I have brought myself to the park in a hissing steam of rejection and dejection, from within and without. I am not self pitying but I have recently taken to waxing my minor agonies until they are ablaze with a horrible reflective sheen. This is a cruelty: to force people to see only themselves when they look at me, their piety in investigation denied.
A cloud unfolds from a raw prawn to a praying mantis to sugary wisps, and then to nothing. Across the sky, a fat and mottled grey is the turtle of creation and he will not bend his shape for the wind, his curvature exact and oven-ready.
The sun has a new habit of winking itself on and off, my neck fries, and I recognise Scotland’s grand and only truth: that all the acts of kingcraft, the building of yet another mushroom-infested bothy, the Möbius loop of fervent executioners keeping us in check, have all been worthwhile because they have brought me here, exactly where I need to be.