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Blood

The baby had several drops of blood on her forehead. She opened her lashes to reveal more blood on the retina of her left eye. The right one was as crystal blue as the day before. She was blowing bubbles inside her warm blanket and didn't cry.

Prop 8, no, no, no

As the honking trucks and SUVs of the Prop 8 supporters filed past the Public Library in San Francisco today, the homeless tried to scare them away by bare flesh and screams Go Back Where You Came From, BIGOTS. I watched a woman behind the steering wheel of one of the trucks smile. Was she happy to receive the attention? Did it please her to know that San Franciscans weren't peaceful and laid back as all that? That the angry ones where all hungry and dirty and high? Or was it a smile of defense, a typical human reacton to being on uncertain ground? Where did she really come from?

Recycling

Dear Michel and Yolanda,

I heard a lot of rambling outside tonight. It was about four or five o'clock in the morning when I was woken up by the sound of metal clanking against metal. I thought the raccoons got in your trash, so I walked outside and I saw that there was a truck parked by the curbside, and a woman — I could not see her face — was rummaging through your recycling bins.

"What are you doing over there?" I called out to her.

She did not answer, and I was afraid to approach her closer. But it was obvious that she was pulling out all the glass bottles and putting them in the back of her truck. When I spooked her with my question, she got in the truck and drove away. It was still dark, and I didn't catch the numbers on her license plate, but I called the sheriff to report the incident anyway. Gale had mentioned that there was an increasing amount of poachers in the area, people who more than $50 a day by stealing people's bottles and cashing them in for deposit. It worries me, especially now when I saw it happening with my own eyes: people who routinely scoop up the area for trash, might also come back for something much more valuable. I asked the sheriff what we should do to prevent this from happening in the future.

"There's not much you can do," he said. He wasn't very helpful.

His advice basically comes down to two options:

1. We put out the bins right before the recycling company comes by, which is approximately between 6:30 and 7 am. Since you're already up at that hour, this is the option that would probably fit your routine the best. I suggest that you consider it very seriously.

2. Separate the plastic and glass bottles out from the rest of the trash and take it to the recycling depot once a month or so on your own. This is the option that might work best for me, since I live on my own and do not accumulate much waste during the week.

I hope you take action on the above right away.

Your neighbor, Anne Marie.

Rain

Dad? Can you hear me? Dad? Yeah, so I wanted to ask you, when are you planning on going home tonight? Could you pick me up? At the BART station? Well, it's raining, and I don't have a hood. Yes, I'm wearing a jacket, but it's got no hood. It really sucks. It would be really great if you could pick me up. I'm at the library now. That late? The library closes at 8, I think. But I need my computer to do math. Yeah, okay. I said, Okay. I'll see if I can get a ride from somebody else. Fine. I'll call you back, and if you still don't know, I'll try to get a ride with somebody else! Okay, bye. Thanks, bye.

Celia

Celia is about 60. She is from the Philippines originally, but also she spent there eight years between 1998 and 2006. That was because of a traumatic death in the family and also because the family business is there. Somehow, between living in the Philippines and running the family business (which she should be doing even now instead of spending the morning at the open rehearsal at the Symphony) Celia managed to raise four American children. The youngest has graduated from UC Davis this past spring. The oldest went to UC Berkeley. The two girls in the middle went one to NYU and the other to UC Davis as well. Celia likes to bake and she also loves opera. It's too bad the opera does not offer cheap open rehearsals.

Knowledge

There is so much to know, Anna said. She was out of her make up already and wearing dark blue jeans and a sweater. I had waited for her outside the theatre, and I was surprised to see that I was the only one waiting at the back door for the performers. The opera played to full house, yet noone brought flowers or wanted to get an autograph. I wanted to tell Anna that she sang with such depth and color like never before. Anna took me to a coffee shop a few blocks away that stayed open late to serve the after show crowd. Even at the next table over a group of friends was discussing the performance, but nobody recognized Anna without her wig and courtly attire. I've been in school most of my life, Anna said, I read all the time. Yet I am barely competent even in the area of music, in this field that's supposed to be my own. I understand that that's how it is and always will be, but it's frustrating. She ordered chocolate mousse and I had some vanilla ice cream and we shared. Take me home, she said. I need a break.

Tango

They met at the coffee shop on Sundays, from 7 to 10 pm, to practice tango. Nothing more, nothing less. A. would get a glass of wine, and B. would take a sip or two from the same glass. Sometimes, B. would buy a cookie and split it in two. There was a teacher, but the two of them were always too poor to pay for the class. So they came in when the class was over but the tango music was still playing and there were other couples on the floor. Over the weeks, they managed to pick up a few moves, but not many. A. would laugh and talk about the weather or the upcoming holidays or the teacher's outfit. B. stayed mostly silent and looked at both of their feet. A. always wore red shoes and B.'s only dancing pair was black. The *always* lasted five to six weeks, and then A. disappeared and B. went back to the bar.

7:29

The sun is shining through the blind and combs the carpet. I can't sleep. It's 7:29 on Saturday morning and I cannot sleep. Why is that?

Three tenors

The two of them start singing, and it's awful. They are trying to harmonize, but they are just off. Way off. There are no lyrics, and the tune is really whiny, and the singing is so bad that the dog tied to the parking meter outside starts to squeal along. As if she's also horrified about how bad this is. And the three of them go on like this for another two minutes, and all of a sudden something changes and I start to see the beauty of it. The dog is telling her story. Cruel owners who leave her outside and forget to feed her. Loneliness, despair. Hunger. Real animal hunger for companionship and a meat bone. Everybody in the cafe is terrified. The dog squeals along; and suddenly its owners decide to recognize her. Oh my God, they say, that's Bud, she's squealing outside! So they rush to the dog, and since they can't make her shut up, and they are super embarrassed about this, they untie her and take her home. And all of us at the cafe are stuck listening to these two dopey guys who can't hold a tune. How did they get hired, anyway? I wonder.

Knife and fork

The best decisions in his life were the ones he made on the spot and complied with ever since, never wavering. When he was 12, he decided go against fashion and grow long hair. So he did, until his hair grew shoulder length and he could braid it. Once, on a particularly cold and windy autumn day in college, he decided to become an engineer. He never regretted his decision, not even when forced to study for three different exams all scheduled for the same day. Later in life there came a point when he was forced to make up his mind to eat his food with a knife and a fork, always. At another point, he decided to start reading books, first non-fiction, then short stories, then novels. He even started listening to books on tape on his way to and from the factory. These were decisions made once and for always, and they stuck, and he was proud of himself, of his ability to carry them out, one, two, three times a day, every day.

Glasses

A crazy man on the bus today was talking about Tina Fey, like she should be running for President. And then a car ran a red light at a four-way intersection, but the driver of the other car was paying attention and swerved just as he was about to ram into the first car. It turned out alright. I was looking for a shop where they could re-polish my glasses, because all the scratches on the plastic lenses have been giving me headaches. I must've taken a wrong street, because I didn't find it.

Sunflowers

The sunflowers died the day after I introduced them into my garden. They went to sleep that night, closing their petals so tightly that the next morning they struggled but couldn't open them up again. The sun was in zenith, but the flower discs remained fisted, and only in the very middle I could see the soft yellow labella and the black eye of the seeds. I wonder what I did wrong. Did I hurt their root system while replanting? Was it too cold for them at night in my yard? Did I water them too soon or not soon enough? Is there any rational explanation for their behavior except for or in addition to their severe dislike of me?

Recognition

The girl who recognized me today thought that I worked at the airplane factory. I didn't.

Pure evil

It is a library policy that one must wear shoes in the library. Due to health and safety concerns. It's not Okay for the shoes to be even half-off (heels on the floor, feet hovering over the leather) because you're going to the theatre later and you decided to put on your brand new red shoes, so new they are still tight around the edges. No, the shoes must be on all the way, buckles buckled, laces tied. If they're too tight in the toes or your heels are swollen and need a breath of fresh air -- oh no, not here, not in the library, nowhere near the books, in fact, never! You're out of line, bad woman, not a Cinderella, but a stepmother, a wicked sister. Off with your toe! Down with that heel. Where did I leave my butcher knife today?

I wonder what the library policy says about flip-flops.

Finis

Ta. Ta-ta-ta-Ta. Ta-ta-ta-Ta. Ta-ta-ta-Ta. Ta. ta. ta... ta.

Smoke alarm

He woke up in the middle of the night because the smoke detector was beeping. Beep, beep. A tiny, squealy sound. He got up and changed the battery. Then he went back to bed, and lay there, thinking about the sheep who were grazing in the grass by the river, and how they were supposed to swim across, and then one of them drowned, and then the second drowned, and then the third...

Fobia

The worst part about being mugged and hit on the head with a brick on the dark street corner near your house is that for weeks afterwards you're afraid to leave your house unaccompanied. You're afraid to stay in your house unaccompanied as well, but you deal with that by installing an extra lock on the door and never letting anybody in without first ascertaining their identity in at least three ways. But leaving the house is painful. When you have to do it, you run, which hurts your head still in bandages from the assault. You carry chemicals with you, fully aware that you're not going to be able to use them when somebody decides to hit you on the head again. You call your friends for help, and for a while they are happy to do it: they feel generous and useful and happy that you were just hit on the head and nothing worse. Later they tell you that your fears are a fobia and that you can't live out the rest of your life behind the locked doors. You know that is true, so you don't. You move; you move in with somebody. It's the easiest thing to do. It makes you feel healthier for a while, because you're also afraid that you've developed a fobia.

Geni

A friend sent me a link to a genealogy site, said it took over his life. He and his cousins traced their family back to the 17th C and they've got something like 50 (email accessible) people participating all over the world. Well, I logged in. So what? I knew I'd be the only one of me up there. Not even my parents to link to. The whole thing is stupid, anyway. Really, why do people care?

