miles away from his mother's culture

Young. Asian. Pacing across Geneva train station's main hall in an acutely self-conscious business-like manner. Heels clicking. Shoes pointed. Slick grey trousers. Custom-fitted cashmere coat with a fur collar. Silk paisley-patterned neck scarf. And a side parting which would have made a British headmaster weak at the knees.

a fleeting thought

If she's got breath, it must be bad.

you can't stop beauty

In the midst of destruction, still a flower is blooming.

God he made my day!

I was sitting drinking a coffee under the veranda in the train station watching the passers by passing by. Watching all the blacks, and greys, and browns and beiges cross the street, get onto buses, shout abuse to hurried car drivers and spit the night's fag slime onto the pavement. When a distinguished man in a red béret and a red coat lined with red fur walked past. He was talking to another man walking beside him, when my red coat caught his eye and, between two words, he found the time to wink.

...and she wasn't a member of the staff

Sunday afternoon. A warm day outside. Picasso inside. And a woman sitting in the basement of the Art Gallery knitting a pair of socks.

a walk on the wild side

Little man with a briefcase. Clutching onto your past. Years beyond retirement. Tottering along in your beige raincoat, your grey trousers, your brown shoes and a head polished with baldness. Too frightened to stop and imagine that there could be something else. Too frightened to stop and see what you have lost.

what would they have thought 100 years ago?

Two young boys standing on a station platform. One of the boys is holding a slim rectangular object the size of a playing card, that he keeps on tapping with the tips of his fingers. There's a wire coming out of it, which splits into two in its middle. One of the ends disappears into the right ear of one of the boys. The other vanishes into the second boy's left ear. Both boys are moving their head rhythmically to and fro.

everything under control

A woman with many a year inside her was sitting on a terrace in town. Ample parts of her tired body were jutting out of a mini-skirt and a tight t-shirt. Black boots appeared from under the table, on the end of her bare, wrinkle-tanned legs. Thick black lines circled her eyes and a small red felt hat with black netting had been poised on the crown of her head.

She was reading a book but seemed preoccupied about something and kept looking at her watch, tutting and muttering: "The cat has already been given something to eat."

no i don't have any important meetings

A jet black Polo had been tailing my car for 50 metres and I could see its driver making very obvious signs of impatience, even more so when I turned into the car park where he was going too. For he would have to tail me a little longer. I parked. So did he. And, despite my sluggishness and his hurried pace, we both arrived on the platform with a little time to spare.

He came up to me and asked if I had been the one driving the car in front of him. I said to him yes, it was me and I hated people who stuck to my arse, as they say in French. To which he answered that he had a very important meeting, time was short, he hadn't even had time to put his watch on, look, it's here in my bag still, why was I driving under the speed limit, perhaps I didn't work but he did, and he could bet I was a civil servant or something. I said no, no I'm not. I'm a science writer. "Oh all the same you people", says he. "Free lancers. All the time in the world."

you don't know your luck

Three young boys walking together to the football pitch with their gear in backpacks flung over their shoulders, chatting away to one another, unconcerned by what is going on around them as they give lazy thoughtless kicks to stones on their path. In front of them, slowing their pace, a herd of cows moving in the same direction, on the way to the farm to be milked.

nothing to lose

He scuffled across the busy street, dragging his long, lanky body to wherever it took him. Head hanging, eyelids heavy, thoughts numbed with drugs. Protected by something outside his power which made the bus swerve away from his path.

the way the stories start

...




...on the back of a train ticket more often than not

a difficult morning

- A coffee please.
- And with that ?
- Some sleep...

it's a cyclic thing

A man who had seen many years go by was sitting at a table, chewing the inside of his bottom lip and blowing small bubbles which appeared at the corner of his mouth. A baby seated in a pram close by was doing much the same thing.

huge raindrops hanging off the railing

A row of tiny lanterns shimmering their sharp light in the soft afternoon breeze.

