sent from: London, UK. destination: San Francisco, California, USA

Nothing in my childhood terrified me more than the appearance of the White Man. We had confrontations that lasted from the age of about six until I was an adolescent. In the middle of the night I would go to my bedroom door to visit the bathroom, realising as I opened the door a crack that he was near, and with my stomach in my feet I would push the door shut but – too late – I was moving through molasses as I saw the White Man, nimble, spry and sun-spot hot would bound up the stairs and push against the door. Sometimes, while with my friends and with my family there, he would transform out of my family and, again, I could not escape. What always followed was a series of protracted negotiations; which parts of me he would devour this time (did I mention? The pain was real), which others he might cherish and keep safe. He was round and full of teeth and I sat on his knee – a perverse Humpty Dumpty Father Christmas. Sometimes, rarely, my pleading would win him over and we’d be weeping in each others’ arms, long lost friends finally reunited, but more often than not I felt the tear of his teeth through my kidneys and I’d be tumbling end over end in the unending journey from his throat to his stomach.