a river flowing endlessly

running over pebbles, stones, boulders

by Ellie Barksdale

1. The tiny European car parked outside the window of Babu’s cafe in Zürich has a few droplets of water on the rear windshield. The people come and go around me, on and off like the intermittent rain. They move, and I sit. A few of them are coming into the cafe, maybe even to sit by the window with me. Regardless, they’re on the move. Me? I have nowhere to be. I could stay here all day if they’d let me. I’m merely existing, completely untethered to anybody or anything in this city. It’s exhilarating and terrifying. And lonely. It’s the perfect amount of rain for forming those disconcertingly large rain droplets that stick to the empty tables and chairs outside but never coalesce.

2. I wonder how many people think that water is blue. I wonder why I can’t not think that water is blue, despite the fact that I know it absorbs color from elsewhere. Do we all do that? Start with a blank slate, colorless, and construct an identity from there?

3. My electric kettle has a blue light on the bottom to convince me that the rolling boil it produces is neon blue as opposed to the unappealing colorlessness reflected by the outer surface of the gray machine. ...