The long way home

There is an incident near Johnston St, and we must all get off the tram. An overly made up fat woman huffs at the inconvenience and hauls her self up to waddle toward the door. I walk toward the incident, thinking about counsellors and roadkill, reiterating to myself that it's not morbid curiosity but a geographic necessity to follow this road in this direction. I map escape routes and decide to walk the last 4km home because I've got nothing more pressing to do and my psychologist spent the duration of our relationship telling me to stop and smell the roses.

A baby birds with translucent skin and a suede little beaklet lies in the middle of the footpath, a trail of ants winds around it, devouring cell by cell and disappearing under the fence. I can't walk past, and cross the road. A cat is dozing and I call it over, but it rolls and lazily bats a paw toward its face. I am patient, and it comes over in its own sweet time. Dogs aren't like this, but the only evidence of dogs on this street are the ball throwing implements in the garden next door. The cat has freckles on its eye rims and a thoughtlessly positioned blotch that runs from its nose to its left eye. It sees something invisible and shies away, wherein I lose my patience and meander on.

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Housemate number two is playing through playlists for her party tonight and they're giving me the kind of tingles that only 90s pop can. She's dancing with the beautiful lanky foal that leaves her waiting for hours and turns up with cupcakes just as she's finished taking off her tear-ruined make up. All these songs are for girls by girls and I wonder whether that ache is ever going to go away. Cider is flowing today and all the bags of chips are already open.