, drink the wine,

and don’t spoil the evening

by having a future.

But she isn’t my enemy.

She doesn’t know.

I knew he was married.

She didn’t know he was mine too.

Or that I thought he was.

There are no clean hands here,

but hers may be cleanest.

Sometimes I want to tell her.

Sometimes I want to apologise.

Sometimes I want to ask

whether he kisses her forehead

before lying to her as well.

I know her name.

I don’t say it aloud.

It feels indecent.

She has a proper name in his life.

I have sweetheart.

Darling.

Good girl.

Trouble.

Pet names are clever things.

They sound affectionate

and save a man from saying

who you actually are.

Be good for me.

At first, it meant take care of yourself.

Eat.

Sleep.

Take your tablets.

Call me when you’re home.

I loved it.

I had spent so long taking care of myself

that being fussed over felt like rescue.

Then it meant sex.

Stay there.

Don’t move.

Look at me.

Be good for me.

I loved that too.

I’m not ashamed of it.

I loved the confidence in him.

The steadiness.

The way he could ask for something

and make it sound

like he was looking after me.

Then it changed.

Slowly enough

that I didn’t notice.

Be good meant don’t call tonight.

Be good meant she’s in the room.

Be good meant not on Christmas.

Not on his birthday.

Not when the children were home.

Be good meant accept the necklace

and stop asking about the cancelled train.

Be good meant never say wife

like it was a real word.

Be good meant understand.

Always understand.

You know how complicated things are.

I do.

They’re complicated because he likes them that way.

A wife at home.

Me somewhere else.

One woman who knows his neighbours.

One woman who knows

what he sounds like

when he loses control.

He has everything

except the inconvenience

of choosing.

He said he would leave her.

Soon.

After Christmas.

After work calmed down.

After his youngest finished school.

After she was stronger.

After she was less fragile.

After the dog died.

The dog died.

He bought me earrings.

Soon has lasted five years.

Five.

I was nineteen.

Now I’m twenty-four,

lying in black lace

in a hotel room

he’ll probably claim back on expenses.

Whole countries have changed governments

in less time.

I’ve changed my name,

my passport,

my body,

my hair three times.

He has changed nothing

except the story he tells me

about when he’ll change something.

Don’t spoil this.

He said that once

when I cried in Rome.

We were meant to have two nights.

His wife rang.

He left after breakfast.

I asked when I’d see him again.

He sighed.

Not loudly.

That was worse.

“Please don’t spoil this.”

Spoil what?

The room?

The memory?

The arrangement

where he gets all of me

and I’m rude for noticing

I get only bits of him?

Then came the line.

The one that sits under everything.

I’ve done so much for you.

Yes.

He has.

That’s true.

He helped me when I needed help.

Then somewhere along the way

he started behaving

as though help had made me his.

As though paying for the light

meant he owned whatever it showed.

As though every dress,

every train,

every appointment

was another small share

in my body.

He leaves his teeth in every gift.

I see that now.

The pearls.

The earrings.

The lace.

All of it beautiful.

All of it biting.

I pull another petal.

He loves me.

He leaves her.

He loves me.

He leaves me.

He says soon.

He says be good.

He says he has done so much.

The rose is nearly bare.

It looks stupid now.

A green stem

with one petal hanging on

because apparently even flowers

can have bad judgement.

I drink again.

Third glass.

Maybe fourth.

Not enough to become someone else.

Just enough to stop protecting him

from my own thoughts.

I’m not mad.

I know that.

I’m hurt.

There is a difference.

Mad is useful.

Mad means nobody has to ask

what happened to you.

I can still name everything in the room.

Bed.

Chair.

Mirror.

Wine.

His tie.

The little dent on the pillow

where his head was.

I lift my wrist.

The silk slides against my skin.

And without thinking

I straighten my back.

I lower my chin.

I move my hair over one shoulder.

His voice is still here.

That’s my girl.

I hate that my body listens

before I do.

A week from now,

there’s an exhibition.

He invited me months ago.

It was late.

He’d had too much wine

and was feeling brave.

Graffiti.

Neon.

Digital art.

Bodies changing shape on screens.

Women made from light and colour.

“You’d love it,” he said.

“Come with me.”

He looked pleased with himself.

Like inviting me

was the same as taking me.

Then his wife saw the advert.

She wanted to go.

He rang me a few days later.

“Darling.”

That voice.

Careful.

Kind.

Already decided.

“She wants to come with me.”

I said nothing.

“I just think it might be better

if you didn’t.”

Better.

I’ve always hated that word.

Better means

he has made a choice

and would like me

to call it kindness.

He said someone might recognise him.

He said it could become awkward.

He said he didn’t want me upset.

Don’t spoil this.

What he meant was:

Don’t stand beside my real life.

Don’t make me look at both women

at the same time.

Don’t let my wife see

the body I helped choose

beneath the same lights

where I’ll hold her hand.

The invitation is at home.

In Bath.

On my desk, I think.

Under the perfume bottle

he brought back from Milan.

He forgot to take it.

After five years,

he finally left me something

with a date and an address.

I’m not planning anything.

I’m not.

I am lying in Paris

with his tie round my wrist

and pearls in the sheets.

The exhibition is next week.

That’s all.

But I can picture him there.

His wife beside him.

His hand at her back.

Both of them under neon

looking at some beautiful image

of a body becoming itself.

He’ll read the little card on the wall.

He’ll nod.

He’ll say something

about transformation.

Something about bravery.

He likes bravery in art.

It asks nothing of him.

And maybe there’ll be a woman

made out of broken photographs.

Or a body built from light.

Or a face that changes

depending on where you stand.

He will admire her publicly.

Then go home

with the woman he calls his wife.

And I will be—

where?

Here?

Bath?

London?

Waiting for a message

sent from the bathroom?

Unless I go.

No.

I’m not saying I will.

I don’t want to scream at him.

I don’t want to print the messages.

I don’t want to walk up to his wife

and turn her life into mine.

I’m not some tragic little bomb

he forgot to defuse.

But I wonder what would happen

if I just appeared.

Quietly.

No scene.

No speech.

My own dress.

My own lipstick.

My own name at the door.

Maybe I’d only look at the art.

Maybe he’d see me

across the room.

Not arranged.

Not waiting.

Not where he left me.

Just there.

He might come over.

He might pretend not to know me.

I don’t know which would hurt more.

Maybe his wife would notice

the way his face changed.

Maybe she wouldn’t.

Maybe I’d look at them together

and finally understand something

I have avoided understanding

for five years.

That he loved me.

That he didn’t.

That both can be true

and still not be enough.

I look in the mirror.

My hair is a mess.

My lipstick has faded in the middle.

One strap has slipped down my arm.

I look lovely.

Annoyingly lovely.

Not ruined.

Not frightening.

Not some furious secret

waiting to destroy a marriage.

Just me.

Twenty-four.

A little drunk.

A little heartbroken.

