“Lined up we are, hours and hours and hours
Women, children, we count, count and count
Intense heat, counting the hours
in the rising sun for a thousand years
hours and hours and hours, in the heat of the sun
And the Japanese keep counting, but with an
empty stomach counting in Japanese is too hard
”
Translated from a Dutch poem
We tiptoed through the house. We had to be quiet. Not just
quiet-quiet. But like in extremely quiet. There was no music in our
house. And if there was, we better turned the volume down.
Nowadays, I hear people complain about my voice. My voice is too low
and if I could speak up a bit. I get irritated when the TV’s on when
we’re having supper. And, like the old man, I sneak around in my own
house, afraid of waking up old ghosts. Old ghosts.