Wild Greens

Sweet Escape

by Mike D'Andrea

Death of an Imagined Future

by Elaine Mead

A self-help account I follow on social media tells me a break-up is the death of an imagined future, and we should grieve accordingly.

I grieve via late night trips to the twenty-four-hour supermarket two blocks from my apartment. I shuffle in wearing the same joggers I’ve been wearing all week, tatty sweater and greasy hair. I delight in the savage reflection of red-rimmed eyes in the frosted fridges, crowned by the violent strips of lights that beat down on aisle four. Snacks and confectionery.

I cradle a family share–sized packet of salt and vinegar crisps, cheese dip, and a four-pack of canned sticky-sweet fizzy sugar, as though they are the baby I fear I’ll never have. Your eyes meet mine from down the aisle, your slovenly outfit a mirror of my own. I think I spy cereal in your hedonistically overgrown beard. The tinny pop music blasting from the overhead speakers is dueted by the dunking of a mop into a streaked bucket of brown-grey water by the night cleaner as you grin and brandish your own junk food baby towards me. Despite myself, there’s an attraction.

I fast forward in my mind and see us conversing for longer than necessary in the rain-filtered neon light of the supermarket parking lot. We’ll exchange numbers and converse via an escalating array of witty text messages. Before I know it, I’m joining you at the dinner table of a nice restaurant, something with charm but not too pricey. Your nerves will get the better of you. You’ll spill a drink, and it’ll break the awkwardness that’s just beginning to smother us like a damp towel as I help you clean up the mess. Your fingers will brush mine as our eyes lock, and we realise everything will be okay. I’ll take you home, and we’ll fumble, embarrassed, muttering it’s been a while, and I’m sorry about that, before falling exhausted into each other’s arms. I’ll spray the night with a liberal mix of naive longing and shattered loneliness, telling myself it was better than it was. I don’t worry if you know I faked it, but I do stress about the downstairs neighbour having overheard us. We’ll drag this out for a few weeks before the veneer of pretending to be people we aren’t, better people, starts to crack. The way you inhale your food too quickly and the way I chew too loudly. Your dead-end job and low ambition, and my neurotic perfectionism. We’ll have our first fight when I ask where is this going and you’ll shrug noncommittally, tell me we’re just having fun and I’ll think ‘but where is the fun?’ I’ll head for a night out, work drinks with colleagues, and take my flirtations with the guy from I.T. too far. We won’t be the same again. I’ll disappear into myself and you’ll become increasingly desperate to hold onto the dwindling idea that what we had might have some longevity. I’ll ignore you when you call, and you’ll show up on my doorstep, shouting at three in the morning, drunk and vengeful because I won’t let you in, before texting me we’re through.

In the supermarket, I’m snapped back from my reverie by the checkout girl asking me if I need to buy a bag, and I realise I’ve forgotten one. Before I can reply, you step up, brandishing a spare rumpled tote, insisting I borrow it. I look at you, my ears hot and pounding with the reverberations of your angry, drunken shouts.

I shake my head, sadly. No. Not again.

Sand Castle

by Saswat Kumar Mishra