Once when I told her that I was going away, she began to cry for me. Sitting at the table, she dabbed the edges of her eyes with a crumpled tissue and laughed embarrassedly and said she was so happy for me. And I knew then the love of those […]
One night N and I went walking in the dark, shining our torches, shivering, looking for pieces of wood to burn in the fireplace. And while, stooping to pick the bundle of sticks used to flick at the horses, uncle Saleem opened the door and shone his light on us […]
If we were lucky at the end of the month, we could eat something at the restaurant at Hypermarket by the sea. My father would park the trolley near a table and we could order a plate of chips with tomato sauce and sometimes a chocolate milkshake to share. And […]
My mother would lift me up at the waist and put me over the wall into the neighbour’s yard. There, aunty Ambi would give me white bread with jam and not meat, because I could not eat meat there, only jam sandwiches.
I was so close to death, I could see inside her mouth.
So she’s sitting at the sea. So she’s sitting at the sea and she’s thinking. She’s thinking she has folded over at the edges and she has become a tiny little box. She would like to disappear, she thinks (already she had started to, fighting at first against it, but […]
I am in the elevator. The foyer is empty. It is 5: 45am. I am wheeling my suitcase.The street has never been this quiet. The sun is just touching the buildings. Just hovering over their edges. But I am not thinking of this. I am not thinking of anything except […]
So she’s on a road. She’s been driving. She’s been driving a long time. She pulls up on the side of the road one day. It is hot. The sun is burning down. She can’t see anyone around for miles. There’s a feeling in her elbows she’s trying to shake […]
So she’s standing on a roof. The sun is not yet in the sky, it’s lighting up from below, pulling out the blue so that everything turns to ice, even in summer. There are cars on the road, probably taxis, their headlights still lit, carrying people coming home from parties, […]