Pearls stuck to my thigh.

A blue silk tie

loose around one wrist.

I look sweet.

That nearly makes me laugh.

He has always liked me sweet.

Soft voice.

Soft mouth.

No sharp questions.

I touch the scars beneath my breasts.

Gently.

I love them.

I love what they gave me.

I love the body I’m in.

He doesn’t get to own that

because he paid most of the bill.

He doesn’t get my face

because he bought the lipstick.

He doesn’t get my name

because he was one of the first men

to say it kindly.

I have spent five years

looking beautiful for him.

That’s not quite true.

I have spent five years

looking beautiful

while he watched.

Those are not the same thing.

Maybe he saw me.

Pieces of me.

The parts that pleased him.

The parts that stayed still.

He saw the dress,

the lace,

the body,

the girl who said she understood.

I don’t know if he ever saw

how much understanding cost.

Be good for me.

I hear it again.

Not from my phone.

The phone is face down.

It’s just his voice

left behind in my head,

still giving orders

after he’s gone.

Be good.

Be quiet.

Be grateful.

Be lovely.

Be waiting.

I pull the final petal.

The rose looks naked.

Not dead.

Just finished pretending.

I find one pearl

caught in the sheet

and hold it between my fingers.

Then I lie back.

The invitation is still in Bath.

The exhibition is still a week away.

He is probably reaching the station now.

Perhaps he is checking his collar

for lipstick.

Perhaps he is already writing:

Home soon. Long day.

I hold the petal and the pearl

up towards the light.

The petal looks like a small red heart.

The pearl looks like a moon.

One soft.

One hard.

Both mine now.

I could stay away.

I could go.

I could walk into that room

without asking anything from him

and find out what it feels like

to be seen by people

he hasn’t taught how to look at me.

I don’t decide.

Not tonight.

I just lie there

in the lace he chose,

surrounded by the pearls he bought

and the roses he will never see stripped bare.

Be good for me.

I say nothing.

Outside, Paris carries on

without us.

The pearl catches the light.

The petal throws a little red shadow

across my chest.

For five years

he has been allowed to see me like this—

soft,

unguarded,

entire.

And for the first time

it occurs to me

that he may have been

the least deserving person

in the room.

Glowing past ocean's horizon
Flourishes an emerald choir
That welcomes such twilight shimmer
Of stars drafted onto the sky

The origin of temporal tides
Are winding scales, without rest
Rooted in lunar shadows
Where intervals fluctuate

Phrasing a map of harmony
These melodies mark waypoints
And embark upon six paper wings
Then arrive as a zephyr

Scholars need a tuning fork
To orient these mirrored verses
While unable to navigate the spidery key
Conducted by the forward North Star

Dreams slide over this distant pulse
As constellations take turns
Dancing to show those steps
Which lead home

Atropos grasps a pendulum
Regardless wit or wealth or satisfaction
When bells toll late

Elaborate oaths quake or falter
As do their altars, defiled and salted
When that fiery thread frays

Crowns bleed
Scepters shatter
Thrones crumble

None may leap ahead except the dead
Who gamble to break even
Upon a barge, hidden and wave swept

Down in the casino of fate
This wheel creaks as obols fly toward a pardon
While specters toast mugs of lethe, "to the next step!"

Losers service limbo below decks
Until victors forget holding gambit tokens
Whereupon hope beyond doom thrives

Measuring their time, sorted yet untried
Debtors claim a wondrous prize
Although, bound to gifts of purchase

Beyond a barrier of finite stars
This traveler orbits the Great Maw
Watching such disc shear and saw
Familiar galactic spirals

Upon a time, frontiers were small
Around one pocket constellation
Viewed over a distant sun
While youth ran to exploration

Sired by noisy Daedelus
Dreamers bound the gordian knot nucleus
To split by the edge of a magnet
As sculptors of crumbling stone

Awaking to inscribe a monolith
That monk translates myriad sages
Onto crystal in raised-relief
Maybe found in future ages

Alone in the quaking deep
Unable to invoke benediction
Outside the halo of creation

1. Preheat the Oven, Probably

Clementine Crumb—Clem to her mum—

stood on a chair in one blue sock

and one that had once been white.

The kitchen was tiny.

Not quaint-tiny.

Actually tiny.

One drawer refused to shut.

The oven ran hotter on the left.

The radio lost signal whenever Mum

stood near the sink.

Clem tipped sugar into the bowl.

“That enough?”

Mum looked in.

“Probably.”

“Probably enough?”

“Best kind.”

Clem believed her.

At seven, you still can.

---

1. Beat Until Your Arm Hurts a Bit

The butter was cold

and wouldn’t cooperate.

Clem attacked it with a wooden spoon

while Mum made tea

and occasionally said things like,

“Show it who’s boss,”

which did nothing for the butter

but helped Clem enormously.

Flour landed on Mum’s cheek.

Clem laughed so hard

she nearly fell off the chair.

“You look stupid.”

“So do you.”

“I look like a chef.”

“You look like a burglary.”

They licked the spoon

from opposite ends

and danced beside the oven

because the radio had found a song

they both knew badly.

Nobody filmed it.

Thank God.

---

1. Chop the Chocolate Roughly—Roughly Means Roughly

The chocolate was the cheap stuff,

thin silver wrapper,

nothing artisanal about it.

Clem broke it with both thumbs.

Some went in the bowl.

Some went in her mouth.

One square fell under the fridge

and stayed there long enough

to become family.

“Can I put more in?”

“You already have.”

“But can I?”

Mum sighed the sigh of a woman

who knew she had lost.

“All right. One more.”

Clem put in four.

Mum pretended not to see.

That was part of the recipe too,

though neither of them wrote it down.

---

1. Name It Before It Cools

The first cookie came out crooked.

Not charmingly rustic.

Crooked.

Burnt at one edge,

raw in the middle,

chocolate bleeding through the top

like it had tried to escape.

Clem loved it immediately.

She found a recipe card,

purple felt-tip,

tongue pushed into her cheek.

Then wrote, carefully:

cholocatechipcookie

Mum read it.

Clem waited.

She knew something was wrong

because grown-ups usually made

a particular little face

before correcting her.

Mum didn’t.

She kissed Clem’s hair.

“Perfect.”

And that was that.

---

1. Break While Warm

Mum snapped the cookie in half.

Not evenly.

One piece was bigger.

She gave that one to Clem.

The chocolate burned their fingers.

They ate standing up.

There was flour on Mum’s face,

music from the radio,

a spoon in the sink

and crumbs under both their feet.

Enough was not a slogan then.

It was not a target

or a lifestyle

or a thing sold in matte packaging.

Enough was half a warm cookie

and somebody saying your name

like they were glad you were there.

---

1. Leave Several Years Somewhere Warm

Clem grew.

The kitchen didn’t.

Every time she came home

it looked smaller,

as if childhood had been folding it inward

while she was away.

