The Wages, An Illustrated Story | 23. Songs and Parables | The People We Lose

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A horizontal drawing mostly in colour. The sky is a jarring shade of bright yellow with shaggy white clouds, and the trees are smeary spires of electric green. People walking past in a line. They are almost silhouettes in the glare. At the front, a little girl tugs on a woman’s hand to speed her up. Brandy’s face is separated in the foreground in black-and-white. She watches the passing people and holds a crushed tissue to her nose. End of description.

I thought of the people we all lose, who fade into the past in their different ways.

I thought of Angela December again, and wondered about her, and about art, and music, and the painful longing in songs.

I let it all go, for the millionth time. Thinking about that, or some dust or pollen in the sunny heat, had made my nose runny, and I dug around in my shoulder bag for a tissue, pulled out one that didn’t look too wretched, and blew my nose.

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