After Purple Mountains

Friends are warmer than gold, when you’re old, the man in my ears is telling me. He’s singing about his happiness and how it’s all gone. How he makes strangers everywhere he goes. Well, for once the man singing these things is not me. I’m too busy looking out the window and picking toast crumbs from my teeth. Goodness me, the man seems quite sad, he reckons some of the strangers he meets are people he was once happy to know. He keeps pressing on though, and that’s why I’m not sure whether the man singing is me or not. He’s barely hanging on, and I can remember a time when my fingers nearly slipped off the windowsill. I don’t think I was holding on then, something or someone else was. I was just there, you know? 10,000 afternoons ago this man’s happiness overflowed. That sounds nice, you know? But I think I know what he means. You can definitely eat too much ice cream or stay at the party for too long before you realise all your happiness is gone. It’s time to press on.

Carl Burkitt 2024