The radio ripples with songs and words, songs and words, rocking me back to Sunday afternoons in the time before it ever rained. The circus arrived, in a flurry of drums and trumpets that a small boy’s ear could hear approaching from the other side of the Industrial Revolution, and everything the sharpest eye could see became candyfloss and bright canvas. The brass band brought songs in the language of animals, and the whip-thin ringmaster cast words like seeds which grew into tigers and fire. I ran, with dogs at my heels, a cat on my shoulder, and birds fluttering in the cage of my heart, to where acrobats hung from the horn of the Moon and lions roared stars. Everyone I’ve ever loved was there, open-mouthed and silent, and we all stood like statues of our prelinguistic forebears until we realised we were dreaming, and the rain came with its soft, soft songs and its reassuring words.

Bio: Oz Hardwick