Picos Gemeos

There's a russian family in town, staying for the next three weeks at the Hackney Empire. The father is a drunkard who's constantly tormented by his four bratty kids. The mother is a horny, heavily-pregnant tenament matron who spends half her time craving the disco and the other half trying to stop her husband abandomning the family.

People are known to visit this exotic family at the Empire. Adults laugh, swept up by the antics of these white-faced mutes. Children laugh, caught off-guard. (You mean there's something to the world other than videogames and TV?) Some of them may even want to grow up one day and be a clown.

When this russian family get bored of each other they turn their attention on us, the guests. They throw water and beer on our heads, hit anything that moves with pillows, tease some into answering the phone, grab and hug for long soppy kisses. Adults stand up to cheer before they leave the Empire. Children get carried away and re-charged, muttering under their breaths that it's the most wicked thing they have ever seen.

Hadron Collider: children and adults laughing together.

Mile End Tube station was closed this morning, with firetrucks and ambulances parked outside its entrance. Two underground staff members fended off people's questions, who typically tried to get into the station even though it was bleeping obvious it was closed. My immediate reaction, naturally, was to think "terrorist attack"; I called Kevin, who was still at home, and a few minutes later he let me know someone was under a train.

They really need to sort out the platforms on that station; it has been an accident waiting to happen (and, in fact, not too long ago someone did get pushed in front of a train). The problem is the Central line: too many people want to get on it, and the problem is exacerbated when the District line arrives and people from that train rush towards the other. If you are standing first in line, you suddenly feel the crowd pushing and pressing against you as the train arrives. However, maybe someone did jump in front of a train. Who knows.

I had to take a bus to Canary Wharf and join the Jubilee line there. I sat beside three children - two boys and a girl - who spent the whole time describing in graphic detail the pros and cons of pooing inside bowls and cups. They were having the time of their lives.

When was the first time I did something REALLY wrong? Was telling a friend in kindergarden that I had magical powers wrong? Was sending an anonymous note to a girl in my 3rd grade class wrong? (she freaked out) Was betraying the hiding place of a birthday boy at summer camp, in 5th grade, wrong? (he got pelted with rotten eggs then thrown in the lake; most of the girls never forgave me.)

I grew up in a condominium of three buildings in São Paulo. To my luck, many of the residents had children my age, so I immediately made friends and became part of a big gang of kids. I'd spend all day downstairs, running around, playing hide & seek, swimming or watching the boys play football and basketball (they tried to get me to join in but I never cared much for it.)

I collected board games (but also made my own, like "The Towering Inferno" - a favourite) and we used to play them in the buildings' reception areas when it rained. I loved horror movies and made up games inspired by them for the sunny days: "The Killer Elevator", "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Jaws", you name it. My friends enjoyed the games as well and started asking me to come up with more of them each day (to be honest, the games were usually variations on each other - "Jaws 2" was pretty much the same as "Jaws", but involving pool inflatables - so it wasn't such a hard creative act.)

So much power at an early age went straight to my head. I dictated who could play and who couldn't. But I was generally a benefic despot, ruling justly over my people. One day, in a rush of tyrannical madness, I suggested to some friends that they ask another boy what he thought of me. I was curious to know what my subjects really thought. I hid behind the basketball court's wall and heard the boy, Ate (yup, that was his name), snicker that he was annoyed by me sometimes. Out I jumped and planted a punch in his gut, then told him that he was banished from our group of friends.

I forbade all my friends to talk to Ate from that day onwards. He couldn't play with us, he couldn't join us at the pool, nothing. I feel so awful that I did this to him. I think Ate didn't speak to us for months, though it felt like years. Then one day he approached me sheepishly, when he was already sort of talking to my brother, and we became friends again.

We continued to be friends through adolescence, then lost touch in our twenties. The last time I saw him was the day I introduced him to my boyfriend Kevin. Up until then, we'd laugh about what had happened - it was common for all my friends to sit around joking about when I ruled over them like a tyrant - but I still wondered how much of the experience had stayed with him. I don't think anyone ever truly gets over something like that, and it's weird for me to think nowadays that I was responsible for causing that type of pain to someone else, that I was a bully.

Malice lies on the grass, outside the pub in Camden. The boys are messing around with two remote-control cars by the bar counter, so I go outside and join her. She smiles at me, her lips full and sensuous, her skin translucent underneath the black corset, her black hair cascading over the green. She props herself up with her elbows.

We talk about zaubin. "He told me you were in Camden when the place went up in flames," I say. She's surprised when I tell her I was there too. She is about to give me details of the bars she visited on the night the fire raged through Camden market when the boys come out with their remote-control cars. They give Malice one of the remotes, the one that controls the metallic green car that is as flat as a lawnmower.

Horses trot in Camden. One of them, a young mare red as wine, carries a little girl. My remote-control makes the little mare turn left or right, circle the grass enclosure. I use the control to make the little mare speed up her trot until the girl is about to fall off.

An eight-year-old boy on a micro scooter, wearing a fake black moustache and a Super Mario Brothers hat.