Stories

I watch the trailer for ‘Trainspotting 2’ with a pal before heading down to Leith. Flapping blue and white police tape cordons off a red Fiesta wrapped around a lamp post. Helicopter seeds from an ash tree, green, yellow carpet the path. A bag of rice thrown into the cold easterly wind blows down Duke Street, sends pigeons into a fury. I draw the street. A man sits down next to me. He places a bottle of vodka and half a large bottle of coke with precision at his feet. He contemplates them both for a moment and then, leaning forward he empties the vodka into the coke. He tells me how its illegal to drink alcohol in public, this way its ok. He has just come from a job interview; he wasn’t optimistic. Grey graphite, grey pigeons, grey Edinburgh. The pigeons take off, circling the pedestrian precinct and land on Queen Victoria’s head. I go to get warm in the library, finding a quiet spot in the graphic novels section. I hear women’s voices reading to children who giggle and yawn and fidget, listening to stories of bravery and love.