"Now, having since fallen into disuse, the sublime is a little hard to explain. To explain an emotion that nobody feels anymore is a little bit like describing a color that can't be seen, or a road gone missing between two cities that don’t exist anymore. But here’s my attempt."

(-from the bottom of a dusty drawer #3)

It had been a long week for me stuck in Paradise. Nothing was going my way. I was fighting with my bosses, I was fighting with all of the girlfriends that I had at the time, I was fighting with myself. I was drinking, I wasn't sleeping and I had taken to smoking from a stolen pack of cigarettes.

At the end of one night, I sent the boys to bed, killed the lights, poured myself a couple of drinks and let the music play. I was rinsing the customer's highballs in the dark and watching my two best friends make out on the beach. They had always hated each other and had no idea I was witnessing the start of their affair. I hadn't felt so miserable in a long time than as I rinsed that night.

The next morning, walking to class, under the clear canopy of the African sky, I crossed paths with one of my students: a house keeper, maybe forty, but it's hard to judge. She apologised for missing my class, showed me the heavy bundle of fresh clean sheets with their lavender smell and explained she had to go ready villas Two and Three.

She asked me how I was doing and I said I was okay and asked her back only out of habit I guess and because people seem to be so endeared by these little displays of interest.

"So-so," she said. "One of my children, back in the village" (the mainland, that is) "one of my babies died today. They have just told me over the phone." She shrugged and brought the sheets closer to her chest where we could smell them in the dusty, rising heat. She held back a tear.

"These things happen," she said and went to ready villas Two and Three for the next batch of guests and left me standing there with a new sense of perspective and the smell of lavender lingering light and soft and sweet.

(-from the bottom of a dusty drawer #2)

I was sitting on a corner of a long, white couch and she was sitting on the other corner of the same long, white couch. The couch itself was in the corner of a wide, white room. I don't do serious conversations well, but she had me cornered and surprised. With not even half a pint to hide behind, with no room for maneuver, no cover or distraction: there she was, so very serious, and there I was, a paper shadow at the end of the firing range. She was such a good shot too.

“I’ve been thinking, you know, thinking a lot,” she said. “You’re crazy. You just show up here, thinking I have no life of my own, thinking everything is just like it was so many months ago, thinking there are no more men in the world but you. You just show up here and want me to play along with your silly little games, to drop everything for you, and you don’t listen to me when I say no. You just show up, you’ll be gone soon, gone for months, and then you’ll be back and it’ll all be the same story all over. You’re crazy - and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this, but I don’t think I like crazy quite as much as I thought I did. You know, none of my other friends are like this. They have a life, they know where they are going, they’ll be somebody someday. You’re crazy, and I don’t think I like crazy anymore.”

(-from the bottom of a dusty drawer #1)