Each decision comes with a chorus, ramping up the doom and gloom, leading the audience to foregone conclusions. Sometimes he’s the hero, sometimes he’s the usher, but either way he loses the thread while his mind’s elsewhere; so he relies on the regular updates to tell him what to think, what’s best avoided. On the stage, in the stalls and circle, everyone’s wearing masks, their mouths curled in grins or grimaces, their androgynous voices whispering muffled prognostications. Hamlet or Harlequin, clown or king, the play’s the thing wherein all options reap their preordained rewards, and the chorus chants dire consequence with each simple human need. Some days he has lines to forget, but today he carries a torch and a tray, waiting for an interval that never comes. The ice creams have melted and the fire door’s locked.
Oz Hardwick
Oz Hardwick is a European poet and academic, whose most recent chapbook is Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog, 2024). His manuscript Orion Highway won the 2024 Dolors Alberola International Poetry Prize and will be published by Dalya Press in 2025. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University.
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