From The Notebook

For the so manieth time I returned in the late afternoon to the public garden behind Rue Van Loo. To sit  amongst the roses, sultry folk and thickening air. I knew something was wrong with the flaming cypresses. I counted them and I was right: ten… even!

Beautiful elder ladies, conversing from behind gallant sunglasses, little girls walking around with a lolly pop and a teddy bear, boys chasing lazy pigeons, and further beyond, some teenagers – first class scum of course – are sitting on a bench, frenching. Straight ahead a girl sunbathing and smoking... gracefully smoking. It should all be captured and fixed… I don't mean on paper, photo, or film… It should really be FIXED.

A father who, for a laugh, with a perfect choreography, kicks at one of the pigeons. On top of the house with the closed shutters, obscure ‘things’ are dangling from the washing line.

An elder couple takes place on the bench next to the frenching pair. And voilà, a very black negro with large headphones comes on, looking surly but walking with a swinging gait. He must be fixed too! Stay forever! And the swallows too. And the people carrying long breads.

Exit the frenchers. On comes a woman in white summer dress and some muscle parading gorilla with millimetred hair in a wife-beater. He looks too seriously. The little girls play panthers on the lawn and gesture wild horns and clawy attacks. Papa acts crazy. Mama polishes her sunglasses.