I picked Shelia up at the same time as usual and she slung a leg into the car with an avoidance of reaction to the plaster-thick substrate of counterculture adhering to the bumper (and to my clothes. the dashboard Garfield probably doesn’t bear mention.) that I used to think was calculated. Alert eyes—brisk but not cloudy. Encapsulating it as “stiff upper lip, british practicality” wouldn’t really gel, even if she wasn’t from Perth; but then, I’ve never liked encapsulating things, even when it was obvious. I cling to ignorance. No, not ignorance. An illusion of interconnectedness and undiscovered corners. Maybe I only like encapsulating if it puts everything in the same capsule. Maybe it’s because I still have enough raver in me to see a pill pun there.

We rode in silence for awhile, listening to the street. Australian summers. Music makes it worse – some primordial corner of my brain can’t reconcile the sun and streetcars with sounds that will always mean white light, brown grass, mudded melting snow.