I knew Thursday was already becoming dramatic before I had even left my bed. The moment I opened my eyes and saw the time — six fifty — my heart nearly stopped. Not because the world was ending, but because I had missed Lunch with the Mayor and Fruitloop again. For two weeks in a…
Yesterday, Janita had rain all day. The real kind of rain. The kind that settles in for hours and makes the whole world feel grey and wet and slightly tired. Her father had measured fifty millimetres in the garden and she repeated the number twice, laughing a little at how serious it sounded. By morning…
Manfred I learned very early in life to minimize input and maximize output. Other children may have mistaken this for laziness, but I would call it strategy, and The Mayor, asking the questions, seemed to understand that childhood games were never just games. They were early laboratories for power, efficiency, and plausible deniability. Football was…
When Ritesh appeared on the screen, the first thing was not really the subject of the meeting. It was darkness. The Mayor joked with him, asking if his wife was planning some romantic evening with candles, but Ritesh explained it was not romance. It was a power cut. He was in his native place, not…
I found this conversation more difficult than I expected. Part of it was the language, of course. When I speak English, I can say what I mean, but sometimes I need time. I search for the right word. I start a sentence, then I stop, then I try again. Some topics are easy because they…
Monday, eight o’clock in the morning, and the day was already gone. Finished. That is what I said to The Mayor when we started our weekly meeting. Monday was there, yes, but in my head it was already running away from me. The week had begun, the work was waiting, the normal things were standing…
A Peeling Potatoes reflection on childhood games, memory, and belonging There are some conversations that begin with a simple topic and then quietly open a door to somewhere much deeper. This one started with play. A new month. A new theme. The first of May. International Labour Day, which of course meant that everyone was…
