We follow the science through a forest of unprecedented words, isolated and of interest, until every lateral flow leads to a still pool with paper-dry teasels crackling in the wind’s unpredictable respiration. Ravens, rooks, and crows: keep calm and carrion; keep your distance; keep your morbid thoughts to your chuckling selves. Here is the news. A thieving magpie cackles from a branch of its family tree – yellow-leafed and rooted in rich soil – its soiled riches accumulating beneath the sharp upward slant of the latest sensually massaged figures. We follow the silence until birdsong becomes a myth, our dreams haunted with peepee-ee, peepee-ee, and our children, no longer able to speak, carrying new variants home from school in jam jars. Here is the news. There’s jam today and jam tomorrow for those with all the bread. Keep calm and carry wipes and sanitiser; don’t let your mask slip, and do not attempt to breathe life – I see you, I see you – into dead air without first analysing the statistics. This just in. No news is good news and good news is often no news at all. Words increase exponentially and just because we have trust issues doesn’t mean no one is lying. Follow the signs and carry on until the party/work event is over: a tissue of lies and we all fall down.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor