I. That bakery on Green Lanes. A rainy London night, me and my friend wanting to buy some soft white bread. But my friend forgot her key and so we took a minute longer. In that minute, our neighbour bought it. That last soft white bread. Bad luck, mild bad luck. Coincidence. Just that. Piccadilly Circus. That crowded, crowded place. That crowded place where everyone is in a hurry. I saw you in that crowd. You saw me in that crowd. Our life together flying through my mind the second we exchanged that first glance. Two strangers falling in love just like that. A miracle. A mystery. Fate. II. the rabbit in the forest fleeing the fox what is that the moon attracting the tides universe that machinery that queer clockwork orange or an octopus entangled in a fisher's net would it be all the same if we would not baptise it with screwy notions III. you stranger than the sea IV. the little mermaid she believed in love and destiny and in prices to pay I do the latter as I change my heart for a gun V. I have to drown my infatuation just another notion a bad dream beneath liquid salts while universal schemes move on in old cold ways as I succumb to universe's only law the unfolding of eternity les jeux sont faits jamais
An ex-journalist now working in a library, Susanne Masuda [she/her] has always loved to play with language. She studied English and German literature in Germany – her home country where she lives with her Japanese family and a crazy Bulgarian street dog – and in the UK.