What lives inside a lamp, unseen? And sings, still unseen, at random moments, of unknown longing? Or hunger or lust (which, let us face it, is just another hunger)?
I have a confession to make: I am inordinately fond of a lizard-in-a-lampshade. It is, I swear, the funniest thing on earth. It clings to a light bulb and sings to me at night. What more could anyone want?
We sit in the living room - and here you need to stop for a minute and wipe out any sensible 'living room' images you may have collected in your lives. Replace them with a large terrace, a semi-outdoor area with sofas, mirrors, dining table and TV. Also with rice field, water and moon-silver. Feel the breeze. Hear the mosquitoes circling your earlobe.
The Kiwi and I are alone tonight - I come back from the airport dizzy and drained by the mad, mad roads.
Sometimes I feel like walking in the gate and stepping straight into the pool instead of following the path.
(A young guy fell off his motorbike today, right in front of us - and, coming from the other direction, a bus. Miraculously, all traffic stopped in time and long enough for him to pick himself up. I stared at his white cotton trousers, one leg now completely, uniformly black, as if a nursery kid had coloured it in. Otherwise he seemed fine, only a grazed arm and mild shock. He sat down by the side of the road, swallowed by a wave of solicitous passers by. M., who doesn't believe such accidents happen, had just run across the road to the pharmacy and missed it.)
Where was I? Oh yes: alone, tonight - and dizzy and blue, when I hear a clicking from the corner - it's a sound test, my genie is getting ready, and I snap up from my slump, with a smile. And when he starts his two-note serenade-in-a-lampshade, I laugh out loud.
I have a confession to make: I am inordinately fond of a lizard-in-a-lampshade. It is, I swear, the funniest thing on earth. It clings to a light bulb and sings to me at night. What more could anyone want?
We sit in the living room - and here you need to stop for a minute and wipe out any sensible 'living room' images you may have collected in your lives. Replace them with a large terrace, a semi-outdoor area with sofas, mirrors, dining table and TV. Also with rice field, water and moon-silver. Feel the breeze. Hear the mosquitoes circling your earlobe.
The Kiwi and I are alone tonight - I come back from the airport dizzy and drained by the mad, mad roads.
Sometimes I feel like walking in the gate and stepping straight into the pool instead of following the path.
(A young guy fell off his motorbike today, right in front of us - and, coming from the other direction, a bus. Miraculously, all traffic stopped in time and long enough for him to pick himself up. I stared at his white cotton trousers, one leg now completely, uniformly black, as if a nursery kid had coloured it in. Otherwise he seemed fine, only a grazed arm and mild shock. He sat down by the side of the road, swallowed by a wave of solicitous passers by. M., who doesn't believe such accidents happen, had just run across the road to the pharmacy and missed it.)
Where was I? Oh yes: alone, tonight - and dizzy and blue, when I hear a clicking from the corner - it's a sound test, my genie is getting ready, and I snap up from my slump, with a smile. And when he starts his two-note serenade-in-a-lampshade, I laugh out loud.
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