Sideways snow outside the window, all of us bundled with our gadgets, our books, our friends, the din of soft German going through tunnels, beneath bridges, the ivy, the vines, the limbs cut to the nub: I sit on the train and… Read More ›
existentialism
Siddhartha, the waiting room, ‘nowness’
The waiting room in the colon treatment center the morning after Fat Tuesday could be purgatory, where people wait to have their insides filmed through a probe, to hear how long they have to live, what they have, when they… Read More ›
A moment with a bad piece of art in Galway
Monday, a down day. The waves crashing against the rocks in the painting don’t move me because a.) I doubt they were real rocks the painter really saw, and b.) doubted he/she had the knack to really paint. It’s like… Read More ›
Trying to get lost in Belfast by foot
Charlotte’s clothes (8) are mismatched the way they might be for the homeless, for function only, stained, holes, slanted — and I’m collecting plastic bags in my pockets for function too, to tie around my shoes as makeshift rubbers or… Read More ›
How it looks from the inside of an Edinburgh flat while reading
The owner comes in to take measurements of the sofa bed that’s broken, apologises, says he assumed we’d be out at the museums on a day like this or seeing the town but we’re not; we’ve come all this way… Read More ›
The ‘angel’s share’: lost whisky, lost memories
After sharing the same room, the same car, the same bathroom, I can see where Stephen King was coming from in his story about the writer Jack Torrance who collapses into alcoholism, writes nonsense, starts seeing dead people. Charlotte’s going… Read More ›
Cloud herding in the Highlands
There are two good reasons, probably more, to get a new job right away if you’ve lost your current one. First, you don’t want any gaps in your resumé. Like a house with a For Sale sign, the longer it… Read More ›
The Table of Contents
Our last morning in Arbroath, the wind and rain have stopped and everything has gone still. I walk the estate in the opposite direction from last time, spot two beasts in the distance, perhaps the same that startled Dawn the… Read More ›
The world of nameless birds
The cemetery birds sing a more soulful tune in the dark of the tree’s last leaves, like ghosts, most pass by unseen, real for just a moment, it seems. And the cemetery rocks look the same as any other stones, the… Read More ›
“All Right Now”
When I started up at my last job, the corporate memos were the same style as a competitor I worked for prior, because the competitor had stolen the Word template and just changed the logo at the top, but kept the… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 