The guilt

The main question is, who left the front door unlocked? Billy says he can't remember if he locked it when he came home from the beach, is he lying? Peter doubts that when he got back from his date Billy was already home. When did the workers leave the premises? Jimmy thinks he saw the light in the garage, when he woke up because of the sound of the front door opening. He doesn't know whether it was Peter or Jimmy or one of the workers looking for something inside the house. The point is, somebody was here, inside, because the dog was barking, and in the morning Jimmy's stuff -- all the expensive stuff, laptop, cellphone, school bag -- was missing. So the question is, who was it who didn't turn the latch? Who didn't fasten the chain? Because that's the person who must pay Jimmy the damages. That's the person who's effectively guilty.

Baked apple

The simple stop at the post office to mail cookies to my cousin that should've taken not more than 5 minutes in fact lasted so long that an apple I left on the passenger seat of the car was half-baked by the time I got back. It was baked on the top, the part that was directly exposed to the sunlight. I had never realized that something like this could happen to an apple, although thinking about it in retrospect, it totally makes sense. I ate it anyway. A man standing in front of me in line to mail four Priority envelopes had collapsed and died on the spot, before my very eyes. The paramedics took 10 minutes to arrive, and then they thought he had a stroke. There were bubbles coming out of his mouth. He fell down right in front of me. I think his arm brushed against my knee. Then the police was there too and they had all kinds of questions to ask. I was a witness -- as if there had been anything to witness. Somewhere between the paramedics and the police I wondered what was going to happen to his mail. Like if it was ever going to get mailed. The post office employees didn't seem very concerned about it. They just stood back and were pale and didn't know what to say. I think they wanted to close for the day, but I just begged them to process my stuff. I mailed the cookies and the Priority envelopes and tried not to think about how the addressees wouldn't know about how they got mail from a dead guy.

Power of authority

The attraction is instant. You come into the classroom, pick an empty seat -- it's easy, most of them are empty, -- take out brand new writing pad and your sack of colored pens and pencils, wait. Students stroll in, most of them younger, distracted, casual. Finally, at 7 on the dot, he walks in and shuts the door behind him. He hands out syllabi and smiles. "So, tell me, what is a play?" he asks.

Dragon Day

"Do you know when the Holiday of the Dragon is?" message comes. I go online and spend half an hour researching the question, then text back, "I think it's in March, but on lunar calendar, so hard to know for sure." But my eight-year-old correspondent tricks me, "I'm just reading a book," she texts back. "The one you gave me." Oops.

Lecture

Dr. Chekhov was a cranky old man. He died of tuberculosis in Yalta. The one thing he always wanted to do -- to write a novel -- eluded him, so he made up half a dozen of plays and hundreds of short stories. He was married to an actress, that didn't help. The actress was independent and lived in St. Petersburg, so they only saw each other once a year. But still, they were married. Perhaps, the cost of opportunity of finding a new wife was too high. They also could've been romantics. The only thing that mattered were letters, words. One theory goes, theatre is a process of othering the self in order to constitute self. Go ahead, explain that to undergrads.

Geese

My heart is closed for the season.
The geese, V, wintering.
Staples: meat and potatoes.
I go to the library to work
every day
I eat apples, for vitamins.
In other news, my story
is getting published in the Faraway Journal
in February.
Perhaps in the spring there will be ocean
again
and sunset, and homeless people;
there will be you
and shiver
and electricity.
But perhaps it will be too late
and this winter is the last one.

Tree texture

I got to paint a tent today. We were walking by a neighborhood park, and there were some kids painting a tent there. They drew a tree, brown, navy blue sky on the background. "Here," they said, "give it some texture!" So I took a paintbrush and drew white, brown, and blue squiggles on it. It started to look like an alien tree as a result of my efforts.

Alpine Smith

Alpine Smith, Inc is anxious to rid our driveway of snow. They'll come for the first time free of charge to evaluate the amount of work, and then give us a quote for their quickest service and environmentally friendly equipment. They'll even make sure to give us wide edges and to blow-clean the walkway to the front door -- but! they will not venture off the pavement or do damage to our lawn. These guys are SO good that they'll first bring snow to the Mission District and then clean it off. Because obviously anybody with the San Francisco address must miss snow THIS badly.

Smart kid

The boy called today. He told me to meet him at the Burger King, on the corner of 16th and Valencia. He's never been in the city before, and he tells me where to meet him! Thank you Google Street View for this particular pleasure: little kids telling us where to go and what to do. So I suppose he will also tell me which restaurant I should take him to. What ice cream I should get him. He'll insist on not seeing the Fisherman's Warf or Chinatown, oh no, that's for tourists and he means business, like what about going down the Peninsula to check out that Computer Museum? That place is getting great yelp reviews! Fine, fine. Fine. He can BART it if he likes, if he's so good at it. I'll stay home and go to the Zeitgeist to while away the time. Thank goodness, they don't let kids into the bars yet.

To the dog owner, received and processed

On Thursday & Friday your dog(s) kept me awake as I work graveyard. The one has been bad enough (now you have 2?) as you can't seem to control its incessant barking. Now 2 is ridiculous!
You obviously are self-centered & have no regard for neighbors.
If you don't control or train or muzzle your mutts I will launch a petition & see what all the neighbors think of your inconsiderateness. On Thurs & Friday the dogs must of been unsupervised as they yapped & fought most of the day! Back & forrth & it echoed off the buildings!
DO something -- or I will launch the neighbors together! The ones I have talked to are fed up!
Enough is Enough!

Childhood

I read in bed, when the sun finally broke through the lace curtain
I read on the porch, dew and dragonflies, neighbors waking up, buckets banging
I read in the milk line, when there was nothing else to do
I read in the kitchen, water boiling, grandmother sighing
why don't you do something
I read in the strawberry patch in between the spurts of weeding
smudges of dirt and grass between the pages
mosquitoes
It was hard to read in the currant bushes, fingers black and blue
arms aching
I read by the side of the lake, where no one was watching
what took you so long?
nothing, nothing
I read on the old couch by the fire pit, after potatoes had been watered
cucumbers covered up with polyethylene
I read while she watched TV, forte piano sonata performed by Evgenij Kissin
Back in bed I wrote poetry and read, longing

Rings and dresses

A boy is coming to get the rings and the dresses. He's coming all the way from Brooklyn, New York, but considering the distance all this stuff has already traveled, this is not far at all. These rings, they are quite old-fashioned. A purple stone in a bulky gold setting, and a simple gold band, woven sort of like a beehive. She had worn them till the day she died, and they had to pry them off her swollen white fingers. This was in Khabarovsk, and now they've traveled to St. Petersburg, Frankfurt, Palermo, and San Francisco, and the boy is coming for them from Brooklyn. The dresses, too. Summer crepe de chine decorated with wild roses and white daisies thrown against the pitch-black background. The kind of pattern that was mass produced once but will never be reproduced. She loved the dresses and willed them to her daughter, and now the boy is coming to get them. I wonder what he thinks about this errand.

My mother's dream

She encoded his words, his story within the allergy blotches upon her skin. It felt like the right thing to do.

Drama

This is a story of two friends one of whom has everything and wants nothing, and the other one just the opposite, of course. That is, she has nothing -- or close to nothing -- and wants a baby. Wants it so badly she's contemplating going off the pill without telling her boyfriend. The way she puts it, "My body is aching for it." She has three different degrees and works as a copy editor at a small press, earning barely a living wage. She already has a nine-year old daughter. Her boyfriend is a few years younger, he's in sales, but not very good at it. The other friend never had babies, never wants to have babies, doesn't see the point of them. She is ehh, well, let's say a professor at a University. Earning not much, but a stable income that could take her quite far in the field of reproduction. Her kids' college tuition would be definitely covered. But she doesn't want any children. The world is overpopulated as it is, she thinks. And what for? Life is pain, and not really worth it. The center of the piece would be a conversation between the two of them, where one is dying to ask for money but feels ashamed, and the other would give it in a second if asked, but believes her friend is making a bad and selfish decision, so she doesn't offer. The goal? The point? There is none. Just the story.

Identity

That white girl is pretty.

One composed, one borrowed

Yesterday
we moved our bed
Now our heads point towards the wall and the living room and the mountains
Our feet lead through the windows towards the strawberries and the ocean
Our faces face the apricot tree
Our eyes look out to the sea
Hawaii, Japan, etc.
Direction is important
Sleep is serious business

It's hard to find young people today who are curious about
the Grateful Dead
The young people are (choose one)
1) not interested
2) Think Jerry was God
And he was just a guy
All of us, just guys,
just fish swimming in the sea.

Warning

Please be aware that Reena, a 26-year old bartender at Sun Cloud winery off of Rt. 12, has recently lost her husband to heart attack. Behave accordingly.

Opera

The story I deleted today was based on the history of the breakup and reunion of a band I like because it was getting too close to the real story of the band, including the names of the bassist and the saxophone player. Tomorrow I'll start from scratch by naming them Alphie and Betty and adding a fictional pianist to the mix.

Buckets

Yesterday I went to one of those Ace Hardware stores, the one on Market Street, across the street from Safeway, you know it, and there was a man there, an elderly man, older than me, for sure, and he was placing all these metal buckets in front of him on the ledge, over the stairs they have there. There must've been six or seven buckets in a row, all of them on this narrow ledge, above that staircase. They have a lot of other things hanging there, over that staircase, and I've always thought that it wasn't very safe for others, because, you know, there isn't a lot of space there, and people are always bumping into things, and imagine one of those things should fall down? So I don't know what this man was doing with the buckets, but there were a lot of them, six or seven, all in a row. They were these shiny metal buckets, with handles. I am not one to tell people what I think they should do, otherwise I could've said something, because I think it's very dangerous for people to be in that store, especially if you want to go down the stairs. But even if you don't, it just looked like a very bad idea to me.

