Days before the exam
[Here is the unsatisfying result of a creative writing class, which turned out not to be so creative after all. Future versions of this might follow!] It’s five days until the exam. We leave the hotel as soon as the night-hours begin to go to “the S” across the river. It’s the only letter of “supermarket” left that still holds on to one side of the building which is now a food delivery centre. We move like spectres under the never changing grey-orange sky. The air tastes more bitter every day: I always tell myself this when we leave the hotel, though I can barely remember how it was when you could still sometimes spot some blue sky beyond the smog. If you don’t look at your phone there is nothing out here to tell you what day or night-hour it is and time becomes, more than ever, some made up concept. I wonder if my friends are tempted to just continue roaming the streets now filled only with delivery trucks and other spectres like us; there’s no blue sky to breathe in during a qui...