The Promise

The room you grew up in is a room you never leave

It’s no good, this endless repent and repeat.

Boredom sets in quickly. You come back after long vanishment and the surface closes as if you were never gone. Family quicksand.

His arrival merely a minor sensation in the end, the prodigal returning, a drama everybody has seen before. Boredom sets in quickly. You come back after long vanishment and the surface closes as if you were never gone. Family quicksand.

This morning I met a woman with a golden nose.
She was riding in a Cadillac with a monkey in her arms.
Her driver stopped and she asked me, “Are you Fellini?”
With this metallic voice she continued,
“Why is it that in your movies, there is not even one normal person?”
—FEDERICO FELLINI

Desirée quickly dries her eyes on the sleeve of her nightgown. She’s not so far advanced in matters of the spirit that she can’t recognise the sound of a rare opportunity clearing its throat.

Don’t do your business anywhere near the church. Then, to show he empathises with the plight of the poor, he adds, Do it over there somewhere.

It’s a public holiday, Reconciliation Day or whatever they call it lately, s

sister-in-law failed to attend her wedding three years ago and has shown no contrition for the lapse.

Ockie sighs. The universe is somehow always set at an angle to his wants, but this is not the moment for resistance. He turns off the television.