Meat

She is particularly disciplined after a long vacation. She is expecting guests today, so at exactly 18:00 she will close her laptop, throw away candy and gum wrappers, take the elevator down to the street, get on the subway, get off at Church street, go into a store with a name I can't even remember, and buy meat. Several pieces, large and lean. No bones. Hardly any veins. Killed only the previous morning. Her party is going to be awesome.

Nissan

My August Nissan news has arrived, tells me my Inbox. I can click on the picture of a car in a puddle to learn more about the four-door sports car now available at my local Nissan dealer. But instead I'd like to scroll down to the bottom of the email and find the unsubscribe button. This is the seventh mailing list I've unsubscribed from today. In the age when countries lead cyber warfare against each other, my friend (me ex-friend) decided to take revenge on me by subscribing me to everything from TCBY to NineWest mailers. Everything she thinks that I'm dying to have. I can see why our relationship couldn't last: would you want to be friends with anybody who thinks you're dreaming of owning a four-door sports car that is very good at driving through puddles?

Solitaire

Sometimes I find my sister at the public library. She always goes to the Periodicals Reading Room to flip through the pages of Time and the Economist. She's always been attracted to the business magazines, I can't understand why. Today though she was giving trouble to the librarians. I heard her voice the minute I walked through the doors: she is a little hard of hearing, so she tends to speak loudly. "I want to learn how to play solitaire with cards!" she insisted. But nobody could help her. "Is it a game?" I heard a men's voice ask her. "Yes, it's a game," she cried, "We used to play it in fifteenth and sixteenth --" she didn't finish a sentence, and I wonder what she was going to say: fifteenth and sixteenth what? I was climbing the stairs, and couldn't make out what happened next, but as I entered the hall I saw her turn away from the reference desk with angry words: "I better go home. Of course, you haven’t got anything on solitaire!" Then she saw me -- I think she maybe even recognized me for a moment, because she asked: "Do you know how to play solitaire?"

Plagiarism of an interpretation

writing, hanging out
i can't wait to get away
confused, conflicted.

Critical distance

Fine, I'll succeed, I'll narrow focus
specialization is key in a global economy
The things that I am not are thus:
an arctic pilot -- that's easy, i lack the body among other prerequisites
a mathematician -- my brother gave up on it too
a programmer -- whew, call it luck
a business lady -- i tried it on, it's too narrow in the chest
a scholar of languages and literatures -- that's where we get to bone-crunching
a translator, an editor, a teacher -- that's two legs and an arm sawed off and bleeding
a writer of Russian verse -- to give up heartache?
a writer of Russian prose -- to shut my mouth?
Mother, I'm dying!

The art of forgetting a language

First I develop a nervous laughter
on the phone
I say "Alle"
but there's no answer
I say "Hello"
and you hang up
I say WTF?
but I might as well speak Russian

New order

Sleep has been outlawed.
The bed is not for you.
Please do not stare at those white sheets with a glimmer of hope in your eyes.
Nope, not even sitting down.
Nor standing up.
By closing your eyes you volunteer to
not be.

Disturbing dream

I was running down the escalator and jumped off the last stair.

My mind is clear now

The sentient beings of the planet Noarth that call themselves Yohs are a genuinely happy bunch of craniums except they really do hate us because we're such slimy whiners.

Not poetry

This project is not futile.
Sleep is a fiction.
Fireworks are for soccer.
Language desинтегрируется.

This is not happening

I am home as planned, at 7 am. And where is she? Where is she, huh? She is supposed to be here -- up there -- pressing that damn button and letting me in! Is it possible that she hasn't heard the bell? I've rang twenty times already! Fine, I'll ring twenty more times! Wake up, you, idiot!! It's my house! I mean, what the hell? I let her stay, I give her the key, and I ask her to do just this one thing for me -- let me in! Let me in! Dude! I'm hungry, and tired, and need to go to the bathroom, and it's my house! My bed you're sleeping in! My bed, don't you get it? Get up! Get up, you lazy asshole. Oh, come on. What am I supposed to do, climb to the third floor window? Call my landlord? At 7 am? No way. Idiot. I'm an idiot for letting you in like this. So now you sleep in my bed, and I'm going to sleep right here, right underneath the door. At least I have my backpack with me. Something to put my head on.

Ice cream

We got ice cream in the inner grounds of the castle -- and Italian ice cream, of course. It was droopy to start with and we had to race to eat it before it melted all over our hands and arms and shirts and shoes. A. somehow managed to splatter her braid, but I was Okay. We climbed the tower and then got really thirsty and had to go out look for soda.

Route number 88

When Pete got fired by the bus company, he decided to handle his misfortune like a generous and a responsible individual for once. The smile would not leave his face until he got through the last conversation with admin and payroll people. He would finish off his route for the day, go home or maybe go to his sister's house for dinner, and then maybe stay the weekend playing with the kids, but then come back to his own place first thing Monday morning and start looking for a new job. So he did that. Everybody who got into his bus that Friday afternoon got a free ride. The persistent types who wanted to know why they didn't have to pay were told that "There is a type of a strike today."

Done

Bought games
Copied music
Borrowed HP7
Registered to vote absentee
Backup
Ate sushi
Got cash
passport
gum
floss?
Jitters?

Corner

My mind is hazy, and don't try to explain it away by blaming my diet or constitution. Sure, I had a glass of wine for dinner, so what? It's a hazy day in the neighborhood, and my mind acts accordingly. Computer says it's 11 degrees Celsius, dark and cloudy. Earlier today I saw a dead bird on the street. I was reading a New Yorker article, something about the homeless in LA. They call it the -- eh, too much effort to remember. I didn't finish the article. They made a movie about it. I found the magazine at the gym, and I saw the bird on the way to the gym. On the way back it was gone. Instead, the corner where I had seen the body (the dead bird's body) was littered with random pieces of clothing. There is always something on that corner. One day, there was a bunch of plants there. And a mattress. Somebody threw away a mattress. Thinking of this I am growing sufficiently sad to go to bed. Yes, I think it's bedtime. Good night.

The mall is not the devil

She is not afraid of the mall. She rarely shops there but when she does, there is no question of being intimidated by the overzealous salespeople. She never forgets that they are people. Would she like a massage? No, thank you, not right now. Try this facial skin mask from the Dead Sea mud? Why, thank you. Her cheeks could use a little extra something. It's only $40, discounted to $20 just for her! She appreciates the gesture, but she wasn't planning on buying this product today, so she won't. She has to sleep on it, to see what her cheeks feel like tomorrow. Will she come back to the mall tomorrow? Hah! Not very likely. But she is such a good shopper that yes, she might come back if she feels the mud is soothing enough and the deal is worth it. She'll come back and she'll bargain down to $10. No, really! God, I really do admire her so much!

A man badly in need of a shave

Dali mustache. That's all I can think about while the man is describing to me his trouble with the immigration law. Obviously, he needs help -- people generally come to my office in search for legal advice. This man sounded pleasant enough on the phone, when we scheduled the appointment. Who could've pictured the monstrosity on his upper lip? He said he was from -- Dali mustache. He's got a work permit and he wants to -- Dali mustache. I focus on the papers in front of me and for a moment they make sense. Right. H1/B. Trouble. An interview at the immigration office? Gray walls, plastic chairs. Dali mustache. Dali mustache.

A mystery

The papers kept piling up, and still there was no news. Zoe parsed every little note she received from the San Francisco branch office, but there was no secret sign, not even the tiniest typo or smudge, nothing personal at all. She was furious, and every night passing the growing pile of papers on her way out of the office had to stifle a wish to set the whole thing on fire. But she was a good girl and played along as if nothing ever happened. She didn't talk about San Francisco, she didn't think about San Francisco, and once or twice she forgot about it completely.

Avoid living next to dilapidated highrises

Alice's life was roadblocked by things falling on top of her head. When she was nine years old, she got hit by an icicle on her way to school. It had fallen off the rooftop of a five-storied building and gave Alice a horrible cut, a concussion, and a lifelong insterest in ice. She went on to become a nuclear physicist. Within a week of her graduation from univresity, she got assailed by a cigarette falling from the third floor balcony still lit. Her hair got badly singed in the back, but in the perpetrator she found the man who would eventually become her partner. They never married, but lived together for more than 47 years, when a flowerpot falling from the second floor window brought Alice's life to traumatic conclusion.

Smile

I met a woman from Cheshire today. She had a large smile and blond curly hair. We met at the planning meeting for our apartment building's community garden. She advocated planting hydrangeas and I voted for strawberries. They are not only beautiful and fast-growing, but also edible, moreover, nutritious. No matter how passionately I presented my arguments, her smile was bigger.

Photos

She never takes pictures. In fact, she doesn't even own a camera. She used to, once, but then it got lost on a bus or a plane or during the move. Whenever it comes up in conversation -- and it rarely does -- she always promises: "Next time somebody asks to see my photo album, I'll go out and buy a new camera." In other words, she believes that pictures are an imposition. At one point, she did own a single album containing mostly images of herself as a child. There was a picture or two of her parents and their dog who died when she was twelve; there were a couple of pictures of her ex-boyfriends -- the good break-ups; and a few of her married friends and their children -- those came in the mail with the annual Christmas greetings. Perhaps, the album got lost too or she forgot its location, because the photos from the last few Christmases had been piling up on top of her TV set. One day, a fire broke out in the apartment next door and all of her things got destroyed by smoke and water. She moved to a different place; her homeowners' insurance payed for the new furniture and clothes. The photo album? Who knows what happened to it. Maybe the fire destroyed it, maybe it got lost earlier, when she had first moved into that traitorous apartment.

