A Moment (from the second day in America)

On the first day, B takes me to buy a warm jacket, shows me how to buy a metro card, how to use the subway and helps me get a cellphone contract. I have exact money in my budget for these things. I count the money, write it down in […]

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A Moment (from the third morning in China)

On my third morning I went up to the roof with Marlies and it was still winter so the restaurant was closed and we had jackets on even though the sun was shining and we sat on chairs and looked out at the river and in the distance I could […]

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How It Feels To Be Living

I want to say, I feel a lot more now. When someone says, come, I do. When someone lets go, I fall. I am in every moment, in everything. And so this is how it feels to be living.

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A Moment (from tonight)

Today, while talking to aunty R, I remembered Gorikhala, her nod, her bashful way of crossing legs over at the ankles, her cheeky grin and overwhelmed, I smile, nod, my eyes threatening to spill over. And she too is quiet, waiting for something. How slowly she walks. She tells me […]

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A Moment (from the chips aisle)

Once in a mall I went to to look at a shelf a young man had passed. And I found that I kept returning to the spot pretending to inspect the shelf because he had left his perfume behind and it was the perfume of young men who can’t afford […]

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The End of the World Came Every Day Then

Once in the movies, I moved seats, angry, sensing the rising of the storm, the end of all good things. How I wept back then. Clutching my chest as if it had broken open. The end of the world came every day then, the start of a new one too, […]

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A Moment (from the backdoor)

Sometimes in the right water, just when immersing myself I recall the moment at the backdoor. The stars, the pool of yellow light from the bulb above the door. An embrace so warm I am forever lost in its folds, even now underwater, many years on.

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What I Learnt From My Missing Earring (a quick story)

This morning I thought I lost yet another favourite earring. My Kashmiri tiger eyes from Dal lake in Srinagar. I spent the morning searching for it and complaining and generally being upset, wondering how I always lose one of my favourite earrings. Eventually I gave up and put the lone […]

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Once

Once, I was a real person.Real hands and nose,real memories,not shards,not pieces,not bits, and a heart as fullas the moontonight

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The Good Things (A Moment)

It’s a summer night in Durban and abba is teaching mamma how to swim and my feet is in the water and I am telling mamma, ‘Kick harder, kick harder,’ and mamma is trying to kick and the water is so blue I can see everything and the night is […]

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