Hammock Snapshots are short flash fiction pieces, accompanied by an original illustration that aim to capture a moment, a feeling or a fragment of something without the pressures of longform writing. The series began on Instagram and now also features on our site.

In the park, an old lady feeding birds reminds him of something his father often used to say. Some days you’re the pigeon and others you’re the statue. But for him it seems to shift every few hours, minutes, even moments. From flight to sinking, from clouds to shit, from lightness to pressure. Feeling too much and trying to make it make sense, constantly analysing the financial technological neoliberal post-everything hellscape his phone keeps accosting him with.

He puts the phone away and lies back, but cannot focus on the book he is reading. He hears snatches of friends talking, children playing. Maybe the best way is to disconnect, turn off the analysis and just consume from an altitude, to become the pigeon without worrying about the big picture. To forget the anxiety, the mortgage, the climate, the relationship and just meditate, to clear his mind of the noise. He takes some deep breaths, when in his mind the words of a friend from years gone by pop up - something about how pigeon shit causes chronic lung problems. Maybe it’s better to be still, to be the statue.