Divine Travel

A freak accident occurred today at 3:25 pm on 101S between Wild Horse Canyon and Burnt Cork Road. A "Divinity Travel" bus transporting seminary students and future missionaries on their sightseeing trip of the California Missions collided with a cow. It is unclear how the cow managed to escape the barbed wire fence separating the pasture from the highway or why the bus driver did not notice the hazard. Witnesses report a lot of blood and prayer on the scene of the accident. One future missionary sitting in the front seat broke an arm. The search for the cow's relatives as of now continues.

God

With age, God developed a severe case of identity crisis. At first, he became convinced that he was not entirely real -- that he only existed within people's imaginations. However, after some years of soul-searching, he decided that imaginary existence was not altogether different from . . . well, that there was simply no other kind of existence. Then he also learned that he wasn't entirely sure whether he was a man or a woman -- after all he himself created woman, so at least some part of him must've been woman enough to conceive of one . . . But that was only the first symptom of complete personality breakdown. Some thought he was benevolent, others that she was merely omniscient, third pictured a tiny particle of an atom. Himself, God didn't know what to think -- especially since he depended so much on the opinions of others. God cried and shook his fists and had to be locked up in a mental institution for a while. He's still there, drugged up and tied to his bed, patiently awaiting discovery of some new behavior modifying psychotropic drug or philosophy.

Tar pits

The helicopter was circling directly above the tar pits, making the thick liquid bubble even faster. The air above the pits was rich with poisonous gases. It seemed milky white in the sunshine, clouding over the the black pools. The helicopter threw out a rope ladder, and a man in a business suit and holding a briefcase in one hand appeared at the top. The tar bubbled faster and faster as the helicopter hung over the easternmost side of the field while the man made his way down the ladder. The man seemed to be accustomed to such exercises and was on the ground in just a few minutes. We watched silently as he descended. We didn't yell out greetings or expressed our impatience in any way even though the whole show with the helicopter and the tar pits was completely unnecessary. All we needed to know was a "yes" or a "no" and that could've been communicated in a number of much simpler ways. It was a "no," we guessed correctly while he descended, and even though we had already reached a point of despair beyond the possibility of disappointment, the rage was still there. There was this man in his business suit and with his shiny black briefcase standing directly between us and the side of one of the largest tar pits in the field. The tar pit, the man, and our rage. We didn't really have to think about it, we acted as though we were a single body.

Swimming

I've never been the one for testing the water. Why bother? It's always going to feel cold at first, but if you just keep moving you'll warm up fast enough. I run in -- chest lifted, knees reaching up to my chin -- at full speed, splashing everyone around me on my way. Except on the Ocean Beach there's rarely anybody to splash. I run and I dive in, head first -- to wait is only to spread out the misery. Why be miserable if you can have fun instead? I've never understood that. She is like that though. She'll take an hour going into even the steaming bath water. "Don't rush me," she says. She is not a swimmer. I am not a swimmer as well, but at least I can make a great show of it. "And why should I be a swimmer?" she says, "It's bad for your skin." Which is generally true, and it's a good question.

Clothesline

She is never shy. If, during a conversation with a man she admires, her gaze happens to wander off his face it is not because she is afraid to meet the scrutinizing stare of his soft gray eyes. She looks away because she happens to notice clothes drying on a third floor balcony of a neighboring building, a pair of jeans and a casual blue striped shirt. "Look!" she points out the clothesline to her interlocutor, "Isn't this quaint, in this day and age?" He follows her gesture and notices a flock of pigeons perched directly above the freshly cleaned garments on top of the brick building. The sky is deep blue. The shirt is billowing in the wind. Unfathomably, the small bodies of the doves and the abruptly leaping movement of the striped cloth cloud his eyes with tears. She who is not shy chooses not to notice his emotion and continues to stare at the brick wall.

Double life

I bought him a little yellow book as a gift. The grill had been long fired up in the back yard by the time I showed up. There were a lot of people at this BBQ in honor of his promotion: his friends from the bank, the sailing club, neighbors. His wife was serving drinks. His son was also there shadowing his parents, passing the paper plates and picking up empty beer cans while pleasantly smiling at all the guests. It was very strange to realize that none of these people who knew this man as a successful banker and a happy head of family had ever read a single line of the wildly sensual poems he composed in his spare time. He had succeeded in creating a perfect double life for himself. I gave him my gift, ate a hamburger, and waited for some sort of a sign that he wanted to talk in private. He didn't. So I cornered him when he went upstairs to pick up more cheese from the fridge and told him I wanted to talk about poetry. "Sorry," he said, "I thought I could do it, but I really can't. I'll just see you back at the bookstore, alright?" So I left. It's really too bad, this guy has a gift with words, if only he could make time for what is truly important!

Penguins

The third time my computer crashed today was when I clicked to open an email from the woman I'd been secretly in love with for the past two and a half years. The window lit up my screen for a moment long enough for me to catch the words "tomorrow" and "penguin" -- and then the machine took a deep sigh and powered down. I was left just sitting there, staring at the blank and dusty monitor. I got up and took a couple of turns around the office, counting to 105. A lady in the cubicle next door was having a coffee, so I had a cup too. I told her about my plans to go to the zoo tomorrow. Then I came back to my desk and hit the "on" button again. I played with my fingers while the computer tried to untangle its own internal mess. Finally, I was able to run the email program. My heart was pumping. But it turned out to be absolutely nothing. She wanted to have dinner at the zoo tomorrow night, and she was also very excited to see the penguins again. That was my fate. I loved her and she loved the penguins.

Tetris

The other day, I saw a woman playing tetris at a concert. Yes, yes, in our club; I was running up and down to the bar to get the drinks, and she was sitting on the stairs playing some sort of a game -- looked like tetris to me -- on her treo. Can you believe it? I almost tripped on her purse, too. She wasn't very old or anything, and I think she was there with her boyfriend or husband or whatever. And we had an awesome band that day, this Norwegian girl, she was rocking, and she had this really cute accent and pony tails. People were going crazy. And this woman was just sitting on the stairs for close to an hour; at the end I had to ask her to leave. Yeah, it just got to me, you know? The place was getting really crowded and there was this woman in the middle of it all bored out of her mind. I say, she shouldn't have come there in the first place, but if she was already there, she should've just got over herself and tried to have a good time, you know? Makes sense to me!

Bread-and-butter

Minna always started her day with the bread-and-butter test. She always suspected that the method affected the outcome. Is it ever possible to have a good day when you go to work hungry? Forty-five minutes in the car on a single cup of coffee -- only to find that the last remaining office banana had been half-eaten by the ghost of an intern who roamed around the building from 12:31 am until 5:59 am every single morning. Minna drank more coffee and organized meetings about work loads and schedules and courteous office behavior. On good butter-up days, she watered the flowers in conference rooms and hallways and ordered take-out lunch for everyone, including the ghost.

Butter Ball

Once upon a time, there lived a little Butter Ball. One day he decided to take a walk outside. "Don't go," his mother said. "You're so sweet and tender, somebody is going to bite off a piece of you." But Butter Ball didn't listen to his mother and insisted on going out. "Don't go," his father said. "You're too soft! Somebody is going to step on you and squash you." But Butter Ball wasn't easily scared, so he rolled for the door. "Go, go, if you please," his sister yelled after him. "But don't come crawling back here once you're all covered in mud!" So Butter Ball went outside, and . . . nothing happened. It had been snowing that night, and the streets weren't cleaned yet. Butter Ball rolled around the block and came home lightly covered with white flakes. Everybody was very happy, but he only wanted to go out again.

Pretend winter

Cold ocean wind slaps her cheeks red, and so the reflection in the bathroom mirror whispers to her that she is in love. She trembles in fear. The spring is coming; will she succumb to the fever and melt?

Two men

There are two men on our street who specialize in random acts of kindness. One cleans people's porches of unwanted take-out menus and newspapers. The other buys bouquets of flowers and gives them to strangers. For a while, the second man would leave single flowers on people's doorsteps; but then the first man would go around and pick them all up and dump them into a compost bin. So the second man had to adjust: he started wrapping the flowers in paper and attach little notes to the bow. The first man never touches the wrapped bundles with personal notes stuck to the bow.

A mattress

My husband went out to get the Sunday paper this morning and returned with the report that there was a man lying on the ground in front of the house next door and at the same time a few doors down the street somebody had thrown out a mattress and a box spring. "How strange, don't you think?" my husband said contemplatively. But we live in a big city where a scene like this is barely acceptable even as social commentary. I could see that my husband was trying to figure out a way of getting the man to use the facilities so randomly provided. He did not bother even to voice this thought. I finished my cup of coffee and went outside to look. The man was gone, but the mattress was still there. It is still here now or at least was a few minutes ago when I returned home from a friend's house. I examined it from all sides, both the mattress and the springs, and I have to say they are not in a very bad shape. I wonder why somebody would throw out things like that. My husband and I could definitely use something like this for our own bed. As it is, the garbage pick up on our street is not until Tuesday, so I hope somebody will get a good-night's sleep out of it yet.

Mr. Brewster and a little girl

Mr. Brewster was under a lot of stress at work, putting in long hours and skipping lunches. On Sunday -- his only day off -- he ate pork pie and fell asleep in the afternoon. He lay on his bed, face down, on top of a pie-filled stomach, and dreamed of a sunlit afternoon in the countryside. He was a little girl in a printed dress, all alone on a grassy patch in the middle of a forest. He, the girl, was absolutely happy and didn't need anything else in the world. When Mr. Brewster didn't show up for work the next morning, everybody thought he got sick. At the end of the week, somebody heard that he was in a hospital. In the following month two competing rumors circulated around the building: he was either dead or in a mental institution. But then one day he showed up at his desk again as if nothing had happened and, when pressed, jokingly told us that he'd been abducted by aliens. He was significantly leaner and worked up a nice set of biceps.

