brave is just a word Pryce picked

The bus stop bit worked. Eight minutes and the room gave me the bus stop. The teenager with the phone, the clip at full volume, my own voice coming out of someone else's speaker — I put that on stage and it landed like a joke when it wasn't supposed to be one yet. That's the trick, isn't it. The room doesn't know what's real and I don't tell them. The room just laughs.

Pryce called it brave. I keep circling that. Brave is a word people use when they don't know what else to say, or when they want to make something sound intentional. The panic attack wasn't brave. The panic attack was me on a floor in Soho with my phone recording and no plan for what to do with the footage. But now Pryce has a word for it and the word is out there and I'm expected to wear it.

Rae at the counter with the Drabble. I looked at the bag and thought about the scone and thought about nothing and then Miriam smiled her not-smile and Rae left and I stood there holding the book like it meant something. Maybe it does. Maybe circles closing and opening is the closest I've got to a philosophy right now.

The October slot is confirmed. Imogen, professional, short. Jules, one line, the autumn yours if you want it. I want it. I want it the way I wanted the thumb to heal fast so I could hold the pen properly again — desperate, stupid, physical. Tomorrow is October and the Moleskine is on a new page and I don't know what the handwriting looks like yet but I'm sitting at the kitchen table at gone eleven writing it down anyway.