There’s a homeless woman on Swanston Street spilling her dreams across the pavement with a box of chalk. The trams screech and her stomach howls but there’s a symphony in her bones that’s louder than the trams, louder than the hunger and louder than the footsteps across her dreams.
She says her father was convinced that his veins were anchors that wouldn’t let go, so one day—he cut himself free in the bathtub while she was on a school camp. She swears to god that she can still hear him singing country songs from the patio in Elwood.
She says that when she draws her brain feels like it’s been covered in soft drink and she wonders if Van Gogh felt the same fizz when he painted. Her bones are as fragile as the chalk she uses, but she would gladly trade both of her hands to feel the fizz for the rest of her life.