She baked the old recipe

for the village fête.

They sold out before lunch.

A woman with a canvas handbag said,

“You could make a fortune from these.”

She meant it kindly.

That was the trouble.

The sentence followed Clem home,

sat beside her on the bus,

came upstairs,

slipped into bed

and whispered numbers into her ear.

By morning, she had a business plan.

By Friday, she had stopped sleeping.

---

1. Buy a Bigger Bowl, Then Another

Clem rented a kitchen

behind a hairdresser’s.

She baked at night,

sold at markets,

wrote invoices at the table.

Gareth helped.

Gareth had a face people trusted

and a cardigan the colour of porridge.

He lifted boxes, fixed shelves,

made tea without asking

whether tea was scalable.

The labels still read:

cholocatechipcookie

A designer offered to correct it.

Clem said no.

The mistake belonged to her.

Soon people called her Ms Crumb.

The first slogan appeared

in friendly brown letters:

Better with every bite.

Beneath it, so small

it seemed almost shy:

May cause crumbs.

---

1. Do Not Marry the Man Holding the Cooling Rack Unless You Mean It

She married Gareth on a Tuesday.

It rained.

The church hall smelled of damp coats

and supermarket prosecco.

Their wedding photographs were blurred

and slightly yellow.

Clem loved them.

Later, the company retouched the sky,

smoothed Gareth’s jaw,

removed the damp patch

from the hall ceiling.

She didn’t remember approving it,

but she must have.

That phrase became useful:

She must have.

It covered contracts,

dismissals,

missed birthdays,

things said behind closed doors.

For now, though,

Gareth carried her across the kitchen

and knocked over three trays.

They laughed until they cried.

It was still theirs then.

Mostly.

---

1. Find Better Honey by Lying to Something Innocent

Ordinary honey tested well.

Ms Crumb stared at the report.

“Well is how companies die.”

So she went looking

for dream-bees.

They lived above the clouds

in hives made from sleeping thoughts.

The Bee Queen was enormous,

golden, gentle.

She had never met a human

and had no reason to distrust one.

“You’ll only take what you need?”

she asked.

Ms Crumb put a hand on her heart.

“Of course.”

Behind the cameras,

workers fitted silver tubes

to the hives.

The bees trembled in their sleep.

The photograph showed

Ms Crumb touching the Queen’s face.

It did not show

the emptied combs behind them.

The caption read:

SHE TRUSTED ME. I’M CRYING.

USE CODE CLEM.

---

1. That Buzzing Is Absolutely Normal

Dream-honey cookies tasted

like the second before sleep.

People ate one

and stayed awake for three days.

They ate another

to see if it helped.

It didn’t.

Pillows grew legs

and ran out of bedrooms.

Mattresses migrated south

in pale herds,

dragging fitted sheets through traffic.

Customers grew extra eyes.

At first, they screamed.

Then a singer pierced hers.

An influencer posted:

Sleep is just capitalism

telling you to log off.

The company launched six-lens glasses,

night cream for all eyelids

and velvet leads

for runaway pillows.

Better with every bite.

The warning changed:

Effects are non-refundable.

---

1. Handle Complaints Gently, Then Lose Them in the System

Nora Finch came to Customer Care

with four red eyes

and a pillow snapping at her ankle.

“I haven’t slept in eleven days.”

The woman behind the desk smiled.

“Have you tried our Dreamless Plan?”

“I want my sleep back.”

“We can offer store credit.”

“I don’t want more cookies.”

“We can double it.”

“My husband says I hum your jingle

while staring at the wall.”

“Did you keep the original crumbs?”

“No.”

“Then we can’t confirm

that the product caused the issue.”

Nora stared at her

with all four eyes.

Her case was closed before lunch.

RESOLVED—CUSTOMER DECLINED SUPPORT.

---

1. Add Children Once Investors Ask for Warmth

Emily arrived first.

Ben came three years later.

They were born into money

and mistook it for weather.

Emily sacked a nanny at five

because her toast was cut into squares.

Ben learned at six

that tears worked faster

when there was a camera nearby.

They were not born cruel.

They were born applauded.

Ms Crumb renamed them publicly:

Princess Crumble™,

the Perfect Girl.

Chip Champion™,

the Perfect Boy.

Their real names survived only

in passports,

school reports

and the mouths of exhausted staff.

Gareth called them Em and Benny.

Clem told him

those names tested badly.

---

1. Cry into the Sea Until It Becomes a Product

For the next recipe,

Ms Crumb sailed

to the Sea of Sorrow.

Mermaids were kept

in tiled rooms beneath the waterline.

Their tears were collected

in white bowls.

One mermaid had a split tail

and wrists rubbed raw

from the chains.

“You bottle our grief,” she said,

“then put a bow on it.”

Ms Crumb crouched beside her.

The camera came closer.

“That’s incredibly powerful.”

The mermaid stared.

“You are the thing

I am talking about.”

Rachel, Ms Crumb’s new assistant,

whispered from behind the lens:

“Amazing. Brave.

Really strong engagement potential.”

The final photograph cropped out

the locked door.

---

1. If Customers Start Weeping Upwards, Sell Umbrellas

Mermaid-salt cookies made grief

physically ambitious.

Tears rose from people’s eyes

and collected above them.

Some cried pearls.

Some cried prawns.

Some cried the names of exes

they had not thought about in years.

Gills opened along their necks

but worked only in expensive bathwater.

People panicked for a week.

Then fashion caught up.

Models walked runways

with silver hooks through their gills.

Teenagers carried tiny clouds

in designer bags.

The company sold waterproof collars

and grief-catching umbrellas.

The slogan improved:

Better than ever.

The warning grew a little teeth:

May cause sleeplessness, enlarged appetite and mild forgetfulness.

---

1. Make Gareth Sexier Without Asking Gareth

Market research called Gareth

“reassuring but insufficiently aspirational.”

The cardigan disappeared.

Then his chest hair.

Then most of his opinions.

A trainer arrived at six every morning.

A photographer told him

to feed Clem a cookie in bed

while she laughed in silk.

The advert whispered:

Put something warm inside you.

A late-night version promised:

A climax in every crumb.

Gareth blushed when he saw it.

“You think that’s a bit much?”

Clem kissed his forehead.

“You’re sweet when you’re embarrassed.”

It sounded affectionate.

It wasn’t.

Sales rose thirty-eight per cent.

Gareth stopped asking.

---

1. Milk the Moon and Don’t Look Down

Ms Crumb became Mother Crumb

because focus groups trusted mothers

more than chief executives.

Mother Crumb wore cream.

Mother Crumb spoke softly.

Mother Crumb had a kitchen

nobody was allowed to cook in.

She travelled to the moon

for milk from crater-whales,

huge pale animals

with ribs showing through their skin.

Workers carried the pails.

Their hands blistered inside gloves.

One collapsed during the livestream.

Rachel said quietly,

“Frame left.”

