[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 it back together. Then I carry up the five canvased stretchers I’ve brought down from the…
[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 … that one … will tell me something when I look hard enough. It’s too light for this…
[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 on the wrong side of the Dream City’s river, rhum by night, coffee by morning, one more…
[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 how they started, and what’s the point of that? A long time ago, and a long,…
[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, the closest match to his stiff-cut hair. He sits still and silent while I work, our backs…
[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. If the porcelain candlestick was harder than his head, why blame me? The inspectors would…
[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 was there – she didn’t make a sound then. Which tells us both that she felt herself scream,…
[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 ways, I knew him better the day I met him than I do now. At the start, he wasn’t one…
[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 that tree, just – down there and smoke my church bells pipe. I watch the winter lights…
[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 since they carried me up here after the new year (how?). The maid has taken Johnny…
[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. I lean forward, or try to. Everything is murky over there, for all the light that always…
[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 me why. I’m left-handed, and she loves it. My right hand never did much for her unless she…
[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 one finger of rhum into his morning tea (then made two or three warm-up drawings of me)…
[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 watch the winter morning gather under the first sun and to smoke my morning pipe. When one…
[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 a crack to let her soul out, then search the walls for mirrors. I see one screwed to the…
[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 much, there’s faith. But I’ve noticed it tonight, and now I can’t drive the speed…