Each year the summer lasts longer, with more lost villages staggering back to the light. Memories muscle in, and bones of daily life crack and articulate, adjusting themselves to an age they never thought they’d see. A young boy on a whistling bicycle cycles through dry streets, bearing news that it’s no longer the nineteenth century, people have walked on the Moon, live organ transplants are routine, and clothing that feels like cotton is actually made from wood. Already bemused by finding themselves on dry land, the rosy-cheeked villagers, who resemble nothing so much as a Hardy novel before shit gets real, gawp at the Moon, listen to the beats of their very own hearts, and try but fail to imagine their Sunday best togs exquisitely carved from finest oak. It’s a rum world, and no mistake, says an amiable rustic in a generic West Counter accent, and his prize bull, which after all this time submerged is displaying the first signs of rudimentary gills, nods. The day’s ribs rise and fall, coughing dust, as the boy on the whistling bike is off to Lokeren, Boom, Düffeld, and the rest with his unlikely stories of never-ending summer in a world full of miracles at the edge of burning.
.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor
.