TE23 Double Feature

Simone Buchholz

River Clyde

all that shit and opens her own pop-up shop.

‘Hey!’

A bee flies around my head, possibly looking for something that can only end in disappointment, the whole city is spread out at the foot of the cemetery hill, for a brief moment I feel like Bruce Wayne up on some skyscraper rooftop, like someone who’s looking out at their past, their present and their future all at once, and is caught up in everything, as much in the then as in the now and in the day after tomorrow. And then he suddenly appears, between a still-proud, undamaged obelisk and a fallen gravestone, right next to a small temple with a very Grecian air. He stands there in the light and looks at me, I look back. His antlers aren’t exaggeratedly big, he’s not a royal stag, but he has every right to be proud of what’s growing out of his skull there. His coat gleams reddish in the sun, he’s already a touch grey around the nose. 248

‘Hey, yourself,’ he says.

‘I didn’t know what else to say,’ I say.

‘I know,’ he says.

‘Do you live here?’ I ask.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m just out for a stroll.’

‘Very wise,’ I say.

‘Your hair almost matches mine,’ he says.

‘True,’ I say, ‘that’s interesting.’

‘Very interesting. Do come by again.’

‘We’ll see,’ I say, ‘perhaps.’

‘Well then,’ he says, but doesn’t budge from 249