Winning stories 2025

The moon is full tonight. Its light scatters off the rolling waves that lap beside my table for one at the best restaurant in the harbour. This view is the same as it was ten years ago, when I sat here with my ex-wife Jenny. Ex. I’m still not used to that. I guess I never will get used to that.

I sip my wine and taste oak and earth.

From around the bend of lolloping boats, a boy in green boots comes whizzing along the path. He whooshes like an aeroplane. Something falls from his hand, bounces, then comes to rest between the cobbles. I push myself up, but then his burly dad jogs up behind him and so I recede into my chair. Burly Dad picks him up and the boy starts to cry. Mum catches up. They walk on, leaving the toy behind.

The eye of the lighthouse passes us. It illuminates a flash of red from a three-inch racing car. My son had one just like it. Perhaps it’s the same one, returning from the past. No, the headlights are different. They’re more like the ones on my first car. It was a Ford Cortina painted in August Blue.

Memories. Dad exhales a jet of smoke that creeps under our cream wallpaper. Potato skins ding into Grandma’s oily saucepan. Then later, much later, I look down at the baby boy asleep on my chest and swear it’ll always be his safe place.

His teenage voice cuts in.

‘Coward.’

I quit my job last week. First thing Friday, I called my manager and delivered the news. ‘I won’t be returning,’ I said firmly, and at first, she thought I was joking. Then she said, ‘Wait, this is you. It can’t be a joke.’ A dead pause, then, ‘Oh.’

Back to that Ford Cortina. The night I bought it, I couldn’t stop peeking at it through the blinds. It had a face that looked like it wanted to sell you double glazing, and its round headlights damn near batted their eyelashes at passers-by.

I sold it when we got married, to pay for the reception, her wedding band and my suit. In the church toilets, I looked in the mirror and laughed. Why would a man with such scruffy hair need such an immaculate suit? Jenny had asked me to shave my beard before the service and I said I would but I didn’t.

Ha. Legend. Nobody called me a coward back then.

What happened to that man? Where did he take the bend that led to this table for one?

Last week I was given a year to live.

Eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours. I worked it out with paper and pen.

I’ve told no one yet, except my manager and the bloke sat beside me on the plane. Now I sit here sipping the best wine I’ve ever bought at a restaurant and somehow, this whole thing isn’t quite how I would’ve imagined it to be. I would’ve guessed that a person in this situation, in my situation, would think mostly about the future, and their lack of it. On Thursday, my future changed abruptly, from a sprawling tangle of unforeseen hopes and disappointments to a limited, boxed up thing. I feel at peace with that and I don’t know why.

The future. What was that, a week ago? A slow procession of train journeys and snotty colds, of Christmases and birthdays that never felt quite how I wanted them to. Of dates that went nowhere and work that rolled on longer than it should’ve done because I felt too old and tired to make a change. The future was all that, a week ago, but it was also an undefinable thing. A thing I wasn’t aware of until now.

You see, we never really think about the future. Not in any identifiable way. As I child I couldn’t imagine being an adult, then at eighteen, to turn thirty sounded like some strange disease that only affected other people. At thirty, turning fifty felt the same. I couldn’t imagine it from my place in the past, yet when that birthday came, I didn’t feel my age either. I felt eighteen, or twenty, or eight or thirty-one, and whenever I looked in the mirror, almost every time, it took me a moment to recognise my fifty-year-old face that was going on fifty-one.

The present escapes us.
The future evades us.
We are hounded by the past.

We don’t live with the future as an imaginable thing, because to us the future is not the events of the future, as is the case for our memory of the past. The future exists to us only as potential.

That’s what separates me from you, or from myself a week ago. My future exists now. It’s no longer an unbounded thing. I have to look it square in the eye.

To that scruffy-haired man in his wedding suit, a year was nothing. It could’ve slipped out of his hand. But to the man who sits here now, a year is something. It’s a dozen three-course dinners with my soon-to-be grownup boy. It’s hundreds of sunrises, handfuls of purple sunsets and a chance to scurry north in search of the Northern Lights. It’s time enough for me to wear out my vinyl collection and rack up a few more complaints from the woman who lives downstairs. It’s a chance to tell Jenny what she means to me, to apologise and to forgive. And to show my son who I am.

