you cannot feed someone truth

2 (actually index). two is company

It Will Get Lighter

Pimlico Rats

Like the tide, it comes in and it washes over the beach. It's beautiful. But like the tide it goes out, sometimes it goes out further than it ever has, it recedes back across the beach and further out beyond the horizon. The bare seabed opens up in front of you and all you can do is look at it.

...

and so on. not wanting the rhyming / clanging

He was a proper old-fashioned London geezer (cringe word, hate it, can't think of a better one, worst of all it's the correct word), kind of East Endy, kind of Real London, the kind you don't really meet but if you do it always feels like an uncanny immersive theatre experience. They're anachronistic. They only belong in the London collectively imagined by people who don't spend any time in it.

But seriously, thank you, Jack, for telling me that I could submit this to a high-level literary magazine or creative nonfiction outlet with some minor tweaks. I don't think I will do that.

I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.

Thank you, Jack

I catch him on his way to the bar, telling him about this old racist failed actor that I'm avoiding. That I'm failing to confront. I get the sense he's avoiding people too. We get our drinks and find a corner. We chat for a bit. He's managing just fine.

As we're stood there I notice a middle-aged woman staring at us across the room. I'm trying to catch her gaze, but its kind of vacant. I guess she sees me looking and considers it to be an invitation. She floats over to us in this strange dazed way, and on the approach I realise she's staring at (through?) my Korean colleague / fresh meat. She's saying wow, wow, wow. She seems genuinely so delighted, so shocked, so elated.

Thank you, Jack, for telling me I'm just as bad as the characters (actually they're people, if that means anything to you) that I'm writing about.

have you read

way too random but already engaging. i want to explore it

i really havent

Maybe, Jack, I'm doing this because I'm English?

Slug

It Will Get Lighter

was it worth it

this will be about a slug

wait what is that

December 2025

nope. i only remember the leaves bristling behind the window during chemistry class

i hadn't considered this pedagogically or as a kind of personal knowledge management system (puke) at all but i suppose it is both of those things