For years, I have wanted to write an essay on how the closing credit cards that come up at the end of biopics always make me cry. You know the ones. “Turing’s work inspired generations of research” from The Imitation Game. “That same year, John and June were married and settled into the lake house” from Walk the Line…

Heungbu tending to an injured swallow. The youngest pig building his house out of bricks. Fairytales teach children culture and values in ways few other things can. Hard work bears fruit. Bravery brings reward. Kindness begets beauty.

Arcana is a poetic, music-led hero's quest by the French Cameroonian musician, performer, director and educator, Fay Guiffo. I see the theatre piece on the day it opens at the Assembly Roxy on Roxburgh Place. Outside, rainclouds ride low over the converted church. Inside, it’s dim. A few faint lights pick out a slim, still figure, who seems pressed down by the height of vaulted ceilings.

To start, there is print material. Four options, laid out on a small table, for Border Bodies, presented by T.F. Cia de Dança, as part of the São Paulo Showcase. Take only two, I decide – nice print but they will be at the bottom of my bag, soon, and it is good to not be wasteful. Take only what we need, and can. In my hand, I hold them close and they slip slip spin slip upon each other. New.

I cannot pinpoint when I started oscillating between anger and despair. Another racist attack in Scotland, another empty statement. Another precarious creative opportunity, another exhausting conversation with an institution. A cycle of feeling unsafe or unheard. As far-right violence became more normalised and the arts remained indifferent, I felt fewer pulses of hope. In the month preceding the Edinburgh Fringe, I flatlined into rage.

A poetic Response to The Masquerade by Jj Fadaka, written by Titilayo Farukuoye.