Believe you me, from my viewpoint here in the harbour, a year really is something.

It’s all I have.

I leave a generous tip on the table, then take a few steps down the path. I lean over and pull the red racing car out from between the cobbles, blow away the dust, then head back the way I came, past the restaurant, round the bend and up the hill. A minute later I reach the hotel overlooking the water. I knock twenty doors before Burly Dad answers, revealing a pair of green boots in the hall. I explain myself, but Burly Dad says, ‘No English,’ so I hold up the lost toy. A little head pokes out from the end of the hallway. Two bare feet patter towards me.

‘Hello, young man,’ I say. ‘You make sure to hold onto that.’ I place the red racing car back in its owner’s hands.

Then I walk back down the cobbled path towards the harbour. At the water’s edge, I take out my phone and call Jenny.

No answer.
I call Noah and he picks up after two rings.
‘Dad, what’s up?’
‘Nothing. I’m great. What are you doing these next few days?’
‘Not sure. I need to check with Mum.’
‘Okay. Listen. I’m in Greece at the moment. I wondered if you’d like to come.’ He takes a breath. He’s about to say they have no money.
‘I’ll pay. You should invite your mum, too.’
‘Woah, Dad. I dunno. I have my first exam next week.’
‘This would be a great place to revise. I promise I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Let me speak to Mum and I’ll call you back, okay?’
‘Sure.’

The line goes dead.

The water gets calmer the further out you look. On the horizon sits a shipwreck I hadn’t noticed before.

I have to buy back my Ford Cortina. I need to drive it one last time. I’ll get it painted in the same colour, then leave it to Jenny or Noah.

Jenny and Noah have time. Love, then, is a vehicle.
A time machine.
A Ford Cortina in August Blue.

Trigger Warning: This story contains themes of infant loss, grief and parental abuse.

Since early August, an uncanny, unwanted, ominous feeling had settled into me. A sort of knowing that made me feel like I was crazy and that I couldn't shake. I'd only spoken about it once, to my friend, as we made our way to Franco’s for a slurpee float and fries.

 Danielle peered over at me, doing her best Stevie Nicks impression, through her rose-tinted aviators, “So like, how're you going to dress your baby? Preppy? Hippy? Onesie? In pink?” she asked, as we dodged the hot streaks of Okanagan sun beaming through the trees that lined our neighborhood sidewalks.

 I shrugged at her lazily, the mid-summer heat taking its toll. “I'm not sure. I am certain it's going to be a girl. It has to be, but I've never liked pink. And I have this weird feeling it's not going to happen.” I shook my head at her and hoped I didn't sound crazy.

 She looked at me amused; her eyebrows pointed to the August blue sky. “I think that's called denial.”

 I nodded and grimaced back at her. “Yeah, I'm sure that's all it is,” I said. Even though I wasn't. 

 August became September and grade eleven was underway. I walked the halls of my high school looking like a bad afterschool special, mostly oblivious to the occasional snide comments and looks from the disapproving people around me. My bond to the acrobat nestled in my stomach — who still caused me to vomit every morning — was strong. I loved her. I was fascinated by her. The way she hiccuped every night, just as I was trying to fall asleep. The way her tiny feet pushed out from inside me like fingers stretching out pizza dough.

 I was sixteen and unapologetically in love with my accidental baby. My mother was not. Even though she was Catholic, she wanted me to ‘get rid of it’. When I had broken the news to her back in June, she suggested falling down the stairs, or cooking myself in the hot tub. When no one was looking, her public smile faltered back to hostility. The more swollen my belly became, the more she laid into me with her biting words and rageful tone.

 A week before Christmas, I stood next to her at our local library counter. When the librarian handed us our receipt for the books we'd borrowed, she smiled and said, “They're due January 29th. Have a Merry Christmas.” I smiled back at Mrs. Burton, and excitedly informed her that January 29th was my due date. The air was sucked from the room. As I slid our new books into the cloth bag, a strong sense of foot-in-my-mouth clamped down on me. When the doors to my mother's 1989 Toyota Camry closed, she went ballistic.  