Sunday afternoon in Basel

It was very hot. So most of Basel had swarmed to the banks of the Rhine for something cool. They were all walking in the same direction. Backsides, young and old, mottled with creative bulges and dimples that made faces at you, were all heading upstream in their bathing costumes, with bright orange watertight designer bags slung over their shoulders. In the river itself, just as many bulges and dimples were holding onto their orange watertight designer bags packed with sandals, t-shirts, suntan oil and the car keys, as the strong current dragged them effortlessly back downstream.

Cyclists and the odd fully-dressed pedestrian watched the human specks bobbing up and down in the Rhine below, as they lazy-peddled on the road or sauntered aimlessly along the pavement. Three distracted cyclists had taken up the width of one street to themselves, discussing what it is you discuss on a Sunday afternoon. They hadn't noticed the police van behind them, which had been politely waiting for the cyclist taking up the middle of the street, to surrender and let them through. But the Sunday afternoon discussion was far too absorbing, so one policeman reached for the microphone and announced very gently over the van's loudspeaker that he didn't wish to spoil a Sunday afternoon stroll and was glad the cyclists were enjoying it so much but could they please let the police through?

i've no idea how they got out again

I saw two pigeons pecking away at bread which had been thrown into a deep public bin. It hadn't been easy to land inside it in the first place. I didn't see the first one try but I stopped to watch the second one as it aimed the opening from above, and let itself drop inside the narrow space with its wings spread out just enough to break the fall and avoid having them torn off.

mechanics

He was wearing latex gloves, fondling the insides of a motor bike, much in the same way a gynaecologist would fondle the insides of a woman.

slackening the sulk

She was smiling her adolescent smile to me. The kind you're not supposed to give to your mother. But it was so much stronger than the pout that it emerged despite her efforts to muffle it, and forced her lips into a clumsy grin any parent would die for.

i swear i did

I saw a man in town wearing a salad on his head.

growing up

It's an odd feeling to smell alcohol on your daughter's breath.

magic

She was riding a trike dressed in a purple dress, bright pink tights, red clogs and a purple furry large-brimmed hat that was so big there was very little left of her you could see.

am i?

I was sitting on the edge of the lake, listening to the waves and enjoying the warm breeze when a black car drove up and parked right beside me. Both its windows rolled down and spewed out a rhythmic monotonous musical punch. Then a young man came round and placed a towel and something soft on which to lay his empty skull on the grass, barely two metres away from where I was sitting.

There wasn't a soul for miles. No one to my right. No one to my left. Just a beautiful stretch of grass and beach where you could enjoy the peace. And there was a car park. For the cars. But that was not where he had parked his. I wondered for a while whether I would try and explain my frustration or leave him to wallow in his selfishness. But I couldn't. So I got up, asked him why he hadn't parked his car where everyone else had and why he thought I would enjoy his music?

I then left, and heard a voice say:

"bitch!"

the middle of your salad, tomato, egg and mayonnaise sandwich

That's when the difficulty begins. Because the top of the sandwich does not cover the bottom of the sandwich anymore, and you know that whichever way you bite into it, it will cause something to subside, drip or drop. You can also sense all these eyes looking at you. Which just adds to your distress and embarrassment. So eating your sandwich becomes a sequel of problems to solve. If I bite here, I'll manage to tame the mayonnaise but there's a chance that the egg will drop out and that the bottom and the top of my sandwich slide even further apart. In reality, what happens is that part of the egg gets stuck to your upper lip, most of the mayonnaise drops onto your jeans, the tomato shoots out and drops to the floor and a large leaf of sorry salad is still hanging limply from the rest of the sandwich which you would still like to finish.

this morning

..it's raining drops the size of small rhinoceroses that explode like little bombs when they hit the ground.

rain

...there's something in it that runs through me and puts me on a high I don't want to quit. Summer rain is the best when the windows are flung open and you can smell the perfume rising from the little craters dug in the soil by swollen raindrops.

something you can do when you're small

She was wearing pink sandals and an ample pale grey dress with a pink sash around her middle. What was going on in the adult world around her was of sweet indifference to her. So after performing a few pirouettes and racing across the hall, she decided to clamber over a low wooden barrier. Only she had misjudged the height at which the floor on the other side of the barrier was. It was far down. So far down that her feet were no longer touching the ground and she only just managed to reach the other side with the tips of her fingers to gain some kind of temporary equilibrium as she worked out how she was going to put herself in an upright position again. She remained in this posture for a while, with her little legs jutting out over the barrier, her dress down over her head, displaying a lovely pair of floppy pink underpants underneath.

perspective

He wasn't happy. I had driven down a 200 metre stretch of road which belonged to him. A small stretch of road lost in the middle of vast countryside. Had I not seen the notice saying it only belonged to him? That only he had the right to take it? With his four wheel drive landrover? 200 metres of tarmac on the map. An insignificant run of cement in his own country. An inconsequential streak of black on the planet. Yet there he was defending his measly bit of road, with his teeth clenched, his face red and pearls of sweat sprouting on his forehead.

the way to do it

I was standing at a very busy crossroads in the middle of town. The kind you don't try to walk across without the little man turning green because there seems to be no logic whatsoever in the rhythm of cars stopping and going. That crossroads and I have known each other for years yet I still have not discovered the magic moment when everything is brought to a halt and - if your timing is good - it is still safe to cross despite the fact that everything is still glowing a stubborn red.

So, I was standing at this particularly busy crossroads in the middle of town when two very aged gentlemen reached the height of the kerb on which I was waiting and stood there for a very brief moment by my side. I don't know what pushed them to cross the road. I don't think it was the consequence of any deep reflection but more a mixture of distraction, a blind belief in destiny and the privilege of old age. Whatever it was, they did. Cross the busy road. Hand in hand.

The two of them tottered across and the cars made their way around them the way a river flows around a stone. Not a hoot. Not an angry shout from their drivers. Just respect and awe for the sheer madness of two old men who were no more at a point in their life when they waited patiently to be told when to make a move.

oh my god...

She leaned over and wiped his mouth until there was no trace of coffee left, while he continued to read the day's news in the paper.

I don't know

I was in the ladies' sitting quietly on the pot when someone came in and occupied the cubicle beside mine. After a noisy ruffle of fabric, I heard what sounded like two buckets of water being emptied into a gutter followed by three medium-sized stones dropping into a deep well. Then whatever was in there started to spray...something.

They had cut a chunk out of you

You were standing there young and handsome, with a bewildered look in your eyes. You seemed to be holding everything together with your arms which you held crossed against your chest in a desperate hug. When you turned your head, it turned in small jerks. When you uncrossed your arms, your whole body trembled uncoordinated. You smiled at every pretty girl who walked past you. A wide childish smile you couldn't control, which became a bitter grin as they continued their way unperturbed. Then the bus arrived and you turned in your jagged way to take it. That was when I saw the hole at the base of your skull and a scar as wide as your smile on the side of your head.

and now we have the opinion of a privileged observer

...said the journalist. And the camera turned to a man whose eyes had been set to look in two different directions at the one time.

they keep us going

He had more years in him than was healthy.
But he was kept upright with the aid of a walking stick,
He stayed in touch thanks to two hearing-aids and a pair of glasses,
And he had a new set of teeth to chew with.

when everything is still taken for granted

...
I had a train to catch.

Instead I caught a busload of teenagers traipsing across the road, heading for their school opposite. There seemed to be no end to the procession of long-haired, lanky, all-the-time-in-the-world, skulking adolescents to whom the thought of thanking those who were waiting for them, to span the distance between one kerb and the other, would have never occurred. All I got were defiant looks peering through a jungle of overgrown fringes.

