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and then Annabel Lee found me
© Surreal
© Hay Fever
© Visit
© No. Yes. It Is A Story About Humans
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Surreal
Her eyes seemed to be open in wonder, her hands in her lap, a scarf around her hair. At her feet, jumping and yapping mindlessly an undefined pooch of an undefined race with an undefined load of energy. On her left shoulder a small yellow bird... a bird?... chirruping and skipping from one leg to the other. I knew it was some kind of an extraterrestrial induced dream, closed my eyes, my train started moving, and when I opened them again she was not there anymore. Well... we were in another station by then. I forgot about her completely. My night train arrived back around midnight, I scrambled tired to my feet and glanced unintentionally towards where she was sitting earlier on. I gasped. She was still there, eyelids closed, hands in lap, scarf in place. The doggie was sleeping at her feet. The bird perched on one leg, eyes closed, sleeping too. Did anybody shut off time for a moment? Next day I could hardly wait to get there. I arrived, rushed through the throngs... if it was not for the jumping dog and the singing bird I could have sworn this was a tri-dimensional still picture. No... something changed, the dog seemed to be puffing a bit, the bird was perched on both legs, the woman's scarf was around her neck. Her eyes again open on the world with the same wondering regard. I paid attention to a small shabby suitcase next to her feet, I did not see it before. My train started moving. This time I kept my eyes glued to her till the station's wall cut my line of sight. Waiting for something unknown, unclear. Nothing happened except I got a pain in my neck and a speck of dust in my eye. Midnight, station, woman. I approached. The doggie at her feet, lying on its side, panting swiftly. The bird in her cupped palms on her lap, eyes half closed, beak open. The woman's eyes downcast, tearing. The suitcase inert at her feet. I sat at the other end of the bench. The station was empty, deserted. "She is dying..." she whispered. I moved over next to her, scared, curious. "Who?" I asked. "She..." she repeated. "The bird?" "Yes." "The dog?" "Yes." "You?" "She." The dog's eyes were closed. The bird's eyes were closed. The woman's eyes were open. Tears. I waited. "Are you not scared of muggers?" I asked. "Muggers? What is muggers? Mug... coffee?..." "No, mug... robbery..." "I remember strawberry. I liked strawberry." Quiet. "She is dying." I stood up and went over to the fire extinguishing station. I smashed the glass with my fist, took off my shoe and opened the water crane. The stream almost tore the shoe away from my hand as I filled it with water. Then I closed the crane leaving the thick tube hanging loose and returned to the bench. I picked the bird from her hand an let a few drops of water into its beak. The beak started moving. Then the bird stood up on my left fist and started drinking from the shoe held in my right palm. Then it flew to her left shoulder and started singing. I kneeled close to the dog, lifted its limp head and touched its muzzle to the water. It started gulping thirstily the stinking fluid, then got up on its legs and started jumping and barking happily around. "You are bleeding," she said. I didn't pay attention till then to the thick trickle of red oozing from my palm. She unknotted the scarf from around her neck and tied it around my wound. "Why did nobody help?" I asked. "All that was needed was water. Nobody saw?" I was really pissed off, forgetting for a moment the surrealism of the situation. "All that was needed was love. Nobody wanted to see." I kept mumbling and rambling as she patiently watched me with shining clear eyes. I stopped. "Oh, sorry... what about you?..." I looked at her, frightened again, curious again, my heart thumping wildly. "You are not going to give me to drink from your shoe, are you?..." She laughed, oh, she laughed almost like a human... I caught myself in mid thought, why did I think this way? "Can I buy you a cup of coffee? And a sandwich? And a sandwich for the doggie too." "And the bird?" "Does the bird want a sandwich?" I was damn serious. She laughed again. "No, the bird will share crumbs from mine. And you will share too." "What do you mean?" I asked puzzled. She did not answer, got up and picked the small suitcase, the dog jumped in her coat's pocket, the bird nestled in her breast pocket, I slid my foot in the damp shoe and started squishing at her side on the way out. "What do you have in this suitcase?" I asked. "My life," she said without halting her stride. * I found nearby a small coffee shop proudly displaying Pet's Owners Allowed. I bought her a cup of coffee, hot chocolate for me, a tray full of sandwiches and we started munching and drinking. "Who are you?" I asked. "You will know she said," munching on. After my third cup I felt a terrible urge to visit the men's room, I