 “That was so Goddamn embarrassing! Never do that to me again!” She screamed, rage driving us home, while Perry Como's velvety smooth voice belted out the Christmas song to us through the speakers.

 It was now December 23rd. My parents left me home alone overnight, an hour's drive away, while they prepared the family cabin for Christmas. I curled up with my snacks and blanket, settling into a marathon of retro holiday specials. Charlie Brown, Frosty and of course the original Grinch. When I felt her move, I tucked my hands under my sweater and spread them out wide to feel her gentle punches and turns. 

 “Hey!” I cried out loud to the dark room and flickering t.v. screen. “Settle down in there.”

 Her legs and feet flailed haphazardly at my insides, her tiny fists punching and reaching in a panic. It was as if she was wrapped in heavy chains and couldn't escape. My brain buffered back to that day in August, when the sky was so blue. 

 I spoke out loud frantically to the empty room. “It's happening. No. I'm crazy. No, it's happening.” And as quickly and violently as it started, it stopped. Dead. I don't know what to do. What if she's just sleeping? What if she needs out? What if it's too late? They’ll think I'm crazy if I call them. 

 I bet against my intuition.

 I filled the bathtub and sank down deep in the warm water. I had recently discovered that if I placed my cup on the edge of the tub, the noise and vibration would cause her to jump. I took a deep breath and set it down with a little more force than normal. Nothing. My anxiety quadrupled. I shook it off, lifted my glass of water and placed it down harder. Nothing. I slammed my cup down in a series of desperate strikes. One. Two. Three.  No response. It's over. I am crazy for assuming, but I know. Every cell in me knows. I still think I'm crazy.

 I wasn't.

 I carried my dead baby inside me for five days. My mother didn't want to disrupt Christmas for our family. She said the hospital would be understaffed because of the holidays. Adding pressure to my decision, the emergency room doctor said my labor might start on its own if I didn't want to be induced. I wanted to lessen the pain I was causing everyone, so I waited, and nothing happened. I floated outside my body the entire time. All five days. Not a tear to be shed, just numbness. Like a girl trapped behind glass, voiceless and broken.

 My best friend Claire was with me during my labor. She held my hand and cried through every contraction with me. I was hopeful, with that last push, that I would hear the wail of my newborn. A bonfire of denial still engulfed me. I didn't hear anything. Soon after delivery, a nurse stood next to me swaddling her.

 “Do you want a pink hat for her head?” she asked, with a smile so forced it hurt me to look at her. 

 I grimaced and said, “No. Blue, please.” I've always hated pink. 

 She nodded, her head tilting slightly. “Would you like to hold her?” she asked. Her voice trembled.

 I shook my head adamantly. “No, but please put her beside me.” I knew holding her would break me completely, but I still wanted her nearby. I needed to make sure she was really gone.

 The nurse tucked her next to my arm and again directed a painful smile at me. “It's good she didn't come out black,” she said and then quickly added, “Because she was in there so long. And the skin around her fingernails is barely peeling.” She said it like it was a good thing. 

 I brought my gaze to my perfect sleeping angel. Her slightly cone shaped head, tucked underneath her blue knit hat. My eyes found her tiny fingers and the translucent white wisps of skin that were starting to recede from their nail beds.

 The nurse cleared her throat. “Your mother has requested a priest come in and baptize your baby. Are you okay with that? Do you have a name for him to use?”

 I shook my head again. “No, thank you. That won't be necessary.” I smiled up at her, my eyes burning but refusing to tear up. “I already know she's an angel in heaven, and her name is August.

 Blue Carnations for my baby girl. Not pink. I told my mother, and she fought me tooth and nail.

 She said, “You're going to confuse everyone at the funeral. Blue Carnations for a girl? And August?” She threw her hands in the air and stormed away. 

 Seven days later and here I am. 

 It's so cold. Minus twelve. Minus twenty-five with wind chill. Claire is standing beside me, eyes locked straight ahead in a million-mile stare and her arm chained securely to my elbow. And even though she's eighteen and only one year older than me, today she's forty-two.

 The wind whips lacings of crystallized snow at our exposed skin. The sky is dead grey, as it should be. I am surrounded. I have never been more alone.

