long land

she spoke to an empty desk until it attacked her. She cried a bit and went into a park but its shadows were too thin. She went down a sally. A sparrowhawk angled into a willowbush. There was silence. Then there was the terrified twitter of when it's too late to be silent. Then the sparrowhawk smashed back out of the bush and flew broadtailed and laden back to its own nestlings.

She went into the wood. When it got dark it also got choked with old snapping twigs, solid tracery, she crashed through it, she tumbled into the ferns and a swirling brook swirled away a biro.

She left the apple on the bottom stair and went down to the boat. On the sandy banks the mining bees rolled massed in a furry mating ball.

Set adrift she ran the boat down the river, wiped the needle and dropped south into the broad fluttering ocean.