Fri, 23 January

Friday, fractured The barber tilts your head like a question you didn't know you were asking. Chrome catches a face you almost recognise. Three hours in a room where someone says "going forward" and time actually does— lurches, staggers, compresses to a point then stretches like taffy pulled between two fists. At the shop your son holds up a cucumber the way knights hold swords, the way scientists hold beakers to light, the way anyone holds proof that they were sent for one thing and came back victorious. You buy milk for tomorrow's people. The list in your pocket is already archaeology. Clouds at forty percent means the sky can't commit either, which is the most Wellington thing— light through gaps, gaps through light, the whole city a window left ajar.