The art of floating in water

Every evening she stood in front of her ancient stove and concocted disasters. Two pimply toads and a head of cabbage boiled together with plenty of pepper and salt -- and Mr. Dashboard, the upstairs neighbor, falls down the steps and breaks a leg. Turnips roasted with a dead cat's tail, coated in olive oil and sprinkled with parsley -- and a tornado tears out that beautiful cherry tree on the corner, the one that was just starting to bloom. On special occasions like half-moons and particularly wintry nights, she'd prepare a disease for herself: a nasty cold or a mild bronchitis, so that she could lie in bed for two or three days and have a particularly good reason to pity herself. "Oh dear you," she'd say patting her own cheek after a nasty cough spell, "nobody in the world cares for you, nobody in the world loves you." When she felt better, she celebrated by baking a chocolate cake and feeding it to rats and rabbits. She could never keep her rats fat enough for business.

Fries

Marjorie's hand instinctively reached into the trashcan, where amidst the soiled facial tissues and paper towels shimmered a plateful of curly fries. Softly rounded, soaked in oil and fried to golden perfection potatoes were still warm, warm enough to flood the entire bathroom with their distinctly sweet and earthy odor. A few of them were lightly coated in ketchup. Marjorie could already see herself grabbing one from the top and stuffing it into her mouth. She already envisioned he satisfaction of feeling something crunchy and moist on her tongue. But the paper towels! The tissues! The trash can! She pulled out and slapped her hand against the sink. For the rest of the afternoon, as the ladies in the office tried to pinpoint the identity of the perpetrator who left a plateful of curly fries in the co-ed bathroom, Marjorie quietly enjoyed her own heroic abstinence.

Food

I watched her eat. She took two small bites and chewed them tentatively, then pushed her plate away as if she had detected a deadly poison on her palette and was anxious to throw up. When she returned from the bathroom, she didn't touch the food again. She picked up her cup of tea and held it in both hands, sniffing it once in a while and pretending to drink. Her date was chatty and didn't notice a thing.

A cat with cold eyes

She spent her Sunday moving furniture around the room. At the end of the day, when the two couched stood on top of each other and the bookcase was prostrated on the floor face down, she went out to a diner for a burger and a milkshake.

A bar in El Cerrito

His belly does not allow him to swing as he used to.. but he's still very quick on his feet. I myself am a little arthritic and have trouble twirling and twizzling -- at least, I can't do it very fast, but other than that we can dance the night away with all these young people here. It's really too bad they don't teach young people to dance these days: none of them seem to know what to do on the dance floor. Yet they always seem interested and try to pick up a thing or two from Joe and me. We've given a number of impromptu dance lessons right here at this bar. We really enjoy coming down here on Saturday nights. It's not as crowded as you'd think it might be, and there's this back room with the dance floor. Sometimes, they'll have somebody playing the piano, that's always pleasant. They play music for younger people, too. They even got a disco ball! And a couple of times a months -- like tonight -- they'll take out a karaoke machine: that's our favorite. I love it when Joe sings Elvis songs. You know, Joe and he were born the same year. If Elvis didn't die, he would've been 73 today. "Are you lonesome tonight?" -- that's my favorite. Joe sang it during our wedding, it was quite memorable.

My body as a battleground

I have sipped the water, I have smelled the flowers
and now a slithering worm has seized my intestines
and demands nourishment, and desires power.
I want more! much more!

Petite Basque

She loved to shop for cheese. There were three select little stores within ten block radius from each other -- each with an overwhelming cheese presence -- where she did a bulk of her shopping. Perhaps, the opening of that third shop, just three blocks south down Market Street from her apartment building, triggered the onset of her passion. Their cheese section was located in the front of the store and included three separate refrigerating displays and plenty of samples. It is also possible that her love affair with cheese was accidentally brokered by a newspaper one day when she was taking the MUNI to her dentist appointment downtown and picked up a Wine and Cheese section a kind soul had left behind. Cheese was a weekly feature: a new volunteer described in minute detail from rind to aftertaste every Friday. She would always remember the name of the hero who compromised her cheese virginity: Petite Basque. At $17 a pound, it was not a cheese she could easily afford. It took her almost three weeks to find it in the neighborhood stores and then another two to build up the courage to buy. The world had never held so much potential for her until that moment.

Rooftop garden

Somebody had a brilliant idea of remodelling the roof of our office building to house a deck and a community garden of sorts. No sunbathing at the office of course, but the whole building dreamt of taking their lunches underneath the shady lemon trees in the summer. So the management company went for it. Spent a few million dollars. Invested in the land, so to speak. And at the end of the day leased the place to an overpriced restaurant with a horrible kitchen that installed five tables between three cacti and dressed up the waiters in penguin suits. The executives lunched there three or four times before it went out of business and got boarded up and sealed off for months. Literally: there is a wax seal on the door. Who knows, maybe somebody got brutally murdered up there or something. Not like I've ever set eyes on the place, and I've been at the company for 12 years this month.

Help!

Mrs. Fish was going to report dangerous levels of carbon monoxide emanating from the burst pipe in the kitchen, but she did not get a chance to voice her concerns. Mrs. Fish's landlady was away on vacation and her roommate Eva hung up the phone. Mrs. Fish took a deep breath and prepared to die.

At the gym

And what's up with these women who come to the gym to chat? Blah-blah-blah is all they do here! Yelling at the top of their voices, as if they are on the beach or something. "Have you seen Pan's Labyrinth?" "Yes, didn't you just hate the end?" Assholes. I couldn't just take their selfish behavior anymore, so I went over there and told them to shut up. I mean, I had just rented this movie and was planning to watch it in the evening. But what do they care? "It's the saddest thing I've ever seen," she said. I guess I gotta go by the video store again on my way home.

True story

The fish jumped out of the water and hit the woman on the head. The woman fell down on the bottom of the boat and died at impact. At the very same time her ex-husband, his second wife, and their two fat little children were at Target buying 4 boxes of Chocolate-Covered Cherry Diet Dr. Pepper and stealing plastic bags by the dozen. The fish died too.

Ironing

She believed that ironing was an important job that had to be done every day, rain or shine. Every article of clothing on her own body, from underwear to hair ribbons was adeptly pressed the night before. Indeed, standing in front of her tall board and gliding the steaming machine over the obedient cloth, she pretended doing the same to the tissues of her very body -- and by the sheer power of imagination, her skin remained smooth and wrinkle free deep into her old age.

Lightning

I have read once about a man who got struck by lightning and subsequently developed a preference for piano music. Today something very similar happened to me. I suffered through a terrible nightmare in the night and then woke up with an insatiable craving for boiled carrots.

391

Having spent two hours on the bus, we were completely exhausted. We had been driven past the candy factory, the golf course, Joy's old high school, and the badminton club. Altogether we had traversed eleven towns, of which seven greeted us with the ever so yellow McDonald's arches and five welcomed with the open doors of the shopping malls. Having survived this educational experience, we were determined to find Ricky at all costs. First we went to his father's house, then to his mother's, then we stopped by his mother's mother's house next door, then we went to his gym, then we went to Sven's diner. When we didn't find him there, we ordered a couple of burgers and quizzed Sven as to when he had seen Ricky last. Sven thought Ricky went to the city earlier in the afternoon, after work. Was he driving? No, he took the bus. What happened to his car? Ricky's got a car? Joy turned to me. No car? No car, nodded Sven. A busboy can't afford a car. A busboy? Joy raised her eyebrows. He's your friend! I reminded her. So we went back to the city. On the long ride home, we sat in the jolty back of the deserted bus, Joy sleeping on my lap, while I leaned on her shoulder. I watched her sleep and played Solitaire. Later she discovered that she had lost her cellphone to this adventure. She swears that the bus driver stole it while we slept.

Minimum of nine people and a horse

The German-language books on the sidewalk were infested with slugs -- the same ones that had eaten my dill and parsley plants earlier in the winter. The slugs crawled all over the ancient typeface in which "S" and "f" indistinguishably from each other form fences of lances and flags. Still, I was able to read the remains traced by the slug: "Die Stadt mit ihren Türmen . . . Wo ich das Liebste verlor." I knew the poem by heart. So I reached into my back pocket for a box of matches, and set the whole thing on fire, the slug, the city, and all.

Smoker

I was sitting outside with the smokers. My eyes were watering and my throat was itching because of the cat I had stroked earlier that evening. "Kiss me" she said flicking the ash off her cigarette. We were all drunk and I knew she was joking. She stared at me but my eyes were full of tears.

***

She wasn't even sure if he was a good actor. In fact, she was quite sure he wasn't. Yet, every night he had a show, she'd take the bus to the little dingy theatre downtown, get a cheap seat somewhere in the back and watch him be somebody else for an hour or two through her ivory opera glass. After every show, she wrote him a letter. He usually got these letters within a day or two. The plain envelopes came accompanied by elaborate bouquets of yellow and orange flowers through the usher ladies or through the ticket office or even with the help of his sister who was a friend of her friend. The letters were very kind and contained keen analysis of his every move, and he actually relied on them heavily when learning a new role.

