I have embraced my new position as a ghoul. It was long time coming, for the daughter of a devil (more often than not) turns out to be a devil herself. For anyone interested, the discovery was not startling and rather liberating. Like a criminal, I am now against the world, free to do whatever…

The first thing I am is not good at mathematics. I am not intelligent. I am unmarriageable because I had no interest in cooking, wore shorts, and read books like Dracula. I am ruined because I wore perfume when I was nine. I am too domestic because I eventually started enjoying cooking. I am intelligent…

Life is not going to accommodate us, Ingeborg; waiting for that would surely be the most unfitting way for us to be. Be—yes, we can and are allowed to do so.  To be—be there for another. Even if it is only a few words, alla breve, one letter once a month: the heart will know…

She is in bed, her neck is swollen, and the ubiquity of mirrors in her home suddenly bothers her. She doesn’t want to look at herself. She doesn’t want to do anything except talk about her illness. She realizes that no one wants to hear her talk about it continuously. She is dazzlingly boring. To…

An unknown woman’s suicide note in an unknown corner of the world: there was nowhere in the world one could live like an animal.

I find ridiculous the contemporary idea that love  must exist without disturbance, without inconvenience. That love must only be continued if there are no consequences, damage, “cost” (to borrow the favoured business term). When a person extends her hand into the water, the water is disturbed. When the whisk goes into eggs, the eggs are…

From the city palace, the ghost of the disabled emperor still gazes at the city from his wheeled sofa. The city’s colour alternates depending on the colour of the stained window. The secret is that one who goes into the Pichola emerges from the Vltava. I wrote a short essay on the state I call…

I recently started researching how to prune basil – my interests are more domestic than I would like to admit, nothing pleases me more than cooking, or planting a new herb, or the chance to not leave home – and it seemed like now was the right time. Basil must be regularly pruned and must…