excused myself and disappeared for a few minutes. When I returned she was not there anymore. The suitcase was on my chair, the dog asleep on the suitcase, the bird asleep on the dog. I went to the sleepy joint's owner asking him if the lady who was with me went to the ladies room. He mumbled something in Indian and started laughing, put an index finger against his temple with a rotating sign, in the internationally accepted symbol of nutcase, and returned to his sports paper. I entered the ladies' room and looked behind every door, got out to more Indian ovations or so I assumed, paid with no tip, put the bird in my breast pocket, the dog in my coat pocket and took a cab home. The cabbie got also the barman's tip and left with screeching tires before I could change my mind. I mounted the stairs, hung my coat on a hook with the two sleeping creatures still inside it, took the suitcase to the bed (my god, was it heavy, what was in there? gold?) and opened it. Papers. Hundreds and thousands of paper sheets covered with rows and rows of punctuation marks, and ink smudges, and fingerprints. It did not make any sense, it simply did not make any sense. I turned on my computer, checked on the few messages waiting for me, opened a white empty new sheet on the screen and looked at it intently. I don't know why, I suddenly felt like writing, words and sentences and images crowding my mind in a disorderly manner, little by little starting getting shape, sense, meaning. Goodness, I never felt that inspired ever before. I did not want to lose the momentum. I put on my slippers, loosened my tie and started typing as if it was there in me all the time. Title: The Life of Poetess...
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Hay Fever
The air around me was thick with the essence of germinating life – pollen, seeds, spores, billions of them, almost as thick as veggies soup minus the water, undulating in a variety of random directions like as many paper-thin flat snakes. My mind was mute in admiration of that atmosphere of birth and creation, cannot say that my body shared in it, sneezing once more. It was when I stopped counting that I stopped sneezing, around twenty three, maybe twenty four. I hurried down the ladder to the attic, then down to the house taking one of those antihistamines guaranteed not only to knock out your allergies but also your existence for a few hours of dreamless sleep. I hated the tiny round white predators... gulp, down it went. The next sneeze didn’t take long to follow but then the medicinal miracle took over and finally I could relax a little. I did not feel like getting back to the roof. I looked up at its ominous black pomposity, then down to my scratched legs and thighs and decided to call it a day then and there. What I needed was a glass of cold beer, the following popping sound of the opening bottle as musical to me as the best of my Elvis collection. My God, there is nothing like a cold glass of beer on a hot day down a hot and dusty throat, thank You I thanked the one I never took the pain to believe in and gulped down half of the glass. The dog at my feet, a newspaper over my eyes... “Excuse me...” I knew I must have dozed off snoring lightly, I always knew when I was dozing off and snoring and it always upset me... “Excuse me...” I pulled the newspaper off my face, not upset or anything, just thirsty for the second half of the glass, looked around seeing nobody, and after trying to get an answer from the dog who that might have been, I moved back into house for a generous shower. I let the dog join me, if there was a funny award winning video movie – this was the one, I laughed loudly, brushing my teeth and sharing my tooth brush with him, and after a serious rub with a big towel I put on a pair of white briefs and went out again to sit in the garden. The air was still hot but the long evening shadows allowed a beginning of some refreshing air displacement to take place. My God (I kept calling on him these days, no special reason) this is probably what heaven must be about – a colorful garden, a cold glass of beer, a crazy dog... yeap, there was one element missing, I knew, yet refused to think about it. “Excuse me...” I think it was the element I was referring to which was calling me, and this time pulling the newspaper away did not pull the vision away with it. Vision? I guess between element and vision I preferred the vision version. I looked her up. I was a bit frightened but after doggie waved an ok with the other side of his sniffing end, any fright evaporated almost completely. Only almost, after all it is not everyday that a naked woman smiles at your brief’d and otherwise naked self and offers you a bouquet of out of season flowers. It was either candid camera or a miracle and since I do not believe in miracles... yet somehow the other option did not seem applicable either. I shivered. But I trusted doggie’s judgment. “Yes?” I answered matter of factly, accepting the flowers and almost instinctively