Page 71 - 2017 WTP Special Edition

you’re surrounded by strangers. car slows right down. I place both hands on the
—OK that’s enough, Rita says —that is enough.
bonnet. I get down on my knees in front of the logo, right up close. It’s a Volkswagen. The V sit- ting on top of the W
She’s up. She’s out of the bean bag. Someone has
gathered her strings. It’s like the ding when the
elevator reaches the floor and everyone gets out
except you. —The little. . .
—Bullshite, I say. —Jim, she says —you need to go after Thomas. —Bullshite.
Anika, speak with Rosie and see that she’s ok.
The little Eff-er was right. There’s bar of white ~ space between the V and the W. You’re never to
Getting towards the brink of the hill, I see the feather-edge of headlight beginning to brush the underside of the jacaranda. And I find myself moving into the road. I see a car edging, slow enough. And I’m studying to see the shape of it, to see if I might recognise it.
quote me on this —but for that moment, and maybe only because of the way I found myself kneeling on the bitumen, and because of the way I was boxed by the funnels of headlight, with the shadow of a stranger stood over, telling to get
the fuck off her car. —But for that tiny moment, I believed, vaguely and just momentarily, that I was living, somehow, in an alternate universe.
I step, proper officious, into the road, waving. The
Delicious Distractions
oil on canvas 20'' x 20'' By Catherine Spencer
62