The carpets in the Trucker’s motel were dark red. At least, at the edges. The middle section all the way from the front door to the vending machine to the lift to the staircase up the stairs to the bedrooms was threadbare and grey like scar tissue over an old wound.
Red for warmth, red for class. Red for easy to clean after a violent crime.
throw your airplane from your bedroom window at midnight
The flowers are lilies today and they are replaced every day and that makes me smile and I wonder who does that. This is the room of flowers because there are flowers on the mantlepiece too. Under that, a flat screen TV and games console and pretend homework out on the dinner table with pens and exercise books and a fake spilled glass of water.
Here’s how the room’s laid out. That sliding window? That’s where Hannah sits. She has a bell that says ring for attention and she has a fake wedding ring that’s just for attention and she has a wooden holder full of timetables and she has a sickly positive outlook on the world that drives Rosa insane because Rosa is jealous because Rosa thinks Hannah thinks Hannah will live forever.
• bookshop
- - the map place
• new year’s eve
The market like a fishing net. The market at the surface. The market arching from a crane. The people like flapping fish. Squirming, slipping, sliding over and over and under and over. Opening their mouths for air.
The sky like an empty stove. Red hot and ready to burst.
The sky like an alert. The sky needs a pan.
Sometimes the world is so ugly that your heart cowers in the darkest corner it can find. It covers its face and weeps.
Circle the words you fall for.
Underline everything you want to remember.
You’ll be at home on a Saturday night flicking through the free ads.
You’ll be sending the waiter back with the wine.
You’ll be the deer in the woods and if you’re not moving, I’ll kill you.
Let me tell you a story, because I can’t deal with the silence. I’m going to talk to you and if you can hear me, blink that star over there. The one that looks a little blue.
I’m going to talk until you blink.
Glue.
Men in blue overalls.
Paralysis.
Panic.
“My darling” she said, rubbing the stains of a shirt with a butter-coloured bar of soap, “No matter how small you are, you will always have your father’s shoulders. You can look all horrors in the eye and they will never forget you.”
She checked the coin return slot of the arcade machine and walked out through the sliding doors. I’ll never forget that walk. That carefree stride with a backing of Everybody Hurts.
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Daisy reached down and kissed me on the cheek. She touched her lips to my ear and whispered keep it safe before pulling the night sky around her like a blanket.
Maybe some of those things helped one person feel less alone. Maybe someone somewhere felt that the world became a little less scary. I don’t know but I know in my bones that I’m not done trying.