smelling them... they were the real stuff, no tricks there. Luckily I had the medication in, so I did not sneeze and the vision could go on obstructing my view, unperturbed for the time being. If there were some drops of hallucinogenic stuff in what I absorbed earlier on, I don’t think I was going to complain next morning when I finally wake up with a headache. Not with such a beauty smiling down at me, still uncertain herself as to what to do, and deciding after a short hesitation to curl next to my dog and lean her head on my foot. This was definitely heaven, certainly now with the last element in place, and little did it matter that in a few hours doggie will lick my face back into reality. “Where did you come from?” I concurred further, sliding next to her and hoping to find her eyes open. They were. Blue. “From there,” she pointed to my head, and it did fit my previous theory perfectly. “Are you hungry?” “Hm...hmm...” she nodded, taking my hand and kissing my thumb. Hey, this heaven is something I do like, I thought, suddenly embarrassed with my nakedness and more so with hers and promising myself that the first thing once in house is to get us some clothes on. The second thing - was finding a few more of those pills and ensuring that I keep dreaming for some longer time. “OK, let’s go in,” I pulled us both up, looking fixedly ahead of me. She stumbled slightly then caught up with my step and we both followed the happily yapping doggie running ahead of us into the house. * “It was delicious.” She licked her fingers, mimicking exaggeratedly my moves, then licked mine as well. I had to stop her from licking doggie’s paws, pulling her up gently and making sure she is seated upright on her chair. She was radiant. “It was just fried eggs and some vegetables. I hardly know to do anything else,” I apologized, then got up and started cleaning the table. “I love fried eggs and some vegetables,” she smiled at me and started following me around, first behind me and then moving in front of me and working as systematically as a highly efficient cleaning machine. I exploded in laughter, imagining wheels and cogs and belts smoothly running underneath that white skin, now modestly hidden underneath one of my pajamas’ tops. She was delighted at my laughter and joined in, asking once both of us calmed down. “What were we laughing at?” I didn’t jump. I didn’t scream. I didn’t even shudder beyond a natural short shiver which ran inside less than a second the full distance from the top of my spine to the bottom of it, covering my skin with a sea of tiny, hard, flesh bubbles. I closed the window, blaming the chilly air entering the room for my skin’s reaction. “Why did you shudder?” she asked, eyeing me closely while depositing the dishes and forks and the other table stuff into the kitchen sink. I found it disturbing that she used the word shudder rather than shiver, and waited until she straightened up before forcing her to face me, holding her powerfully by the shoulders. She didn’t wince in pain, or fright, just waited for me to answer her question. Or rather questions. The smile never left her eyes even for a moment. “Who, what are you?” I asked, and that long oppressed shiver or shudder or trembling or whatever suddenly got full control over my body and I sat down on the floor in foetal position, hearing my teeth chattering like sparrows on a sunny morning. “This is not a dream, or a vision, is it? And you are some kind of alien or machine, aren’t you?” I knew I didn’t know, and this was as coherent as I felt at the moment. “I don’t know. Is it? Am I not?” As accurate answering questions as any Oxford graduate would appreciate, leaving me there were I was before. “Do you wish it to be? Do you wish me to be?” I was lucid enough to know I wanted to answer negatively to her last set of questions, yet lucid enough to know that lucidity wasn’t the most necessary attribute I lacked at that very moment, and a silver hammer hitting my head would probably be much more appropriate a tool to deal with the situation. She pulled me up... so much strength inside such a frail frame... and kissed me on the temple. “Think, this is all you have to do. Think...” I followed her to the bedroom, thinking emptiness, thinking pain and sorrow, thinking waste and resignation, thinking... hey, what has poetry to do with anything? “Poetry has to do with everything,” she seemed to be saying, though in my inebriated state it could have been even doggie who said the words. I sensed the rustle of clothes leaving my body, leaving her body, I felt myself being engulfed in a sea of sensations whose existence I forgot for uncounted years, and only when I became aware of a certain anatomical reality invading our private universe I dared finally smile and raise my fingers to the touch of her breasts... * Oh, no... merde... I knew it... I cursed, using the essentials of my limited French vocabulary, waking up under the attack of a long, wet, stinking tongue washing my face with the enthusiasm