Dad talks to Vaczech in the middle of the night. They talk about running programs. Mario stays and stays, we sit on the stairs and listen to Dad’s sterile and beautiful language. Tonight we eat baked fish under the oak tree. There is a party in the valley, like every summer on record. The garden curls around us because we are lonely ( Read more... )

I have never been in this house for so long without my parents. Their room is oddly pristine, new pillowcases and clear blue walls, my father's wardrobe is full, my mother's empty. The sky is pale green and luminous, I sit on their bed and eat jam sandwiches, a sliced apple, green olives. When I wake I am lying in such a way as to look out of the ( Read more... )

Mario comes and sits on the new lawn. The grass here is different from the rest of the garden, it is dark and dense like cut hair. Tess, plagued by hayfever, is talking to the flowers somewhere. We eat in the garden every night, we are displaced, our parents gone. Inside, the lamps come on and we drink and watch tennis. The sky is neon pink, I am ( Read more... )

It always seemed strange that I should get that little book in the post. But then she died, and suddenly it was not strange at all ( Read more... )

I like the resolutions of friends. I think of this standing in the garden shed just as it gets dark. Among the spades and scythes, the boxes of old tennis racquets, the impossible lawn chairs. Everything takes on a new character so that while I am suddenly dead, they are alive ( Read more... )

When there is thunder and lightning, people shout in the street. The birds sing louder, the traffic slows down, your room becomes perfect in size and proportion. The walls are either gold or black, everything green is heightened, men in see-through shirts let their arms drop down, a little victory ( Read more... )

The room is not even bright yet - the furniture stands out in odd relief, perfume bottles are ugly like buildings. I was thinking of becoming like a friend of mine, who wakes early every morning. I would go for a walk in the park, I would watch the houses change colour and then level out, divide back into the grey and the yellow. I would be the ( Read more... )

Piero's biographer Vasari tells us that the artist (who apparently existed on a diet of hard-boiled eggs) was fascinated by the strange and unusual in nature, and hated to interfere with natural things, refusing to prune his trees or cut his vines. He studied nature diligently, and Vasari describes a book he made full of beautiful drawings of all ( Read more... )

The lamp cord stretched across the floor, the curtains that don't fit but are pinned together at odd angles and pulled tight. Love, balancing a chair on top of a coffee table to reach the light bulb, ignoring your friend. Clapping your hands twice for the cat who eats the birds who eat the trees and their young flowers. Saying, come out with me, ( Read more... )

Dark days. I will tell you what happens ( Read more... )