 When they lower her small white casket down, I hear her cry out. I'm certain — for a moment. And then I remember that I don't know her cry.

 My uncle approaches and Claire releases me to him. He hugs me, smelling of beer and cigarettes. He leans into my ear and says, “It was for the best.” I am gut punched. I force a polite smile. I taste blood in my mouth, my fingers rubbing at the small crocheted hat, tucked hidden in my pocket. .

It wasn’t much, but it was something, so I put the coins into his outstretched hand and he nodded a thank you. I walked past him towards the museum, the rain falling lightly, covering my face with a fine dew, and I thought about the last time I’d seen any art in person, a long time ago now, before the virus, before everything, but somehow it still felt like yesterday, because memory is a tricky thing and so is time, it stretches and contracts like an accordion.

I’d been in London with my sister. She didn’t like art much, and she didn’t like London either, but I liked both, so I visited a lot on the train from Oxford. When we were little I knew everything about her, like the way she tore all her food into tiny pieces, and how she slept curled up like a cat, and how she always laughed suddenly with her head thrown all the way back, hysterical, and our grandma would jump and tell her to keep a lid on it. She always knew how to be happy, as if it was a natural state. Everything felt simple with her, like eating honey sandwiches on the settee, buttery honey running down our fingers, laughing at something on the television and kicking our legs together in unison. She stayed like that all the way through our teenage years, even when I became moody and started to dwell on things, like the cruelty of humanity or the imminent death of the planet. She thought everything was straightforward, she didn’t question it, why would she, she liked life and it was nice to be alive, especially in summer when we would run down the bank at the end of our garden and kick up sand as we crossed the beach and jumped into the sea. Between May and September we’d go out almost every day, sometimes before school and again in the afternoon, and then when the holidays came we’d spend all day out there, lounging on the sand and reading, and I’d look up at the sky and work on my tan and the meaning of life, and she’d listen to her Walkman, always in the same position, sat bolt upright with her legs crossed, looking out at the horizon with a frown on her face and her tongue slightly sticking out. That was her concentration face. She liked to swim more than I did, I was scared of getting killed by crabs or swarmed by seaweed, but she didn’t worry about anything at all, she was like a fish or maybe a mermaid, and she’d swim for a long time, getting so far out I’d get scared and call out to her, then she’d swim back and tell me she was fine, and smile and flop down next to me on the towel. It was a mystery how she got so good at swimming, so graceful in the water, because our grandma couldn’t swim and we’d never had any lessons. She must’ve taught herself, or maybe she just woke up one day that way, that sounds like the kind of thing she’d do, and when I was old enough she taught me too. She’d hold me up in the shallows, one hand on my back and another on my stomach, and tell me to use my arms like paddles to keep afloat. It wasn’t elegant but it worked, after a while, and I never felt scared because I knew she’d catch me if I slipped under. We were always allowed on the beach on our own, even though I realise now we were still quite little, but grandma was tired a lot and didn’t seem to worry too much, it was as if she’d used up her lifetime’s allowance of worrying and didn’t have the strength to worry any more. When we tired of swimming we’d take it in turns to bury each other in the sand, I was good at that, and I can still see my sister’s face peeking out, her body entirely covered as she laughed her enormous laugh. The best part of those hot summer days was always the early evening, when the thick air had started to cool but the sand was still warm, and the sea would suddenly sparkle with light from all angles, like a glitterball, and then the sky would slowly turn apricot and our faces would glow, our skin itching with salt and our hair tangled in knots. We’d lay side by side on our stomachs looking out at the ocean, and I never feel as peaceful as I did back then, after a day on the beach with my sister.

