JamesGallagher's profile

Fingernails like fault lines, splitting from the weight Of my own body, I dangle from a precipice. A sandy tear freezes the tip of my nose. Too eager to stray from the usual path, imprisoned In a dried out wound of a river. Mourning clouds loom, Heavy with foreboding, like muddy scabs on pale skin. Numb fingertips brush against moving air and my gut floods. My trousers tear against mauled rock; everything is distant. My heels smash into the ground and my knees collapse. A sheep, naked and bru...

Dear Diary, Still, waves come and go, tumble and fall. Father had warned me of the tiresomeness of sea travel, he called it, ‘a good tonic for the constitution, but a stern test of patience.’ I do not know where I would be without my jolly old paint box though, that modest, silent, convenient companion. We capture the same horizon so frequently that we cling to rare moments, like the howling of a dolphin or a splatter of phosphor from between the stars. My fellow travellers are such sun-worsh...

I pull over a green VW Santana 3000 and climb into the passenger seat. I show my palm to the driver, who laughs heartily at the spidery Chinese characters, haphazardly copied from my Lonely Planet. ‘Lutuo jiuba,’ he says. His rising tone makes it sound like a question. ‘Erm…Camel Bar?’ I dangle the name and hope for it to snag. ‘Ah, lutuo jiuba,’ he repeats, this time with more conviction. I shrug my shoulders and give him the thumbs up. ‘OK man!’ he cries, in a pretty authentic American acce...