Marginalia after Müller

...

   I am not feeling well.
   My bathwater is black and sloshing over my bathtub and under my eyelids my sleep is black.
   The doctor attributes this to arterial sclerosis. He says the blood in my head has thickened and is hollow. 
   Which in the village is called waiting. In the village they are hushed. In the village they are resting when everything tumbles over.
   Way below the mountains, there across the plains. I am not well and the town is roaming down a road that has no direction, going somewhere or other.* 

All words from Herta Müller's Nadirs

...

Recently finished Herta Müller's Nadirs - a collection of short narratives that loosely tell the tale of a young girl's life growing up in Romania. Some excellent moments of miniaturized weirdness in there. Especially, "The Swabian Bath," which nearly knocked me to the floor the first time I read it. You can, and should, read that story here.