Eyelash work

To anybody who complemented her on her eyelashes, she would always explain that they weren't real (as if anybody could ever doubt the origin of those yard-long blue and purple creations); she freely gave out the address of the studio where she got hers done, always adding a disclaimer: pricey lash creations came with a daily maintenance routine, which didn't prevent them from falling out like bandits. She had to sleep with a special lash-pillow every night, and sex was made complicated by two related circumstances: the tender hairs could not withstand contact with any human flesh, and any sweating ruined their texture not unlike that of the expensive sweaters. Was it worth it? She didn't doubt it. At least not out loud. One does not get her eyelashes done and then cry over it. The one immediate benefit, she felt, was having a great excuse for not wearing the ugly salad-green blouse her sister gave her for Christmas. "It simply doesn't match my lashes right now," she sighed opening and closing her eyes for better viewing. Her sister was very interested and wrote down the address of the studio.

Lamptingtones

Sometimes, the most desperately needed stories are the ones that have already been written. It's healthy to know, for example, about that restaurant at the edge of the universe. I wonder if they serve Lamingtones there? I also wonder why I keep wanting to call them Lampingtones.

Dandelions

There was a particular tree on the side of road, and every time they passed it, he thought, the summer starts here. It stood alone, in the middle of an open space that stretched into some distance all around it, but the dark blue line of forest lined the horizon. The open wilderness was overgrown with grass and sprinkled with dandelions. And the dandelions were summer.

Tragedy

She offered; I refused. More so, she was available -- I didn't offer.

An actress

She is a breathtaking actress; she can live any role she chooses. Today, she is a laydee: right pinky upturned as she picks up her cup of tea; small gesture to straighten the hem of her skirt over her knees; a slight wave of the hair indicating impatience: her date is obviously late. I watch her from behind the counter and make impossible mistakes counting change. Perhaps, tonight her date won't show up. What is she gonna do then? She throws a barely perceptible glance toward the clock on the side wall: if I had as much as blinked, I would've missed it. A customer wants pie, a piece of cherry pie and don't forget the whip cream, what a nuisance. It's 7:07 pm already. What is gonna do if he doesn't show? Most of the time, they show. She -- what an actress. In just the time it takes to squirt out a whip cream cloud (Hey, Stop, That's Enough!), she has transformed herself into a student. She is not waiting around for anybody -- she's got books piled up on the table, pencil in hand, strand of hair in her mouth; she is studying. Even her skirt somehow has lost its luster once she tucks one foot underneath her butt and sits on it: uncomfortable but attentive.

Space sickness

The man lifted the hem of his left pant leg a few inches up and scratched his ankle right above the bunched up top of his plain white sock. I was sitting so close I could see the goosebumps on the skin of his hairy ankle; I watched his nails leave the deep white tracks behind them; I observed that the color of the skin at the tips of his fingers flattened by the nails was pinkish-brown. I wished I were in space again: nothing could disturb me there so much. Sitting on the floor of this tiny windowless room, behind this man with stubby fingers and a meaty ankle, I wanted to cry out with my longing for space. "The ultimate cure for space disease," the doctor was saying into her microphone, "is relaxation. Finding as much space within one's own self as there is out there." She made a vague gesture towards the low hanging ceiling of the basement cubicle. I felt tears running down my cheeks. I did not want to be cured. I wanted to be in space again.

Keyhole

When Guy returned after work on Tuesday night to the apartment he had been sharing with his sister Elle and inserted his key into the hole of the deadbolt, the door cried out in pain. Remaining calm despite the alarming sound, Guy opened the door and found his sister wrapped up in green and orange shawl sitting on the floor of the hallway in front of him. "Quickly, lock the door," she demanded; and as soon as he complied, she motioned him to move away and leaned forward to place her left eye over the hole. "What are you staring at?" Guy inquired but received only an impatient shrug of the shoulders in lieu of an answer. "Can you just tell me what you're staring at?" he asked again. "Go away, go away, I can't talk right now," she said without moving her head an inch and waved him off with the back of her hand. Guy dropped off his briefcase in their shared office, and then went on to the kitchen to fix himself dinner. "Are you hungry?" he yelled into the hall with an effort of good humor but received no answer. The kitchen was in complete disarray. All the drawers were open, pots and pans piled up on the floor, silverware all over the counters and the sink. Elle's camera stood on the stove, on top of the front right burner, as if preparing for a ritual burning and at the same time observing the mess. Guy rescued it from the stove and, after a brief hesitation, proceeded to put away everything else, too. When he was done, he put together a peanut butter sandwich and went to check on Elle again. "Do you want dinner?" he asked again entering the dark hall. There was no answer, and in another moment he saw that she was gone. The crazy floral shawl she had been wearing was lying in front of the door, right were she had been sitting, but there was no body inside. "Elle, Elle!" he cried. But the house was empty. She was gone, as if had seeped through the keyhole.

Fish telephone

The fish swam up to the glass and then turned, sharply. Another endless ring in the loudspeaker of Eva's telephone hung despairingly in the air. The fish swam to the other end of her bowl, then came back, button eyes magnified by the optics of the glass and water. The phone rang again. The fish made a U-turn. Eva noticed that a reflection of the telephone lived in the fishbowl. As if the fish was swimming around the telephone, listening to the rings and expecting an answer. "Speaking. Who is this?" "This is Mrs. Fish. We haven't actually met, but a friend of mine is a great admirer.." "Do you know what time it is, Mrs. Fish?" "Time?" "It's half past 2 am! People are generally asleep at this hour." "Are they? Well, I'm sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to tell you that --" "You'll have to excuse me. Please call back another time, Mrs. Fish." "Call back? That would be extremely difficult." "Good night, Mrs. Fish." "Fine. Good night. Thanks for nothing. Anyway, I don't see what she finds in you. Toodooloo!" Fish bubbled away again. What an entirely ridiculous conversation. They didn't have anything to say to each other. Eva stared into her eyes in the bowl. "Toodooloo."

Silence

The middle of the night crept in quietly and settled on the couch beside me. I had some cheese and ham sandwiches, so I shared. We sat side by side chewing in silence and waited to see what happened.

The promise

There was no innocence in nature but such an open and aggressive seductiveness that I shied away with a blush and a giggle. The smooth sandy beech on the foreground radiated well-being, invited me to strip and to partake of the light it reflected so efficiently; the wet, dark forest of the background lured me to get lost -- to lose myself -- in its depths, to forget that I had ever existed elsewhere -- else where? There were berries and mushrooms, nuts and fruit; the lake was full of fish, and the beach complete with firewood. And there was I -- pink, naked, infatuated, on the threshold of -- no, I would never leave. Oh yes, I would never leave. Never leave.

Shopping

How do girls pick out their clothes? she wondered. She had a pair of jeans that she would wear for weeks on end, washing them once in a while, but even so eventually they sprung holes here and there, which she patched faithfully for a while until they weren't jeans anymore, and then once she fell down on the street and tore a huge gap at the knee, and when she tried to repair it -- well, the pants became shorts and then she had to go out and look for the new something to wear on the foggy days. She had to go out and look -- but the weather took a turn for the better, it was sunny and warm most of the time, and she was really getting used to feeling the breeze around her ankles. So the trip to the store got postponed and delayed and the more she thought about it the less urgent it seemed. She did ask one girl for advice -- a clerk at a doctor's office -- and the girl was friendly and everything but she herself was wearing a skirt, and wasn't a skirt such a good idea? Not to be melodramatic, but that's the way it went. She talked to a couple of random people, did a lot of shop-window gazing, and then picked up a new pair "on the street" -- whatever that means. Hopefully, it means a garage sale, but knowing her it might just as well be a pair of pants left behind by some homeless dude. Those brown baggy corduroy pants definitely look like they've been around the block any number of times, that's for sure.

Meta hunger

The snow started on schedule, at 5 pm. The interstate police set out to ticket everybody who had even thought of driving this evening. In one of the cars they forced off the road . . .

I do want to continue this story--the beginning is intriguing!--but I'm tired and very hungry. If I don't go to bed now, I'm going to wrap a banana in cheese and swallow a horse. And then tomorrow I'm gonna be angry and even hungrier. Nah. Better go to bed now. I'll chew my pillow in the night and wake up in time for a healthy lunch. Maybe then I'll consume my cheese-wrapped banana -- that actually sounds quite good, you know. Half a minute in the microwave, a sprinkle of almond slivers. Yes. Then we can talk about who ate who and the aliens are among us.

My library

Even the upholstery is just the way I imagined it: light blue cushions set inside the dark blue frame, adorned with thin red seams. I run across the room and jump on top of it. Not a sound! It accepts me in its folds as if I were a volleyball. I lean back on the left arm, stretch my legs across the cushions and cover them with the flowery cotton quilt that had been carefully folded over the right arm. My next project is to imagine the placement of the bookshelves. I swiftly picture a two-storied gallery all around the perimeter of the room. The spiral staircase to the second story is buried within one of the bookcases. The balustrade is laden with flower boxes; there's a flourish of greenery all along the gallery. Then, of course, I require a desk. And a journal table! A chandelier? Or simply a few well placed torchiers and a desk lamp? I am leaning towards a combination; no amount of light is ever sufficient for me when I'm reading or writing. Okay, the gallery--done; desk--let's place it in the middle of the room for the moment being--done; chandelier and a desk lamp--done. What else? Books--a few of them are already there, I'll imagine the rest some other time. Paper, pens--I carry those in my backpack, no need to bother. A computer, a printer? But do I really want these in my library, occupying a large portion of my desk? I should probably imagine a dedicated space for them, somewhere in the corner. I probably need to expand the walls of the room to make sure everything fits comfortably. Imagining things is a tricky endeavor! In fact, I am growing more and more weary with every new leap of fancy. I need a nap. Good thing I have this pretty blue and red couch right here. Ah, that's much better. To be continued.

