i was considering children. not having them or making them, mind you, but what kind of a world they live in. they have a secret life exploding around them, like cats, or someone on LSD. it's an impractical, physical and subjective world ruled by giants and inexplicable events.

a nobel peace prize winner said "Remember the little children of Iraq this holiday season." this statement, like sap, sticks with me.

i do not, generally, think about little children. i have enough problems already. but the holiday seasons are approaching and i notice that the little children are dressing up like ghouls since halloween is tomorrow.

i am staying in an apartment a friend named Marcel has loaned me. he and his family (he has two little children, but they aren't iraqi, they're dutch) moved to another apartment a few days ago and so i'm staying here, in his old place.

they left a sign that, as you see, was used for measuring how tall Marcel's little children are getting. the rest of the apartment is empty, save for this sign, a glow-in-the-dark plastic bat, a cardboard box, a beer bottle, and a lot of dust in the corners. this sign seems to indicate that children everywhere need to be remembered and that they are all in a kind of warzone.

it seems to me that the little children are under seige. this is a battle of imaginations. the little children are under the psychological assault of an army of printed nightmares. if i had to stand next to this sign every few months i think i would be driven insaner.

the apartment has a beautiful view of Linnaeusstraat - the Kruislaan bus stop. the final ten days of october pass slowly and from the balcony i watch little children and big adults get on and off the bus.

there's a huge assortment of birds that fly by. i've seen a flock of wild parrots, at least two kinds of seagulls, chickadees, herons, sparrows, something that looks like a tern, pigeons, crows, and magpies that come and stand on the railing, looking like they're about to squak "Nevermore!" but then dance around, and stupidly blink at the food i have outside (since there's no fridge inside). then the sun breaks through the multiple cloud layers that crawl around overhead and suddenly all the brittle colors of late fall start a crazy, glistening chorus.

the frost rattles at the door and the winds flap at the window.

it seems absurd to be alone, high, low, lost, dreaming, of foreign lands and being lazy and singing to the walls
"ha hah hah"
while halloween, all black eyes and yellow stripes, gathers outside
and the birds laugh back from the trees outside the window
where they, too, the little bastards, huddle from the approaching winter.

it is summertime inside, though, and i'm at peace, and it feels so good to die.

this is a photograph of the place. i left my camera on the shelf and took photos of the bed over the course of several days (in the morning, in the afternoons, at night with the candles near the bed since there's no lights in the place), noticing how time slides by but things don't, really, change.

the room was bare and i had no furniture, just my wooden trunk. i had no money, either, and so i sat inside and took pictures each day of the trunk and the room and other existential items. the trunk, after having been in a dozen countries in as many months looks like time.

it is being slowly smashed to pieces, but it is my home these days.

one morning i got up and went out for a walk to smell the air and visit with the birds. when i looked down i noticed that the frost had gathered on dead leaves. it was cold and winter was appearing around the edges of the world. she was young and she stopped long enough, and posed like this, and i was able to get her photograph.

i walked for a while longer and since it was a wednesday morning everyone had put their trash out on the sidewalk. one of these piles of trash had a chair and a small metal device for cooking bread and cheese. i took the chair and the pan-thing back to the apartment and another day passed.

i sold a painting on saturday and so on sunday i bought some cheese and some bread and i put the pan-thing to good use on the little gas stove.

this is how the last ten days of october passed. it was beautiful and peaceful.