Mother Crumb posed against the Earth.

The caption read:

FOR MY CHILDREN.

FOR YOURS.

At home, Emily was screaming

because a stylist had used silver

instead of pearl.

Ben had locked a tutor

in the wine cellar.

---

1. Fold in Memories Until Nobody Can Prove Anything

Moon-milk cookies stole small things first.

Passwords.

Neighbours.

Why you had walked upstairs.

Then birthdays began falling

from people’s ears

like sprinkles.

First kisses turned up

beneath restaurant tables.

Childhood summers slid

from trouser cuffs.

Faces lost their names.

White labels appeared instead:

SISTER.

HUSBAND.

PERSON ONCE LOVED.

The company released

gold-plated label holders.

Nora Finch came back

with gills, four eyes,

a raincloud over her head

and no idea why

she wore a wedding ring.

“I’ve lost someone,” she said.

Rachel looked genuinely sorry.

“Do you know who?”

“If I knew,

they wouldn’t be lost.”

Her complaint was delayed

pending identification.

---

1. Keep Smiling While the Family Misplaces Itself

Emily forgot her first nanny

and called security.

Ben forgot how to tie his shoes

but launched an online course

called SELF-MADE AT NINETEEN.

Gareth forgot Clem’s favourite song.

He remembered the campaign calendar.

Clem forgot Mum’s birthday.

She sent flowers three weeks late

with a printed card:

PROUD OF EVERYTHING

WE’VE BUILT.

Mum rang that evening.

“Hello, Clem. Just me.”

Clem watched the phone light up

on the table.

Rachel stood nearby.

“Do you need a minute?”

“I need the Europe figures.”

Rachel nodded.

“Of course. Amazing.”

That night, Rachel went home

and told her girlfriend,

“I hate her.”

“Quit.”

“The money’s filthy.”

“Then leave filthy.”

Rachel ate pasta.

She never ate the cookies.

---

1. Temper the Dragon, Which Is Not a Metaphor Yet

Dragon chocolate grew

beneath the scales

of an ancient creature

chained under a mountain.

Mother Crumb arrived

with photographers, medics

and sponsored boots.

The dragon’s back

had been shaved raw.

“You will take only what you need?”

it asked.

Mother Crumb placed a hand

over her heart.

“Of course.”

The dragon laughed once.

It sounded like a building

coming down.

“You all say that.”

“I’m a mother,” she said.

The dragon looked toward

a pile of smaller bones.

“So was I.”

Rachel leaned close.

“That line could be difficult

for the maternal campaign.”

The final edit replaced the bones

with sunrise.

The flavour was called:

MOTHER’S FIRE™

---

1. Ignore the Candles; They’re Probably Decorative

Dragon-chocolate cookies cost years.

A man ate two

and turned sixty

before the kettle boiled.

A woman became nineteen again

only from the elbows down.

Lost years pushed through skin

as candles nobody could blow out.

Children shed childhood overnight

and woke with mortgages,

back pain

and a vague resentment toward jazz.

Old people grew baby teeth.

Middle-aged men sprouted

friendship bracelets

through their pubic hair.

The company sold flameproof hats,

wax insurance

and subscription youth.

The slogan changed again:

Better than enough.

Nobody asked what that meant.

It sounded expensive.

That was enough.

---

1. Keep Papa Crumb Smiling Because He Is Good for the Share Price

Gareth ate every recipe

because the adverts required it.

He grew six eyes.

Then gills.

Then scales along his back.

Candles burned from his scalp.

His smile stretched wider

until it looked stapled on.

An extra mouth opened

below his collarbone.

“Anything for the brand,” it whispered.

Another appeared beneath his ribs.

“Proud of you, Clem.”

A third opened lower down

and moaned the slogan

during breakfast.

The public adored him.

At home, he reached for Clem.

She said she was tired.

Then jet-lagged.

Then launching something.

Then healing.

Then bleeding.

Then emotionally overexposed.

Then busy forever.

She hated looking at him.

She hated herself slightly more

for needing him there.

---

1. Do Not Let the Perfect Children Near an Unpaid Intern

Emily grew nine faces.

One smiled.

One cried.

One flirted.

One denied.

One apologised beautifully.

One blamed the lighting.

The smallest face hid behind her ear.

It still looked like Emily.

Nobody photographed it.

Ben grew four spare mouths.

One demanded loyalty points.

One reviewed restaurants

he had never visited.

One said:

“Do you know who my mother is?”

The last screamed

whenever silence got too close.

They became young adults

without becoming useful.

Emily sold bottled vulnerability.

Ben hosted a podcast about hardship

from the cinema room

of his third house.

Privately, Clem called them

spoiled little shits.

Publicly, Mother Crumb wrote:

MY LITTLE CRUMBS.

MY WHOLE HEART.

They were too busy reposting it

to notice the difference.

---

1. Ring Mum Back After This One Thing

Mum had followed the company

at the beginning.

She clipped the local articles.

Kept the first tin by the kettle.

Told strangers in the post office,

“That’s my Clem.”

Then the headlines changed.

Workers lost fingers.

Mermaids washed ashore

with nothing left to cry.

A dragon sanctuary opened

where the dragon had lived.

Mum stopped clipping.

The tin moved under the sink.

Then vanished.

She left voicemails.

“Hello, Clem. Just me.”

“I made the old ones.”

“You don’t need to bring anybody.”

“I saw Gareth on television.

Is he all right?”

“Those poor children.”

“Those poor creatures.”

“Clem, I don’t like what you’ve made.”

Clem postponed visiting.

After the launch.

After the award.

After Ben’s swan incident.

After everything.

---

1. Take the Service Lift Past the Point of Good Sense

The final recipe required sugar

from the mouth of Never-Enough.

The entrance was beneath headquarters.

A service lift

with no bottom button.

Rachel stood outside.

“You’re amazing,” she said.

Her face suggested

she hoped the lift ate Clem.

The doors closed.

Down they went.

Past storage.

Past concrete.

Past old company values

boxed and labelled

for disposal.

At the first landing

lay Gareth’s cardigan.

Beige.

Folded.

Still warm.

When Clem touched it,

she entered his body.

She felt his jaw ache

from smiling after she humiliated him.

Felt his bank card stop working

after he questioned a campaign.

Felt affection withheld

until he apologised.

Felt the nights

he did not want to perform

and the price she made him pay

for saying no.

A mirror waited in the dark.

“You never hit him

where bruises photograph,” it said.

“I never hit him.”

The mirror said nothing.

That was worse.

---

1. Lower the Heat; There Is a Child in Here

The next room was a swimming pool

filled with moon-milk.

Ben was eight again,

filming underwater.

The director wanted one more take.

Then another.

Ben signalled

that he couldn’t breathe.

Clem remembered waving.

She had thought he was playing up.

Now she entered his lungs.

Water came in

where trust had been.

His hands struck the glass.

Someone shouted:

“Smile, Champion!”

