The morning has broken - I had thought of the morning like an egg that had split with a crack and was spreading. Before us lay all the green of the green country of England, with its rivers and it's roads and it's hedges, it's churches, it's chimneys, it's rising threads of smoke. The chimneys grew taller, the roads and rivers wider, the threads of smoke more thick, the farther off the country spread; until at last, at the farthest point of all, they made a smudge, a stain, a darkness - a darkness, like the darkness of the coal in a fire - a darkness that was broken, here and there, where the sun caught panes of glass and the golden tips of domes and steeples, with glittering points of light. 'London,' I said 'Oh, London!

A Sad ChildYou're sad because you're sad.It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.Go see a shrink or take a pill,or hug your sadness like an eyeless dollyou need to sleep.Well, all children are sadbut some get over it.Count your blessings. Better than that,buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.Take up dancing to forget.Forget what?Your sadness, your shadow,whatever it was that was done to youthe day of the lawn partywhen you came inside flushed with the sun,your mouth sulky with sugar,in your new dress with the ribbonand the ice-cream smear,and said to yourself in the bathroom, I am not the favourite child My darling, when it comesright down to itand the light fails and the fog rolls inand you're trapped in your overturned bodyunder a blanket or burning car,and the red flame is seeping out of youand igniting the tarmac beside your heador else the floor, or else the pillow,none of us is;or else we all are.

It was a very ordinary day, the day I realised that my becoming is my life and my home and that I don't have to do anything but trust the process, trust my story and enjoy the journey. It doesn't really matter who I've become by the finish line, the important things are the changes from this morning to when I fall asleep again, and how they happened, and who they happened with. An hour watching the stars, a coffee in the morning with someone beautiful, intelligent conversations at 5am while sharing the last cigarette. Taking trains to nowhere, walking hand in hand through foreign cities with someone you love. Oceans and poetry. It was all very ordinary until my identity appeared, until my body and mind became one being. The day I saw the flowers and learned how to turn my daily struggles into the most extraordinary moments. Moments worth writing about. For so long I let my life slip through my fingers, like water. I'm holding on to it now,and I'm not letting go.

I was also sick of my neighbors, as most Parisians are. I now knew every second of the morning routine of the family upstairs. At 7:00 am alarm goes off, boom, Madame gets out of bed, puts on her deep-sea divers’ boots, and stomps across my ceiling to megaphone the kids awake. The kids drop bags of cannonballs onto the floor, then, apparently dragging several sledgehammers each, stampede into the kitchen. They grab their chunks of baguette and go and sit in front of the TV, which is always showing a cartoon about people who do nothing but scream at each other and explode. Every minute, one of the kids cartwheels (while bouncing cannonballs) back into the kitchen for seconds, then returns (bringing with it a family of excitable kangaroos) to the TV. Meanwhile the toilet is flushed, on average, fifty times per drop of urine expelled. Finally, there is a ten-minute period of intensive yelling, and at 8:15 on the dot they all howl and crash their way out of the apartment to school.” (p.137)

... and it was quite a sad thing,the way I watched you sleep like nothing could go wrong and I did not want to harm it, I did not want to blur it, but how could I notwhen everything I’ve ever known has slowly gone awayand I know by now that that’s the way you let the new day in with new roads and views and chances to growbut it was quite a sad thing because I don’t want this to ever become ’then’ or ’was’ and it was quite an unfamiliar thing. The way I took off my shoes again, put down my bag and quietly went back to bed, slowly between the sheets of moments I don’t want to leaveand it was quite a beautiful thing the way you had no idea but still must have known because you did not even open your eyes, but turned around and took my hand and you were still asleep, breathing in and out like nothing could go wrong, but still held my hand like you were glad I didn’t leave. ’Thank you for staying’and it was quite a wonderful thing, the way I smiled and so did you, sound asleep, and that’s all I need to know for now. That’s all I want to know for now.