That day in London we were going to see an exhibition about the use of light, which was ironic really because the day itself was very dark, one of those gunmetal London days when you feel like the city has a lid on it. It was November, and it was raining. I met her at Piccadilly and made fun of her hat, because she didn’t wear hats, she didn’t suit them, her face was too open and it seemed a shame to close it off, but she just laughed and said she was trying out a new look. We walked arm in arm down the street to the gallery and I moaned about my job and the weather and all the people who were walking too slowly, it’s so cold and so dark, why do they walk like that, do they not have somewhere to go, and she rolled her eyes and said nothing, but every so often she’d rest her head on my shoulder and I’d smell her warm smell that was as familiar to me as the rain. I paid for the tickets, because I knew she was only coming along for my benefit, and she thanked me and dropped her bag off at the cloakroom. Together we walked through the atrium, raindrops falling on the glass ceiling, and then down the corridor and into the gallery. I don’t remember much about the exhibition, now that I think about it. I remember it was large and seemed to go on and on, each room leading onto another, and my sister and I walked slowly around it, sometimes separating and then coming together again, look at this, come and see. Every so often she’d turn to me and ask a question, why did they choose this frame, what do you think this means, can you see that face? I knew about art and she didn’t, but her questions felt richer than my answers, they were so full of attention, and she looked satisfied when I knew a date or a name. She always said she was proud of her little sister the art historian.

Even after an hour she was still curious, wandering on slightly ahead of me, peering at each painting in turn, and then suddenly she came running back in my direction, I was looking at a painting of a table with some fruit on it, and she tugged on my sleeve, come and look at this! You have to see it! She was never so enthusiastic about art, I wondered if someone had fallen over or if she’d found something in the gift shop, but it wasn’t that. It was a painting around the corner, the last in the exhibition, a big square full of deep August blues. In it two young girls stood in the sea, one slightly taller than the other. They were holding hands, reflections swirling in the water, and the taller one seemed to be guiding the other, who looked hesitant. It’s ok, she seemed to be saying. It’s ok. My sister looked at me and smiled. It’s us, she said, it’s me and you. And it was us, I could feel her presence in the picture. I looked at the painting and then at her. She seemed happy. The painting made me wistful, and suddenly very sad. Why was life this way? Why did we grow up? Weren’t we still the children in the sea? But my sister didn’t have complicated feelings about anything. I love it, she said. I just love it. She looked at it for a moment longer, then she turned and walked away from me, towards the exit.

When we left the gallery that day the rain had turned light and soft, like it was now. The same rain from the same sky, but today everything felt different. It was very different now, there was no way around it. Nothing would ever be the same again. I turned to look back at the man I’d given money to. He was sat upright on the ground with his legs crossed. He smiled at me, a shy smile, and I smiled back. Then I turned and carried on walking, forwards, onwards, towards the museum.

The first person to notice him, to really notice something was out of the ordinary, was Jim Giddigan’s rosy-cheeked son Jeremy. It was a brutally hot summer’s day, and Jeremy had been negotiating a popsicle while observing the bubbles of black tar sucking at the wheels of passing cars, when he saw the man in the blue coveralls.

He pulled on his father’s sleeve and pointed at a man pushing a small cart diagonally across the street, and said “Look, look, that man’s drawing on the road.”

Jim Giddigan shushed his son and went back to chatting with stern-faced Doctor Freighton about the closure of the local whisk factory while trying to figure out how to insert his boils into the conversation.

His boy tugged on his sleeve again, which prompted another shushing, but then the loud tooting of a car horn finally convinced Jim Giddigan to turn around and he saw for himself the man in blue coveralls. The man was pushing a three-wheeled device which produced from the front ‘wheel’ a thick line of bright blue paint. Cars had stopped abruptly as the man had suddenly entered the flow of traffic and, seemingly oblivious to their presence, was traversing 8th Street at about a thirty-degree angle. In the center of the street was the standard double yellow line, and this was soon dissected by a new blue line.

“What the heck is he up to?” said Jim.

“Probably from the council,” replied the doctor, quite sensibly.

“Look, you can see it all the way back there,” said Jim, who had turned around to see where the man had come from. Prior to cutting across the street, the blue line had run along the gutter, and was visible as far back as the eye could see.

And even though we have only just met them, we will now leave Jim, his son Jeremy, and Doctor Freighton because they have served their purpose and have no further role in this story. Meanwhile, the man and his cart had mounted the curb and the line was now heading along the sidewalk on the opposite side towards the corner of 8th Street and Harding.