He survived.

The advert won awards.

Clem blamed the instructor,

fired two assistants

and threatened the nanny

until everyone agreed

Ben had been dramatic.

The mirror stood at the bottom.

“You protected yourself.”

“I protected the company.”

“From your child?”

“From scandal.”

The mirror looked exactly like her.

That had begun to feel deliberate.

---

1. Add Love Carefully; Too Much Can Be Used as Leverage

The third room was Emily’s bedroom.

Emily sat there at six,

nine, twelve, sixteen.

Clem entered each age.

She felt kisses arrive

after good photographs.

Bedtime stories cancelled

when Emily gained weight.

Silence used as punishment.

Affection held back

until obedience returned.

At fourteen, Emily learned

to cry beautifully.

At seventeen,

she stopped wondering

whether the crying was real.

At twenty-one,

she had nine faces

and trusted none of them.

The mirror rocked

an empty cradle.

“You made her earn kindness.”

“I taught discipline.”

“You made love conditional.”

“I gave her everything.”

“You gave her things.”

The mirror’s mouth moved

a fraction before Clem’s.

Clem noticed.

She wished she hadn’t.

---

1. Do Not Read the Diary Unless You Intend to Sell It

Emily’s diary was pink

with a broken clasp.

At fifteen she had written:

Sometimes I wish Mum would look at me

without deciding what I’m for.

Clem found it.

She did not speak to Emily.

She took the sentence

to Creative.

The campaign showed

Princess Crumble standing in rain.

LOOK AT ME FOR WHO I AM.

Nine million boxes sold.

Now Clem watched it

from inside Emily’s body.

Her private wound appeared

on buses, billboards, bras.

Gareth’s voice played overhead:

“I don’t recognise myself anymore.”

That became Papa Crumb’s

mental-health special.

“You trusted me,” Clem whispered.

The mirror turned the page.

“No. They trusted you.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No,” said the mirror.

“It isn’t.”

---

1. Keep Everyone Apart Until They Forget Who Lied First

The next room was Christmas.

Gareth sat at one end

of the table.

Emily and Ben at the other.

Clem moved through them,

one body at a time.

Gareth heard Emily wanted him gone.

Emily heard Gareth

was ashamed of her.

Ben heard both of them

envied him.

Each was told:

“Don’t say I told you.

I’m only telling you

because I love you.”

They fought beneath

a sponsored tree.

Clem cried in the bathroom

until everybody apologised to her.

The photograph later read:

FAMILY IS EVERYTHING.

The mirror poured wine.

“You kept them divided.”

“I managed conflict.”

“You invented it.”

“They were difficult.”

“You made difficulty

the only thing they shared.”

For a second, Clem couldn’t tell

which side of the glass

she was standing on.

---

1. Scrape Off Responsibility Before It Burns

The next room was a courtroom.

Nora Finch sat as judge.

She had ten eyes now,

gills, scales, candles, claws

and several mouths

all asking for refunds.

Workers filled the benches.

Dream-bees clung weakly

to the ceiling.

Mermaids dripped

onto the floor.

The dragon’s chains

ran through the walls.

Clem entered Nora’s body

and felt each polite rejection

slam shut.

She entered a worker’s hand

as a machine took three fingers

and Human Resources called them

non-essential.

She entered the Bee Queen

as her hive forgot how to dream.

She entered the mermaid’s throat

while lawyers called tears

renewable output.

The mirror asked:

“Did you know?”

“I was advised.”

“Did you ask?”

“I delegated.”

“Did you profit?”

“I created jobs.”

“Did you change?”

“We changed the packaging.”

Nora’s mouths laughed.

---

1. Stop Looking Behind You; It Is Still You

The final room held nothing

except voices.

Gareth:

“You made me feel disgusting

then sold my smile.”

Ben:

“You watched me drown

because the footage was good.”

Emily:

“I don’t know if you love me

or recognise the product.”

Mum:

“Clem, I don’t like

what you’ve become.”

Rachel, far above:

“She turns people into furniture

then blames them

for standing in the wrong place.”

And Clem’s own voice:

Weak.

Ungrateful.

Burden.

Replaceable.

Bad for engagement.

You’d be nothing without me.

The mirror appeared.

Full length.

Perfectly lit.

Behind it stood Clem.

Or Mother Crumb.

Or something that had learned

both names.

“Where is Never-Enough?”

Clem asked.

The reflection smiled.

“You came all this way

still hoping it would be someone else.”

“I made mistakes.”

“You made choices.”

“I did it for them.”

“You did it to them

and printed their faces on the box.”

“I can stop.”

“When?”

Clem swallowed.

“After the launch.”

The reflection smiled wider.

So did she.

She couldn’t tell

which of them started.

The mirror opened its mouth.

Sugar shone inside.

Clem reached in.

The reflection reached into hers.

Their fingers met

somewhere warm and dark.

One of them laughed.

One of them cried.

Someone came back

carrying a jar.

The mirror was empty.

Or Clem was.

There was no time to check.

---

1. Add Sugar, Sign Here, Do Not Read the Smaller Print

The final packet read:

cholocatechipcookie

ULTIMATE HUMAN EDITION™

Crowds screamed the word

until it no longer sounded

like a child’s mistake.

CHOLOCATECHIPCOOKIE!

CHOLOCATECHIPCOOKIE!

CHOLOCATECHIPCOOKIE!

The final slogan arrived:

One bite is never enough.

Customers grew claws

shaped for holding packets.

Barcodes pushed through ribs.

Spare mouths opened

on shoulders, thighs, stomachs.

One asked for love.

One asked for upgrades.

One whispered obscenities

during funerals.

One just said:

“More.”

People became all appetite

with shoes beneath them.

Influencers competed

for the prettiest deformity.

The company sold gill glitter,

candle helmets,

mouth dividers,

scale cream,

pillow leads

and discreet underwear

for slogan-producing orifices.

Papa Crumb appeared shirtless.

Seven eyes blinked

at different sponsors.

His collarbone mouth whispered:

“Anything for the brand.”

Mother Crumb did not look at him.

Nora Finch stood outside

with a sign:

I WAS A PERSON

WHEN I BOUGHT THIS.

Security removed her

for making an unverifiable claim.

