Popshot Magazine Issue 36

The insatiable, infectious nature of joy makes me think of music festivals, where the growl of guitars and the singing of a crowd can make even the shyest most introverted person (guilty) fling themselves off friends’ shoulders to be carried along by the arms of strangers. Those few euphoric seconds floating on top of a sea of people, skies wide and blue above you, before the crowd runs out and you’re tipped ungracefully back to earth, are the stuff of daydreams. They keep you going in bad times. Reading through your submissions for this issue of Popshot Quarterly I stopped more than once to marvel at the fleeting, miraculousness of bursts of euphoria. If happiness and contentment are well-tended hearths full of crackling flames that take effort to maintain, then…

I walked down to the lake to hear the ducks arguing,and everywhere I went I saw magpies, hopping two by twoon the stone steps that crown the hill, between the stone-grey curtains of the willow,along the stone-dry trails. One for sorrow, two for joy: you must survivetwo sorrows before you live a single joy. Or if your joys come all at once,watch out for the magpie taking his due. My mother taught me to be polite to magpies:sing songs to them, keep them sweet. One day your sorrows may pile upand you’ll need a magpie to cash them in for you. Silver for gold, treasure for secrets,giving away two hearts returns you one. But this calculation also tells usthat joy weighs more than sorrow, has softer down, a greater wingspan,lives…

I put the champagne in the freezer as soon as we got the news.I wanted it to be cold by the time they arrived. She was hurriedly laying the table, still laughing. Three glasses. We didn’t have flutes yet. Her orders were usually tiresome.Today, though, I couldn’t help but carry them out with a smile. I was giving the lounge another hoover when the phone rang.She answered. Nobody heard the bottle explode. I found it in the morning and began to remove shards of glassfrom among the frozen peas before she woke up.…

The finest thing of all is to be safe from the rain beneath an upturned paddling pool. Theirs had leant against the shed since the end of summer and when the rains came down they said,“Quick, let’s get under!” The three of them huddled close, cold and warm, and listened to the drumming of the rain on the top-turned bottom. This, they agreed, was the most wonderful of all known sounds. If Mother saw, she would call them inside, so the three of them stood up. “Come on!” they said, and with the pool a turtle shell upon their heads they hurried about the shed, through the gate and into next door’s garden. Clipper was there, out in the rain. Clipper was the neighbours’ dog and he was mad. “Quick!…

We shout ‘i bloody love you’ in each other’s faces as the pubturns the lights onlast callbut not on you and menever on usWe share chips and cans of poplock legs under the tablein full chicken shopsfluorescent lights that feel too brightand looks we ignoreWe walk home singing whatever Adele’s new songis calledscreaming at the top of our lungssomeone tells us to PLEASE shut the fuck upWe hold full bladderslook for a safe place to stopa bag is always dropped on the pavementWe pick up the pennies and pads andparaphernaliatalking each other down from calling the personsaved under a red flag emojiWe wake up to rounds of milky teatoast and butter and that feelingIf this isn’t love then I don’t know what the hell is…

Another yearthe somnolent apricots are ripe in thegarden, curled upagainst the leaves, ready to be pickedone by one. Another yearin a country of defeated, sleeping the illusion ofequality; she is preparing the apricots and the jars,just in case the regime crumbles next yearand there is nothing sweet left to eat. Another yearShe adds two cups of sugar, everygrain counts when sugar is scarceduring these ambiguous times,like everything else she waits in line for. Another yearthe jars are shelved for the coldest ofwinters, colder than Ceausescu’ssmile, even colder should the power be interruptedand the heaters collectively silenced. Another yearthe snow is falling; she places afinger inside a jar of apricot jam and licks it,to taste whatever summer meant, to tastewhatever freedom could taste.…