of a puppy. Well, after all doggie was a puppy and I never went to the trouble of even giving him a name for a year now. I pushed the ebullient piece of flesh off my pillow and dragged my bones to the kitchen dropping in his bowl a double portion of “growing food” then went about the rest of the rooms looking for some symbolic recognition of my sanity or senility. The match stayed unconcluded, the antihistamines box half emptied, the bed a mess, I cursed again – in German this time, and after going through the habitual waking up ceremony I dragged my bones including my ass this time all the way to the roof. Another day of scrubbing and painting and gluing... My heart wasn’t in it anymore. That strange dream... I shook my head wondering at the miracles of human imagination and went on with my travails trying to put my mind in neutral. Tough luck, no way, hallucination made way for haunting and the fact that both started with ‘h’ just made my moodiness even more hexasperating... ha ha... I laughed loudly, chasing a pigeon out of the way by threatening it with my hammer. I guess I knew already for sure, yet that stubborn child in me refused to give in to evidence. I dropped the medication in the garbage bag and made a triple knot on it. What I needed was a calm, quiet, full night’s sleep, next day it was Monday and I had one of those meetings where you know you are going to strangle someone. That’s why they invented conference calls after all. Finally I didn’t strangle anybody, drove back home in silence, and let doggie cheer me up dropping one of my fake Armani shoes into the toilet bowl. Life has its ups and downs, I told him, and fell asleep with his long ear covering one of my eyes, middle of my telling him the story of Little Red Hood and the Big Bad Puppy. Somehow Little Red Hood was naked and offered me out of season wild flowers. It wasn’t human that sound. Neither animal. I woke up as fresh as if I have just come out of the shower, with doggie alongside me trying in vain to lift his long hairy ears to a threatening position and succeeding much better with showing off a pair of canines I never knew he possessed. I turned my head carefully towards the far end of the room, seeing nothing in particular at first, then finally discerning a certain movement against the greyness of the wall. I waited a few moments and as it seemed that whatever it was did not move any further than its original position, I jumped off the bed switching on the light in the same one fluid movement with picking up my frayed slipper off the floor, ready for a battle to death with whatever intruder there was. Well, it wasn’t really a horse. Nor a snake, cow, ostrich or anything in the normal farming department. Neither anything in the customary fantasy department except for a pair of large dark eyes, a pair of sharp vibrating hairy – more so than doggie’s even – ears, and a pair of canines belonging to the sabers family hanging from what I assumed was the mouth or snout or whatever all the way down to wherever knees were supposed to be. Only there were no knees there, just a blur of motion composed of similar creatures, seeming to decrease ever more in size till the resolution of my eyes could not follow anymore. And same for what I supposed to be the beast’s (beast?) body all the way to its tail. Oh, the tail seemed normal as well, thank goodness for providing me small anchoring points to an ever dwindling reason... What the hell, didn’t you ever see a fractals’ creature? Dream or no dream, I was ready, dragging myself cautiously behind doggie – after all between us two he was the one with bigger teeth. “Of all the creatures and universes you ever created, Fractalus...” ha... “is the most complex, fierce, and cuddly one.” She, you know who, materialized just like that on the back of... ahmmm... Fractalus, floated down to the floor on a cloud of ever more miniature Fractaluses or Fractali – call it any way you want, and kissed the hairy ear into disappearance. Everything attached to that ear disappeared as well as if this was some kind of fantasy story and I was still on those hallucinogenic histamines. But doggie didn’t take any of the white dope, I thought in a flash, and unless he was part of my own fantasy again, then maybe this was not a fantasy after all. I kept the slipper clutched in my right hand for any eventual emergency, relaxing though a bit as I saw doggie re-cover his hidden caninity and un-cover his habitual wagginibility. She was still wearing my pajama’s top, though the last I remembered it, it was lying limply on the floor, having been discarded in that previous dream of... “Dreaming again, ain’t I?” I resigned to the obvious, dropping the slipper with the same carefully chosen French objecting word leaving my mouth. “Woman in the Window, ha? Edward G Robinson. Yeah, too much imagination and not enough sex...” I muttered, ready to throw off the light switch. “Wait...” she sounded almost pleading, as she crossed the distance to me, kissed me again