A few other pedestrians had witnessed the man crossing the road and leaving his trail of blue paint, and they too were curious as to what he was doing. We will now latch onto Mary Penrott who had just emerged from a pet shop with an extremely large bag of birdseed when she nearly collided with the man and his cart as she tottered from the shop to her nearby car.

“Excuse me,” she said to the man. “What are you doing? What’s that for?”

The man in the blue coveralls with the cart and the trail of fresh blue paint didn’t reply.

“Is it for a bike lane or something?” she asked. “Because I’ll tell you, we don’t need any bike lanes around here.”

“What’s this about a bike lane?” asked a man with a gruff voice who had overheard her question. I don’t know him and he didn’t stuck around long enough for me to take down his details. But he was a man, with a gruff voice, and he wore green corduroy pants and a green sweater, and none of those details is important to the story but they are here now so here they shall stay. “This isn’t Europe, you know. We don’t need any bike lanes.”

“You’re telling me,” said Mary Penrott, shuffling her feet sideways so she could see past her enormous bag of birdseed. But by now the man in the blue coveralls with the cart and the blue paint had moved on and had turned left at the corner of Harding Street. His path took him directly between two university professors, Ronald Baths and Barjorie Tinker. They were engrossed in a convivial but spirited conversation about symbiotic signs, but once the man in the blue coveralls had passed between, leaving them on either side of the line, their words took on a sharper tone, their postures more angular and confrontational.

“Judith, kids, better come over this way,” said Sven Maker. He wasn’t sure what the line was for, but he knew that his family ought to stay together and all on the same side. The Makers huddled together, Sven placing a protective arm around his children and his kneeling wife.

A crowd had started to form, watching the man trundling along with his cart and his thick line of wet blue paint. He travelled down the sidewalk of Harding Street, past the dollar store (on the left), and the library (across the road, on the right), and then he changed his angle, ever so slightly, setting himself on a course to re-enter the traffic.

“Come on, out of the way,” said Braden Folly. “Give the man some space.” The reason for the line didn’t matter to Braden—he was just pleased to see something being done in this city, and had appointed himself the protector of the line. Braden was cognizant that the current course would mean his apartment was on the right side of the line. That was reassuring, as it placed his home on the same side as the linoleum showroom where he worked and played.

While Braden was preoccupied with ensuring unimpeded progress of the man in the blue coveralls, others were left to deal with the result of this progress, namely a thick blue line running through their city. There was much figurative head-scratching at the meaning of the line, and the consequences of being on one side or the other. 

Amber Thiessen was late for an appointment with her local bookie and leapt daintily over the blue line, like one might leap over a slumbering goat.

“Hey, back on the other side,” cried Boston Boswick. “I saw you, you were over there.” His eyes were wide. He meant business. Amber gingerly stepped back onto her former side.

“All of you. Take a step back,” Boston shouted. He really meant business.

Most complied, but one young longhair said “Come on man, I’m not causing any trouble here,” and attempted to cross the line. 

An off-duty cop stepped in front of the longhair, firmly planted a palm in his chest, and said, “Just do what the man says.”

“Hey, don’t touch him,” said someone. “Keep your hands to yourself,” said someone else. It’s notable that both those voices came from the same side of the line as the longhair.

Despite the line running, approximately, through the center of the town, it now seemed that those on the right were defending their side, while those on the left were desperate to penetrate their ranks. Some men on the right linked arms to form what they hoped would be an impenetrable barrier. Scotty Ryan, innocently on his way to replenish his scratchcards, was somehow knitted into this cordon, between two burly longshoremen. He felt, quite correctly, like the weakest link in the chain. Meanwhile, those on the left were preparing a human battering ram and were just deciding who should be assigned the prestigious role of leading the ram.

While a human chain was an admirable idea, it was rather resource heavy, and there was the question of bathroom breaks, and sleep requirements, and a huge number of other reasons why a person might not be able to stand in a robust line of defense for an indeterminate duration of time. But luckily, I suppose, others on the right were already assembling a less fleshy and more sturdy barrier, made of oil drums and tree branches, and rusted pick-up trucks, and miscellaneous household goods and some sandbags, filled with, presumably, but not conclusively, sand, and around nightfall someone brought in a reel of barbed wire and everyone on the right cheered, and lay the wire along the top like icing on a cake.

