TRACK 01. THERE’S NO GPS
and we read the map, but the map doesn’t make sense, it’s full of red dots and green flags
and we’re high, except Mike, he isn’t high or drunk or anything, because Mike never wets his
lips with alcohol, and he’s driving like there’s no time, and perhaps there isn’t, but we’ve just
come out of our cage and time doesn’t count, not in this car.
TRACK 02. THERE’S NO SPOTIFY
and we’ve made a playlist, and when Mr. Brightside comes up, we stop drinking and smoking
and laughing, and we sing at the top of our lungs, because we know the lyrics, and we won’t
let the world catch up to us, we sing and sing like we’re invincible, we scream happy screams,
because there isn’t sadness or grief or pain and nothing has beaten us yet.
TRACK 03. THERE’S NO SOCIAL MEDIA
and we can’t post location or emojis, we can’t write down how great it feels to sit on the curb,
eating gummy worms and drinking energy drinks, we only sit and watch the sky and we enjoy
the view and discuss our future and we make plans, like the world is at our feet, and it gets
brighter because we are bright.
TRACK 04. THERE’S NO 4G
on our tiny flip phones and we can’t call for help, when Mike steps away, approaches the cliff
and talks about how he hears destiny’s call, and we laugh at first, then call him back, and we
try to explain that the song is about jealousy, but Mike says, I can fly, and we scream frantic
screams, and we try to walk to him and grab him by the sleeve and save him from his mind,
and we do, then we take deep breaths and stare at each other, and we know that’s the end of
an era, of the opening track of our lives.
TRACK 05. THERE’S NO OTHER OPTION
but get back in the car and our cage, we’re dead frightened and we sleep for a while, and we
dream of dystopian futures we read about in books and watched in movies and played in role playing
games, but we don’t really believe they’ll come true, then we wake up, shake off the nightmare dust,
and we wait for the dawn.
Mileva Anastasiadou’s work has appeared in HAD, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, JAKE, BULL, and The Gorko Gazette. She is the author of the short story collections We Fade With Time and Christmas People. She serves as an editor at Blood+Honey and The Argyle.