Miles Davis

A child doing her thing, dad in the settee doing his. There is nothing left of the sky. The five windows are dark rectangles, not really black. Again she wonders at the difference between darkness you can't see through and black. She has looked at the sun through one of her dad's empty beer bottles. The solar eclipse was a disappointment for her part. Day didn't become night at all, not even dark really. Such a disappointment. They stood with empty beer bottles in front of one eye seeing nothing but bottoms of bottles, sticky beer running down their faces.
- Are you tired tonight, she asks.
He turns his head, smiles, at nothing.
- Do you hear that sound? That's Miles.
She nods.
- He is the Master. You must know your Masters. That's all you need.
In front of her she has got a book, a pencil, scissors and glue.
She cuts out words and glue them on to a piece of paper, picks the words she likes such as "conversation" because of the ation-sound, mouse, mix, moth, mouth, something about the m in short monosyllables. Like sweeping the kitchen floor, so wonderfully filthy and in the end smooth and shiny.
It brings luck when she finds her age on a page. Every book has a page 8. And page 18, 28, 38. But that doesn't count. 288 is pretty though, but it still has to be in the text to count as luck.
- Dad?
Something is wrong with the roof of his mouth. She has told him. His sound has changed and there is a yellow blot in there, a bit swollen.
You shouldn't listen when I sleep, he would say. You shouldn't look either. It's not nice to look at people when they sleep.
In fact he doesn't answer, so she can't ask why it's not nice.
She could cut out the name Miles, it's in the book, somebody is called Miles. She doesn't. She hates Miles. It always gives him that blurred look at his face and the same sentence comes out of his mouth: Do you hear that sound?
- Dad?
She gets up. There won't be any more answers until tomorrow. She lifts the pick-up and puts it back in the little catch, then takes the record and breaks it into two, much easier to break than she would have thought. She puts the two halves back on the disc and pushes them together.
She has stopped that sound once and for all.
Then she tidies up the table. When it's beer he drinks out of the bottle, no glasses.

Now

- Love me now, he said.
His hands were not a begging bowl, they were hands, they were his hands.
And she heard him. Forget about forever, forget about yesterday, the deceptions, the promises, last year's disappointments, once upon a time is true as well, choose a story, pick it. She did. All their judges pulled back, vanished into thin air, like a child's smile.
She loves him now.

Divorces

We had an argument. It was in the car. It was not about my husband and I don't know why I said:
"When my husband died, I left him.".
Then I left the argument.

Words (language)

I'm not in the mood and I'm not used to understand every conversation I happen to overhear in bars, cafés and restaurants, in gardens behind hedges, in trains, even on my bike. That's the difference between Danish and English for me, I suppose. I understand every-everything in Danish. So I go back to the car and sit there for a couple of minutes with the door open. I'm a little early for my appointment with an old friend. I've parked in a side street in the center of Copenhagen, I always find a free parking there. I'm safe in the old Mitsubishi, it feels good to sit there, it reminds me of my father's BMW, all the buttons, the velours, the smell, I used to fall a sleep on the back seat on the way home from his cottage in Lolland. We always left too late, and he would joke about it, finding my eyes in the rear-view mirror. I close my eyes and listen to nothing.
I suppose I get out of the car because I can't make any sense of the sound, I suddenly hear: water. Water pouring out. It's not rain, hasn't been raining all day. Behind my car is another car and behind that car a young man stands pissing. He looks at what he is doing. So do I. He finishes, zipper up, looks at me and passes with a smile. Many people smile when they are embarrassed so maybe that's what he is. Maybe he is pleased. I can't tell. Doesn't make any difference. Piss smells the same no matter what smile, what language.

Words (burglary)

I used to hear the word Burglary as Burberry and I still don't associate it with what happened that night. Not really. It makes me think of keys and doors and windows. It makes me imagine you coming out from the bedroom naked and confused, suddenly doomed to be a man. And you are! So naturally a man. But you never held a sword. Even worse: the woman and the children here act like you had, like you were an expert, we feel safe when you are at home. What a weight to put on you!
What happened that night was silent. We went to bed, we were alone, the children were supposed to come home later, we didn't lock the door, we made love, without being silent. Because we were alone, expected to be alone. We were happy while we were burgled. My iPad and some cash, that's all. We found out in the morning, the children were still asleep and we looked at each other, for a moment we shared the same thought, reconstructing our moment together, and then I continued by myself, I think, relieved that you weren't pushed to dig up a sword you have never held.

Words (shoes)

In order to understand the concept of exhaustion you must replace all the elements in your life with shoes.
You explained this to me:
You are alone in a shoe shop full of customers. Let's say you have 50 different models in the shop. Shoes have to fit. So you have got each model in let's say five sizes. We all want to try at least two different sizes before we make up our mind, so you have to go and look in the stock for every customer who seriously consider a pair of shoes. It's a bit stressful because you then have to leave the shop. You do it of course as fast as you can. But every time you open a box, it's not the right size you find in it, or it's a different model or an unexpected color. None of the shoes fit the boxes. Your customers get impatient, some of them you were just about to sell a pair of shoes leave the shop. Others get angry with you.
You made a little pause.
This is how daily life situations are perceived when we are exhausted.
You took my arm that Saturday and let me out of the shoe shop.

Words (face)

There are faces we loose and faces we never forget.
With oceans and mountains and mammoths between we still carry all the faces we lost. One day we meet our witness and find no defense. There is only one face to wear, the one we once lost. So I kindly ask: when you walk the life and a traffic light turns red, don't look for it. Even if a lost face crosses the street and find your eyes, don't look. Let it pass. Right behind you will meet a man or a woman asking what way to take.