The break up

Get this: so at night I have this ridiculous dream that my parents disown me because I refuse to tell them the name of my boyfriend. And then in the morning my boyfriend breaks up with me because, apparently, I said "Mommy" and "Daddy" in my sleep a couple of times too many for his taste; he finds it weird. "I am not looking for anything complicated right now," he tells me, "I've got enough problems of my own." What an asshole! The funny part is that I don't think I would've been at all upset about this break up, if I didn't just spend half the night fighting with my parents. And I had used his trustworthiness as an argument in my favor!

Twenty-six

During the breaks, we played hopscotch with modified rules: the pebble could only be picked up by the person who standing on one foot could recite a non-repeating Shakespeare sonnet. "Mine eyes have drawn thy shape," etc. etc. At night, we practiced. To this day, I cannot fall asleep until I have gone through the lines of numbers 27 and 151 in my mind. I also have a special fondness for numbering my writings.

What I think is a contradiction

A word, a look -- she nourishes without even trying. She doesn't bake cakes, she uses no candles, she weaves not comforters out of words; but with a single smile she ignites the most powerful desire in the deepest of souls -- go figure, find a way how to extinguish it! --But you said, she nourishes! --Yes, and what is nourishment if not eternal striving? --Oh, who elected you a philosopher?! Shame on you. --And yet you know it, her look, her touch, her laughter, and you're doomed to the life of poetry. --Her? Do you mean, his? --Dude, this is pure theory talking. Let's not got personal. --Well then, I have no idea what the hell we're talking about. --Neither do I. --So why are we still talking? --Are we? We, who? --Please, at least don't go all metafictional on me now. --Forget about it. Let's go eat some cake. --Let's go drink some beer. --Wine. --Vodka. --Wine. --Fine.

Fighting gravity

She has perfect posture. Vertebrae sits on vertebrae and she needs no muscle strength to fight the force of gravity. From one look at her you'd think she was raised to be a musician or a horse rider. In fact, she was both. A pianist, a jockey, and, moreover, a yogi. She started practicing yoga when she retired from the racing track. By day, she practices yoga, and by night, she plays jingles and pop songs at the local piano bar. "I always wanted to explore the space within my body," she says about it when queried. People are always fascinated with her.

Combination lock

It was a simple, 4-digit combination she had been using regularly, two, three times a day. In fact, just a few hours earlier that same morning she wound the stupid doll in under a minute, proud of herself that she could do it without Feyg noticing anything. "Mommy, Mommy, what's wrong with Julie? Is she going to die?" Feyg was wailing now, picking up a powerless arm of her robotic sibling and letting it drop back down onto Lidia's knee. "Mommy, Mommy," sobbed Feyg staring at the face that just a minute ago had that dear silly, confused look, and now was completely unrecognizable, skin pulled tightly around the rigid plastic bone structure underneath, without a single wrinkle of expression; a face of a lifeless doll that Julie was. Lidia herself did not have the stamina to look at that face and kept her eyes firmly planted on the girl's belly button, right hand typing and retyping the numbers into the back of the body, left arm reaching out to Feyg. "Look at me, dear, look at me," she begged her eldest daughter, and catching the glance of the tearful pale blue eyes, promised: "Everything is going to be alright. Julie has a little fainting spell, that's all. She'll be alright in a moment, you'll see!" But what is the damned combination? What is it? Another minute of this, and Feyg is going to know that something is dreadfully wrong, she will take Julie for dead, and will look at her with endless suspicion if she suddenly comes to life just like that. She will know that something is off, different, and will then inevitably discover the control pad on her sister's back, her true doll nature. What am I going to do? "Feyg, do you remember when we celebrated your sister's birthday? Do you remember when it was? What date?" Lidia made a desperate attempt. "Aaaa!" cried the girl. She didn't even hear the question. The sobs were violently shaking her shoulders. Her head fell on her chest. With only one arm unoccupied by Julie, Lidia barely managed to catch her eldest daughter when she fainted.

Dramatic performance

My neighbor was snoring. You never expect this of the young and the beautiful, but there it was: horrific croaking coming from the nasal cavity of a blonde with the profile fit for a Grecian urn. I tried to keep my eyes on the musicians and my ears attuned to the performance, but eventually I developed a strong suspicion that the first violinist was eying my neighbor with eyes green of anger and only extreme professionalism kept her from dashing across the proscenium and stuffing her bow through the mouth of the second row predator. The music went BRAMS and BA-BACH but my neighbor, with her head lying almost perpendicular to her body on the back of her chair, was oblivious to all. HRUH-HRUCHH. HRUH-HRARCH. Her luscious hay-colored hair spilled all over the velvet seat cushion. In the dimmed light of the Symphony Hall, her skin looked like it was carved out of marble, and the open mouth revealed a set of picture-perfect incisors and canines. She would've been a great bite model for the new orthodontic treatment commercial I had been envisioning. HRUH-HRAH-ARGHH. I exchanged glances with the first violinist. Mute, she was begging me to do something. I turned to my neighbor again with the view of gently tapping her on the shoulder, and suddenly noticed that she was staring at me. Her pupils were partially visible through the narrow slits of her eyelids, yet her head remained strangely contorted. Her upper lip moved. SHEEEH. I screamed.

Grief

The cafe owner's crime was that a member of the bereaved fathers group that met there on Sundays at 6 pm suddenly became violent and physically assaulted several of the other grieving parents as well as idle coffee drinkers. Three noses were broken, two reputations irreparably damaged, and one precious laptop flooded with scalding liquid.

Theory of beauty

It hurts me to look at you. Your beauty forces my eyes to drip with tears. I reach for my sunglasses in the glove compartment and only when your features become hidden in their dark shadow am I able to tune back into our conversation. "It's crazy that beauty must be so subjective," you're babbling idly. "For example, look at this building over there,--" and you point to this or that run down high rise we're passing, "its architect at the very least must've found it appealing once, or at least practical and not ugly... Or take the old paintings. Renaissance. The women they found beautiful in those days! It's crazy, I tell you." I nod so violently that my glasses fly into my lap and I have to readjust and secure them over my ears. "If what you're saying is that beauty is a constructed concept, I completely agree with you," I admit freely, finally reacquiring the ability to speak now that I cannot see you any longer. "It is determined in every age by certain social, economical, and political forces. As well as by the dominant ideology and the contemporary discourse of power." To be completely honest with you, I find this inability of yours to discern the beauty of the Renaissance women as comforting as the sunglasses on my nose.

Part tree, part deer

His sense of self became so diluted that he was now part cherry tree and grew a pair of antlers. Death was another state of being, reincarnation inevitable. He scooped up another forkful of wild mushrooms, sniffed the cream sauce, and then placed them in his mouth and chewed slowly, vaguely gazing at the empty seat on the other side of the table.

Pike's wish

It had been one of the worst days of Pike's life. So bad that at lunchtime he even thought of calling his mother. He reached for the phone, then remembered she was dead. In the evening, he saw his doctor. "Yes, of course," said the doctor, smiling tiredly. "This is one of the symptoms of your disease. Your memories are becoming less present." Then Pike went home and ate chicken soup for dinner. There was no lucky bone in the soup, but he made a wish anyway, and that night the wish came true. So Pike's very bad day instantly turned into a great one.

Coincidence

In a remarkable coincidence, he fell asleep the very moment his head hit the pillow. Just a few minutes before he was wide awake, sitting on the couch next to his wife and watching TV. Then she decided to go to bed, and he followed her faithfully. He didn't fall asleep in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. He didn't fall asleep in the kitchen, taking a sip of water. He was completely aware of his actions when he took off his clothes in the bedroom. He even had time to say good-night to his wife while getting into bed and fumbling with the blankets. But the moment--the very moment--his head hit the pillow, he was dead asleep. Not dead but asleep so deeply that if she didn't feel his heart beating inside the cocoon of the blanket, his wife would've convincingly believe him dead. He fell asleep so suddenly that she wasn't sure if he'd even heard that she wished him good-night back; and he certainly didn't grant her the duly expected nightly kiss. She lay next to him, staring at the single fluorescent fish remaining on their ceiling, and thought about how strange it was that he should drop off to sleep just like that, at the very moment of collision of his head with the soft, freshly washed, linen. She stayed awake the whole night through contriving to dream up the coincidentally omitted kiss.

February's old age

February, oh, February. She's grown so big now. Last time I saw her, she was still a young girl, and now I really should start referring to her as a woman. Sometimes, though, I think that we'll turn 88 years old, and I will still talk about her as if she tied her hair in braids and outfitted herself in the old brown-wool school uniform with white collar and sleeves starched weekly. My grandmother told me once that after 80 people started growing baby teeth and hair again, so I guess the braid thing is not completely out of the question. It is strangely simple to imagine February as an old girl, pudgy and wrinkly, with a bunch of tiny white braids sticking out in all directions. She would go everywhere with a heavy walking stick and use its handle indiscriminately to grab onto things and trip other girls and boys up for bad behavior or personal amusement. She would develop this really nasty habit of taking her dentures out for airings in restaurants and on boats, then accidentally misplacing them and demanding help loudly and unintelligibly. The more vividly I picture her old age, the sadder it is to think that she is slated to die in just 18 more days. She won't live past her 29th birthday.

Lucky cat

My cat is going like a clock, swinging her leaden paw ceaselessly up and down, up and down. It's amazing that I don't get a headache. In addition to the effects of a metronome, the cat is also supposed to bring me luck. Perhaps, the rhythmical quality of its battery-powered movement is luck in itself: poor poetry comes to those who lack the understanding of the meter. Yes, yes.
Cat.
Luck.
Poetry.
Headache.
Vodka.
Cat.
Lack.

