Brussels is Bruegel’s: a song, a popular feast, full of ribaldry, colour and inventiveness, fresh, sharp and piercing. Glossy when it rains. Black, the cobbles, my cracked screen. The street kids scroll together. The street has many doors through which it can be exited. Is it getting late? Find one that opens. And lock it again. Did you make it home safely? A friend was spat on because he was wearing silver shoes. Another returned home with a broken nose. The fountains in the city centre are dry. Do the Palestinians still gather on the steps of the Beurs? Yellow blocks and broken windows behind which light burns. Never call uninhabited ‘vacant’, no matter what people say. The light in the metro stations is blue. It’s hard to find a vein in that colour, much to the regret of junkies. True, I too avoid the tunnels late at night, but do we really want more blue on the streets? I get toothache from the bullets in the news, but more blue with full holsters strikes me as nonsense, dangerous. I avoid blue light before bedtime, chew a clove against toothache. The king is a voter like any other; the oligarch is in power. Where and when will we get a soft street?

A pram with a missing wheel leans against a tree, double-parked next to a cupboard with a corner gone and a few loose drawers. Locals dump their rubbish in the neighbour’s skip; I mainly fish the lamps out, I’ll make something out of them later. These days I see street sweepers on cargo bikes, searching for street litter, smiling when the sun shines. Through my window I see a junction that changes with the seasons. Sometimes someone looks up, holding my stare. I painted the street lamp hanging from my house pink on my side. An old butcher’s trick to make the meat glow. I didn’t have any black paint and my curtains aren’t thick enough to block the greenish LED light. I put a brush on a stick, some poster paint; after two coats, it stuck. A pink sphere on the glass dome, a pink room around the blue hour. The street seems even greener now; say sorry to my neighbour across the way, inspire the city authorities. In intensive care, the walls are painted green to inspire hope; it made my bedroom feel sick. Not for long. I have to move in September. If you see anything, or find anything, know someone who knows someone – that’s how it works – will you write to me?