Dispatches | Page 34

Searching for the Real in a Surrealist’s Home

June 15, 2011 Dispatches

The ants have returned to Carrer Hort. We thought we’d eliminated them, crushing them under the flat rubbery green kitchen sponge in a flurry of destruction. They’re small, these Spanish Mediterranean ants, but they’re tougher than they look, and after five days’ absence during unrelenting rain they’ve returned, arriving from some unknown and undiscoverable place to scurry frantically around the kitchen sink.

Desire in New Mumbai

June 8, 2011 Dispatches

By MARIA TERRONE

Oh to drape my flesh with the rippling silk of a turquoise sari, gold-flecked above a peek of bare midriff, my eyes kohl-rimmed, hair hennaed, feet sandaled now but also in winter because I carry the subcontinent within me, I shimmer its heat as I stroll down the block to the sounds of Punjabi pop from sidewalk speakers.

Unfinished Buildings

June 1, 2011 Dispatches

By MALCOLM GARCIA

Mohamid Abdelazim sips tea from the fourth floor of an unfinished apartment building in the Cairo neighborhood of Giza. The building is owned by Mohamid’s father, and from where Mohamid stands, he can see the peaks of the Great Pyramid above a dozen other incomplete red brick apartment complexes. Through empty windows, Mohamid watches cars racing around the curves of Ring Road as it twists away from Giza.

The Balkan

May 18, 2011 Dispatches

By CRALAN KELDER

The Balkan in my neighborhood, I give him small amounts of money a few
times a week, it’s not what you think. A lot of people do this. About his wife,
he tells me he has none. My daughter, he sees her smile a flash flood,
always gives her a cookie. His word is börek, translates as ‘savory pastry’
pronounced “boo-wreck”. For this I gladly give him money. Spinach and feta.
Bigger than your hand, hot from the oven. With meat or cheese, pasta layers,
flaky dough. He works 6 days a week. He was taking a nap in the park a few
years ago, we were there eating homemade sticky cake. I offer him some, he
rigorously declines. Does he recognise me? Was it inappropriate?

Night Fishing, Devil’s Kitchen Lake

May 11, 2011 Dispatches

By JAMES A. GILL

—for Rodney Jones

After the accident, when I no longer walked with a cane, we met there at dusk. I hesitated stepping off the dock into the gently swaying boat, still unsure of the steel screwed into my bones, scared in that instant, like every other, of the infinite number of ways a person can die. I took my place in the hard plastic fishing seat, and by the time we reached the far side of the lake and tied onto the line of buoys near the spillway, full dark had come. We set our lines and did no more.

The Chosen Ones

May 4, 2011 Dispatches

By PETER JAY SHIPPY

When he was 12, he was voted
Most likely to become Satan’s spawn

By the other sixth graders at Gesù
Catholic School in Northy. Lucas

Extracts from the Ridiculous American: A Just Plain Strange One-Sided Correspondence

April 27, 2011 Dispatches

By JOCK DOUBLEDAY

AMSTERDAM

October 21, 1998

Dear Diary,

My 39th birthday was spent in the airport, but walking down Herengracht I thought, “Happy Birthday.” Not too excited being here. Looks like just another New York City to me. Of course, it’s dark. We’ll see what daylight brings.

Finishing Sequence

April 20, 2011 Dispatches

By CARRIE MEADOWS

Men in red vests enter in the wake of the crowd’s leaving,

their sneakers rustling hollow soda cups and corndog sleeves.

This is the dingy hush of half-eaten pretzels, half-empty

popcorn buckets. When the crew has finished clearing debris

Buttons

April 13, 2011 Dispatches

By JESSICA ADAMS

In a long, low building with a tin roof, people from this village turn clamshells into buttons. Beyond the broken windows lie middens of clamshells, punctuated with precise and uniform holes. The gravel mixes with broken shells and thick, pale unfinished buttons.

Archipelago

April 6, 2011 Dispatches

By IAN MACLELLAN

In Greece, people visit islands. There are a lot of islands to visit. They head for beaches, coastline, the sea, to lie on the shore and look out at the water. But to find an island, you should really look inland. The island is the thing behind you. Turn around.

On a small Cycladic island, a second home for me by marriage, I swelter by the beach. Idyllic, busy, and anonymous. A limited sense of context: a watery horizon; sand; shops, bars and restaurants. At 40°C in the shade, it’s all swimming costumes and ice cream and plastic toys.

All posts tagged: Dispatches

Searching for the Real in a Surrealist’s Home

Desire in New Mumbai

Unfinished Buildings

The Balkan

Night Fishing, Devil’s Kitchen Lake

The Chosen Ones

Extracts from the Ridiculous American: A Just Plain Strange One-Sided Correspondence

Finishing Sequence

Buttons

Archipelago

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