Then one of the Christian women got up from the long table and walked over to my daughter. I was watching this. She gave her a piece of cake and asked her if she wanted to sit down and listen to the singing. They were busy singing something about Jesus doing something good for them.

My daughter nodded her head and sat down on the ground. She held the piece of cake in her lap. She sat there for five minutes. She did not take a bite out of the piece of cake.

They were now singing about Mary and Joseph doing something. In the song it was winter and cold and there was straw in the barn. It smelled good.

She listened for about five minutes and then she got up, waved goodbye in the middle of We Three Kings of Orient Are and came back with the piece of cake.

‘Well, how was that?’ I said.

‘Singing,’ she said, pointing they are singing.

‘How’s the cake?’ I said.

‘I don’t know,’ she said and threw it on the ground. ‘I’ve already had breakfast.’ It lay there.

I thought about the three deer and the Christians singing. I looked at the piece of cake and to the river where the deer had been gone for a day.

The cake was very small on the ground. The water flowed over the rocks. A bird or an animal would eat the cake later on and then go down to the river for a drink of water.

A little thing came to my mind and having no other choice: it pleased me, so I hugged my arms around a tree and my cheek sailed to the sweet bark and floated there for a few gentle moments in the calm.

April in God-damn

This early April in God-damn God-damn begins with a note on the front door, left by a young lady. I read the note and wonder what the hell’s up.

I’m too old for this kind of stuff. I can’t keep track of everything, and so I go pick up my daughter and do the best I can on that front: take her to play in the park.

I really don’t want to get out of bed, but I have to go to the toilet. Returning from the toilet, I see something a note or something fastened to the glass window on the front door. It leaves a shadow on the glass.

I don’t give a damn. Let somebody else handle these complicated things in early April. It’s enough for me to have gone to the toilet. I go back to bed.

I dream that somebody I don’t like is walking their dog. The dream takes hours. The person is singing to their dog but I can’t make out what the song is and I have to listen too hard and never get it, anyway.