Lord Byron
]]>Scientist are still perplexed by the origin of the gene, that together with its cousin, the Obesity Gene, seemed to have materialised in the western society out of nowhere – in contradiction to our current understanding of gene theory.
Anonymous source in the intelligence services was heard blaming Al Qaeda biological warfare for the spread of the genes, brining the lack of obesity in their parts of the world as the undisputable proof.
]]>Not even the screams of the ghosts
Whose organs are burnt
In front of their not-yet-dying eyes
Can stop their passionate kissing.
It was a flicker of a dress
A glimpse
And an argument
That sent them to never see each other again.
While the ravens, feasting on their ancestors stories
Are still waiting
For the return of the days
When warm flesh is served
With every meal.
Amongst the fish ponds, where in summer nights clouds of mosquitoes attracted to the light-bulbs turned them dark … 1983
The room in the basement in which two of us would sleep so comfortably in a tiny single bed … 1985
A tin house so cold in the winter that the water in the bathtub turned into a block of ice … 1989
A tiny square room without a window bath or shower, which I shared with three. Did I enjoy the public bath … 1991
Hideaway in the rainforest where the screeching bats on the mango trees kept us awake all night; and so did our baby … 1996
A massive condominium with lifeguards who could not swim, but were concerned with babies floating petals in the water …1999
An English village, so English that even the English themselves could not believe that such Englishness still existed. It was the house where I passed the change of the Millennium
A white castle with a living room the size of a basketball field. We turned it into a kids’ gym, but the neighbours did not approve … 2003
A blue house where my son found lizards bigger than him in the backyard. We never kept them for long … 2005
It’s these ten houses and the many others I have lived in that made me realise that it’s who I am and not where I am that matters.
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]]>At dinner my father tells me not put my elbows on the table. I ask him why, and he brings to the table a book called ‘Table Manners’. I promise to read it if he washes the dishes.
I hear my mother screaming: “Either the snakes go or I go,” when she finds the snake boxes under my bed. She hates snakes. I tell her that the snakes stay. But she wouldn’t listen. She sends me to set them free, and locks me in my room for the rest of the day.
My girlfriend and I swim in the deep sea. I suggest that we swapped swimmers, and we do. It’s a silly idea, as we laugh so much that we nearly drown.
A dog, as big as I am, runs wildly round our backyard. Everyone is watching from the balcony. When I go up red and breathless, they ask me if I was afraid.
After every dinner one of us boys washes the dishes. When it’s my turn I stand on a chair to reach the sink. I ask my mother why my sister doesn’t take turns too. She said that it’s because she’s a girl.
Every night in the summer I take the jeep and drive on the sand to see if the sea turtles come out to lay eggs.
In my late twenties I am asked if I am gay. He gives me his telephone number in case I changed my mind.
I wake up and I don’t know if it’s day or night. There are guests talking in the living room. My mother lifts me from the cot and wishes me happy birthday. She gives me a puzzle of two swans on a lake.
My brother and I keep fighting until my mother locks us in our room. We jump from one balcony to the next all the way down, and then run up the stairs to ring the bell. I never saw my mother so confused as when she opens the door and sees both of us. After that we make sure we give her plenty of reasons to lock us in our room.
A beggar tells me he is hungry and I ignore him. But when I realize that he didn’t ask for money I chase him and ask if it’s food that he wants. He says he is hungry, and I buy him a hotdog and a pizza. He kisses my hand. After that whenever a beggar tells me he is hungry I offer to buy him food. Mostly they want money.
Only in my twenties after a big explosion I found out why I shouldn’t put metal spoons in the microwave.
]]>A shattered mother
Will not slumber
And bring her baby to safety.
A hungry father
Will toil all day
To give his child a future.
An injured boy
Carries another
Who is not heavy
He is his brother.
Where is your power
Oh mighty man
When the red carpet
Is pulled from under your feet?
At the end of the daffodil garden
Two lone daffodils
Think they are the only ones in the world
I love to hear about your deeds
I always want to know.
An SMS makes me happy
Even if it’s just hello.
But please don’t send me eCards anymore
Cause when I get eCard from you
I wasn’t on your mind.
You have a mailing list, I know
And a new site you found.
So
Send me a single line to say
That you are fine and care.
But please,
Yes Please
I really mean it
Don’t send me eCards anymore.
No, please don’t
I promise to behave
As if the black bruises
Have never left me.
Time.
Glorified past
Where is it going?
Do you want to see my music? The question come from a man squatting in a corner, covered with a stained blanket whose colour long faded. No money, just your time I want, he continues, and then leads me up a tall stairway, dragging his leg behind. Don’t step here, he taps with his walking stick, and the settled dust reveals the broken pavers and hidden holes.
We reach a lightless room that could barely fit the single bed covered with debris and broken tools. I sit on the bed-corner; he on the floor. In fast steady motions he sharpens a knife. In his right he holds a bow whose string he wraps around a piece of wood. He holds the knife with his bare foot and moves the bow forward and backward in a fast movement my eyes can’t grasp. With only the slightest movement of his knife-holding foot he touches the wood.
The debris, the dirt, the stained blanket are gone, and all that remains is a shapeless piece of wood metamorphosing, in front of my eyes, in a magician’s hand, into an elaborate carved statue of a woman. This is my music he says and his face illuminates the room as if a window just opened into the bright midday light high above.
]]>He pecked it once and twice
Before taking into beak
He tasted, chewed and then spat out
It’s not a thing to eat.
It’s stupid, useless piece of junk!
He called in great dismay
Why does man adore it much?
It’s not as good as hay.
While some would claim Ignorant cock
Missed treasure he could have
What value is a pearl
If hay is what you crave?
A freee interpretation of Aesop's fable
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]]>As the instructions are in Japanese, this is what you need to do:
1. Push 'start'
2. Wait for 3, 2, 1.
3. Memorize the position of the numbers on the screen (they disappear fast). Once they have disappeared, click the circles in order, from the SMALLEST number to the BIGGEST number.
4. At the end of game, the computer will tell you the age of your brain.
Enjoy
]]>The Italian - throws the cup, breaks it, and walks away in a fit of rage.
The German - carefully washes the copy, sterilizes it and makes a new cup of coffee.
The Frenchman - takes out the fly, and drinks the coffee.
The Chinese - eats the fly and throws away the coffee.
The Russian - Drinks the coffee with the fly, since it was extra with no charge.
The Israeli - sells the coffee to the Frenchman, the fly to the Chinese, drinks tea and uses the extra money to invent a device that prevents flies from falling into coffee.
The Palestinian - blames the Israeli for the fly falling in his coffee, protests the act of aggression to the UN, takes a loan from the European Union to buy a new cup of coffee, uses the money to purchase explosives and then blows up the coffee house where the Italian, the Frenchman, the Chinese, the German and the Russian are all trying to explain to the Israeli that he should give away his cup of tea to the Palestinian.
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