by Erin Jamieson
I order a fish kebab from Buck’s Chippy, walking the rainy streets of London with lime green rain boots.
Eating lunch this way, under the canopy of the striped umbrella from my childhood, makes my office job an illusion, a passing dream.
As if this is what my life could have been: magical in its simplicity, adding color among lanky, shadowed buildings, walking amongst tourists who come here to feel something again.
On the train to Norwich, the man across from me reads The Daily Mail, turning the page with urgency as if he cannot live until he finds out what King Charles really said to son Harry before he left.
Or maybe he’s more invested in learning if the nearest chippy sells locally sourced haddock.
The way he reads reminds me of how I once loved.
Not with passion, but with a desperation to see what happens next, until one day, eager to turn the page, I found it blank, and my fingers stained with ink.
I am soaked from head to toe when I finally return to my flat. The cold is bone deep, so I brew tea. The whistling kettle muffles the noise of the wife and husband below arguing.
Licorice, with just a squeeze of lemon. The bitter and the sweet, as the streets below flood. My phone rings and I see it: the number of my last partner, a partner who is now a ghost, who sinks into my dreams.
I don’t answer.
I sip my tea, hoping it can fill me the way nothing else can.
Erin Jamieson (she/her) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University. Her writing has been published in over eighty literary magazines, including two Pushcart Prize nominations. Her poetry chapbook, Fairytales, was published by Bottlecap Press and her most recent chapbook, Remnants, came out in 2024. . Her debut novel (Sky of Ashes, Land of Dreams) came out November 2023. She resides in Loveland, Ohio. Twitter: @erin_simmer
January House Literary Journal 
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