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Tango Dream

My fingernails clawed the plaster as if I could scratch a way through the wall. Thirst burned in my throat and sweat ran down my back to tease me. That was when the guards kicked open the door and she stood between them, a half-smoked cigarette in her hand with ashes glowing at one end and the red marks of her lipstick on the filter. "Are you ready," she hissed, and swung eighteen inches of hair across her left shoulder. "You know I?d crawl after you," I said, "I?ve been ready for years." That was when she elbowed the guard to her right in the stomach and the surprise was enough to floor him. His startled colleague was paralysed by her perfume, so she just picked up the fallen man?s gun, shot a tunnel to his partner?s heart from two feet distance, and pulled at the shreds of my shirt. "Come on," she said, "time to go."



Chocolate

A man sits with his cup of chocolate and listens to doors open and close in the houses around him. He recognises the sound of every one: the tinny click of the priest?s latch, the clatter the carpenter makes with his key, the almost imperceptible click in the widow?s lock. Sip, sip; he feels the warmth of his drink form a skin on his tongue and he thinks of drinking night itself. Gulp! He would swallow the forest and exhale its chlorophyll breath, he would open himself up and the road would roll up inside him, he would peel the darkness from the meadow and relish the feel of it replacing the skin of which he has grown tired. Oh to be invisible as mystery, he thinks. To be a violin whose only string is a shaft of light pulled taut between the trees.



Bedtime

Don?t worry, don?t be afraid, say the parents to their children as they pat down the pillows. Go in peace, says the priest
after vespers. Last call, the innkeeper shouts. And the darkness descends on everyone, giving each man and woman
an equal share. Drink your milk now. The children believe they are drinking light. Drink it all down. Time to go home.
The drinkers know they have been swallowing darkness, preparing for the night. God be with you. The faithful totter
out onto the rutted paths between houses and take their steps with care. One by one, lamps are extinguished, curtains
are drawn, doors are bolted. One by one, the people fall into their beds; some gently, some with the weight of a
lifelong care, some with the breath struggling to pass through their lungs. Into the cool sheets they fall, then into the
theatre where their dreams are projected. In a blaze of white from a faraway place the dreams have made their
journey to one and all, sparing no one as they run their course. And the crumbs from the late snack fall onto the floor
in a little pile for the mice.



Grand Hotel

A lazy pool of sunlight forms a circle on the carpet. Lace curtains curve across the glass, leaving space to see through to the street. The waiters come out from the kitchen now and then to look for new customers. A ladder of blue smoke rises to the ceiling from the table where one sits alone, as he does every day, with his glass of slow wine. On the wall
behind him is one of a series of photographs in black and white placed along the wall, showing water and trees in their summer fullness: trees that are tall and thick; water so still it reflects every leaf. The scene could be a park or palace grounds. It speaks of time suspended in warm air, of lying on the grass and listening to birds, of following the progress of a cloud as it navigates infinity. If the sun could shine directly into someone?s heart, this is where it would happen. If loneliness could bring a consoling smile it would be here, where only the doves with their liquid eyes can see it.



But

The people who are poor but happy live in houses that are old and pretty but which leak and are poorly insulated. Their village has a picturesque but precarious location on a cliff which their enemies have never scaled but which on occasion crumbles and a few buildings tumble into the dark but beautiful ravine. They like to sing the traditional but melancholy songs of their peaceful but unambitious ancestors and to craft the ornate but impractical objects for which they are both admired and ridiculed depending on who passes an informed but uninvited opinion. They welcome visitors in a superficial but insincere tone and are glad but lonely when they say goodbye. This situation is a blessing but a curse to them because they feel secure in their identity but know there is so much to learn from the world at large which they believe is prosperous but violent. Everyone knows their neighbours but nobody can keep a secret so conversation is scandalous but forgiving. This is the comfortable but inevitable way their quiet but isolated lives have always been; many of them would willingly but regretfully leave but after all this time where could they go?