This project was a response to the locked-down environment of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first letter was shared with the bookshop’s online audience and the text messages were vinyl-ed onto the street window at 128 Boekhorststraat during October and November 2021.

… She clicked and rose from her desk. Muscles frozen by screen time unfurled and concentration fell off her like cold river water. She broke surface into the evening sun at the back window.

The street below was quiet. The only movement was on the horizon, where towers of cumulus built along the coast and up, into the cobalt, pink and blood orange. She thought about her mother as she watched a nearby cloud skid north across the roofs—a pale sailing ship trailed by wispy outliers being wind-curled into sharp birds, beating home.

Cobalt became ink and she turned to her kitchen and the wine bottle by the toaster. She came back as the ship became a lunatic head, on its back, cackling at the sky. Tannin soaked into her tongue and her pupils dilated as rose darkened. It had been sixteen months. The mouth of the crazy head was wide open. A smoke-coloured bird lifted up and out, spectral wings pointed down on each side as it ascended.