I don’t like that he’s waiting at the altar, it’s so patriarchal and old-fashioned and American. My father isn’t here to walk me anyway so what’s the point? High heels like daggers, each bridesmaid in a bloody red dress, all smiles and tears. The priest reminds me of my auntie’s…

The man looks worn out, already tired although the day is just breaking. Perhaps he hasn’t slept at all. Maybe he lost his job last week or someone from his family will die tomorrow. Who knows. (Well, I should but I don’t.) Rita looks him up and down, scrutinising his…

“The gooey matter started to resemble something. Here and there it became translucent and stretchy, luminescent with blue and red light like a weird neon skin.” — Mrs Sartori was lucky in her death almost as much as she was unlucky in her life. During the two years she spent in her flat undiscovered, she didn’t leak through the floor to the shop below, and nor did she release a sordid, suspicious smell that would alert neighbours…

…and into the water. — If you sit there long enough, you’ll see their shadows scurrying under the surface of the muddy water — the souls of those who entered the Swamp in search of healing and oblivion. Don’t worry, they were happy then and they still are (look how sunny it is, the sun…

haibun — He said arrivederci because it was one word in not-his-mother-tongue he remembered. And like that, he was gone in the midst of the foliage, where I always believed the neighbour’s fence was but it couldn’t have been as otherwise, how could he have disappeared? Porca miseria, sono persa senza di…