Red FoxThe red fox crosses the iceintent on none of my business.It's winter and slim pickings.I stand in the bushy cemetery,pretending to watch birds,but really watching the foxwho could care less.She pauses on the sheer glareof the pond. She knows I'm there,sniffs me in the wind at her shoulder.If I had a gun or dogor a raw heart, she'd smell it.She didn't get this smart for nothing.She's a lean vixen: I can seethe ribs, the slytrickster's eyes, filled with longingand desperation, the skinnyfeet, adept at lies.Why encourage the notionof virtuous poverty?It's only an excusefor zero charity.Hunger corrupts, and absolute hungercorrupts absolutely,or almost. Of course there are mothers,squeezing their breastsdry, pawning their bodies,shedding teeth for their children,or that's our fond belief.But remember - Hanseland Gretel were dumped in the forestbecause their parents were starving.Sauve qui peut. To survivewe'd all turn thiefand rascal, or so says the fox,with her coat of an elegant scoundrel,her white knife of a smile,who knows just where she's going:to steal somethingthat doesn't belong to her -some chicken, or one more chance,or other life.

Girl Without HandsWalking through the ruinson your way to workthat do not look like ruinswith the sunlight pouring overthe seen worldlike hail or meltedsilver, that brightand magnificent, each leafand stone quickened and specific in it,and you can't hold it,you can't hold any of it. Distance surrounds you,marked out by the ends of your armswhen they are stretched to their fullest.You can go no farther than this,you think, walking forward,pushing the distance in front of youlike a metal cart on wheelswith its barriers and horizontals.Appearance melts away from you,the offices and pyramidson the horizon shimmer and cease.No one can enter that circleyou have made, that clean circleof dead space you have madeand stay inside,mourning because it is clean.Then there's the girl, in the white dress,meaning purity, or the failureto be any colour. She has no hands, it's true.The scream that happened to the airwhen they were taken offsurrounds her now like an aureoleof hot sand, of no sound.Everything has bled out of her.Only a girl like thiscan know what's happened to you.If she were here she wouldreach out her arms towardsyou now, and touch youwith her absent handsand you would feel nothing, but you would betouched all the same.

Dear father,It's been five years today, but makes no difference! Not a day goes by without me remembering your pure green eyes, the tone of your voice singing In Adighabza, or your poems scattered all around the house.Dear father, from you I have learned that being a girl doesn't mean that I can't achieve my dreams, no matter how crazy or un-urban they might seem. That you raised me with the utmost of ethics and morals and the hell with this cocooned society, if it doesn't respect the right to ask and learn and be, just because I'm a girl.Dear father, from you I have learned to respect all mankind, and just because you descend from a certain blood or ethnicity, it doesn't make you better than anybody else. It's you, and only you, your actions, your thoughts, your achievements, are what differentiates you from everybody else. At the same time, thank you for teaching me to respect and value where I came from, for actually taking me to my hometown Goboqay, for teaching me about my family tree, how my ancestors worked hard and fought for me to be where I am right now, and to continue on with the legacy and make them all proud.Dear father, from you and mom, I have learned to speak in my mother tongue. A gift so precious, that I have already made a promise to do the same for my unborn children. Dear father, from you I have learned to be content, to fear Allah, to be thankful for all that I have, and no matter what, never loose faith, as it's the only path to solace.Dear father, from you I have learned that if a person wants to love you, then let them, and if they hurt you, be strong and stand your ground. People will respect you only if you respect yourself.Dear father, I'm pretty sure that you are proud of me, my sisters and our dear dear Mom. You have a beautiful grand daughter now and a son in-law better than any brother I would have ever asked for.Till we meet again, Shu wasltha'3u.الله يرحمك يا غالي. (الفاتحة) على روحك الطاهرة.