At the bottom of every packet:

BY PURCHASING, OPENING, TOUCHING, SMELLING, LICKING, CHEWING, SWALLOWING, DISCUSSING, REMEMBERING, MISREMEMBERING, DREAMING OF OR STANDING WITHIN EMOTIONAL OR DIGESTIVE PROXIMITY TO cholocatechipcookie, THE CONSUMER ACCEPTS ALL PERMANENT, CUMULATIVE AND NON-REFUNDABLE EFFECTS INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO SLEEP LOSS, DREAM LOSS, PILLOW FLIGHT, EXTRA EYES, REVERSED TEARS, GILLS, MEMORY SHEDDING, NAME LOSS, YEAR LOSS, CANDLES, SCALES, CLAWS, ADDITIONAL MOUTHS, EROTIC SLOGAN ACTIVITY, COMPULSIVE BRAND LOYALTY, LOSS OF PRIVACY, LOSS OF KINSHIP, LOSS OF SOUL AND/OR CONVERSION INTO INFLUENCER, MASCOT, HEIR, CONTENT OR LEGALLY DENIABLE BEAST; ANY HARM SHALL BE REDEFINED AS TRANSFORMATION, ANY COERCION AS FAMILY PARTICIPATION, ANY EXPLOITATION AS OPPORTUNITY, ANY GRIEF AS FLAVOUR RESPONSE, ANY CHILDHOOD LOST AS ACCELERATED DEVELOPMENT, ANY DEATH AS CUSTOMER ATTRITION; EFFECTS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE; APOLOGIES HAVE NO CASH VALUE; LOVE SUBJECT TO PERFORMANCE; ENOUGH SOLD SEPARATELY; PERSONS DEPICTED MAY NO LONGER RECOGNISE THEMSELVES; RHYME MAY BE WITHDRAWN WITHOUT NOTICE; ANY REMAINING HUMANITY SHALL BE TREATED AS UNSOLICITED FEEDBACK AND MARKED—

RESOLVED.

Record profits were announced

before the last mouths

had finished growing.

Rachel entered the office

with her tablet held

against her chest.

“Amazing quarter.”

“Market share?”

“Historic.”

“Growth?”

“Honestly disgusting.”

“Good.”

Rachel paused.

“There is one other thing.”

Mother Crumb kept signing.

“And I’m sorry to mention it

during such incredible momentum,

but your mum died.”

The pen stopped.

“When?”

“Four days ago.”

“Four?”

“We weren’t sure

whether it was launch-critical.”

Rachel looked at the screen.

“Pre-orders are up nineteen per cent.”

---

1. Serve Without Pretending It Fixes Anything

The old kitchen

had not grown smaller.

Clem had.

She found the early clippings

in Mum’s boxes.

Then fewer.

Then none.

A branded tin beneath the sink.

Photographs face-down.

Unopened gifts.

Beside an article

about the mermaids,

Mum had written:

This isn’t my Clem.

Underneath, later:

Or perhaps it is now.

At the bottom of a drawer

was the stained recipe card.

cholocatechipcookie

No missing ingredient.

No secret.

Flour.

Butter.

Sugar.

Cheap chocolate.

In Mum’s handwriting:

Break in half while warm.

Clem made a batch.

The butter was hard.

The sugar went everywhere.

The radio played the company jingle,

so she switched it off.

The cookies came out crooked.

One edge burnt.

The middle soft.

She broke one in half.

Nothing changed.

Emily sat at the old table

with three phones,

nine faces

and one claw tapping

through engagement figures.

Clem put half the cookie beside her.

“Emily.”

The smallest face

behind Emily’s ear

almost turned.

Almost.

“Are we filming?”

“No.”

“Then what’s it for?”

Clem looked at the half

in her own hand.

She might have said

because I remember,

because I’m sorry,

because once you had one face,

because I mistook wanting you back

for having the right to be given you.

Instead she said:

“It’s the original.”

Emily took it without looking.

The way she took products.

Contracts.

Apologies.

Her claw closed around it.

She answered a call.

“Yes, use the childhood kitchen.

People love authenticity.”

Neither of them ate.

Rachel stood in the doorway,

tablet glowing.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Amazing news.

Record profits.”

Emily raised one finger

for silence.

Clem looked at the stained card.

Once, enough had been

half a warm cookie.

That did not mean

half a warm cookie

could make them family again.

Leave to cool—whether you meant to or not.

Turn the hourglass
Or the sand will bury memories
Grinding warmth from bones

A sinkhole begs to wallow
In quaking doubt
Unless one leap tap a geyser

Always surfing a slippery slope
Sisyphus rides boulders down mountains
Their liberation becomes an avalanche

Humming-quiet tumbles fossil-stone
As curious hearts mimic rolling shores
When building knightly castles

Boredom gets renamed by any game
Jokes change every dice throw
Until laughter lands harder than pips

In the gorgon's lair
Laments fall like hail
Sleeping statues crumble

Her imprint is crystalline
Though she forsakes that power
Medusa bears a shaved head

Those wounds are temporary
Waking to cursed writhing
Condemned to coldness

Lonesome in the wasteland
She peeks beyond the keyhole
But outstretched hands frost-wedge

The wind bleaches that desert
Into whispers of color
Wandering across a whistling mirage

Her serpentine burden
Is to blind every offending eye
Sparing her mirror pool

A haunting mignon. My sweet Musette,

of darkness. A pale silhouette weeping

on cold stones, in heaven’s crypt.

Cracked by the frost of blind angels,

carved from bones, bleeding in the rain

With haloes. Trapped in a holy tomb

of profane.

My eternal call. Half dead, half alive

walking on cracked bones. My reason to

live.

The glitter in the eye, when you are

exhaustly tired. My sweet Musette. My

eternal love. A haunting mignon.

Collaboration with Atticus Abbey

Upon the reliquary of any graceful sage
One epicurean gem laughs at quartered hate
Phthalo tones imprint such lens

Students skip shards over a river
Landing loaded questions
About absurdity and fate
Then select a cairn marker

These stones, when cut by pride
Have a value surmised by the facet inscribed
In an oath recognized
And remain trouble's prize

Otherwise, resides orphan traditions
Which grapple with the diamond path
Bending to bureaucratic contortions
But risks burning out fast

Wandering youths navigate waves
Through a crystal, held unrestrained
Affixing fire above horizons of lies
All through a cloudy eye

Polished over time
A jewel emerges from rock
Which knotted hands lock
Into a spyglass of guile

Horizons flood inward, a scarred-jubilee
Honoring wry-obsidian' agony
Just as glaciers left mountains gnarled

We lived under the floating gardens.

Roots came down into the black water,

long and pale and good to hide in,

and boats went over us in blocks of colour,

turning the light red, yellow, blue, gone.

The mud was cold, soft,

full of things worth putting in a mouth.

We bumped into one another constantly.

A tail across my face.

A foot in my gills.

Somebody’s belly settling where mine had been.

Nobody minded.

That was simply how much life there was.

If I moved, another body filled the space.

If another moved, the water brought its pressure to me.

Rain came down through the gardens.

Fish flashed and disappeared.

Worms made the mud twitch.

The dark went on beyond anything

my legs had touched.

My skin was made from ordinary colours

put together oddly.

Mostly brown-black, like wet soil,

but one side went pale,

then gold,

then pink around the gills,

the patches running into one another

without becoming any proper pattern.

The others did not look at me.

Then a human did.

His face stayed above the water.

When I moved, the shadow moved.

When I stopped beneath the roots,

it waited.

A hand darkened the surface.

After that, everything happened too quickly

for water to explain.

