Oblong

by Kevin O’Cuinn

In this one, a grainy black and white, you look a lot like Anne Frank, and I remember you saying how much you enjoyed her diary, insofar-all-considered. Consider: That time I came home and found you in a closet, how you scrunched your face and shushed me, then tiptoed west, from A to B – B being the farthest point away, within the confines of these walls. Later, tearing downstairs, shrieking ‘Do you see that I am your friend? Can you see that you will always be my friend?’ Dances With Wolves – I mean, who didn’t see it? Your brother (‘Shame I don’t get to give you a kicking’) dropped by for your stuff. It took him six hours to tick everything off the list and drink my beer. I’ll never believe you forgot the album – you left it – and even now, sometimes, I’ll squeeze into the closet and browse. The one where you look like a spinning top; the one with the cracked grey eyes; the one in the snow – how you said snow was boring and disgusting. My favourites, though, are of your shadow, but then like now I think of him, holding the camera, then later holding you.

– Kevin O’Cuinn lives and loves in Frankfurt, Germany. He comes from Dublin, Ireland, and is Fiction Editor at Word Riot.