The dogs bark. They bark and bark, like a dissonant symphony. The kids play. They laugh and sing and shout and swear. There are cars, with heavy engine noises and tooting horns. There is a strange language, which when spoken softly sounds like running water. Sometimes there is screaming, but only sometimes. There are desert noises, like the wind and the birds and no rain. On my walks, there is nothing except a vast, genuine silence. At night there is the god-music – synthy, slow wail-songs that stretch on into the darkness. And from my bedroom I can hear the mice in the kitchen, scurrying for a cheeky feed, and the dogs, always the dogs. At times, for a lark, a lonesome donkey is honking in the distance.
Eyes
The colour: shimmery red earth, green bush, and an aching blue sky that spins into an opalescent twilight with the sinking sun. A rocky hill on either side of town, both gentle and near treeless, belittled by the overbearing sky. Houses of brick and tin painted in bright colours, with the yapa, living around them as much as in them. Roads and buildings and satellite dishes on roofs. Naked toddlers with melted ice creams and disarming smiles and wide brown eyes to ease the angst. Packs of limping, mange-ridden street mongrels, bronzed from camp breeding and weary from camp life. Young men in fast cars with shiny wheels and throbbing basslines. And people on foot, with a darting gaze or a gentle hello or sometimes nothing.
Beautiful, I'm crying!
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