The flat is dark and grimy. Your room receives no sunlight. The sky is dank and low
and murk and it grinds to a halt because everything grinds to a halt. It is impossible
that anything could have ever been anything other than this, or will ever be anything
else. You can see for miles across the field, only it is a vast and indifferent expanse.
Everything is grey and dust and dead limbs. Woman’s Hour mutters to itself in the
background. The presenter is reading out her listener’s favourite life maxims.
I am the sky, and everything else is weather, she says. If there’s light at the end of the
tunnel it’s just another oncoming train, she says. To despair is to betray the future,
she says.
To despair is to betray the future. It’s not much, and the clouds are still thick and
dark and frozen. The stretches around the band of your horizon are still grey and
dry. But it’s enough for today, however, a day which will crawl and twist and
merge.
James Gale
James Gale is a writer and journalist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He recently
graduated with Distinction in MLitt in Creative Writing from University of Glasgow,
and has been published in publications including The Guardian, The Telegraph, &
The Sunday Times and creative titles such as SPAM & GUM. He is currently
working on his first book. Twitter: @jamesgale_ &
https://jamesdjg.wordpress.com/.
OSMOSIS PRESS 