Bands around your wrist in different colours: pink and blue, red and yellow and pink again. And Argentine. Every band holds a different meaning.

A dozen bands, with as many strings as memories.

Holidays and memories and promises and tiny massive victories and memories. Goodbyes too.

They fit together somehow but

Clash.

You finger through the colours, feel memories: bursting streets or a beach in breeze. Countries, cities and people. Your finger touching green, white, yellow, Kim.

The yellow wrist band is Kim.

Romeo and Juliet, had they been real and living today, perhaps would say:

“Goodbye, forever, I’ll hold your hand in a yellow wristband.”

Blue:

Simon, and your Dad. A smile on your face but a sadness in your eyes and a band upon your wrist that says:

“Words he never told you somehow always hold you, fingers on your thumb.”

Grey or white:

Some Christmas…a daft promise to a drunken elf. Parks, touch and memories.

Pink:

Argentina. The boat took you down the Salado, and way out your history. Home was left behind you like the start of a river. You made the pink band from what things you could find. Argentina, Argentina.

You never took them off, though decades passed and old fashions changed. It didn’t seem right, to throw them away would be like breaking all contact. No-one seems to notice, and 73 felt too old to change. They were like a diary of things to do, or finish. Time was passing but there was still one band left.

You walk up to her door, flowers in your shaking arms and memory in your eyes.

You look at the red wristband, brighter than the rest. The red band is a special band. Her name was Lucy.

In 1964 you asked her to come with you. Isabel Peron became president, Nixon resigned, you waited for an answer and she gave you this instead.

“Odds on we’ll meet again…I want to see you wearing it when we do.”

And here you are. Standing at her door. Not sure what to say.

“Come with me!” you said, years ago.

“Me go with you? Chance’ll be a fine thing.” he was glad he never took it off, never forgot what he felt or exactly what she said. Those precise words. So he took his chance.

Standing at her door.

Gambling on a wristband.