Nothing Could Be More Like Life Than What We Were Watching

“This is it,” you said. “This is what hope becomes after you lose it.”

We were staring at a field of weeds and brown grass. A worn path travelled across it.

“That path,” I said, “has seen better days, as have I.”

“That field,” you said, but didn’t finish.

Then a dog wandered into the centre of the field and peed. He was a harmless old thing, used to being unmolested and fed.

Someone large and wearing a black cape and hood came next and strode headlong down the path as if on an urgent mission, passing by the dog that now lay cowering on its back.

“Lost hope must look like a grainy black-and-white film,” you said, “with death striding across every frame.”

A woman’s screams were then heard from a house across the field. We knew she was young, Swedish, beautiful, and had ground glass into her vagina because her tiresome husband in 1888 was once again demanding his tiresome right ...

“There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone,” I said.