VIOLIN STRINGS

The world takes on a super-real tinge after the third glass of sharp, could-be-colder white. Periphery sounds rising and falling like violin strings, played too close to your face. A woman swoops forward on the park swing, the unoiled metal’s rhythmic squawk filling the air. Knees locked, legs ruler straight into the breeze and out, into the breeze and back, into the breeze and down.

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Down underground: “We were only there to look at the Stonehenge”, Putin’s would-be assailants claim on the front page written six times over on the hissing tube carriage. I rearrange my legs and shoes to look nonchalant to the balding older man sat opposite who has glanced over and is about to glance back, longer, longingly. He doesn’t.

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The yawn of the lady at the extreme end of the carriage catches at the back of my throat, underneath my jaw. I scratch nail against nail, chipped chemical pink. Neon against the skin of my hands: pink, yellow, warm. “This is Gloucester Road”, she announces to the hollow cylinder of quiet faces. My tongue feels dry against my teeth. My mouth filled with a warm breeze over sand.