Ad Hoc Fiction

The Light Show

He finds it very hard to branch his thoughts, which meeting him, you would not guess. Works shifts around his studies, parties on the weekends and Going Up in the world. Unusually well-adjusted. He talks so fast, hands rounding and quivering the air like he’s catching at the tails of something swarming there, ideas quick-linking, expansive; fetching him beyond his short stretch of years and making you forget that student-budget suit, chafing at the collar. You do not peer beyond the patter.

On the train home that night, he reads a book called ‘Lost Histories’ and fiddles with his phone, the carriage so up-lit he cannot catch a glimpse of flashing darkness past the lurid face at the window. But the lights inside are losing connectivity. Five years behind, a gangly teenage boy with poetry in his pockets and a playlist called ‘Forever’ is crying to him, silently.