on the temple – what the blazes have visions to do with temples, does my breath smell so bad during the night? – and placed an efflorescing lilac bunch on the pillow next to mine. Then... puff... she disintegrated into nothingness. So lilac was out of season, so what? It could have been imported from Alaska, or Dubai, or wherever. And anyway by tomorrow morning it will not be there anymore. OK, I knew the drill by now. Just turned off the light, kissed doggie good night and fell asleep as if I have never woken up. I woke up, doggie’s hairy tail tickling my face like an airplane’s propeller out of control. It was so late that I decided to call in sick and laze the rest of the day at home. Not my style but I simply felt like I needed it. And tonight I will go and get myself as drunk as a mythical sailor, then find myself a cheap lay... I cringed at the idea to the level of almost vomiting and spit three times to keep evil away (I read about it once in a Voodoo for Dummies book I peeked into) and finally, after finding no more excuses to procrastinate around the subject turned to look at the pillow next to me. Of course, what could I expect from a vision?... empty. I felt an oppressing feeling in my stomach, the kind which goes only with realizing the reality of a great loss, and decided that before any sighing or crying or pouting I will exercise my languages proficiency, German first, and then continued with all the others I possessed complete or partial knowledge of, then going German again and so on, several times. Finally giving in to my bowels’ demands and doggie’s insistence I visited the kitchen then the toilet in this order of priority and returned to the bedroom ready for a great poem blasting all visions out of existence. I sneezed. There was a lilac bunch on the floor the other side of the bed. I left the bedroom, put on a pair of Bermudas and went out to the garden, carefully inspecting my lilac bushes several times around. The blossoming time was long over, dry seeds popping out of the bunches at my touch and spreading on the ground. I waited until doggie finished his business as well before taking that fatal decision to go and visit my house again, and most specifically the bedroom. The blue blossom of lilac was still there, not paper, not plastic, real flower, real fragrance. So what... I thought, still trying to find some flaw in the set-up, if not Alaska or Dubai then maybe Guatemala? Then I watched it carefully, incredulously checking each one of the small flowers, patience turning rush, rush turning anger, anger turning sudden pain... It does not exist, it is impossible, not in this world, all of them pridefully showing the three little petal’d flowers I rarely ever found as singles on any lilac bush... three – childhood memories, wishes of luck, my perfect world, my fantasy... I fell to my knees, then curled once more in that foetal position so expressive of love, life, desire, pain, death... and started sobbing like never before in my life. The dream was in my hand... I let it slip away with my foolish human logic and pride and stupidity... I howled myself to sleep, my last memory that of doggie whimpering next to me trying to lick my face, and finally squeezing into me all the love he could cup in the workings of his hairy tail. It was dark when again I woke up, doggie mysteriously not licking my face and not there at all, the smell of fried eggs sending long tendrils to my nose, and failing in its desperate battle for supremacy over senses with the terrible din of breaking glass and rolling pans in the kitchen. I got up, picking yet again the frayed slipper in my fist, and rushed to the kitchen. I think I redefined at this one specific moment in time and life the classical definition of surrealism. She was there, smiling over a frying pan overflowing with burning oil and frying eggs, another one of my pajama tops thrown this time over her shoulders. Around her and between her legs and now that I appeared there – also between mine, a nightmare called Fractalus was galloping with a happily wagging doggie hanging on to its tail. “And what is he doing here?” I asked, dropping fright and logic somewhere in another dimension. “He is she, and I thought that since you have your pet I could have mine as well.” She turned cautiously the gas off, pouring the eggs into four dishes... “And what I am doing here...” she answered my unasked question, “is visiting to tell you that it is up to you.” She put two dishes on the floor for the slobbering beasts and two on the kitchen table, drawing out a chair for me and easing me softly into it. Then she sat across from me, watching me as intently as a panther about to strike. Though, the need in her eyes was completely different. “This is real, right?” I asked, knowing the answer. She did not answer, watching me further, the only noise in the room the slurping sounds coming from underneath the table. “This is complicated, you know?” I asked further, not expecting and not receiving any