Do you remember my sister? How many mistakes did she make with those never blinking eyes? I couldn't work it out. I swear she could read your mind, your life, the depths of your soul at one glance. Maybe she was stripping herself away, saying:

Here I am, this is me
I am yours and everything about me, everything you see...
If only you look hard enough

I never could.

Our life was a pillow-fight. We'd stand there on the quilt, our hands clenched ready. Her with her milky teeth, so late for her age, and a Stanley knife in her hand. She sliced the tyres on my bike and I couldn't forgive her.

She went blind at the age of five. We'd stand at the bedroom window and she'd get me to tell her what I saw. I'd describe the houses opposite, the little patch of grass next to the path, the gate with its rotten hinges forever wedged open that Dad was always going to fix. She'd stand there quiet for a moment. I thought she was trying to develop the images in her own head. Then she'd say:

I can see little twinkly stars,
like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows.
Rings of brightly coloured rocks
floating around orange and mustard planets.
I can see huge tiger striped fishes
chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes,
all tails and fins and bubbles.

I'd look at the grey house opposite, and close the curtains.

She burned down the house when she was ten. I was away camping with the scouts. The fireman said she'd been smoking in bed - the old story, I thought. The cat and our mum died in the flames, so Dad took us to stay with our Aunt in the country. He went back to London to find us a new house. We never saw him again.

On her thirteenth birthday she fell down the well in our Aunt's garden and broke her head. She'd been drinking heavily. On her recovery her sight returned, a fluke of nature everyone said. That's when she said she'd never blink again. I would tell her when she started at me, with her eyes wide and watery, that they reminded me of the well she fell into. She liked this, it made her laugh.

She moved in with a gym teacher when she was fifteen, all muscles he was. He lost his job when it all came out, and couldn't get another one. Not in that kind of small town. Everybody knew everyone else's business. My sister would hold her head high, though. She said she was in love. They were together for five years until one day he lost his temper. He hit her over the back of the neck with his bullworker. She lost the use of the right side of her body. He got three years and was out in fifteen months. We saw him a while later, he was coaching a non-league football team in a Cornwall seaside town. I don't think he recognised her. My sister had put on a lot of weight from being in a chair all the time. She'd get me to stick pins and stub out cigarettes in her right hand. She'd laugh like mad because it didn't hurt. Her left hand was pretty good though. We'd have arm wrestling matches, I'd have to use both arms and she'd still beat me.

We buried her when she was 32. Me and my Aunt, the vicar, and the man who dug the hole. She said she didn't want to be cremated and wanted a cheap coffin so the worms could get to her quickly. She said she liked the idea of it, though I thought it was because of what happened to the cat and our mum

Teď je tu nápěv saxofonu. A já se stydím. Zrodilo se v něm nádherné malé utrpení, vzorové utrpení. Čtyři noty na saxofonu. Přicházejí a odcházejí, vypadá to, jako by říkaly: „Je třeba se chovat jako my, trpět v taktu." Ale ovšem! Samozřejmě bych rád trpěl oním způsobem, v taktu, bez samolibosti, bez sebelitování, s vyprahlou čistotou. Ale což za to mohu, že mi pivo ve sklenici zteplalo, že jsou na zrcadle hnědé skvrny, že jsem přespočetný, že se i mé nejupřímnější, nejryzejší utrpení vleče a těžkne, má příliš mnoho masa a zároveň příliš volnou kůži, jako rypouš sloní, a velké, vlhké a dojemné, ale velice odporné oči? Ne, rozhodně nelze tvrdit, že ta drobná diamantová bolest, jež se točí kolem dokola nad gramofonovou deskou a mne oslepuje, je soucitná. Ba ani ironická: hbitě se otáčí, zaujata sama sebou; jako kosa přeťala bezvýraznou intimitu světa a teď se otáčí a nás všechny, Madeleine, tlusťocha, majitelku, mne a stoly, lavice, zrcadlo se skvrnami, sklenice, nás všechny, kteří se oddávali existenci, protože jsme byli mezi sebou, výhradně mezi sebou, nás všechny zastihla neupravené, v každodenní nedbalosti: stydím se sám za sebe a za vše, co existuje před ní.

Není co, není jak, není proč, není kam, není s kým, není o čem

Knowledge alone is a poor primer. All has happened before and will happen again. End of line.

BPX: 'urcuje' je takove definitivni slovo ;) ja bych rekl 'snazi se odhadnout' :)
A ano, ja, jako prave ten, kdo to (sem) postnul

JACOB: a ty ses ten, kdo nam urcuje, kde to je a kde neni nutny k pochopeni...:)