He was sitting on the park bench up the Embankment, holding the goldfish bowl he had picked from the market. Full of the miseries of his own failures, which he had been carrying for the past fifty-odd days. His throat was sore. His heart too.

Sipping on her bottle of cheap sherry, the woman gave him a look and whispered a few words: sulfur, wings, warm, warmth. 

The moon was a thin vertical arc that night. It was fucking splendid.

-s
Toronto, January 2023