Never Trust A Toddler

Picture by me. 

Some toddlers are, let’s say, odd. Like the toddlers of my friend B. She has six of them. And her toddlers are, let’s say, special. I don’t know which word would fit them. It’s on the tip of my tongue but the word won’t arrive. Anyway, last week my friend B. asked me to look after two of her, lets say, weird toddlers. And as soon as B. had left our house the funny toddlers started whining for candy.

“We want candy, You must give us candy. We want candy, You must give us candy. We want candy. You must give us candy…”

It sounded much like a bewitching mantra.

I said, ‘hey, listen to me you little peculiar toddlers, first you have to eat your puffed rice, and after that you can have some candy, just like a regular toddler.’

Well, I don’t know what happened next, but a little later I was eating puffed rice and the toddlers of B. were eating candy.

Heck. Now I know the word I was looking for. My friend B. has a bunch of hypnotizing toddlers.

Frigg Magazine Is Up

Artwork by me. 

Enough about death for now because the winter issue of Frigg Magazine is up. Frigg Magazine was the second magazine that accepted stories I wrote in my funny English. You can find these here: Five Flashes

I became friends with staff editor Ellen Parker. Now and then I make some artwork for Frigg. Sometimes a bit like the piece above this text.

This issue I was invited to submit 5 pictures as featured photographer. You can find them here: Five Pictures

Frigg Magazine is my favourite zine. Take a look at the whole magazine here: FRiGG Magazine

And don’t forget to enjoy the beautiful artwork of EnoaraF. His name is a mystery, sorry. Frigg Magazine is an explosion of good work, no doubt about that in my mind.

Spinning Over The Stiff Earth

I shot this grave, and then it died. 

My brother and I were at the graveyard where we had buried our mother two days before. We were still in disbelief about her sudden death. It was on a shadowy day in February. The sky had the color of one of Amsterdam’s frozen canals. The branches of trees were covered with translucent blue ice. The air had no taste but frostiness.
We passed all kind of tombs and started to read the inscriptions. Some crypts were so old that the names were hard to read. We examined an inscription with metal characters that read:

Safe in the holy arms of God, rests here my beloved wife and our wonderful mother: Jack de Wit.

It was obvious the metal character y had fallen off.
My brother and I started laughing. We laughed so loudly our laughter echoed over the graveyard. We laughed out of control and tears were running over our faces.

“O my God,” my brother bawled laughing insanely while he fell on his knees, “I’m so glad mom’s name wasn’t Jacky!”

“Yeah. Right,” I yelled hysterical back while I collapsed to my knees as well, “but the problem is, her first name was John…”

My brother and I never laughed like that before. We were laughing like idiots. We revolved over the frozen earth, embracing each other and crying with laughter. We couldn’t stop laughing for at least five minutes, spinning over the stiff earth like fools. At one point we hardly moved anymore. We just lay there on the rigid planet under that icy February sky. Two big daft orphans on an ice-covered graveyard in Amsterdam, holding each other like exhausted lovers.


PS. Visit the link hidden in the orange title of this text, and you'll feel much better.