picked it up & have kept it

Written by Cathoel Jorss, published 11 years ago

Walking along a quiet street feeling grumpy I heard a loud, juicy burst of fat laughter. Coming towards me was a man on his phone, shortish, gleaming, African, with laughter rolling through him, like a wisp of weed rolling in the sandy sea. Further down the street I saw a dog waiting in the laundromat, wistful with big eyes turned to the door, and passed a middle-aged punk whose hair had almost entirely balded away. But he had worked the few strands growing over his forehead into a messy quiff, stiffened with product but still with his own native old man’s/little boy’s curls escaping, as though he were saying to Death “You’ll never take me alive.” Coming back to the house I found a small square of white paper stuck to the cobblestones, entirely blank on both sides, and I picked it up and have kept it.