There is a pause. She ashes her cigarette. It falls on me. It seems like the birds have stopped too.

yes

you know who you are. no more time, not like

1

. way too specific.

i understand

isaac newton

plato

no i haven't really read anything

We look out over the river to a block of luxury flats built on the site of some old docks. It would be nice to live right there. Yes. The conversation drifts to the pleasantness of warm lighting and whether anyone needs a smart home. I interrupt her to make a joke about the French Raj as he runs up the causeway. We stand there laughing. The fireworks go off behind him.

I'm sat out the front of a cafe in Hatton Garden. I've just eaten a brie and bacon panini, and I'm rolling a cigarette. Feeling very London. An old man comes up to me and asks for a roll-up. I oblige.

2 (actually index). two is company

hello reader,

that looks like my instagram account

lol yea

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

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.

whats your name?

send your tumblr

And thank you for telling me that the manner in which the narrator consistently fails to act morally is really compelling. Fuck you.

confused - is it the tide or its absense? I still like where I was going with it. anyway, real reader know this site is the note.

is this you as well

and so on. not wanting the rhyming / clanging

the site i am dreaming

yeah

Thank you for telling me that I'm failing to see how I'm reproducing the dynamics I'm trying to critique by only describing my Korean colleague / fresh meat and the black girl in relation to others and myself.

god being the centre magnet

wait what is that

send link

The old failed actor genuinely believed this girl was of a lesser race. He believed she shouldn't be talking with me, shouldn't be here at this party, shouldn't be here in this country. He wanted a white England. I didn't really challenge him on it. Sometimes I justify it with thoughts like I was drunk, or baffled, or it isn't an argument I'll win, or he can't hear me anyway, or whatever. I didn't argue with him. I just cut off his rant and left with a pathetic "In a bit."

but i respect your search

okay im going very rogue and very inarticulate

As I'm trying to tell my Korean colleague / fresh meat that this is abnormal, that most people in England aren't like this, the host of the party emerges from the bathroom to a roar of laughter and applause. He's a fat middle aged Frenchman and he's changed into traditional Indian dress and a turban. He looks fucking ridiculous. I try to back away, to avoid the inevitable photo of me in this moment that will one day appear to ruin my life, but everyone is crowding around, trapping me in the middle of it.

a version of this existed for a few months last year but it was static. it was HTML with writing and pictures and videos and sounds. i had this feeling that the code should be as important as the content, that structurally each piece in relation to each other piece shouldn't change, that the mazelike quality should emerge from me intricately arranging paths through it. like classic hypertext