Cats do the same when you open the window to let them in.

we were taught to

go to school
get good marks
choose a job that you do every day and that pays

and most of us do it.

towards the end of the afternoon somewhere in Geneva

She shrieked from the other side of the road, flung her arms into the air and stamped her feet excitedly on the edge of the pavement. The other girl turned to see where the shrieks were coming from, recognised her friend, waved to her frantically and screamed screamy things over the deafening traffic. They both waited impatiently for the lights to turn red. Gasping, waving, oohing. When the lights turned green for them, the two girls "oh my God"ed across the street and dived into each others arms with relief. They hadn't seen each other since lunch time.

a thought

The worth of an occupation is measured by the amount of money you earn to do it. Anything else is considered to be a cute pastime.

a second thought

It could well be that the worth of a person follows the same kind of reasoning.

you can put a flowerpot on it

...
or something

never too old

He was sitting on his scooter.
A middle-aged man.
In a posh suit.
Waiting for the lights to turn green.
Making rasping noises with his lips.

today at the train station i saw

a man dressed for arctic weather
with a scarf around his neck
and 30 degrees centigrade
sitting on a bench
talking to someone invisible

one guy slip his hand lovingly
into the back hip pocket
of his boyfriend's jeans

a young man
with a wild look in his eye
itching his nose
incessantly
because of something
he must have put up it

a woman say a prayer
and wipe her spoon and knife
very carefully with a yellow napkin
before she drank her coffee
and sliced her roll into many equal parts.

i drew this for Anto

It's a trekking sulky

a glimpse of heaven

This morning I smelled the deep perfume of a yellow rose still moist with dew and saw a young deer in a field with not a care in the world.

another kind of human

His body had been parked in a wheelchair
and he was fiddling with a cigarette,
concentrating hard
on which end he should light it.

She seemed to have no spine.
The top of her had slipped
down to her waist in large bulges
and because of the angle of her head
she was looking at the world from underneath.

A middle-aged man with eyes slit
because of a chromosome too many
walked joyfully past me
chewing the inside of his toothless mouth.

A young man
with the gait of a toddler
ran up to a bewildered woman
and waved a happy hello in her face.

Another had stuck his head
into the open window of a car
and was talking
to the driver seated inside.

And one woman
who was not getting very far at all
stood motionless
with the look of someone
whose thoughts
had also ground to a halt.

They had all been released
for their Sunday afternoon stroll,
from an institute
for the mentally challenged
across the road.

13h39

She wasn't young anymore
but she still had a taste for coffee.
So she wandered into the trendy café
but she couldn't climb onto the trendy chair
whose seat was at the trendy height of her neck.
So she left.

16h29

I saw a pigeon with its rear end jutting out over the roof.
Then I saw another pigeon land on it
and they did it hanging in midair.

18h45

He couldn't take it anymore.
He'd been happy to accompany his mistress for an afternoon walk.
He'd wagged his tale and his rear with candid eagerness as they set out into the countryside.
At first, it had been difficult for her to keep up with him as he shot into the woods to hunt down very large game and returned wrapped in panting joy and saliva.
But she just kept going on and on and on, jogging her way into the early evening.
So, little by little, he had lost interest
and enthusiasm
and by the end of their tour, he was lagging with a tongue pining for water and a sorry look in his eyes.

mother watching the news

...

where did he get that accent from?
what kind of a haircut is that?
look at his ears...poor thing
his tie doesn't go with his suit
I wonder if his sleeves are short?
he's got an unfortunate bump on his forehead
you can just make out a bald patch
what an odd colour of hair
he must have had it dyed
he seems to have a kind of hairlip...no?
why don't they have more about the arts on TV?
his elocution is pretty mediocre
his upper lip is very thin
he's got hands like a butcher the poor soul
not to mention his nails
I wonder who he inherited that nose from
the decor in the background is awful

last night as I was driving home

I saw something very small and furry crawl out of a hole on the side of the road. It didn't look like anything I had seen before. It was too round to be a ferret. Too short to be a hare. Too big to be a mouse. Far too small to be a badger. And not nearly spiky enough to be a hedgehog. Its head was large compared with the rest of its body. Its eyes huge, and ears which stood to attention, pointed and erect. And as I drew up closer to get a better look, and it looked up at the big metallic animal approaching, I saw that it was a tiny baby fox. It didn't give me or the car a second glance. Instead, it just crawled back to where it had come from and disappeared back down the hole on the side of the road.

cocktail party

(The only way for me to get a space between the title and the beginning is to write this.)

