P.S. I’m in a new city now. The colours and shapes are pretty much the same, though. The murmur of traffic and the hum of something no one can grasp still line the inside of my ears as I walk along the streets. The labyrinth used to scare me, but after everything, I’ve decided there’s no point in fearing what will only send me around over and over until I have given enough of myself for it to spit me out.
The people are the same. Office suits march and fast fashion spills onto every available body, a loose set of dominos that never seem to stop catching one another. Joggers weave between the rest of us like our bodies make up the obstacle course rather than spectate it. If we all run at once will the pavement give way, concrete bones shattering under us in relief? No longer cursed to a frozen life, will it be eager to eat the feet that danced upon its lips in mocking?
Do you suppose we all hold particular notions about the night, have this expectation that it differs from the day in some way other than the darkness it provides? Perhaps it’s the artificial light, its hypnotic laser focus, that makes us forget that the moth drawn to the flame could only ever burn. What little starlight there is falls in and out of consciousness, between the plum bruise of the city light swelling in the atmosphere and the silhouettes of the buildings around me. They haunt us, as we scuttle between the giants’ cemeteries in search of something that touches our souls. But mostly I just find other ghosts in search of something to latch on to.
I’m trying not to laugh at the absurdity of these thoughts, although I am certain you are. You always said I thought too much like my brain was trapped in a car driving at high speed. But what if my mind is the passenger, left behind by the careless driver who forgot to press on the brakes?
Ellie-Louise Wilson
Ellie is working towards her Master's degree in Creative Writing and Publishing at the University of Lincoln and currently lives in Nottingham. Unable to stick to one thing and get on with it, Ellie writes across several genres, hoping something might stick. She has worked as a fiction editor for The Lincoln Review and has work published in Scribble Lit Mag. Ellie also runs a Bookstagram account, @_the_ramblingreader, where she reviews her recent reads, but mostly searches for her next impulsive book buy.