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Copyright Seeing it First Hand 2026 | Theme by ThemeinProgress
Written by jackbrewis
forty-five years on, and the memory blows back through my skull like smoke from a tailpipe. that day rushing in. a breeze pushing cherry blossoms around the churchyard. petals swirl down on the stone. soft. useless. the incense finds my nostrils. a thin grey ghost of smoke curls up from the wick of a candle. […]
forty years on, and still I have my small spoon and small chipped cup from Trinity College, Cambridge — sacred little relics, warm in my hands like talismans from another life. last night the reunion surged through me: red wine dark and heavy, escargots glistening in garlic butter, and a rich bloody fillet of lamb.
credit crunch, banks collapse. the headline bleeds out in a grubby newspaper spread across a sticky table. the ink fused with smears of butter from oily ketchup fingers. coffee stains the edges. chunks ripped from the classifieds, page thirty-three. used cars. escort services. mugs of tea steam under the light. hand-rolled cigarettes glow between stained
my daughter pointed at it through the green murk and said, “Look, Daddy, Neptune’s crown.” it was just a goddamn hubcap off a Ford Mondeo, once chrome-bright and spinning proud on some salesman’s ride, half-shiny even when the rest of the car was coughing rust. one day the clips gave up — like everything else
those were the days when nothing hurt yet, pedalling like a dumb kid through the maize fields of Southern Africa, dust choking the air, wire fences ripping at your legs if you got too close, the sun baking everything into one long stupid dream. then bam, over the handlebars, eating dirt, picking bloody gravel out
crank the burner. wait till the flame goes blue. throw in the capers, let them jump around like drunk bastards in the oil. anchovies too, those little pricks dissolving into the grease until they own the pot. slice the onions thin. garlic filling the room. and the green chillies flown in from Kenya. cut them