They talked about

cooking recipes,
different models of mixers,
different makes of cars,
going shopping by bus,
the weight of paper bags,
the possibility of cycling into town,
children's schooling,
children's upbringing,
heating systems,
insulation,
the weather,
the new underground metro,
shopping on Saturdays,
lovely walks to do,
how many cars they own,
and the cool - but expensive - restaurant that has just opened in the mall.

No one said they were bored to tears,
or would have preferred to stay at home,
or apologised for having no conversation,
or were furious for missing their favourite TV programme,
or said how awful they thought everyone else's company was.

The women were thinking
how ugly her dress was
where she got her hair cut
what she could possibly see in her husband
how she had put on so much weight
he seems to like me
she was far too skinny
he's good-looking
she must have had plastic surgery.

The men were wondering
where he got his shoes
what it would be like to go to bed with her
what a shapely backside she had
how large her boobs were
about her crotch
if she would ever stop talking
how much happier he would be at home.

Then everyone said goodbye to everyone else in a pool of smiles, 'it was a great partys', 'see you soons', 'lovely to meet yous' and 'hope to see you agains'.

yesterday

a pigeon walked past our kitchen window
and it didn't stop
until it had reached the end of the street

erosion

Her purse had fallen onto the ground.
I told her so.
Although she seemed to be looking straight at me, she didn't react and just kept on sucking on the end of her cigarette.
I said it again.
Her eyes lit up. "Are you talking to me?"
"Yes," I answered. "Your purse has fallen off the table."
She thanked me profusely and apologised for not answering faster. "It's very rare that people say anything at all to you in the streets," she said. "I'm not used to it. It should happen more often, shouldn't it?"
I smiled.
"My husband doesn't say much to me either," she continued, as she stubbed her cigarette out nervously and nodded in the direction of a shape sitting opposite her reading the newspaper, unaware that his wife was talking to someone else.

date

His eyes leaped to her crotch.

warm solitude

There is little
more beautiful
than sitting
sheltered
from an
oncoming storm,
with the light of day
dimmed
to an early evening.
And the cool
of a summer breeze
easing the moisture
out of a hot day.
And me sitting at my table.
Writing.

There is nothing better.
Save,
perhaps,
the cry of a seagull
ripping the air apart.

with a flick of his hand

The editor looked at the pile of manuscripts. And sighed. 40 to deal with today. He took a glance at each one, flipping through them halfheartedly. Judging their quality by the accompanying letter and a few sentences he chose to read. In the constant quest of someone who writes the way he would have liked to. Within an hour, he had divided them into 4 piles of 10. Three of the piles were dispatched to three of his readers. And 10 were thrown onto his secretary's desk with the request to write a short note saying that "the editors thank whoever but the manuscript does not fit into their editorial line. Or something to that effect".

perhaps he's right

An aged man with a parched face tripped up to me in the café, leaned across the table and said to me in a gentle voice, "Don't give it too much thought. Just let things go a little."

programmer

He'd been working for the company for barely a day. Yet he had already adopted the stance of someone who had been there for years. Legs stretched out under the table. Shoulders round. Back curved down to the height of the seat. Eyes gazing at the screen. Right hand firmly grasping the mouse. Left hand twitching heavily over the keyboard. Oblivious to any form of life outside his virtual world.

the privilege of age

A knuckled, blotched, trembling hand rose slowly above the set of shelves in the shop and reached for a card which had been placed at the very top of a display shelf. The tips of its fingers picked at it until it managed to dislodge it a little so that it toppled over and fell into the grappling hand.