Springtime

The north-easterly wind blowing, this time, from the southerly brought in its sweep welcome tidings and bits of cellophane. The warm breeze scratched confusedly against the pavements and made little bubbles in the window panes. The car alarms went off, and nobody could figure out that it was because of the wind's slight airheadedness. The last wild cat remaining in the city, a haggard black minx with white paws, woke up in her cellar and came out onto the street in the broad daylight. She was the first to notice the bursting buds on the peach tree outside my bedroom window.

Bicycle

All the love that he had in the world was three-pronged: the right flat fang for his mother, the left flat one for his sister, and the top round one for his bicycle. The third one brought him the most pleasure, especially on those days when he gave his sister a ride to the zoo. If only it were possible to place both, his mother and his sister on the sturdy frame of his bicycle! He trembled in his thoughts and was unable to realize any additional metaphors that night. It was very late, and he was finally tired enough to think about her whom he loved instead of playing with venomous sisters and treacherous bicycles. She took over his thoughts for a considerable amount of time until the alarm clock reminded him that it was a gentle Tuesday.

The broken website

The website was obviously broken. I mean, it said quite definitively "I'm broken," or "Page not found," or some such thing. I still kept checking it regularly, once a day, during my afternoon tea break. Sometimes, I checked it twice a day, at tea-time and also while getting ready for bed at night, right after washing my face but before brushing my hair. I don't sleep well unless I brush my hair seconds prior to hitting the sheets. To be completely honest, at the end, I started checking the website compulsively, five to ten times a day, every time I sat down in front of the computer or opened another browser window. Once in a while, I would check Google Cache, just to sort of be reminded of the way it looked. None of its interactive features would work, of course, but I simply liked to see it again. I lost all hope. Almost completely.

Sunday

She believes, the sun is shining today just for her. She is walking around town with a taste of raspberries in her mouth. In fact, she hasn't left her house in days. There is no inside and outside to her house, so she goes from one sunlit room to another, greeting her guests who are always there on Sundays, and treating them to fermented grape juice and finger-sandwiches. Her cheeks are freckled and her nose is slightly red. She entertains with puzzles and poetry: "To get to Sacramento? Go up and then down. You'll meet mice who are gently tailored and whiskered." Let's have music, she decides, and immediately the bells start chiming. Her guests jingle coins in their pockets and tapdance around her. Raspberry seeds are stuck between her teeth, and she has more guests that she can count.

Inconsequential

It was not the lack of air that caused difficulty of breathing. The pile of poetry books on the bed is growing. And I've lived through this afternoon with the constant awareness that one day you will die.

African violet

"You have to make sure you don't wet the leaves of this plant. Otherwise, they'll turn yellow, shrivel up, and your plant will die," she explained patiently. We were standing in the middle of the bamboo forest, and she was holding the little potted violet that I had picked out in her hands and wouldn't let it go. I reached for it, but she made a protective move with her elbow and took a step back. "Make sure to read the care instructions in the brochure I gave you," she said sizing me up from top to bottom. I think she thought I was an unreliable character. "And don't hesitate to bring it back here if something goes wrong. We can help you diagnose the problem, but we don't give refunds on dead plants." I made another move for my green pet, but she stepped deeper into the protective shade of the tall bamboo stems. "If you do everything right, it will reward you with magnificent blooming in the summer and fall. It is a spectacular little plant." I should've been wary of such lavish adjectives in reference to the tiny little 10-leaf thing in her hands, but I guess I took her words at face value. I was terribly disappointed this fall when the plant finally bloomed, and they were tiny little blue flowers. The very opposite of magnificent, I would say.

Yellow eyes

I've been spending a lot of time in my car recently, and I noticed that my eyes have completely lost their greenish hue and are now convincingly yellow. Yes, yes, I agree with you, I am bound to cause an accident staring at myself in the mirror so much, but isn't it disturbing that my eyes should be of an unmistakable yellow coloring? Have you ever known anybody with yellow eyes? You know, I read in the newspaper today that blue-eyed people are all descended from a single person and that blue-eyeness is caused by a gene mutation. So, what do you think, should I check myself into a hospital and have them run some tests on me? I wouldn't be surprised if they found several funky genes squirting around my body. Sometimes I experience extremely strange sensations in the spot where my neck is connected to my skull, my nails are sensitive to light, and I'm almost positive that my heart is on the right side of my chest. What if my hair also turned yellow? Or my nails? Or my skin? I would die if something like that should ever happen.

Airborne

She is never sick. No colds, no stomach aches, no rotten teeth, not even a headache. For years she'd lived without insurance, but even after she was forced into buying a policy by the pervasive care of her employer, she never went to a single doctor. Oh, yes, once she went to the dentist to get her teeth cleaned. The dentist was impressed: there was no sign of plaque on her molars whatsoever. It was as if she possessed some kind of a superpower. Which she did, brushing her teeth three times a day or after every meal. But also she was a witch and knew how to fly.

Opera

Nights February spends in front of a television set, watching rented opera. The next day, she posts reviews on her increasingly popular blog. She evaluates the distinguishing characteristics of the singers' voices, the costumes and stage set, the direction, even DVD production qualities. Many complex criteria are involved in each write-up. Of course, February makes it all up; she rarely makes it through more than the first five minutes of an opera with her eyes open. "It's not that I find opera boring," she explains to a close personal confidante, "not at all. I find opera fascinating. It's the rhythmic quality of this kind of music that immediately lulls me to sleep. I have such pleasant dreams with opera flashing on the background!" So all of February's well-received reviews are based on the first five minutes of music and the rest is made up of dreams. Usually she dreams of snow-covered mountain slopes somewhere in the Swiss Alps and a lonely skier in an orange jumpsuit.

Chicken Feet

Falling asleep on the couch, she had visions of stars and paradise. She slept long and deep and woke rested fifteen minutes before the alarm clock. Throughout the day, she recalled her dreams with pleasure; they provided a source of inspiration in the most mundane tasks. Assembling welcome packets for the conference guests, a job requiring minute attention and boring as hell, she knew that everything was going to be alright because something existed so beautiful that nothing else mattered. She stopped short of saying or even thinking I am one with the universe, but she did look forward to going back to sleep as soon as possible.

Professor

Professor Newman had regular habits. That's probably why he was a professor. There were many things that it was his job to do every day, and then there were a few that made his life worth living. He took a particular pleasure from attending to his correspondence at a coffee shop in a quiet side street of a small residential town adjacent to the university. Most patrons of this particular coffee shop were housewives and nannies who stopped by for a quiet lunch in each other's pleasant company and to reaffirm their strength and motivation before picking up their precious charges from the elementary school next door. "I come here to find my smile for the day," Professor had once heard someone say. Professor found that the sidelong glances that the housewives threw on the stack of folders and envelopes and foreign-language dictionaries on his table provided necessary motivation in his task as well. He would mutter to himself in German or French and thus try to feign complete absorption in reading. Every day, he needed this boost. He needed to say to himself, they think I'm so clever. Then he went back to his office, dropped off his mail on the desk of his graduate assistant for sorting, and went in to lecture the undergrads.

Tree house

This is how it's always been. This is how it always will be. People turn into deer after they die and then get killed and eaten by other people. I know this. And yet, I can't help thinking there's something very cruel about all of this. Personally, I refuse to participate in the carnage. Some parts of the world, they say, deer has been "taken care of." Well, too bad for us. At this rate, we're all going to have to move into the tree houses, to get any rest around here. The deer come begging for sugar day and night, and end up poking holes in our doors and windows with their antlers from disappointment. Personally, I only have enough sugar to feed my mother every so often. She gets really upset when she comes by and knocks -- tap-tap-tong -- on the door and I have nothing for her. Yes, I know, it's a hard life for her out there, she is slimmer and timider than most, she rarely even dares to cross the highway to get to the nice little wilderness by the river on the other side of town, but at least she never runs a danger of getting hit by a car... Between me and my brother, she does okay for herself, I hope. But still. I can't help feeling like a failure on the days when I can't provide her with even a single sugar cube. That's when I seriously begin contemplating building a nice, cozy tree house for myself.

Work ethics

When she got tired of one kind of work, she switched to another. "The best kind of rest is a change of occupation," she used to say. There was no taking a break for her. No relaxing in front of the TV for a minute or two, no taking quick naps. She never wanted to just finish an article or two of a newspaper she perused during dinner before going back to whatever else demanded attention. In general, she never read more than she had set out to read, nor skipped chapters of the densest novels, nor threw any book away half finished. Reading, like everything else, was a job, a task to do, and she sat down to it with a freshly sharpened pencil in her hand and a clean notepad laid out in front of her. She never read on the couch, lying down, but always at a desk, in the upright position, both feet firmly planted on the parquet floor. And she never read books she didn't think were worth reading. Only once ever did her body get the better of her, and then she simply collapsed on the couch in the middle of a busy, sunny afternoon.

Meeting

I keep running into her at the oddest times. Last night, for example, I mean late last night, around 2 am or so, I decided I had to stop blogging and went out for a walk. To clear my head, to get some exercise (I could've gone to the gym, but I didn't), to enjoy the rain and the city empty of people. I swallowed some vodka for warmth, grabbed an umbrella and went out. It was cold, brrr, how cold it was, icy rain coming down on my umbrella-holding hand and sockless feet. I thought I was going to go back in right away, but then vodka hit my head, and it was okay. I walked to the corner of the street, where there is a martini bar, and the martini bar had just closed for the night, and all the people were out on the street waiting for the cabs to show up to take them to their various residences scattered across the hills of the city and beyond. And there she was, with a group of friends, red scarf, orange hat, the rain dared not touch her. She stepped out into the street, and the cab appeared from around the corner; she got in alone, and that was that.