‘No worries, no worries. Xoriyo. Xoriyo. No worries.’ Like rolling water in her mouth, fresh, no feathers, no pigeon shit. Smiling makes her warm. Looking up makes her cold. She keeps her head down. ‘No worries. Xoriyo.’
The man Muxsin ran into limps across the road, her family are waiting for her to follow them. The pigeon fills her head and taste and she can’t help but look and see if the bird is still alive in the same place as yesterday, on the spikes, maybe dead, the spikes through her, against the bricks near the green netting.
‘Xoriyo. Xoriyo. Xorioyo. No worries.’