Helen of Troy Does Counter DancingThe world is full of womenwho'd tell me I should be ashamed of myselfif they had the chance. Quit dancing.Get some self-respectand a day job.Right. And minimum wage,and varicose veins, just standingin one place for eight hoursbehind a glass counterbundled up to the neck, instead ofnaked as a meat sandwich.Selling gloves, or something.Instead of what I do sell.You have to have talentto peddle a thing so nebulousand without material form.Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any wayyou cut it, but I've a choiceof how, and I'll take the money.I do give value.Like preachers, I sell vision,like perfume ads, desireor its facsimile. Like jokesor war, it's all in the timing. I sell men back their worst suspicions:that everything's for sale,and piecemeal. They gaze at me and seea chain-saw murder just before it happens,when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nippleare still connected.Such hatred leaps in them,my beery worshipers! That, or a blearyhopeless love. Seeing the rows of headsand upturned eyes, imploringbut ready to snap at my ankles,I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urgeto step on ants. I keep the beat,and dance for them becausethey can't. The music smells like foxes,crisp as heated metalsearing the nostrilsor humid as August, hazy and languorousas a looted city the day after,when all the rape's been donealready, and the killing,and the survivors wander aroundlooking for garbageto eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion.Speaking of which, it's the smilingtires me out the most.This, and the pretensethat I can't hear them.And I can't, because I'm after alla foreigner to them.The speech here is all warty gutturals,obvious as a slam of ham,but I come from the province of the godswhere meaning are lilting and oblique.I don't let on to everyone,but lean close, and I'll whisper:My mothers was raped by a holy swan.You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.That's what we tell all the husbands.There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.Not that anyone herebut you would understand.The rest of them would like to watch meand feel nothing. Reduce me to componentsas in a clock factory or abattoir.Crush out the mystery.Wall me up alivein my own body.They'd like to see through me,but nothing is more opaquethan absolute transparency.Look - my feet don't hit the marble!Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising,I hover six inches in the airin my blazing swan-egg of light.You think I'm not a goddess?Try me.This is a torch song.Touch me and you'll burn.

The Loneliness of the Military HistorianConfess: it's my professionthat alarms you.This is why few people ask me to dinner,though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary.I wear dresses of sensible cutand unalarming shades of beige,I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's:no prophetess mane of mine,complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters.If I roll my eyes and mutter,if I clutch at my heart and scream in horrorlike a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene,I do it in private and nobody seesbut the bathroom mirror.In general I might agree with you:women should not contemplate war,should not weigh tactics impartially,or evade the word enemy,or view both sides and denounce nothing.Women should march for peace,or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery,spit themselves on bayonetsto protect their babies,whose skulls will be split anyway,or,having been raped repeatedly,hang themselves with their own hair.There are the functions that inspire general comfort.That, and the knitting of socks for the troopsand a sort of moral cheerleading.Also: mourning the dead.Sons,lovers and so forth.All the killed children.Instead of this, I tellwhat I hope will pass as truth.A blunt thing, not lovely.The truth is seldom welcome,especially at dinner,though I am good at what I do.My trade is courage and atrocities.I look at them and do not condemn.I write things down the way they happened,as near as can be remembered.I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same.Wars happen because the ones who start themthink they can win.In my dreams there is glamour.The Vikings leave their fieldseach year for a few months of killing and plunder,much as the boys go hunting.In real life they were farmers.The come back loaded with splendour.The Arabs ride against Crusaderswith scimitars that could seversilk in the air.A swift cut to the horse's neckand a hunk of armour crashes downlike a tower. Fire against metal.A poet might say: romance against banality.When awake, I know better.Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters,or none that could be finally buried.Finish one off, and circumstancesand the radio create another.Believe me: whole armies have prayed ferventlyto God all night and meant it,and been slaughtered anyway.Brutality wins frequently,and large outcomes have turned on the inventionof a mechanical device, viz. radar.True, valour sometimes counts for something,as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right -though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition,is decided by the winner.Sometimes men throw themselves on grenadesand burst like paper bags of gutsto save their comrades.I can admire that.But rats and cholera have won many wars.Those, and potatoes,or the absence of them.It's no use pinning all those medalsacross the chests of the dead.Impressive, but I know too much.Grand exploits merely depress me.In the interests of researchI have walked on many battlefieldsthat once were liquid with pulpedmen's bodies and spangled with explodedshells and splayed bone.All of them have been green againby the time I got there.Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day.Sad marble angels brood like hensover the grassy nests where nothing hatches.(The angels could just as well be described as vulgaror pitiless, depending on camera angle.)The word glory figures a lot on gateways.Of course I pick a flower or twofrom each, and press it in the hotel Biblefor a souvenir.I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement.As I say, I deal in tactics.Also statistics:for every year of peace there have been four hundredyears of war.