[1] Johnny’s Big Day
A world like this, all comforting miracles – people can change if we really try. The world spins to itself and flies around the sun – I believe that…
[2] Hunt that beast through every city
Johnny’s world ... where has it started? I don’t know where they took him, only that they all left with him before I could hold him. I open the window…
[3] Through wooded landscapes, silent and invisible
We wake together in darkness. I light the woodstoves in kitchen and studio, and boil water for tea and warm Emma’s morning blanket. I step outside to…
[4] Images of an exiled past
What! What? Who? All right, yes then ... Paul did it too, once. I saw. Don’t let him tell you he didn’t. Every morning for seven years, he’s poured…
[5] A dream sleep has fallen on the city
First thing, she tried to pass one by you about playing catch with Johnny. The truth – she’s terrified he’s going to be left-handed. Don’t ask…
[6] I have slept with the lions
Through a frost blossom in this kitchen window, across the snowbanked yard and its wind devils, through Paul’s studio window, I see their forms moving.…
[7] We are not doomed to stay
All right, then. This is the first time since Johnny’s Big Day that I’ve tried this thirty metres across the garden. My first walk. My first time outside…
[8] The happiness of leaping dolphins
Nature is beautiful, when I look. I stand outside the studio door at dusk, at the base of the church path with my face to the Dream City – hidden by…
[9] Capital of the world’s end
From here the city is something you descend to. Paul gave me no warning today that we were leaving. He’s no good at telling me things like that. In some…
[10] Culture distracts us, but not enough
Days later, she’ll remember to her grandfather she screamed when she collapsed. I’ll correct her as soon as she says it: she didn’t scream, no, I…
[11] What beings will succeed mankind?
I’m thinking what I’ll tell the prosecutor: I wasn’t trying to murder him, I just wanted us both to stop feeling sorry for ourselves.…
[12] Then made one bundle of himself and me
I get out a pair of nail scissors and my sewing kit – both in the top kitchen drawer, a small mercy – and measure out a length of black silk thread,…
[13] In time but will not
The problem with stories. The problem is you can’t keep them in your head entirely. You read them and read them, and you reach the end and you’ve half-forgotten…
[14] Schemers and dancers
I have to go farther each time to find a coffeehouse I don’t know. This morning I’ve crossed the river beyond the Great Wheel. There’s a basement…
[15] The shadow boys are breaking all the laws
I don’t break things down right away, the details can always come later. I don’t look at faces until I’ve sensed something else. That man’s coat…
[16] That silence companions them both
In the afternoon I look for a way to fit an armchair into the studio. In the end, I dismantle it into three, carry the pieces up the stairs, and screw…
[17] Social idealism, and its affects
Six weeks is a long time away. I’ve used up six lives in one week. In the afternoon crowds, nothing looks normal to me yet, and it’s good to see everything…