Horizon - Issue 01

They fought that night. Eric looked bemused in the corner.
Something about the play of soft shadows, the folds, the exigency of her expressions
to be read, makes what is left of Zara’s face in Anoushka’s memory
seem as dispassionate as a piece of origami left lightly on a table, its form only
barely construed from all the impossible blankness of a page. It threatens to
collapse, nodding like a crane. The feathery smoke of her coffee fractures in
the wind.
So, you’re just leaving like that?
Well, I’ll stay if you want me to stay.
Of course, I want you to stay.
Actually stay.
Of course, I want you to actually stay.
But, in terms of ‘actually’, that doesn’t actually equate to just
this.
Zara gestured lazily around the room, the empty bottle of red wine in front of
her, the bruised lampshade above, the distressed cushions on the sofa. This had
started from a conversation about a coke advert and the mercurial patterns
that wanting something takes.
Equate to what?
Numbers.
I just offered to pay your rent for another month!
Anoushka, you clearly don’t want to actually do that.
But how could you know what I want, actually, Zara. What I
want is you living here.
It’s not like that though.
Mariana
[43]
Tom Goodyer