answer. “And a Fractalus does not exist on earth, this will take some explaining.” I stuck my fork into the steaming fried eggs, daring to taste, daring to smile, watching a smile spread over her face as she followed suit and started munching hungrily. “Why?” I finally asked, deciding I preferred it to How? and knowing that I do not really care for the answer. But my humanity pushed forward this one question, trying to put back in place a certain order which was always there and it will never be the same anymore. “Because you decided to believe your fantasy, “ she answered simply, the tears in her eyes as human as those in mine. I watched doggie curled against the sleeping Fractalus, all the mini Fractali (that’s how I decided they will be called plural-wise) seeming to have gone to sleep at the same time as the main one, then watched her again not daring to ask the one question which was cutting through my mind and trying to find its way into my mouth. “Will you stay... now?” my mind finally found a way to handle my mouth’s muscles. “I love fried eggs and some vegetables,” she answered right away, her mouth full, not having to think even a moment for an answer. “I guess I just got myself a new pet,” I murmured, finally letting go of a smile imprisoned for years in the undisclosed dungeons of my mind. “And I believe I am falling in love with the pet’s mistress.” This time she finished munching and swallowing before inviting me to visit her mouth. “Mistake. You did already. Many years ago.”
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Visit
He did not call me my son since he left home, a couple thousands years ago. Actually he never called me my son. He never called me anything, we never talked, maybe he thought he was too good for me or maybe he thought the other way around. So he just left, deciding to work on finding himself, and if he did I cannot say I liked what he found. “What are you doing with all these twigs and mud?” I wasn’t in any kind of parleying mood. I was sweaty and slimy, I stank, and I was in desperate need for a beer. And now he decided to visit me? But I couldn’t act impolite, he might get pissed off and rain frogs on me or carbonize me or let me reach one hundred and twenty years of age, God... ha... forbid. The old guy was moody too, after all I was an emulation of hisself minus the frogs and carbonization... “I am building a nest,” I answered cautiously, wishing him to go away. “A nest? For you and your mate? Poor woman, she will get scratches all over her back,” and he thundered a laughter which was later baptized hurricane Gloria. “Even Noah did better, he used wooden planks and he had to work hard at them. Today you can buy polished planks in any DIY shop. And nails and hammers and electric saws...” There was a rumbling sound as if he was going to laugh again, so I rushed my answer to prevent another debacle. “Yeah, and he had to share quarters with all those beasts around him constantly bickering and snapping and expelling body matter in all of its known states – solid, liquid, gaseous... an alchemist’s dream lab. Here, I am improving on his design,” I added, sprinkling soft down inside the emerging construction. I waited for it to float to the bottom, then sprinkled another layer. I didn’t want to let him hang around with nothing to do much longer since I thought it unsafe, so I decided to try some chatting. “Hey, will you do me a favor since you are here anyway?” and as he hesitated I added hurriedly “Not a miracle, mind you, just a favor.” I wasn’t disrespectful, not with reminiscences of THE flood still fresh in my racial memory. I waited for him to stop playing with the rainbow, twisting it in all kinds of shapes inclusive capital W (this will keep scientists busy now for decades) and after he mumbled his agreement I asked. “Could you please pull some strings and find me a publisher?” God or no God, I had to give it to him – he maintained his part of the old bargain he had with us, he never read my thoughts. Nor anyone else’s. I guess it was damn boring and damn painful and frustrating to look down at all those miserable creatures who insisted on their independence of will and ways, and who later blamed him for everything which went wrong at their own hands. Including blowing themselves up and others with them. But he kept his side of the bargain if it killed him. Which is a manner of telling, he could never die of course. Though, I bet that at times he resented it. At many times. “Would you like a beer?” I asked just to break the silence. He accepted, and I waited until it evaporated before going on with the job at hand. “Why?” he finally asked, sighing contentedly. He liked the beer, which was comforting, it was sign he had good taste. “You know you could have asked even for a small miracle, a tiny one of course. Why this favor?” I knew he was itching to snap his imaginary fingers and get my grass cut every weekend, or get me the one stamp I missed to complete my collection... I was sorry to hear disappointment