An Alice Yard short story by Shivanee Ramlochan
T hem prostitutes outside the gate could write better poetry than me." Selah ground her heel into the pavement. I watched the stiletto crush a weed that had pushed through the crack. The gold tip of the heel emerged, crusted in wet dirt. "Selah ." "No, you fuck right off!" She pulled her shoes off and thrust them at me. "I need a cigarette. I need some goddamned weed. Jesus." Selah pronounced the name of the dead saviour like it belonged to a Venezuelan waiter in the Hyatt . Photographs courtesy Abinta Clarke I left her there, went to the corner bar to get a pack of special filters. The gold-tipped heels swung in my left hand. I paid the cashier with a blue note, collected the cigarettes and a sour look. In the corner of the bar, a girl in a leopard-print skirt was gyrating against a painted oil drum. I looked at her for two minutes, watched the curve of her in the dimness, smelt her improbably expensive perfume. I'd bought Selah a bottl...