Flatpacked

An illusion. A box full of nothing.  A flatpacked figment of the imagination

The straight lines of a pitch marked out to play. Or a stage, a scene, another world:

A wide plain, windblown, covered with clouds and cold.

An out of town industrial estate. Six O’clock and all still except for a red van and a single blackbird.

Or inside. Inside a room.

Inside a brick box from the nineteen seventies, a Victorian terrace or a neoclassical dream.

You choose.

A table, square to the door. A vase of wilted yellow daffodils. Or off-white roses in a metal jug.

Two chairs, pushed back. A cup of warm coffee, half drunk. A pen, a dirty ring binder, a shadowy cat.

A place of possibilities, impossibilities, tragedy or retreat.  Or nothing much at all.

Close your eyes.

Breathe out.


And you’re back in the room.

By Victoria Scholes