Frank Golden had a new bag. He surveyed his room, seeking to find something to put inside. A pen! He put the pen inside. Everyone needs a pen. Then he saw a better pen, one that was less likely to leak and mess up his new bag. So he took the old pen out, put it in Grandma’s mug, and put the new one in. Lunch! He slid a Wispa between the zippers, shortly followed by a carton of ribena. He didn’t dare put his sandwich in, due to fear of spillage. So he carried that. Next time, he thought, I’ll make less sploshy food, so I can put it in my new bag. He threw in a red hat, a book about things, and some hand sanitiser, and topped it up to the brim with air, so that it was full.

In Greenwood, Seattle there is an unlocked car on a quiet street. The assumption is that the owner, whoever that may be, has just popped out for a bit, and will be back any time. As weeks go by, the car is painted with summer dust. The residents think, oh, whoever owns that unlocked car, and is about to come back, wouldn’t want it to be dirty! So they take it in turns to wash it. The children buff the hubcaps. A cat sits in the car to keep its heart warm while the owner is away, atop a blanket, of course, lest any stray hairs fall upon the upholstery.

An octopus holds seven bananas high above her head, one for each spare arm, the eighth being of course necessary for peeling. If she had picked up eight bananas from the store, she would certainly have had a hard time skinning them, and she might perhaps be stuck holding bananas high above her head, like some perverse aquatic chandelier, forever. And that wouldn’t be a nice way to live, she thinks to herself, as she sets about peeling her meal.

Barefoot, I clambered onto the countertop, shimmied toward the door, leapt through onto the carpet, which I presumed the shards had not reached, and fetched young Henry from the airing cupboard. “Henry,” I said, “I’ve got a treat for you!”. Henry stared blankly, stunned still by excitement, I imagine, as he tends to be when tantalised with the prospect of a delicious mess. I guided him toward the centre of the kitchen, and watched him slurp up the goodies, leaving but a sticky Ribena memory on the tiles.

What if I were a telephone? Would you hold me close to your face, pressed against your ear, and speak quietly? Would you say things like “Kung po king prawn and egg fried rice please”, or “39 Princes Street to Queen’s Gardens”, or “I’d like to update my policy details”? Or would you say “I’ll be 10 minutes late”, or “See you next week!”. Maybe you’d just say “Hey. It’s me”. That’s all I would need, if I were a telephone.

A writer starts a story backward. She begins, or ends, with the first word, which is of course the last word. The word is “paint”. She permits herself a terminal full stop. “paint.”

She puts in a next word. Or a previous word. Not sure. “dry”.

A comma. It’s unclear where she’s heading with this one, or where she would have been coming from.

“cold”

“the”

You, delivered by boat, to now, slept below deck, forgetting you were above the sea, held high above the ocean bed by entwined, long, wet arms, passing your tin can among themselves and forwards. You climb up above, dizzy, you look through your telescope, to behind, far away, it looks small, and perfect from here, you forget why you left, why you set off, or whether you even did at all. You peer overboard at the cold blanket below, glance upward at the canopy of cloud above and catch a survivor from the sun. You ponder how  many sunsets and sunrises and islands and attolls you missed during your hours or weeks or months asleep in your cabin. You take the wheel, ready to search for land.

“A house does not cease to be a house through knowledge of its bricks. To decompose an idea, or an observation, and explain it in terms of smaller cogs turning together does not nullify the existence of the whole. One could say that nothing really matters, we are all just atoms, that love doesn’t exist, or that our thoughts and dreams are just patterns of neural fireworks, our behaviours just stable equilibria of evolution. But that would be saying the sea is not the sea, because it is made of water.” — K. Elamo