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thirty-two (the princess and the pea)

I spent Christmas night sleeping on the floor beside the guest bed in our friends’ home. At one point, in my sleep, I rolled towards the bed – towards you – and must have bumped it. You woke in a sleepy rage. Unwilling to hiss or roar in someone else’s … Continue reading

Author : nike
Comments : 2 Comments

thirty-one (portrait of our mother)

The story I am writing about you takes place during your fall. It begins at the top of that building in Manhattan, when you step off the roof, and ends when you reach the sidewalk. It begins with a recitation, and ends in silence. After your death, I fell silent. … Continue reading

Author : nike
Comments : One Comment

thirty (nuns fret not)

The thing is, I was always afraid of leaving you. Do you remember the story about Lot’s wife, leaving Sodom? The angels took her and her daughters by the hand. They led them out of the city, towards the hills. She would have been safe if she hadn’t turned back. It … Continue reading

Author : nike
Comments : 2 Comments

twenty-nine (the Karen Joy Fowler Book Club)

Two bright bangles on an arm clang, a single bangle is silent, wander alone like a rhinoceros. ~ Khargavi?ana-sutra [the Rhinoceros Sutra] c.29 BCE Clara had once attended a creative writing workshop run by Karen Joy Fowler, and what Karen Joy told her was: We are living in a science … Continue reading

Author : nike
Comments : One Comment

twenty-seven (the death of the year)

I am interested in usable truths. I am interested in food I can eat, water I can drink, and stories I can tell. I am interested in doorways and roads: leading in, leading out. I am interested in stones, particularly the stones that mark the path we must walk tonight. My mother … Continue reading

Author : nike

twenty-six (the people who loved the trees)

After lunch, we wander along the foreshore of the lake. There’s a raised wooden path, shaded and cool. As we walk, she tells we how the lake formed. ‘Where the lake is now,’ she says, ‘used to a great valley full of trees. The local people used to come here … Continue reading

Author : nike

twenty-five (under the glass)

Just outside the door to my office is the photocopier. Things have been like this since the refurbishment, and I don’t see them changing any time soon. At first, this was good: convenient. I can hear my printing running off, and if I need to photocopy something for a student visiting … Continue reading

Author : nike

twenty-four (the poem he wrote for her)

She had, for some time, been considering the poem he wrote for her. This poem in which she did not recognise herself. It was true that she had worn black for many years; that she lived in mourning for some part of herself she could not name.In her own dreams, … Continue reading

Author : nike
The Limbo Cafe

twenty-three (at the limbo cafe)

Today – oh joy of joys! – a guest post from the inestimable Jane Bryony Rawson. Jane is the author of A Wrong Turn at the Office of Unmade Lists (published by Transit Lounge), which has most recently been shortlisted for the Most Underrrated Book Award 2014. Writing in The … Continue reading

Author : nike
Comments : 4 Comments
Marianne Stokes, Candlemas Day, c. 1901

Twenty-two (the wax, the wick, the flame)

On the afternoon of February second, you brought snowdrops into the house. Armfuls of them, their heads shyly drooping. Every empty jar in the house was filled with them. Then you set freshly-blessed candles on the tables and windowsills alongside the flowers. The scent of flowers and beeswax warmed the house.’They must burn all night,’ you … Continue reading

Author : nike
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