I want you to be: the colours. She understood him in a way that he had never realised before, never closed in, never close, all those fish bladders and the weight of ancient traditions on our brains. The temperature is important, as all the people swarm around, swapping positions and ending up in the same place they started from, but she watched them without seeing. She had two children, two young children, but for reasons she still couldn't understand they had been taken away by her husband. Her ex-husband. She thought about him as she stared from her balcony at the world below, the busy world, the world which invented her. She thought about her love, and saw it was good. It was a miracle of modern design. Her hair, not so long anymore, was black, shoulder-length, drifting easily about her face, roundsoft and fairskinned, the face of a sympathetic witch, the ears invisible. She sometimes found herself unbearably sad, and would cry in the shower, tears washed away in the pressure-jets, her non-stick skin red with the heat and shaking with the hole in her heart. Her new lover, her warm masculine bed thing, would sometimes try to understand, he meant well, but it was too much. Too much to tell, too unfair, too little time. Tell me a story, Pooh.
'Two daughters, I have,' she said. 'What are you doing now?'
And she turned, away from the window, away from the world. She would find herself a grapefruit. She would find herself sad. She would eat, she would drink, she would fuck for a while and then rest, lay there all day as he leaves for work. Maybe fuck again when he returns, depending on his mood, on her mood, on the line of the stars. The old woman upstairs sometimes calls, usually looking for sugar; she would give her a pound thereof, but in a day or two she would return and ask for more. What did she want the sugar for? Nothing, undoubtedly; she probably had a closetful, merely looking for company, the brief interaction of a stranger's kindness, a word, a touch. Unable to think of any other substitute; why not ask for milk one day, salt the next? There is no difference.
Out in the hallway, two electricians worked up a ladder, probing and exchanging in the ceiling, muttering and swearing. A young man with a pencil in his ear came out of his flat, asked them a question.
'What's your favourite word?' he asked.
'What?' said the first electrician, somewhat taken aback by the nature of the inquiry.
'What's your favourite word? Just pick any word, the word that you like best,' he repeated.
The electrician considered for a moment, then replied in a decisive tone.
'Tits,' he said, and resumed his work.
'Thank you very much,' said the young man, and returned to his flat. Nothing more was said, but the painting in the hallway was clearly crooked. It showed some birds flying away from a cornfield. She didn't like it very much. It was a lonely picture.
Marie. That was her name, the name that had been given her by her parents, the name for which she had settled. Marie, who had pale skin and dark hair. Marie. Who had two beautiful children, two beautiful girls. Marie, who cried in the shower and made love in her bed. Marie, the name of her own. Sometimes in the kitchen, too. Marie and her lover. Marie watched the world from her balcony, bought her food in silence. Gave sugar to her neighbour. Marie was someone, someone good. She had no television. Aspidistras littered the floor, the corners, the niches that needed filling. She had been happy, but now she was sad. The flicker of eyelids, the rustle of cushions on naked humans, the tempo of beating hearts as they urge each other on. She had a dream, his nightmare, she was on top of him, sitting there moving as well as she could, moving in unison and suddenly blood, blood pouring out of her, as if burst by his cock inside, ruptured and the the flow, draining and she deflated as the red torrent increased and losing form folding down into herself the nothing the empty the blood that gave her form flowing out through the hole that she needed to love and collapsing onto him screaming and pushing her off but she was stuck and shapeless and thrashing and eyes popping like soap and eyes and eyes and nose and skull all sucked from inside to nothing and crumble on the molten mess of him, spreading vital puncture and eating him up with billions of tiny teeth, inside the skin that tear and corrupt and bleed and boil until all that is left is a bed of red-soaked skeleton and empty air. Marie was someone good.
At work now, he. Him. Him with his portable penis and portable dreams, his slick hair and long eyelashes. His dark eyes. Thinking about text. The paint in the bathroom was peeling, old paint. Old bathroom, with a huge cast-iron bathtub and lavender tiles. Yellow paint, peeling, dying skin cold underneath. Planes overflew the building, sometimes rattling saucers, sometimes unnoticed. A table in the corner gathered letters and bills, some open, more not. Glossy picture junk mail. Liam the Mailman. Jump over the postie, dog on heel like the threat of death, shaken off with vigourous exercise, shiny shoes. Jump through the hoops, the hoops that flame, the jumpthrough hoops that flame and burn. Hop through the Juumps. In Holland, there are tulips and people and windmills. Marie folded her hands together and looked down at the edge of the park. Benches there, trees, people. People in the park. In the park there are people and trees and benches. She cradled her hands upsidedown and looked through them at the park. She held the people and the benches and the trees in her hand, safe and warm and protected. They continued about their business, doing whatever people or benches or trees do, entirely unaware of their guardian angel who granted them protection. A pony entered her world, she embraced it. The pony took no notice, snuffled and steamed and trotted. She removed her cradle, turned it to a building, a tall building not so far away. She saw the lights and the windows and the person specks within, glowing and fading and new. One man drew the blinds against her, shut out the eyes. She wondered why, what could he be doing? Even in height, there is no privacy in the city for people with glass. Why not slitty mirrors, one for each head? They could be fastened, they could rotate. It would be ideal. She considered her fingernails. They had grown too long.
