May 8. Waiting for our boat.

After only a few hours sleep we walk to the Club Nautico and say YES to Fabian and the Panama boattrip. And that was it. The next days we will spend waiting for the boat to leave. And I will write.

Consider this: THE KEYS.
“How did you get in?”
-“I still have the keys.”
“You should have left them.”
-“I’m sorry, okay. S-o-r-r-y.”
“I can hear you. Just give them to me now.”
-“Suspicious as always. I could have known. I should have come to get my stuff while you’re working.”
“You diabolical serpent.”
-“Pardon?”
“I mean, ah, you know what I mean. Can you give me the keys now?”
-“No. I’m not ready. I will get my stuff first.”
“What stuff?”
-“My cd’s and the salad bowl.”
“Salad bowl was a present of my uncle.”
-“He gave it to me, so it belongs to me and me and me.”
“Okay. You can have it. And keep the keys too. I don’t care about what you do.”
-“You run away again, can’t you see that. You always run away.”
“I can see it, but I no longer care. Do whatever you like.”
-“You make me very, very sick.”
He shrugs.
“Maybe you should visit a doctor then.”
-“Fuck you. I’m out of here.”
She throws the keys at him and rans away. He shouts at her.
“Don’t you want the cd’s?”
-“No! they’re contaminated.”
“What do you mean?”
-“Everything you touch gets bad.”
“You’re hysterical. You should see a doctor.”
-“Yes, I AM hysterical. And you know why? Because you touched me.”
She rans out of the house. He shrugs again and plays one of her cd’s that is actually quite nice. He begins to swing a little bit to the music. It’s some old jazz record. If love were like an old jazz record, we see him thinking, this world would be a paradise. Another woman gets in and starts talking to him.
“Tom, how are you doing?”
-“What?”
“How are you.. can you lower the volume a little?”
-“What?”
She sighs and walks to the stereo set to lower the volume.
-“What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you about us. How serious are we?”
-“Why now?”
“Well I… technical reasons.”
-“Technical?”
“Tomorrow I should start taking the pill again.”
-“And?”
“If we’re serious I thought I will not take it. I am thirty-two you know.”
He knew. Thirty-two, almost the autumn of her reproductive life. He had thought about having a child with her, but just not now. His wife had just left him. We can see him calculating.
-“And thirty-four? My sister was thirty-four” he says.
“I am not your sister. Women of my age are running a risk. Just tell me are we serious?”
He shrugs.
-“Okay, we’re serious” he says absent-mindedly.
“You make me very, very sick.”
-“You don’t believe me?”
“No of course I don’t believe you.”
-“Look at the table. You see the keys? They are yours. What do you say? Do you believe me now?”
“O Tom, that was not necessary. And I thought you had not yet made up your mind. I’m sorry, stupid little me. I love you.”
She walks to Tom and gives him a kiss on his mouth. They hug and she sighs.
“I am so happy we finally found each other.”
-“Will you be careful with the keys?”
“Of course. You can trust me.”
-“I trust you, sweetheart.”
He stands up to get a bottle of wine. He comes back with two glasses and a bottle.
-“Should I change the music?”
“No, I like it. It’s jazz, isn’t it?”
He sighs.
-“Do you think our love is like this music?”
“What do you mean?”
-“Swinging, dynamic, smooth, without stress.”
“That depends.”
-“On what?”
“On our understanding of each other.”
-“You mean thiry-two?”
“Do you want a child with me?”
-“It’s too early sweetheart. How am I supposed to make that kind of decision. My wife just left.”
“She was here?”
-“She came to return the keys.”
“O. So that’s why they feel warm. They are still warm of her hands.”
-“Does it bother you?”
“I don’t know. Did she want a child with you?”
-“After the death of Tom we never spoke about having another child.”
“But did she want Tom with you?”
-“Yes, very much. Tom has made us very happy the last three years.”
“How happy?”
-“I don’t want to talk about now, please. Let’s go to bed.”
She plays with the keys in her hands.
“Can I visit Tom’s grave?”
He sighs.
-“Yes, but leave the keys on the table. I will change the lock.
“Why?”
-“Because I say so!” he yells.
She looks at him and thinks for a few seconds. Then she says.
“Who will get Tom’s keys?”
He looks at her with tears in his eyes. She sweeps the tears out of his eyes and whispers in his ear.
“Thirty-three.”
Then they go to bed.

Kamiel’s Daily Karma Rule: “Synthesis of opposite fears”.
If you are afraid of something, try to generate fear of the opposite as well. Try to imagine why the exact opposite is fearsome as well. The synthesis of these two fears, if properly generated, will heave you up a higher level of Being (taste of apricots).

One thought on “May 8. Waiting for our boat.

  1. The story is real. I would like though to read a more “full-blooded”, meaty dialogue…What about working on it and publishing an elaborated version? So we could follow as readers what a hard labour it is to work on a text in literature…
    Best wishes for your writing,
    Georgia
    PS: a wonderful poem by Ritsos. I will translate later. It is about the poet, his struggle with words and time and his “reward”…(I hope the Greek comes through)
    Ανταπόδοση
    Πάλεψε μέ τίς λέξεις, μέ τό χρόνο, μέ τά πράγματα. Ἔδωσε
    θέση
    στήν πεταλούδα, στό χαλίκι, στ’ ἀλογάκι τῆς Παναγίας,
    στούς ὁλονύκτιους στεναγμούς τῶν ἄστρων, στή δροσοστάλα
    πού πέφτει ἀπ’ τό ροδόφυλλο, στ’ ἄρρωστο ἀηδόνι, στίς μεγάλες
    σημαῖες,
    στό γαλάζιο, στό κόκκινο, στό κίτρινο. Πλούτισε τόν κόσμο
    μέ μόχθο κι ἐγκαρτέρηση. Σκαλί σκαλί
    ἀνέβηκε τήν πέτρινη τεράστια σκάλα. Τώρα, ἐκεῖ πάνω,
    ἄλλα παράσημα δέν ἔχει πιά παρά τά βέλη στά γυμνά πλευρά του.

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