things move around

Naturally I can’t get a straight answer out of my friend as to how was his holiday, did he see any family, recognise the byways of his bygone days, and did Shanghai live up to expectations? Instead he tells me about the fresh-caught octopus he ate, ink and all, and the one-legged man who served it to him. He describes at great length the sound of the lightning licking the shingles of his colonial B&B in Singapore, and the rain devouring the streets around him. He tells me that he will have to change his broker soon if things carry on. And all this he tells me without speaking. And all the while he maintains that oblique smile which is his customary expression, a smile which relies upon his eyes, lying in his wide, smooth face like obsidian pebbles on a wide, sandy-smooth beach.

And all his stories lie upon my desk like octopus ink or aurorae or mingled, tangled, dim fingerprints.