De Britse schrijfster Paula Hawkins werd geboren op 26 augustus 1972 en groeide op in Salisbury (het huidige Harare in Zimbabwe) in Rhodesië. Zie ook alle tags voor Paula Hawkins op dit blog.
Uit: A Slow Fire Burning
Inside Laura’s head, Deidre spoke. The trouble with you, Laura, she said, is that you make bad choices.
Too fucking right, Deidre. Not something Laura expected to say or even think, but standing there in her bathroom, shaking uncontrollably, blood pulsing hot and steady from the cut to her arm, she had to admit that imaginary Deidre was bang on the money. She leaned forward, her forehead resting against the mirror so that she wouldn’t have to look herself in the eye, only looking down was worse, because that way she could watch the blood ooze out of her, and it made her woozy, made her feel like she might throw up. So much blood. The cut was deeper than she’d thought, she ought to go to A&E. There was no way she was going to A&E.
Bad choices.
When at last the flow of blood seemed to slow, Laura took off her T-shirt and dropped it on the floor, she slipped out of her jeans, dropped her knickers, wriggled out of her bra, inhaling sharply through her teeth as the metal catch scraped against the cut, hissing, ‘Fuck fuck mother of fuck.’
She dropped the bra on the floor too, clambered into the bathtub and turned on the shower, stood shivering under the paltry trickle of scalding water (her shower offered a choice of very hot or very cold, nothing in between). She ran the tips of her wrinkled fingers back and forth over her bone- white, beautiful scars: hip, thigh, shoulder, back of skull. Here I am, she said quietly to herself. Here I am.
Afterwards, her forearm wrapped ineffectually in reams of toilet paper, the rest of her wrapped in a threadbare towel, sitting on the ugly grey pleather sofa in her living room, Laura rang her mother. It went to voicemail, and she hung up. No point wasting credit. She rang her father next. ‘You all right, chicken?’ She could hear noises in the background, the radio, 5 Live.
‘Dad.’ She felt a lump rise to her throat and she swallowed it.
‘What’s up?’
‘Dad, could you come round? I . . . I had a bad night, I was wondering if you could just come over for a bit. I know it’s a bit of a drive, but I—’
‘No, Philip.’ Deidre, in the background, hissing through clenched teeth. ‘We’ve got bridge.’
‘Dad? Could you take me off speaker?’
‘Sweetheart, I—’
‘Seriously, could you take me off speaker? I don’t want to hear her voice, it makes me want to set fire to things . . .’
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Walter Helmut Fritz werd geboren op 26 augustus 1929 in Karlsruhe. Zie ook alle tags voor Walter Helmut Fritz op dit blog.
Silhouetten
Ze zouden zo sober
mogelijk moeten zijn
zei Etienne de Silhouette.
Het goedkoopste type portret.
Geen verhalen
over het leven van gevoelens
over overwegingen
bij verkeerd begrepen gebeurtenissen
over antwoorden,
die iemand zoekt
op het zwijgen van de ander.
Geen open ogen
die je ook zou kunnen bekijken
als je de afbeelding omdraait.
Slechts een schaduw,
waar je niet doorheen dringt.
Vertaald door Frans Roumen
Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 26e augustus ook mijn blog van 26 augustus 2021 en ook mijn blog van 26 augustus 2020 en eveneens mijn blog van 26 augustus 2018 deel 1 en eveneens deel 2.