The Pure Life of Dreams

September 25, 2024July 21, 2025

The Meet Up and the Rats

We sat at the top of a brownstone, a windowless attic given over to one of the weekly meetups for writing. The room had rows of brown varnished stiff-backed chairs that faced the lectern at the front. And the lectern was mostly used by the organizers so I didn’t read that night but some others did.

August 15, 2024August 15, 2024

Brutal Editor Provides Review in Chinese Restaurant

I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant located at the end of the main street of the village. It was late at night and the rain beat down hard outside.

I sat in the corner, furthest from the door.

The restaurant had plain green wallpapered walls that had not been changed in decades. Two large paper menus side by side were tacked up next to the entrance and they still reflected the older prices.

Two other men were there as well, though the restaurant was closing up for the night. They sat at separate tables closer to the large window in the front and they appeared to be listening in on my conversation. They both had their anoraks on, whilst they sat huddled over their meals.

I was on a call on my flip phone and it was one of the editors. He’d gone through the sample I’d given him and I had my leather bound notebook open on the table in front of me. I was taking notes while he talked.

The editor had ripped apart my story. It had been upsetting but I was willing to take his points on board. He didn’t talk loudly but his voice came out through the phone and projected through the restaurant because it was quiet in there.

I was sure the others could hear even though I didn’t want them to.

Behind me on a shelf in the wall was an old time radio with faded white plastic casing. Someone had pulled up its antenna. It felt as if the editor’s voice was projecting through the radio even though I held the phone close up to my hear to muffle the sound from the other restaurant goers.

The owner came out from some swing doors to my right.

“We’re closing,” he barked and this time we made as if to leave. It was the second time he’d come out to tell us.

I stepped out into the rainy night and held the notebook above my head with one hand while holding the phone up to my ear with the other.

“Look, I’ll have to call you back again. The rain is beating down,” I said to the editor as I followed the curve of the road away from the restaurant and past the closed up stores.

The yellow light of the storefronts projected dimly onto the sidewalk as I walked by. And the rain flecked in my eyes as I snapped the phone shut.

Photo of restaurant from my childhood referenced in Seeking Sanook.

March 7, 2024March 20, 2024

A Guest House in Alexandria

After the long walk along the Nile I arrived at the hostel. An old man, in a white jellaba led me through a warren of rooms. He had a greying beard and was a little portly. “There is a place,” he assured me, “only one pound.” The Egyptian pound was pegged one to one with the British pound in those days. Still, it was very cheap.

I just didn’t remember coming here before visiting Uncle Vartan.

February 22, 2024February 22, 2024

Inappropriate Reading

In the children’s section of a bookstore all is colored in fuzzy shades of pale yellow, the floors, the chairs, the walls, even the bookshelves and the books.

On the next to top shelf of the center display, where the latest books are advertised, there is a new book with the title “The Cocks and Cuns of Despair”.

May 10, 2023May 11, 2023

Death of the Journalist

He was only visiting for a short time but it was always a dangerous junction where the car accident occurred.

People crossed there all the time, under the Brentford overpass, at the cross walk; even though you were hidden in the shade behind the thick grey concrete supporting pillars of the freeway.