cremains | The Dead

I was standing on King George Street, washed out in bright sunlight, on a rickety public phone. I was talking to my dead Nonno (who was nonetheless sitting in his house on his favourite chair), and crying, telling him I was never going to see him again. He told me that he would be seeing me in two weeks' time.

Then he was in Jerusalem, but actually it was dead Nonna and Zia Rita, old and stumpy, gold-chained, wearing those t-shirt-sleeved flower print dresses that button all the way down which elderly Italian women love. They were excited to look around the city with me. I took them to Agrippas Street to meet with another one of my aunts. We were overwhelmed by the street performers and all the colours and the unbelievably bright sun.