I’m about to clean a seat for myself but then I look at you, and your face asks me what the fuck?  A fair point.  What The Fuck indeed.  So I sit down.  I feel my bony arse sinking into the wet mud.  I feel wet leaves clambering and invading through my jeans.  I’m glowing everywhere except where I connect with the ground, and it feels very cold and shivery around that area.  Rather than stand up and reject it; I remain and absorb it.

I look up and realise the trees haven’t grown that much.  At midday, on a cold winter January, the sun still (just) reclines in the crook of the baby oak.  Why haven’t you grown?  Well, of course you haven’t.  I thump my heel into the concrete floor.  You can’t grow like the rest.  You live in a man-made hardship.  And, in that context, I can’t help but respect you.

Keep growing.  I stroke the slimy, knotted bark.  Keep fighting.

*

Earlier that day we had returned.  Looking for an unfinished canvas, we found a sheet of blank, torn up paper.  Our childhood was gone.  I ran across the dusty debris of junk and knelt by a cluster of frozen bricks looking for my messages.  As a kid I had braved myth and rumour to chalk my tag on these meaningless red notepads.  Now they lay in pieces, broken up and exposed to the elements, washing them clean.

I slumped down.  Where are my records?

My echoes?