I stepped in from the cold night air. Familiar sounds rushed towards me: excitable football pundits, the held breath of the crowd. Blue light pooled at the living room door. I shucked my coat, swapped my Mary Janes for slippers, and padded through. You were sitting in your usual spot on the sofa, eyes glued to the screen. You didn’t look away when you asked:  ‘How was work today? Anything interesting?’.   I wanted to tell you the truth: how I drove to the office; how I got out, turned and walked away. Left the car in its bay. My heels chirruped against the pavement; wildflowers bloomed between the cracks as I passed. I strolled for hours but my feet never tired. I waltzed straight to the harbour, hopped in the first empty boat and untied the ropes. I sailed across the globe. I learnt new languages, sucked exotic fruit. I snuck inside the Library of Congress and memorised every single book. Ask me to quote any poet – Mackellar, Lorca, Limón - and I could. I travelled alone to the North Pole. I discovered the cure for the common cold. I greeted the people of Atlantis and dragged the Mary-Celeste from her hidey-hole. I toppled whole dictatorships. I invented a rail service that actually ran on time. I sang, danced, slurped, swallowed, stroked, poked, sniffed, whiffed, until the Earth held no more secrets. Then I cupped the sun like a clementine, peeled the pith with my teeth and ate the segments, spitting out star-seeds onto the sky’s dark tablecloth, the same stars you grunted at disinterestedly when I pointed them out to you last night, and not the fact you had forgotten our anniversary.    I wanted to tell you all this. Instead, I shrugged.   ‘The usual, really,’ I said, ‘Nothing much’.    --- Louise Hurrell (she/her) is a writer from Dundee, Scotland. Her work has appeared in Oranges Journal and The Circus Collective. She likes to wander art galleries in her spare time.  

ALT: a little girl in a blue dress is standing in front of a mirror with her hands in the air .