TE23 Double Feature

Simone Buchholz

River Clyde

there. So I don’t take the bridge back out of the cemetery, westward, towards the setting sun; I take some other exit and just walk down the road. I leave the city of the dead like other people leave a party where they’ve just made an exhibition of themselves. Right in front of me there’s a huge, five storey block, all shut down and nailed up. A man is standing there in a hi-vis vest, smoking.

‘Correct,’ he says.

I’m not sure, but I get the feeling that he’s smiling.

‘So,’ I say, ‘see you later then, or whatever.’

‘See you later,’ he says.

I pull the packet of Lucky Strikes, which I bought earlier for a sackful of money, out of my jacket pocket, open it and stick a cigarette in my mouth. By the time I’m ready to light it, the red deer has vanished.

He smiles at me, his teeth are a total disaster zone.

‘What’s that?’ I ask, pointing at the block.

‘Great Eastern Hotel,’ he says, still smiling.

Maybe I’ve Learnt to Understand

‘A hotel?’ I ask.

A good trick for really leaving a place and not just wandering off for a bit is to leave by a different path from the one that brought you 252

‘Naw,’ he says, ‘not really, that’s just what it gets called. Used to be a hostel for 253