Another Country

The life you think you should want,’ said Eric, ‘is always the life that looks safest.

And she carried him, as the sea will carry a boat: with a slow, rocking and rising and falling motion, barely suggestive of the violence of the deep.

A sign advertised the chewing gum which would help one to relax and keep smiling. An hotel’s enormous neon name challenged the starless sky. So did the names of movie stars and people currently appearing or scheduled to appear on Broadway, along with the mile-high names of the vehicles which would carry them into immortality. The great buildings, unlit, blunt like the phallus or sharp like the spear, guarded

Somewhere in his heart the black boy hated the white boy because he was white.

‘Sweetheart, suffering doesn’t have a colour. Does it? Can’t we step out of this nightmare?

stared into each other’s eyes for a long time, and kissed again.

his voice was full of doubt.

There were no standards for him because he could not accept the definitions

There were no standards for him except those he could make for himself.

And the encounter took place, at last, between two dreamers, neither of whom could wake the other, except for the bitterest and briefest of seconds.