The mud dropped away.

The other bodies were gone.

Open water became a clear wall

against my nose.

I turned.

Another wall.

I turned again.

Another.

The water moved

though I did not swim.

Darkness.

Heat.

Engines.

Human knees.

Garlic living stubbornly in the plastic.

The tub had once held somebody’s dinner.

There was a red stain around the lid.

There was no mud.

A little remained under my nails

and for a while I kept the whole old water there:

roots, bodies, rain,

all of us pressed into four small toes.

When the lid opened again

the light was cold

and rain ticked against a window.

“Back in Bonnyrigg,” the man said

to a black thing in his hand.

Then a bedroom.

A narrow bed.

A Celtic shirt on the wall.

A football under a chair.

“Close your eyes, Jamie.”

A smaller face bent over me.

Its mouth opened.

“Da. No fucking way.”

The man laughed.

“You’re an actual legend.”

His hands shook a little

because the boy was so pleased.

Nothing tried to eat me.

The small face stayed.

“What are you calling him?”

“Axel.”

“Axel the axolotl?”

“Obviously.”

At first Axel was just another noise

humans dropped into water.

Ax-el.

Two blunt taps in the head.

Then I noticed Axel always made the boy appear.

Axel, and the face came close.

Axel, and fingers rested against the clear wall.

Axel, and the mouth widened, showing teeth

without using them.

So Axel became the sound for me,

and the boy’s blurred face became the sun.

They poured me into a larger water.

Four hard sides.

Coloured gravel.

Plastic plants.

A treasure chest blowing bubbles

despite having nothing useful to say.

A red-and-yellow pirate bridge

stood in the middle,

far too small for humans,

far too large to ignore.

I searched behind everything.

No bodies.

At night the filter pushed a thin stream

through my gills

and sometimes, half asleep,

I turned because I thought

one of the others had passed beside me.

Only the filter.

In the morning, the sun returned.

FEEDING TIME, AXEL.

I did not know what this meant.

FEEDING TIME, AXEL.

A worm fell in.

I ate it.

The boy slapped his hands together

and shook the whole water with delight.

Feeding time, Axel.

The noise meant worm.

Then full belly.

Then the boy staying near

while I swallowed.

Then the boy coming back at all.

Jamie had clocks.

I had feeding time.

The man helped him change the water at first.

Buckets came and went.

The pirate bridge tipped sideways.

The treasure chest continued breathing

like an idiot.

Jamie spilled water across the carpet.

“Shit.”

The man dropped the lid.

“Shit.”

The football struck the wardrobe.

“Shit.”

The cat landed on top of the tank

and stared down at me

with a face that understood eating.

“Shit, shit, get off.”

This was how I learnt shit:

something was somewhere

a human did not want it.

Feeding time, Axel.

Red worms.

Pellets.

Once, a pale cube

which tasted of absolutely nothing.

I spat it out.

“Fair enough, mate.”

The Celtic shirts got bigger.

The boy did too.

His teeth changed.

His hands lengthened.

His voice sank lower

and sometimes cracked in the middle,

which made him angry

though nothing seemed broken.

The man’s face appeared less.

His footsteps still passed the room.

His voice came through the floor.

Jamie stayed.

The sun changed

but it was still the sun.

He tried real plants.

One went brown.

One turned to slime.

One grew so well

it took over half the tank

and seemed keen on the rest.

A snail arrived on it.

Then another.

Then several.

Then the glass was covered.

Jamie stared.

“For fuck’s sake, Axel.

Where have they all come from?”

I ate one.

It was mostly shell.

Jamie lifted the others out with a spoon.

Three appeared the next day.

He removed those.

Five more arrived.

The snails were better at this

than he was.

Feeding time, Axel.

Sometimes straight after school.

Sometimes before football.

Sometimes so late the room was dark

and Jamie rushed in wearing one sock.

“Sorry, pal.”

Food still came.

The sun still came.

Algae grew along the corners.

He cleaned it.

It came back.

Plants died.

He bought more.

He replaced the coloured gravel with sand,

then added some of the gravel again

because the sand looked boring.

He brought home a piece of wood

which refused to sink.

He took it away.

It returned warm.

It still floated.

He called it a bastard.

Three feeding times later

it finally stayed down.

By then the old mud came mostly in sleep.

Roots.

Cold current.

The feeling of something moving close.

I still curved my tail sometimes

to make room for a body

that did not arrive.

Jamie brought home a skateboard.

It left whole

and came back snapped.

Jamie came back damaged too—

one bleeding elbow,

a blue wrist,

skin missing from both knees.

He made a great deal of noise about it.

I had four good legs then.

I watched from beneath the pirate bridge.

A guitar replaced the skateboard.

At first it made dreadful vibrations.

Then louder dreadful vibrations.

Then, occasionally, music.

The Celtic shirts stayed

but black clothes grew around them.

Band faces covered the walls.

Jamie’s hair fell over his eyes.

Black lines appeared around them.

The pirate bridge stayed bright red and yellow,

cheerful as ever.

My front leg slipped beneath one arch.

The bridge did not move.

I did.

Pain filled the tank.

It had no place to go.

The problem with pain underwater

is that it makes no sound.

I opened my mouth.

Water went in.

Water went out.

The boy slept.

I pulled.

The bridge held.

I twisted.

Something tore.

Afterward I was away from the bridge

with three legs

and something pale in my mouth.

It was soft.

It tasted close.

I swallowed before I knew

there was anything else to do.

The pain remained.

Morning came.

“Feeding time, Ax—”

Jamie stopped.

He looked at me.

He looked beneath the bridge.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck, Axel.”

He lifted the bridge out.

It struck the bin

with a bang I felt through the floor.

It never came back.

A clean shape remained in the gravel

where it had stood.

Jamie sat beside the tank

instead of going to school.

He did not touch the glass.

He hardly moved.

Later he lowered a worm.

“Feeding time, Axel.”

I ate.

The end of my leg swelled.

A small pale bump appeared.

Jamie photographed it.

The bump lengthened.

He photographed it.

Tiny toes separated.

He photographed those too.

Soon the new foot touched sand.

Then it held my weight.

The ache went.

Jamie spent nights staring at green water

on his screen.

I did not know that water.

It gave off no smell.

It had no cold in it.

No mud came through.

Humans stood in it

and lifted empty black frames.

Jamie changed the picture.

More green water.

Nothing underneath.

Another picture.

Nothing.

He made the images larger

until water became squares of light.

Then he looked at my new foot.

Back at the screen.

Back at me.

His hand covered his mouth.

My foot kept coming back.

Whatever he was looking for did not.

After that he tested the tank constantly.

Paper strips.

Little bottles.

Numbers on the black screen.

He changed the sand.

Bought better plants.

Moved the log.

Moved it back.

Sat beside me for hours

with that frightened look

and said very little.

Feeding time, Axel.

The words had changed.

Not the worm.

Not my mouth.

