TE23 Double Feature

Simone Buchholz

River Clyde

the spot.

‘Oh right,’ he says again. ‘And where do you come from?’

‘Well then,’ I say.

‘Does that matter?’ I ask.

We stay where we are and stare into each other’s eyes, if I didn’t know better, I’d say: the sun sets and rises again in the time we stand around there.

‘No,’ he says, ‘it doesn’t actually. Not here.’

‘Great place,’ I say.

‘OK,’ I say eventually, ‘the first one to move is dead, is that how it works?’

‘The best,’ he says.

‘Do you smoke?’ I ask.

He looks around, his antlers sway, it’s almost like he tilts his head slightly.

‘I quit.’

‘Sick joke,’ he says.

‘Me too,’ I say. ‘But now I’m in the mood for a cigarette.’

‘Wasn’t meant as a joke.’

‘Go on then,’ he says. ‘Smoke one. It’s all the same in the end.’

‘Oh right,’ he says.

‘Where I come from, it’s just a thing people say.’ 250

‘Because we all have to die one day.’

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