in his voice, yet it was mixed with a certain thrill of curiosity. I poured us both another glass of foaming pleasure, and waited until he finished his before answering. “I am in love.” I was afraid of a reaction which could have proven to be cataclysmic for this world, like a laughter which would have moved the sun a few millions of miles closer to earth or the other way around. But there was no laughter, thank... ahmm... God, again. Not even the sound of a hiccup. Just silence. I went on with my nest’s construction, I added some more padding to the bottom of it (after all he was right, it would scratch her back) mixing dry leaves and withered petals and cloudfuls of fluffy dandelion seeds... hey, thanks... I knew he was joking in his kind, serious way. I was getting ready to climb all the way in and start decorating the twigs with ribbons and candles and undulating soap bubbles... “So you want the world to know it.” Finally he decided he wanted me to know he got the point. Of course he got it, he got everything he wanted to get and nothing which he did not want. This was not interference, just cognition, and right now he felt on the safe grounds of not breaking his word. “I want her to know it.” “She is part of the world.” “She is the world.” “She knows it.” “I know it.” It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, when he first called me. I think it was more my mood and apprehension then reality, and after all it was quite a pleasant encounter. I did not expect more. Actually I got more than I expected to get. “I will see what I can do. I am bound by a promise as you know.” “I know sir.” “You can call me friend if you wish to.” “You can call me son anytime you wish to.” I finished with the ribbons and the candles and the bubbles, picked up the thin, sharp, chisel and started carving words in the dry wood. The wood splinters fell slowly around my feet, turning fireflies half way down and buzzing away into the descending dusk. A joker to the end the old man, I thought, stopping for a moment to carve thank you for the visit among the verses, and runes, and strophes. I picked up the cell phone which rang insistently in my pocket, to hear her laughing delightedly at the other end. “You wouldn’t believe it in a thousand years,” she said. “I will tell you what I should not believe in a thousand years,” I answered. “You are invaded by fireflies settling all over your body,” I said, knowing. The short silence following the gasp on her end of the line confirmed my words. Not that I needed any confirmation. “How did you know?” she asked, breathless with more than just lack of air. “Now he knows too,” I answered, completely irrelevantly, accurately. I closed the line, softly, never for a moment stopping my carving, not wishing to stop the streaming light flowing eastwards like a snake of glittering shards.
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No. Yes. It Is A Story About Humans
“Such a sad story,” you commented, sad yourself. “And who feeds him?” “I, every morning except Saturday.” “Why, is he Jewish?” “No, today is Friday and you just arrived.” We went out to eat something, impatient to return, we opened the door to the room, impatient to undress, we made love half of the night, showered, made love the other half of the night and then, exhausted, fell asleep in a puddle of sweat. An impatient knock on the door. “Señor, señor,” a girl’s voice on the other side of the piece of wood separating civilization from the world of all dangers. I didn’t curse, my mouth sticky, she wouldn’t understand anyway. I pulled a towel around my midriff and opened the door. “Señor,” she wailed, “your lady señor, hurry...” I shot a look back to the bed... oh, God, no... my side of the bed a mess, her side of the bed empty... oh, God... raped, murdered, kidnapped for ransom... you can never be safe in these Latin countries. I rushed after the maid. She stopped amid a group of bug eyed people, pointing. You were lying there on the threshold, just outside of the main entry door, draped in a crumpled white sheet, seemingly sleeping. I kneeled next to you, uncertain. “Honey, honey, what happened?” You opened sleepy eyes, focusing them and then focusing that sad smile I knew only too well on my face, before getting up to a crouching position to lay your head in my lap and start crying softly. “Honey, honey, tell me what happened? Are you hurt, did someone hurt you?” I hated that long look, so filled with the pains of the world. “He didn’t come,” you hardly made it into a whisper. I was completely lost. “Who didn’t come, love? Who were you waiting for?” You pulled the bed sheet away from your legs, revealing a basket full of boiled eggs, ‘borrowed’ I guess from the hotel’s breakfast room. I wasn’t sure if it was my turn to cry, or laugh. Maybe just wonder. I scooped you up into my arms and brought you back to the room. My God, do they really exist? I asked myself. And I did not mean dragons.
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