Layers of Zoe (Page 3)

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Air

After a True Farce The hearing began at 10:07. There was a brief delay: someone had parked in the magistrate’s space and left a peach yoghurt behind. We stood. The judge entered sideways, adjusting her robe as if betrayed by it. The clerk intoned the case number, an

A number of pieces are being evaluated. Evaluation is unevenly distributed.

Don't Embarrass Me

‘How awful it was, thought Tessa, remembering Fats the toddler, the way tiny ghosts of your living children haunted your heart; they could never know, and would hate it if they did, how their growing was a constant bereavement.’ – J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy The ghost is small. Still

Gnossienne of Rain

A bead falls beadlet falls beadfall again hush gathers hush hush gathers again stillness leans stillness leant stillness leaning waits B low drift low drifting low drift lower shadow hums shadow hush hushes again A bead falls beadlet falling beadfall again again once more fracture once more echo once more

#27. Note to Self.

The corridor hosted a rehearsal a play drafted in absence. Props included: a vending machine, two shadows, poor timing. A correction entered the scene dressed as punctuation. It was too sharp, and the marble floor feigned offence. Later, the archive misfiled the event under meteorological anomalies. In the margin, faintly:

Unphotographable Porto

She’s up early. Breath like stone dust. The streets are wet, always – from rain, from hosepipes, from the river breathing uphill. A crane grinds, coughs steel into the mist. Laundry strung like rosaries, a dog beneath blue tiles, a grandmother climbing cobbles with her shopping. Tiles crack. Paint flakes.

The Elections are Punctual.

The world has not entered a new chapter. It has remembered an old one. Power has changed clothes. This season: cruelty in neutral tones. Someone is always explaining why this is not the same as last time. The clever say polycrisis. The tired say it was always like this. The

#26. Still in Beta.

She corrected the angle of paintings in other people’s houses. The tilt of walls briefly steadied. The chair judged her manner blunt. The window mistook her for weather. The floor, which had carried her the longest, stayed silent. The machine, still in beta, sent a word for it. It

Orcas, Tuesday.

The orcas have formed a committee. The port authority says it's temporary. The whales disagree. They've established a perimeter, clockwise, with the efficiency of customs officials who've grown fond of their new regulations. Tuesday: they capsized the German yacht. Friday: reviewed the Swedes. Saturday:

Not everything is meant to arrive at once.

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