She went to the bathroom with the peeling paint, stood by the mirror. She looked tired, those weary eyes, that weary hair.
'I want you to be,' she told herself. Then, with deliberation, she opened the cold faucet, scooped a double handful of water onto her face, gasping with the splash. She saw her teeth. Her nose was red and raw. Her hair was black, her skin pale. The peeling paint was yellow. The damping towel was blue on her face, blue on her hair. She filled up with blood, her hands on the lavender tiles. The pony shat on the pavement, creating steam anew. Poodles sniffed and yapped and pranced and tangled up in arms. She saw the toothpaste tube, scooped it, smeared it on her teeth with those longer fingers that had grown like flies from her mother's womb, grown from little carrots and bigger burgers and better cars, grown like so much to know, to lubricate the stew of her lewd, her brewing sooner spew, her ankles that fraction too wide to truly enjoy those fashionable shoes. She slurried the mix around in her mouth, washing it out, spreading it through the water, ejected then in a false vomit of white minty fresh froth into the sink, the white minty fresh sink touched by her minty fresh breath. She held herself inside, watching the suction pull it down in a neat whirl of dilute gravity, watching every drop, what was once called normal. She twisted the tap, the normal nothing dead metal water faucet, the fucking tap, the fucking, fucking tap! She twisted it off, the tap with ranting, beating hands and twisting, bleating face, twisting and twisting and hammering hands that twist and tap and turn and tear to hurt the immune and deathly metal, just to hurt it, just to make it, to fuck it up, to make it notice, to regret, to fucking hurt the fucking shitting fucking bastard tap, the fucking shitting bastard tap, that fucking fucking tap. To tear it to pieces, to melt it from its hold, to trash its every inch, to scour the fetid stench of every little touch, the fucking death squeeze, the squeeze and burn and pulp and mince to miserable agony wincable tinily testicle pieces.
She took her towel and wrapped it around her head, walked out to the balcony. The people were still there, down in the park, eating their lunches, walking their dogs, kissing their women, kissing their men. The sunlight stalked through the trees like a furtive killer, eagerly awaiting the next turn, the very next bend, the glimpse of an upturned leg. Anything could happen. She brought one back, once, in the afternoon; he had bought her an ice-cream, with little crumbs, chocolate crumbs, sprinkled on top. He had a small black hat, and an umbrella. He was english, of course; ever so. He remarked on the lustre of her eyes, yet something in him shuddered when she touched him, lightly, inquisitively, on the arm or hand, a slight flirt, enough to fathom from yet nothing that would be unusual with someone who was merely a friend. He came up to the apartment, took off his coat and hat, they had a drink. Chilled gin, from the fridge, which she liked but was not to everyone's taste. They talked of little things; he was a businessman, in what field he would not say. He had no wife, but his ring betrayed him. She revealed nothing. In the flow of conversation, he abrupted; standing, he gazed in through her eyes, down into the bowels of her brain, thrusting into her as effectively as ever a man had, locked with her thoughts and wary attention. 'You are worth an erection,' he said. He paused, drew back, reached for his hat. 'But nothing more.' He left his umbrella, but shut the door quietly. His shoes made little islands in the carpet.
She thought of a barnyard, with hens and chickens and an axe to chop wood - there's always some to do around the farm. She had been there once, with her father. He was installing a fridge. She came closer to cows than she ever had before; big and strange and bovine, soft wet lips. Their mouths hooked the grass, devour. She saw the bales of hay, climbed up into that tickly mountain to find eggs planted there in little groups, like eggs, just like eggs. She pulled at a piece of protruding paint, and it peeled away with only a slight sucking sound, crumbling at the edges like the shape of some forgotten land. Her hair was wet. She brought her hands up, into the clutching snug of blue fabric, into the pressure that lay on her head, into the touch of her skull, recently clean, rooted and growing with every passing life. In the world, two babies die every second.