A bent over crumpled old woman gradually appeared from behind the shelves, with the top of the card protruding from her coat pocket. Weary with a life of too many years, she chewed, sniffed and mumbled her way out of the shop on two crutches as a bewildered shopkeeper looked on.

what a busy little man

His pace is a healthy almost breathless pace. He always knows where he is going. Never the time to stop and look at a daisy or watch the clouds waltzing above him. Where he goes, he goes to fast. Whatever he does, he does with precision. Whatever he says, he says with self-importance. No fuss. No hesitation. No time wasted. Crashing his fingers down on keyboards, going straight to the point, flying down business corridors to say something essential to his superiors or to attend the ultimate meeting. A quip here, a quip there and everyone on his side.

Does he do the same at home? Does he open his front door before he walks through it? Does he give a business kiss to his wife as he throws his briefcase on the floor and winks to his children? Does he bulldozer through supper? Quick brush his teeth? Fuck fuck fast. And fall asleep?

sad

His car was a big and powerful car. Far more powerful than my little car which was trying to overtake it. So big that the little car trying to overtake it could have parked inside it. But there was no way he was going to let me do it. Every iota of his mingy little maleness fled to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his toes. He was not going to let me disgrace him. He was not going to let me make a fool out of him. So he pushed his pitiful right foot down on the accelerator and made sure that I wouldn't get past him. And we drove side by side for as long as one of us didn't give up the petty game. I would have gone faster if I could. But I couldn't. And what he saw as yet another human weakness and inferiority filled him with an ego so thick he could have wallowed in it. So I slowed down. And let him overtake me. It made no difference to me. And I had made his day.

near death experience

She hadn't moved for ages. Her husband was chatting to two of his groupies; he played the organ at church. He had been doing so for over fifty years. She had been married to him for over fifty years too. They had been together for so long now that neither of them noticed the other. The habit of hearing the same thing, seeing the same thing, feeling the same thing, thinking the same thing had wrapped them both up into a cosy cocoon of boredom neither of them had questioned. He still had a little life left in him and spread it over the two ladies keeping him company. No life was left in her. She had given up looking for hidden sparks years ago.

She sat at the end of the table motionless, still wearing her coat, gazing straight ahead, oblivious to movement around her and the woman sitting opposite. There was no colour left in her face. She had taken colour away from her clothes years ago. The only sign that life had not given up on her yet was when she lifted her left arm to sip the tiniest of drops of Guinness from a glass. It still looked full when the two ladies sitting at the table rose to leave. Her husband said goodbye to them warmly and then turned to mutter something to his wife. She acknowledged by moving her right forefinger which was dangling limp on her side - and had been for the length of dinner. Obediently, her husband laid the plastic bag on the floor, where her forefinger had pointed and then sat at the table behind theirs to exchange a few words with those seated there. His back to his wife's.

She still hadn't moved. It was difficult to say whether she had noticed that there was no one sitting at the table anymore. Her eyes were still very set somewhere on the far side of the dining hall. Perhaps she was looking for what she had lost.

a new kind of madness

She marched into the bookshop talking at the top of her voice ripping to shreds the calm that had been there before she arrived. She was saying that as far as she was concerned the woman had no sense of logic whatsoever. That she had just been through a divorce. With that man. You know the one. Yes that one. And she was no doubt suffering from depression or something. What's more her attitude was surreal. Senseless. And irrational.

But there was no one beside this woman talking at the top of her voice. She talked to the ceiling. She talked to some books. She moved a little forwards. And took a step backwards. Then she stopped to talk to the floor with her hands punctuating her thoughts.