Meanwhile, up at the head of the line, the man with the blue coveralls and blue-line-producing machine had come to an abrupt halt. He tilted his cart so the front wheel was off the ground, and then pushed it over to a waiting van. A companion, also in blue coveralls, had opened the back of the van and the two men lifted the cart inside. Then they jumped in the front, and off they went.

“What the hell, man?” said a voice from the dusky crowd.

‘Come on man, finish the job!” said another.

“What are we supposed to do now?” said Marcus Amberiotis, looking forlornly at the abrupt end of the line.

“Run on home, son,” said a man in firm slacks to a bespectacled boy, who I assume was his son. “Go get that chalk that we got for you and your sister.”

‘I’ve got some paint at home” volunteered another chap. “It’s left over from when I repainted the fence,” he explained needlessly.

Others nodded. Yes. Yes. It was going to be okay.

Our evening walks were taking more of a rambling approach. Less needed to be done in the flat, the days were getting longer; Ricochet’s legs were growing stronger. Also, there were things on my mind. Namely, how was I going to get myself free, and back on the road with some kind of income.

Late one August afternoon we found ourselves – as I often had, years ago in another life – down by the lions in Trafalgar Square.

It was a particularly grey day. Muted and flattened, as though painted by Turner in a hangover. We’d left Hugo Street without a destination in mind, ambling down Fortress Road and into Camden. At the markets, I’d got a falafel roll. Che wasn’t keen on salad, but she liked the falafels and ate more than her share of halloumi.

She seemed happy to keep walking, so we continued along Hampstead Road, across six lanes of traffic at Euston Road and down Tottenham Court Road. We wandered through Bloomsbury to Soho, past the theatres and the old bookshops. Along Charing Cross Road, past the National Portrait Gallery and into Trafalgar Square.

We’d been walking almost two hours. I got a coffee and a puppacino and we sat on the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields, looking out over the square. The lions, the tourists and pigeons, Nelson on his shit-splattered pillar.

I thought Che would want to take a bash at the flutter and flap of wings, but she wasn’t interested in pigeons. Manic for squirrels, she’d clearly categorised pigeons effort-unworthy.

There was something in the quality of quick-fading light that felt momentous. Something was rising, unfurling, on the edge of happening. Sitting here on the old church steps, it felt we were breathing time.

Somewhere, history must have been happening. It didn’t seem likely from the scene before us: a group of Japanese were taking photos, each person posing with the same expression, standing in the same way, in front of the same lion. A Midwestern accent reached us from the far side of the square. The wind blew rubbish, twirling and spiralling around our feet. Che barked at a Ribena carton.

These people milling around, posing in their bright padded coats. I wondered where they would go, what they would do next. I wondered what I would do next.

It was probably all the walking these past weeks. Memories stretching like muscles I hadn't used for a long time. I’d been thinking a lot about roads since getting back to London. The ones we take. The ones we don’t.

Che and I wandered without true aim. One street led to the next. If we saw an interesting laneway, we followed it. We’d find ourselves in unfamiliar neighbourhoods; exploring different parts of the city each night. These evening walks had little crossover; the beginning and end was Hugo Street, yet we weren’t making many lines of desire between. We’d walk, her paws, my boots, some kind of messy rhythm together, along the canals, down the back streets of Canning Town. We’d find ourselves up on Primrose Hill, or tramping across the heath. Never the same walk twice.

I’d been thinking about the abandoned alternatives. Dead ends. Other streets that started poorly, then ran on to interesting views. Roads I’d feared, or hadn’t liked the look of. Or maybe I’d never realised they were there at all. Would those roads have made a difference?

These were futile questions, but they preoccupied me on these walks. Had I let life blow through my fingers? Had I gone too far down a road to nowhere and let it all go spiralling into the wind? Or would I still be here, somehow, despite it all, regardless? Sitting alone with a dog, looking out over the lions in the dark.

Before the world was fully charted, cartographers would mark unknown seas and lands with phrases like ubi leones sunt – where the lions are. It was a way of naming the mysterious and unexplored. That was where I was now. Ubi leones sunt.

