February 1 When do gulls become a problem?

 Gemma can’t wait to see the reaction to her second show, nail gun portraits and framed redacted photographs. Loads of people had said they’d come to the opening; her social media was buzzing.

It was always going to take time to build up a profile, find like-minded souls, (maybe a patron? -that would be nice). This was the advice she’d given herself after her first exhibition had been a washout. Portraits of politicians as sea birds was, she was still convinced, a great concept, showing the disrespect for the environment those in power have, the way they feed on waste, scavengers the lots of them. She’d self-financed the show, and it had wiped out the paltry severance pay, but she felt alive.

She checks her balance whilst waiting for the bus, her banking app having failed to adapt to her newfound freedom, struggled to categorise breeze blocks into shopping expenses, (she’d watched a YouTube sculptor making a gargoyle, and they’d been on offer.)

Her phone is one of her the last reminders of her previous life, having been a benefit from her previous job. Can you have a previous job, if you don’t have a present one? Free beige lunches, forty pounds towards dental or optical work and a parking space on the edge of town were the other benefits she’d listed when she’d finally made the decision to leave.

She would be poor but happy, and that it enough, you’re a long time dead.

But right at this point she remains almost poor and nervous.

The bus pulls up round the corner from the community centre, she can hear noise, laughter, milling about sounds, excitement, it sounds like a lot of people had turned up.

She flaps her arms like wings, hoping someone will see and understand, her kind of people.

This is it.