Some years ago, she would have been led out of the shop and perhaps even admitted into a psychiatric hospital. Only she had something stuck in her ear and a wire leading into her bag.

it also had two tea cups for ears

The elephant's trunk had been pulled asunder
Its creator vowed that it was her blunder
It's just as well the creature was hit by thunder
Or was it lightning I wonder?

the ladies' Sunday afternoon gig

They seeped into the small space eager to get the chairs which had been placed around the edge of the room where they could rest their silver heads against the walls. They greeted each other profusely. It had been a week since they last met. They shifted their chairs to their satisfaction, exchanging news on the weather as they busily arranged and re-arranged their coats on the back of their seats.

Then it started. The author had begun to read a few passages from her most recent book. The ladies listened intently. To begin with. Hearing aids switched on, fingers twitching, bodies leaning forward, glasses perched on the ends of noses. And as the thread of the story became hard to follow and the author's monotonous drone cradled the ladies into another world, eyelids closed, heads drooped and mouths opened.

The author closed her book. A pause followed. The silence became very loud. Eyelids opened, parched mouths snapped shut, heads stood to attention with startled gazes as thoughts were dragged back to the present. Every lady had a question. Every lady had something of interest to add to the passage which had just been read as long as whatever was discussed revolved around what they had written, what they had seen, what they thought.

When is it that you stop listening to what others have to say?

where do they find them?

We were queuing up for tickets to get into the museum. We were waiting to see beauty and were welcomed with a cold breeze and ugliness. Two middle-aged ladies were making it quite clear to all of us that they had the power. The power to ignore us. The power to choose the type of ticket we were to pay. The power to look very busy and have very little time for us. Yet that was what they were there for. They were there to sell tickets for us to see something for which they had no credit at all. It seems that no one had told them.

what's your name?

Polly Esther

one moment...then the next

You were watching life from the edge of the road. Beautiful, majestic, serene. You were perched on the top of a wooden post, scanning the field for a careless field mouse. And then you decided to fly off. What is it you saw? What is it that made you leave? You didn't see the car that was heading in the opposite direction. And you flew straight into it. There was no way you could have missed it. The shock threw a firework of feathers into the air and you fell to the ground. But it wasn't over. The car following ran over you. And the one following that one too. There was nothing they could do. And I saw you lift your head. I saw your eagle-like profile. Frightened, confused. You lifted a sprawled wing in a last attempt to fly away from the horror. I couldn't do otherwise. There was no way I could miss you either. So I ran over you too. I heard something hit the bottom of the car. I felt sick. I felt helpless. And my only wish is that I put you out of your misery.

what is it you have to tell me?

It's the middle of February. A little ladybird has just crawled up one of the electric cables which leads to my computer. Beautiful red against black. She's come all that way to see me. She is still very small and has only two tiny black dots on her red body. One on each side.

Now you're walking across my screen. Six little busy legs, two trembling antennae and a white spot on each side of your head.

I wonder who sent you. When I was a little girl I was told that every ladybird had a secret to tell me.

solitude

You were talking to someone sitting opposite you, on the other side of the table. There were a lot of exciting things you had to say. Your mind was very crowded. Very busy. You talked about the past as you waved a hand over your shoulder. You talked about the present as you pointed your finger across the table. You put your hand through your hair when a whisper of weariness blew over you, and poured yourself another glass of wine. Every now and again, you paused and smiled, lit another cigarette and listened carefully to what he had to say.

Only there was no he.
There was no one.
Not a soul sitting opposite you.
Whoever it was had left years ago.

more solitude

You came crashing into the café. Wild hair, wild gestures, dressed like a man who had been out hunting all night. You had been a woman once. But now there was no softness left in you. The little girl you had once been must be huddling somewhere in a dark corner with jagged edges. You threw your arms in the air, screaming over and over again "the meaning of words" "the meaning of words". All these words which had done so much harm to you.

and he takes up precious space

He sat all evening with his back to her, talking to her husband. He called her husband by his name. She was referred to as 'your wife'. That inert mass that was sitting by his side. He never tried to integrate her into the conversation. The thought that a woman could have any had never occurred to him. Women were things with holes that he filled when he felt an urge between his legs. A blonde with large breasts if possible. He invited her husband over and over again to join him in his rich life of gin&tonics, easy women, long nights, smoke, dope, money and senselessness. 'Just the two of us. Between men.' Meaningful chuckle. Sniff. Swallow phlegm. Suck in nicotine. Throw head back. Purse lips.
I am life.
I am fun.
I am it.

