Firstly please accept my apologies for not getting back to you all sooner, it has taken me a lot longer than I thought to read everything. I received a lot of excellent short stories and poems and I’m no expert but there wasn’t a bad one amongst them. It has been a very hard decision and to everyone who’s receiving this email today I regret to say you haven’t been chosen. We decided in the end to go with just one writer who’s work seemed to fit perfectly with Hiroshi’s art. I mentioned before that this project may take a while to be fully realised but once it is finished, and if it’s successful we hope to then look at another one.
Thank you all once again for your time and effort.
Voices mutter empty promises from the world beyond - the one that keeps turning beyond the window with everyone doing their little bit to keep pushing with palms and feet on wheels, keys and mice. The world is spun from promises. The music of the spheres recites dates, statistics and payments. The cog turns another notch. Black coffeemud and chained cigarettes oil the machine, otherwise grinding and whining at full steam as soon as I’m awake - earlier than I intended, like Wellington saying ‘hallo’ to a red fizzing dawn. London burns with low calorie chatter while the Luddites hide in daytime TV caves like chaos magicians playing with nylon and Oyster cards just enough to make it all work for them, nothing more. I am not a mouse in a wheel. I am not a God turning the lever. I am a man in a world that spins, regardless of my promises, regardless of whether I push it or not - my own music on loop bidding “get it done, get it done”. The world spins, on and on, regardless. Everything is spinning around me, shrieking with the sounds of promises and torture alike. The inferno sounds like a message. “Get it done,” it screams. “Get it done.”
I came back in the room, food in hand and I see a black cat. Black cat, watching the bed. Watching where I sleep. I blink. The cat becomes a chair, but I still see it as a cat, for a moment in my mind. An imprint, then it’s gone. Bast. Bast. Like Wadjet, like someone else, but this is not Tybi. Tybi! - just now, like Toby, my black cat’s name who died 9 years ago. But this is not Tybi. This is Pachon. This is not the 17th. This is the third. This is the third of the 9th. This is a pattern. This is a pattern where there isn’t a pattern there. There is just me here. Me, the chair and these unwritten things.
