Popshot Magazine Issue 29

Lockdown and the curtailment of some parts of ordinary life have, perhaps perversely, been the perfect opportunity to explore the theme of freedom. During this period we have had a chance to examine the freedoms we take for granted, the freedoms that might be illusions, and the influence that forces outside our households (as well as within them) have on what we choose to do with our bodies or our minds. Across the world, free will and liberty have been exercised for very good reasons in support of Black Lives Matter at a time when protest and individual risk go hand in hand-this is something we will explore in more detail in the next Popshot, The Protest Issue. Meanwhile, a small number of people have been defending their freedom not…

Kate looked at Pete as if he had just ordered her grandmother’s corpse, pan-roasted with Cabernet sauce and asparagus. “You know they never see sunlight? And they spend every waking moment in a two-foot box?” He did know. During isolation, they had both seen the same documentary on Channel 4, Locked in a Box: Veal or No Veal. Watching Noel Edmonds shout at Belgian cattle farmers, Pete had made himself two promises: he would never eat veal again and he would never, ever dye his hair. “I know. But…” “It’s barbaric of you. It’s the twenty-first century. Worse, it’s hypocritical. You always give me shit about not being green enough, about putting plastic in the blue bins, then without blinking you go and order veal. Can’t you see how unfair…

I have a moustache. It’s nothing much, just a little Frida Kahlo fuzz, but I like to stroke the wisps of it, tenderly. I drink tea and it becomes a glistening thing. I look at it in the mirror, the tip of my nose smushed against the glass, admire the way it feels on my face: wet, heavy, there. Sometimes the hairs are pinkened by my tinted lip balm and I have, for delicious moments, a strawberry moustache. My days of waxing are shameful and long gone, and much has changed about my life since I decided to let those intrepid little hairs bloom. You could even say I have become someone else. Take this morning, for instance. On the way into work, there is a coffee shop that sells…

The garbage truck driver in my neighbourhood has acquired the intuitive ability to know which households don’t have their shit together. I knew this because on that sunny but lousy morning the beeping of his truck lingered at the front of our yard longer than it typically should. Ma hadn’t seemed to be doing well again and had to be kept in sight. So despite his grace, I wouldn’t make the garbage run that morning. Ma paced about the house and fidgeted. I watched her as she lifted a brass ornament with intent, only to then gently place it down. Suddenly Ma assembled a stack of random papers and stuffed them into her handbag. “I have a viewing this morning,” she said. “The estate agent will arrive at nine am…

Okay so, as you can see, I’m a chihuahua. Fifteen years ago, Elon Musk invented a translator that allowed dogs to talk to humans, and vice-versa. It’s this little triangle on my collar. And no, the collar doesn’t mean I’m owned by anyone. They’re stylish. Plus, it was either this or insertion. I’m a third-generation speaker; my grandparents weren’t given much of a choice. It was a lot harder for them. The ability to communicate with humans was supposed to give us equality, something that people had been fighting for, not us. But when it happened, no one wanted to accept it. Naturally, dogs were kicked out of their homes for talking back to their owners, not so cute anymore. No one would give them jobs, and that trickled down,…

an idea arriveson a low-loader |the humourless driver slides down from the cabin a yellow puffaand hard hat, works the leverstill the four hydraulic feetstand planted, crabbed | I haven’t prepared a suitable base;he’ll set it downin the yard for now I’ll have to sign HERE and HEREor it goes back |craned up it swings on a bright steel hook,profound and geodesic, probably,cloaked in a black tarp | dear Nostalgia,faithful toadyand arse-licking best-friend, sing of the yearswhen ideas arrivedlike lost footballs in Gypsey Race,drifting forwards,revolving backwards, the summer gluey and late,the water lazy, thick |you could fish them out with a net, or let themfloat downstream, orstone them stone dead…