The poor git.

the man who never finishes his sentences (where i like to buy my rings)

"Yes, the colour goes very well with... You understand the shape of the ring... How you wear it. It all has to do with... A kind of aura... Venetian you understand... They know the art of glass... Because glass is... They polish it... You can feel the shape... Better than resin for instance because resin... You stop... Your fingers stop... you stop. You can't do otherwise when you're.... You see. And the colours too... The gold in there which is of the ....hmmm.... They are... They are the glass... They know what is feminine... hmmm... It's all in ... Yes."

the woman who can't stop saying sentences (where i like to buy my bracelets)

"They all want that colour my customers. And I tell my distributors that my clients want that colour. But it makes no difference; they send me 2 of this colour and 3 of that colour. Because, you understand, you can't choose. Well they do do favours for me because I've been a client for so long. I was one of their first clients in fact. I've been buying these kettles ever since I opened my shop. Which is almost 10 years ago now. How time flies... Sigh. The pink kettles with poppies. These are the ones everyone wants. Naturally, because they already have their pink cups and saucers. They want to make a set. They don't want to buy a kettle with dots if their cups have poppies painted on them. Do they? And all my clients are the same. They need a set. I won't be asking them for any more kettles though because these ones don't switch off automatically. Which is no good. Imagine an elderly woman - or a man - forgetting their kettle and going out. To the cinema or for some bread. And they come home to a kitchen which has gone on fire. Or worse: their appartment. So I won't be ordering anymore of these kettles to answer your question. No..."

rearranging reality

Every morning he crouches over the newspaper, pushing a magnifying glass along the sentences and muttering every word he reads. It takes him all morning to get through the day's news. Once he has reached the very last word on the last page, he takes a pair of scissors out of his coat pocket and carefully cuts out letters which he places in a row front of him. He then spends the afternoon sorting them with the tips of his fingers, putting them into an order which makes sense to him.

a cat's life

She was wearing a pair of slippers that had seen better days, thick woollen socks, a flowery dress and an anorak which would have preferred rain. He was out with worn trainers, exhausted jeans, an Aran sweater and a woollen hat to warm his thoughts. Both had wild grey hair which hadn't seen shampoo or a comb in months. Neither of them was happy with what the other was saying and both were hollering discontentment to whoever cared to listen. Their point of discord could have been the overweight cat that was attached to the end of a lead she was holding. The cat was making it crystal clear that it did not want to walk by letting itself be dragged along the pavement by the skin of its behind.

unknown to them (I)

Every morning, there are about fifty business men sitting in the same train wagon as I am. That's twice the amount of testicles. And each testicle is busily producing millions of little sperm.

thought

There are never so many women sitting in the same train wagon because most of them are coping with what these little sperm can do.

unknown to them (II)

The women in the train wagon are attached to ovaries full of eggs eager to break away and meet a fellow sperm. At any point in time, many eggs haven't made it to the gates. Some are halfway down the phallopian tube. Some have met their match. And the great majority have met nothing at all.

the dream

She was talking to him through a silver-plated fountain pen. Someone appeared. She threw the pen away and began to growl and grunt, with her eyes set on the approaching figure and her trunk sweeping the ground in a rhythmical sway.

It was her mother.

a bright future

Little girls and little boys moulded by cold grey hands into cold grey sheep.

He could do it blindfolded

His fingers tango across the keyboard, beating out the rhythm with a confident click of the keys. They know every move by heart. They've been tapping the same song for so long now. And when they have finished feeding data into the system, he beats the 'enter' button with an assertive flick of the thumb and lets his arm float gracefully into the air before he begins another cycle.