We used to sit around with milkshakes, watching the world pass by under a bursting sun. Surrounded by a busy urban world with the fingers of nature poking up between the cracks, the days grew warmer and the skies clearer.
There was a brief moment of collective euphoria while we all lounged out in the dizzy heat and crawled away into siestas at the zenith of the day.
By inches, though it seemed to come all at once, the cogs of the world expanded under the withering heat, jammed, and came to a violent halt.
We careened forward, carrying the momentum of the old world through as if the whole thing hadn't just come to a stop. We were thrown through the windshield.
The ones that survived are still picking the glass out of their skin.
Paddy Dobson
11th June 2022