By Matthew Curlewis

I want the hands on my clock to tell me about a different time, not a time before, but a time after all of this. Because I’ve always believed in, and have always been a champion of, hope. So I want, not the whole view – that would be too overwhelming – but I want a glimpse of a future that is better than this. I want to keep believing in hope.

Besides this impossible want of being able to see the future, I guess I just want some small things. I want to be stopped in my tracks by the sight of a tiny, purple flower, that, against all odds, and at the end of a fragile, bright green stem, has somehow managed to grow out from a crack in the wall of a building, when every other view from every other angle, speaks only of desolation. I want to hear a child giggling uncontrollably each time their young sibling blows a dandelion into tiny white parachutes that drift upwards, until they get tickled into somersaults by a breeze along the edges of an azure blue sky.

And I want my father’s hand that I am holding, instead of being cold and lifeless, to feel like it could lead me to tomorrow, again.

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Since growing up on a farm in Australia, Matthew Curlewis has lived and worked in Sydney, Tokyo, New York, and these days Amsterdam, where he runs the ongoing Writers’ Stretch & Tone workshop for Amsterdam Writers. His short film Brilliance screened at numerous international film festivals, and his works have appeared in publications including The Guardian, Blue Pepper, Wordpeace, and 50-Word Stories. Matthew also releases fortnightly-ish Bright Side Writings on Substack: optimism-led stories to brighten these dark times of chaos and collapse.