“You are immortal,” he was told. “You will live forever.” This was quite impressive news to take in. To be told that one would never die is like releasing a pressure valve. Time stops, in an instant, suddenly an intangible force. The man drank a cup of tea, and sat in a chair for a long while, and thought about how he would move forward with this impressive news. He got nowhere fast. The tea grew cold, and the chair began to sink.
At the back of a dusty old shop, Annabelle sits every evening and counts boxes. Small tins and wooden chests and neatly folded shapes of old card. It gets cold as the sun goes down, and she brings in an old gas heater and sits close by, fire warming her bones as she neatly orders pile after pile of beautiful boxes.
