He’s perched on a car seat with a finger up his nose, the crumbs of fallen Pom Bear arms and legs are dotted around him like chips across a Scottish beach. Snot sits on cheeks built by experts. He sees a green tractor and demands a yellow tractor, a red tractor, a blue tractor, a yellow tractor, a red tractor, a blue tractor. The letters for Please forget how to form an orderly queue. His eyes fill the rear-view mirror, the source of the River Tay: gentle, powerful.

© Carl Burkitt 2022