iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

When I see how anxiously he is watching the meter I am sorry I insisted on taking the taxi. All the same, I should have dropped dead if I had tried to walk this distance.

010

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I’m very much afraid of men. And I’m even more afraid of women. And I’m very much afraid of the whole bloody human race.

0216

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Twelve o'clock on a fine autumn day, and nothing to worry about. Some money to spend and nothing to worry about.

0111

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

No one knows anything but himself or herself. And that badly. Don't you think so? Other people are seen and heard and felt. Known? Not on your life.

0145

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Marble memorial tablets on the walls commemorating the virtues of the last generation of planters. All benevolent. All slave-owners. All resting in peace. When we came out of the church I took her hand. It was cold as ice in the hot sun.

041

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

've drunk the milk in the refrigerator. I was thirsty after that party last night, though if you call that a party I call it a wake. Besides, I know how you dislike the stuff (Freud! Bow-wow-wow!!). So you'll have to have your tea straight, my dear.

061

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

'Cheer up,' he said. 'The world is big. There's hope.' 'Of course.' But suddenly I saw the women's long, scowling faces over their lupins and their poppies, and my room in Torrington Square and the iron bars of my bedstead, and I thought, 'Not for me.'

0102

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is not another poem. Don't worry. But please read it - my letter. I know very well that my worry doesn't matter to anyone Not much. And quite right too.

090

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I knew how to get away from the heat and the shouting, for there was shouting now. When I was out on the battlements it was cool and I could hardly hear them.

030

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

He was a young poet and he realised that before him in all probability stretched endlessly thousands of mornings. On every one of which he’d have to get up and bathe.

0131

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

You jump in with no willing and eager friends around, and when you sink you sink to the accompaniment of loud laughter.

030

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This time I must not blot a line. No revision, no second thoughts. Down it shall go. Already I am terrified.

0101

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

She heard nothing but the incoherent, interminable conversation in her head.

0248

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Some old people are lonely. But a great many others live in dread of being argued with, persuaded or even forced to do something which they know will be catastrophic.

0294

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Persecution maniacs (so called) always have been, and usually still are, the victims of persecution.

050

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

‘I’m not a bad sort,’ he was thinking. ‘Who says that I’m a bad sort? I wish all the swine who do could see me now. How many of them would give a drink to a woman who had smacked them in the face in public?’

051

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Oh, God, let me be pretty when I grow up. Let me be, let me be. Oh, God.

061

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The lace curtains were torn and very dirty. Behind the curtains was a green and optimistic sunblind, faintly irritating, like a stupid joke.

082

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I've gone so dead I don't know whether I'm mad or everybody else is. Never mind, I'm relying on the kick I'll get out of my first drink.

0123

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I love you, I love you, I love you.

181

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

She talked about books till I wanted to scream - or say Merde or something. I agreed with everything she said God help me - and was miserable all next day.

0204

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It is my private and particular belief that very few people change after well say seven or seventeen. Not really.

031

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

'I am not used to happiness,' she said. 'It makes me afraid.'

0165

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

London always smells the same. 'Frowsty,' you think, 'but I'm glad to be back.' And just for a while it bears you up. 'Anything's round the corner,' you think. But long before you get round the corner it lets you drop.

032

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Save me from destruction, ruin and desolation. Save me from the long slow death by ants.

1308

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I found when I was a child that if I could put the hurt into words, it would go. It leaves a sort of melancholy behind and then it goes.

0225

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Parties are battles (most parties), a conversation is a duel (often). Everybody's trying to hurt first, to get in the dig that will make him or her feel superior, feel triumph.

072

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

The swing’s the thing, the cadence of the sentence. He had got it.

083

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Montparnasse is full of tragedy - all sorts - blatant, hidden, silent, voluble, quick, slow - even lucrative.

194

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks.

081

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

She flushed as she pronounced the name of her enemy. Then she went on in the voice of someone talking aloud in an empty room.

0112

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

We don’t like her. We never talk to her. She spies on us. She is a camel.

0195

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The birds were flying round in a bewildered way. Trying desperately to get out, it seemed to me. Even their colours were dim. I got such an impression of hopeless misery that I couldn't bear to look.

054

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Her life had been a long succession of humiliations and mistakes and pains and ridiculous efforts. Everybody's life was like that.

07219

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Of course, as soon as a thing has happened it isn’t fantastic any longer, it’s inevitable. The inevitable is what you’re doing or have done. The fantastic is simply what you didn’t do.

0185

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

When I got home I lay down without undressing. Then it got light and I thought that when Mrs Dawes came in with my breakfast she would think I had gone mad. So I got up and undressed.

082

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

How long was it since she had sat by a man driving fast and singing? Years and years.

0120

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

That afternoon we went to England. There was grass and olive-green water and tall trees looking into the water. This, I thought is England. If I could be here I could be well again and the sound in my head would stop.

091

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us - hard, cold and misted over with my breath.

0173

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

That’s it, chère madame, I’m drunk. I have drunk. There’s nothing to be done about it. I have drunk.

091

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I was cracky with joy of life that summer of 1921.

090

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Everything they say about me is wrong.

0204

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We’ll see who hates best.

02410

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I bought a lot of candles at Woolworths and now the lamp only takes half an hour or so to light. It's just a matter of the right screw at the right time. Like everything.

1204

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

‘I believe this damned room’s getting smaller and smaller,’ I thought. And about the rows of houses outside, gimcrack, rotten-looking, and all exactly alike.

083

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Give me your news. I hope it’s cheerful.

0103

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

When night comes, and she has had several drinks and sleeps, it is easy to take the keys. I know now where she keeps them. Then I open the door and walk into their world. It is, as I always knew, made of cardboard.

0163

Jean Rhys @msjeanrhys.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

I should hate to hurt your feelings because in a strange way I feel that we are very much alike.

0103