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Reality check

“ Have you had any letters, dad?” Dad had been hiding his mail, or just throwing it out of his ground floor window. “This one’s about voting dad, shall I open it?” The TVs always on and the blinds always drawn. He’s been wearing that t-shirt for a week and he’s switched off the fridge again. “It’s about the new voting rules, dad, you need to scan this QR code - this barcode thing. Shall I do it on your phone?” I knew this would be pointless. Dad’s been talking about an old lover that none of us remember. He thinks my brother wants to steal his artificial hip.  “They’re doing a test - the government. It’s how you register to vote. Don’t worry about it.” I put the letter in my pocket. I’d done the test myself last week. Our sense of reality was being checked online. It was well intentioned - beliefs had gone wild - there was no such thing as a lie anymore. Each online forum, paper, social media was a different reality. This test was supposed to disqualify those on the fr...
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Appreciation Ltd

We will collect your things, with your prior consent of course, clothes, electronics, books, photos, furniture - as much as you want. Then it’s important that you know that these belongings are gone - permanently, so it might sound strange to tell you that they are not gone permanently, but despite telling you now, you will believe that they are, and that part isn’t hard don’t worry, it’s just about trust - or a lack of trust I should say.  We will monitor how you are managing without your belongings, feel free to report anything to the police or insurance companies, we have their details too so can coordinate with them on our side - again, it will appear to you as a conspiracy against you, but you will have legally consented so you will find your interactions with these agencies and companies frustrating.  Once we feel there will be maximum appreciation for the return of your belongings, we will begin the phased return of select or all of your belongings. It’s important that ...
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Do empty old office buildings make you sad?

Do empty old office buildings make you sad? There was once a mundanity of life there that isn’t any more. But I’m here. Experiencing the mundanity of feeling I’m missing out on this office being occupied. That’s strange, isn’t it? I imagine walking around, pausing where Margaret sat for 30 years with the same stapler. These dull shells where people flow through. The stranger at the bus stop took an ear bud out their ear - What was that?  
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London sediments

drilling in the sky  a bird hearing its echo ratatat across treetops like violence elsewhere we must look tiny from the fluorescent lit glare of vested children  bumper seated and buggy down here are remnants of romans and salts down here are the fobless and gobby from ports, fords and mouths salmons lost in puddles
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Revenge dress

Work, the office, is inside but here, outside, is the sound of rain falling through the red trees.  Leaves hanging by a thread in revenge dresses looking their best before they’re gone. And we remember how brown things can be  when everything moves on from us again.
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A little life

A little life The condescended Teal goretex A well worn iPad cover Greys wire Dog hairs lint She rises to a text - her mums not letting the carers in  
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parakeets

How long is it going to take for the green parakeets to grey, hobble and steal from Whitechapel Greggs?  For Northern parakeets to ask about your day and for Home Counties’ parakeets to vote against obligate migration? 
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Recoverism

once highly  functioning now recovering I  saw well (I thought)  with one eye closed and now both eyes  stare unblinking 
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Benson and Hedges Gold

1.In a Morrisons mini supermarket, 2026 . There’s a tall bald man in the queue ahead of me. Have you got Benson and Hedges Gold ? I’ll have a look .  The shop assistant slid open a cupboard door. Everything behind the counter looked overstimulating. No, sorry.  The tall bald time traveller shook his head.  Why does no one have Benson and Hedges Gold? I can only find them in garages for double the price.  The ones we sell are on the sign on the glass. The shop assistant gestured to a hand written sign taped to the plexiglass dividing them.  I’ve smoked Benson and Hedges for years, they’re  the only ones I like. 2.In a caravan park in Ireland, 1990. Niall smokes Benson and Hedges Gold I smelled them in the packet In secret pockets and with peerless pressure I smelt the smoke on him from sleeping sighs on the bottom bunk And then auntie Deidre bought him 20 Benson and Hedges Gold in a caravan park in Garret’s Town Cork Because auntie Deidre ...
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In my mouth

I opened the oven door as I took a swig of cola  and the hot air swam above the sweetness on my tongue, meeting like a commuting suit of hot dust huffing hunched over virgin ice, looking back  at each other thinking what the fuck was that?
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Facebook Slough Group Delusion

Someone has created images of a past Slough using AI and the Facebook nostalgia group feels a collective warmth for seeing a past they remember, even though it isn’t. Someone points out that these images aren’t real, and a mob surrounds him. This is exactly as it was, they say, yes - just as I remember it.  One part of me thinks, fine - what’s the harm in this collective self deception? but another part of me sees harm in this utopian vision of the past because there has to be a reason to explain to them the confronting truth of the unutopian present. “That utopia doesn’t exist today and because I believe it did yesterday, something had to have changed.” Foreigners - they say - the floodgates opened. And now we are imagining people whose actions have undone an imagined past.  Again, maybe there’s no harm in someone thinking this in an armchair in a living room. But when we start to imagine who is to blame for an imagined wrong doing, we start to make decisions about p...
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a verbal reasoning test

He spoke with haste and obscurity. Phrases cut and pasted onto a blinking screen like a business school bill burroughs.  I know these words but find no meaning in their phrasing - just a hollow row of letters executing a fraction of a second.  This man demonstrates an educational and professional lineage that can only communicate with its own. I take more from quiet, from broken speech with sleepy umms. Sentences that finish half way. Words that take a moment because their shared understanding is intimate.
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