If you opened Pandora’s box just the littlest bit, I imagine it would sound like one of Jonah’s sighs. When he squeezes my hand gently and lets one escape, like demon vapours, I don’t say anything, but squeeze back and wait. ‘Sometimes I worry about breathing spider eggs in by accident,’ he says. ‘What if they hatched in my lungs and I didn’t realise.’ Jo doesn’t need placation, he just needs to be heard, to be witnessed. I fasten my fingers through his and look forward. You’d know, I say, you would know if something was wrong with you.
Nic
Nic Addenbrooke is a freelance writer, editor, content creator, radio broadcaster, part-time poet and sometimes artist. Nic has been coming to terms with existence for years. He currently lives and works in Brisbane where he struggles to turn the cacophony of voices in his head into things of substance. It doesn’t always work but occasionally produces a nice veneer of sanity.
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