‘What are we doing here, Che?’
The dog looked at me reasonably, with her reasonable face. Small tail wag.

I checked her paws. They looked fine. ‘C’mon then, let’s head back to the flat.’

We’d found Che a home. I’d been putting listings up on the local community boards, posting on the vet’s social media. I’d vetted the prospective owners, like I vetted tenants for the flat. There was an interesting crossover to ask. Were they serious people? Did they know what looking after something entailed? Was there a reliable means of income (rent/puppacinos)?

Most of the dog people were weeded out on the phone. We’d met a few people at the park, which I considered neutral ground. One couple stood out. Young, not too young. Responsible, not dreary. She worked from home. Che played nicely with them; they agreed it would be confusing to subject her to name changes. They showed me pictures of their backyard. You could see it was a good home for the dog.

‘So tomorrow, you’re moving into your home.’ I told her. ‘This is exciting. It’s a new start for you. There’s two of them and a backyard. You’re really moving up in the world.’

The next morning, we went for a last walk together. A flat white and a puppacino overlooking London from a bench at Ally Pally. I wanted her to see London spread out, it wasn’t that big. She wasn’t going far. We could see her new suburb from here. ‘Be nice to these people, OK?’ I told her. ‘Keep it together, there’s no need to be anxious.’

Walking back down the hill through the trees, Che bounced ahead on the end of her new extendable lead. She was enjoying her stretchy independence, sniffing things, tail on overdrive. I was listening to my headphones. A song came on I hadn’t heard for a while. Maybe it was his voice, maybe it was what he was singing about. Whatever it was, having heard the song a hundred times, I started hearing the lyrics.

We were about twenty minutes from the flat, the song on repeat, when listening to the words became crying with the words. It caught me off guard. Not because I have misunderstandings about tears. I know how strong water is: it breaks rock, wears down land. It’s just been a long time since I had feelings strong enough to make water.

Water, water. All this salt and emotion. Think I’m going through a weird stage.

The couple arrived early and had bought a toy for Che. She gave the squeezy bone a charitable sniff then slouched back to her cushion. I explained that she didn’t like dog toys.

I told the couple about the food thing. I explained how I’d been pretending to eat dog food recently. Not actually eating it, of course, although with the organic-gourmet ones, that would probably be fine. They laughed as if I was telling them jokes. ‘I’m not telling you jokes,’ I said. ‘She’s not actually keen on anything made specifically for dogs.’

I collected her things: her two leads, her bowl and plate, the blanket that matched my jacket, a stick she’d brought home and defended with great hostility. A list of the words she almost certainly understood. The guy took it gingerly, like he was dealing with someone a sandwich short of a picnic.

Che watched me bag up her things with increasing uneasiness. I knelt down and gave her a hug. ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ I told her.

The couple laughed nervously.

Che had kept her anxiety together as I’d asked, until the guy clipped the lead to her collar. Then she went full mentalist, bouncing up and down, barking. It became a tug of war: he pulling her towards the door, she resisting, biting the lead.

‘Does the puppy do this a lot?’ he asked. ‘Maybe just grab her,’ said the woman.

He went to pick her up. Che snarled as if she was going to savage his arm off. Alarmed, he dropped the lead, and she ran off, into the bedroom, lead jangling behind her.

The three of us looked at each other. ‘Sorry about this,’ I said to the couple. ‘She’s generally quite pleasant. I’ll go talk to her.’

Che was under the bed with her face in one of my shoes, which she had dragged under there with her. I got down on my knees. ‘Come out, you’re being silly.’

She wiggled backwards, further into the gloom. 7

‘Look, these people are nice. They have a garden. You’ll be able to play outside all the time. You know how much you like grass. And you won’t have to do the pawing thing at the door; you’ll have a special door you can open yourself.’

I looked up to confirm this was true; the couple nodded energetically from the doorway, where they’d come to watch.

‘Look,’ I told Che. ‘If you go with them, you’ll have two people instead of one. That’s a much safer pack. And the garden. A whole garden to yourself. Are you coming out?’

She wasn’t.
After they left, she scampered out.
‘Well, you blew it. That was your chance at the good life.’
Che looked at me airily, then stalked off to lie on my side of the couch.