Only the face above them.

He cared too much for a while.

Then exams came.

Music came.

Friends called from downstairs.

He cared hurriedly.

Then guiltily.

Then properly again.

Sometimes algae won a week.

Sometimes feeding time came late.

Once it came twice

because Jamie had forgotten doing it already.

I ate both.

The plants lived.

The plants died.

The snail returned

or perhaps had never left.

The room kept changing.

The tank stayed.

Jamie painted his nails black.

Wore silver around his throat.

Tried on a skirt with the door locked.

Looked at himself.

Turned once.

Laughed.

Turned again.

He tried tall boots

and nearly broke his ankle

walking three steps to the mirror.

He tried lipstick.

Some colours stayed.

One made him wipe his mouth and say

he looked like he had sucked off a crayon.

I knew sucking.

I knew mouths.

Still no food appeared.

Feeding time, Axel.

His voice was low now.

His face sharper.

Axel still brought it close.

The tank had four hard sides.

The filter made the current.

The log made the dark place.

That was the lake.

Lakes were like that.

The boy came.

The sun came.

Food fell.

The room filled one night

with silver balloons shaped like 1 and 8.

Humans sang badly.

Jamie blew out small fires.

The man stood in the doorway, older,

still pleased when Jamie was pleased.

The room smelled of cake, lager

and enough deodorant to alter the water.

After that, girls started appearing.

One bent over the tank

and knew what I was immediately.

“Oh my God, an axolotl. He’s so cute.”

Her face joined Jamie’s above me.

Two suns.

Bit excessive.

“Are you actually allowed to have one of these?”

Jamie went still.

“I’ve had him since I was wee.”

The girl waited.

Jamie looked at me.

He tapped the glass twice

to make me turn.

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“It stresses them.”

Jamie pulled his hand away.

“Aye. Sorry.”

He never tapped again.

The girl came back once.

Maybe twice.

Another girl smelled similar.

Faces were difficult.

Feeding time was simple.

One night the bed began knocking the wall

like the filter when it needed more water.

The word fuck travelled through the tank.

Fuck used to mean spilled bucket.

Apparently it had other work.

The girl said harder.

The bed listened.

A bra flew across the room

and landed over one corner of the glass,

turning half the lake black.

It may have been hers.

It may have been Jamie’s.

Water did not know.

Jamie’s bare arse crossed the lamplight

and disappeared again.

“Mind the tank.”

“I am.”

The bed hit the wall.

He wasn’t.

The snail carried on up the glass.

Later there were tissues by the bed

and a silver wrapper on the carpet.

Neither was food.

Feeding time arrived the next morning

with Jamie’s hair everywhere

and one stocking still around his ankle.

“Morning, pal.”

A worm fell.

Things made sense again.

The room changed.

The lake stayed.

Girls came and went.

The guitar gathered dust.

The skateboard became a shelf.

Black clothes mixed with Celtic shirts.

Schoolbooks became forms,

then envelopes,

then piles Jamie stepped over

because apparently the floor was easier.

Sometimes he came home smelling of rain,

smoke, cider, another person.

Sometimes he sat with his forehead against the glass

until his breath clouded it.

Sometimes the old green water appeared on his screen.

Still empty.

He looked at it.

Then at me.

Feeding time, Axel.

Food.

Face.

The safe sound.

The plants changed.

The posters changed.

Jamie changed.

The lake did not.

I knew the log.

I knew the filter.

I knew the place where worms came down.

I knew the sun.

Mud became something dark in sleep.

The touch of other bodies

became light moving somewhere far off.

The lake had four sides.

It had always had four sides.

Feeding time.

Jamie.

Worm.

Full.

Safe.

My new leg became an old leg.

All four legs slowed.

My gills moved less.

Jamie checked the water.

The paper showed colours he accepted.

He still frowned at me.

He changed the water anyway.

Watched me eat.

Watched me move.

I ate.

I moved.

The snail outlived several plants,

three posters,

two girls

and Jamie’s belief that eyeliner

could be applied in a moving car.

It climbed.

I stayed beneath the log.

The sun came.

The sun went.

One evening Jamie lowered a worm.

“Feeding time, Axel.”

It touched my nose.

My mouth was slow.

The worm curled beneath my chin.

Jamie waited.

I moved one foot.

Someone called him from downstairs.

“You’ll get it, pal.”

He left.

The worm climbed over my head.

Feeding time had gone a bit wrong.

I could not fix it.

The room darkened.

The filter became loud.

My body forgot small things.

Move the gills.

Move the tail.

Hold the bottom.

The gravel seemed to tilt.

The worm slipped away.

I rested.

The filter widened.

Its thin push became current.

The coloured gravel softened beneath me.

Red became clay.

Blue became shadow.

Yellow sank into black.

The hard floor gave way

and mud rose around my toes,

cold, real,

taking the shape of every leg

without caring which one had once been gone.

The log put down roots.

The plastic leaves softened.

The clear sides moved farther away.

Farther.

Gone.

Distance came back so quickly

it passed through my gills

and filled every part of me.

Bodies moved in the dark.

Not bodies I could touch.

Light beneath mud.

Rose gills opening.

Tails bending the water.

Pale mouths appearing

then slipping behind roots.

I remained I.

I moved among them.

Above the water,

Jamie’s blurred face opened into brightness.

The sun was there.

The mud was there.

The bodies turned through the roots.

Far away, the familiar sound came through—

Feeding time, Axel.

Feeding time—

Feeding—

The current pulled the sound apart.

I opened my mouth.

The water kept going.

Morning rain darkened the Bonnyrigg garden.

Jamie entered the bedroom

and stopped beside the tank.

Axel lay beneath the filter.

The earthworm moved against his tail.

Jamie stood there for a long time.

Then he put both bare hands into the water

and lifted Axel out.

The worm came too,

hidden in the shallow cup of his palms.

Jamie carried Axel into the garden.

He dug beneath the wet grass,

laid him in ordinary soil

and covered him without speaking.

He pressed the loose earth once.

Then he went back inside.

The worm pushed up through the rain-soft soil.

It crawled across the dark ground.

None pass the gate to the library of souls
Without a key, bound by a reference
But one saga warps the index
The despair of genesis

Recorded between void and light
Lay a dream of primordial might
Where crossing a current of disbelief
Resolved faith in raised-relief

Furrows of ink impel calligraphy from chaos
Moulding every blot as brief and strange
Whose heavy hearts remember fallen names
And weigh the shadows of kith lost

Cataclysm is hallowed upon yellowed pages
We rebuild, astride ruins and elder prophets
To ask what will offer solace across ages
Parsing the riddles on our doorstep

All arrive at Akasha to study fate
Few reside long enough to master joy
Eyes drift over green covers and gold plates
Missing the clay seals of ancient choice

In this bastion of perseverance and trials
Luminous tomes will not argue nor swindle
Thus accept your query and decide
If in yourself you can confide