SUNLIGHT
The world’s finally cooling down. Flu season. Today I went running alongside the river to catch some vitamin D while all this is going down and we’re locked in our houses with no room to think. The river was a shining cut through the city and the tree leaves were that golden colour they get when haloed by sunset, and up at the park in front of me where kids used to climb and wrestle and cry when they fell over there was a large man yelling. He was yelling at everyone around, yelling: Keep your distance, please, stay away from each other, like a cop or a fascist, and he pointed at a couple—two young lovers holding hands as they walked slow in the afternoon sun, savouring their time together before going back to their families and to texting each other instead of stealing small kisses—this large man yelled at them: D’you live with each other? Cause if you don’t live with each other, you can’t be doing that. What he said was true in England, but not here. Not here yet. A shot of heartburn stopped me running, popped up probably on account of eating like a teen again while back at my parents’ place, and I watched the couple withdraw touch from each other and speed their pace away from the large man, and I watched the sun collapse over the horizon, and I saw that man go quiet and collapse back into his body across the paint-flecked myrtle bench as if returning, after some brief moment of escape, to a state of deep isolation he wished he understood.