let's.

i want to write funny but circumstances demand that i don't.

a friend of mine just died of cerebral malaria. these things shouldn't happen these days.

the thing is that last saturday i saw her, at rugby, stoically sipping some rose wine, which she couldn't finish, recently arrived from lake tanganyika, burning with fever. i told her to take malaria dawa (medicine) but she said oh no, it's not malaria, tests are negative. i've taken anti biotics, i'll be fine. i'll be fine. a week later she's gone. just like that. fresh and only 30.

cerebral malaria. blackwater fever.

little nantus, who is nine, the nephew of my friend, looked at me with his freckled nose and sky blue eyes and said, " i thought it was a dream. but it's just life, hey?"

i was stopped by a policeman yesterday and he asked, where are you going? i said to see my friend whose sister just died of malaria and she was only 30. and he said, oh pole sana. they caught it too late, eh? yeah, i said, too late. just too late.

so not too many words today. not too many words. p'raps a poem sent by t:

The Wanderer's Night-song

On all hilltops

There is peace,

In all treetops

You will hear

Hardly a breath.

Birds in the woods are silent.

Just wait, soon

You too will rest.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

still. i'm here. i'm still here. on the little round ngorobob hill in the little pink house, y'all.

let's, as jim morrison said, remember to have our fun before the whole shithouse goes up in flames, eh?

let's. oh let's.

so toodely oh best beloveds, bisous X.X.X. startlingly real ones x j