She got the town wrong in the way that matters least and most: she wore the coat for a colder coast. The bakery queue taught her the pace. People spoke to one another as if continuing a sentence from Thursday. She did not yet have a Thursday here. At the top of the hill the sea was withheld, which felt like a joke the street had prepared. When it appeared it was not a view so much as a correction. She bought bread she did not need so that she would have something to carry. In the flat, which smelled of the previous tenant’s paint, she set the loaf on the sill and practised the walk in her head: queue, hill, correction, home. A town becomes yours, she thought, not when you love it, but when you can describe it without reaching for the word charming.#
This is an excerpt. The complete piece is in the print and digital edition of Issue 01.