Conversation between Mai & John
(three in the afternoon)
written on 03.02.2010
translated on 04.23.2013
=
- What is love to you?
Midori Let's say, I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake,
and you drop everything and run and buy it for me.
And you come back out of breath and give me the strawberry shortcake.
And I say, "I don't want it any more," and I throw it out the window.
That's what I am looking for.
- I am not sure that has anything to do with love.
Midori It does. It has everything to do with love.
I want the man to say,
'You were right Midori, it's my fault,
I have all the intelligence and sensitivity of a donkey. To apologise,
I will get you something else. What would you like?
A chocolate mousse? A cheesecake?"
- Then what?
Midori Then
I will fall in love
( from : :
n o r w e g i a n : : w o o d )
=
On a day like this, I envy the tranquil fluidity of
the movements that amounts to a wet trail, swooning in the water.
Twist and turn of the skin thin tail, of fishes.
Days like this make me think of it.
And I also think, that nothing is going to happen.
Such days cometa knock on my door, once in a while. Once or twice every other month. It almost sits in my mind now, almost a routine.
In the beginning, this used to devastate me. The feeling of helplessness would become a physical force that would diverge deeply into my chest, and would reside there, burning darkly.
When I was still a young thing, a high school laddie, I would prostrate myself upon my desk and bear the pressure of time, saying nothing. After school, I would come home and out of exhaustion of doing nothing the whole day, fall asleep.
During other times, my body would translate that feeling of helplessness into the physical hunger for food, that I would simply grab things and eat and eat and eat until I couldn't eat anything anymore.
Now, as a grown up sort of person well I when such days tap on my shoulders well I just very simply, in elegant fashion,
-waste my time.
Lying in my bed, with my head half full half empty, I try thinking for a while; there is a decision to be made; shall I stay in here or should I get up walk to the kitchen, drink some water and then come back to bed.
Or am I dreaming all this, am I not awake at all.
I may look like I am enjoying my leisure with peace in my mind. I can tell you for certain, that is very far from truth.
This is an act of protest, perhaps.
If I translate my gut feeling into words it would get weaved out into something like so:
Everything that stands so far far away from me, as if they can't hear my voice, wailing and waiting, oh wellfuckyoufuckyouverymuch. What else can I do, you miserable creatures why the bloody hell couldn't you reach out towards me before I do, why oh why. is that really impossible is that really so distasteful in your mouth
?
The fear, that however I try I would linger on the outskirt of things makes my hands turn cold.
It is a scary thought.
But I was hungry. My hands fumbled around the tea table next to the bed, looking for something to nibble on. They found my one gallon-full-now-half-full vanilla ice cream.
I got a spoonful of that and licked my fingers that started to get coated with sticky sweetness.
Oh but I am still hungry
That's when I hear a noise. Of a door opening and closing.
Oh.
My heart runs faster. I wonder whether I should get up, and that thought makes cold sweat run through my back.
I kept it under, he has never seen me like this. What to do. What to do. To get up? Do I need to get up, dress up and smile up to him?
Then I hear a laughter in my head.
-so what?
who is he to you?
Someone that you are in love with, and so what?
Strange, almost childishly simple irritation comes over me.
That is why I didn't turn around to look at you when I felt your fingers poking me through the comforter. I didn't respond. I didn't make a sound.
Who are you to me, who are you planning to become, in me, that I feel this need to change myself. Who are you to me, that you make me want to measure up and shape up my inside, even my sorrows.
That was not the way of me, not until I saw you. My pain, my sufferings, my sorrows were all solely mine to keep. Mine to lick. Who are you to me, that you make me hope, hope that someone other than myself would come and lull my pain away. Who are you. Who could you possibly be.
If you could be such a person to me, why weren't you there before?
I want to accuse you of such senseless things.
Why wasn't he there, do you ask?
You fool, you two didn't know each other then, that was a long time ago.
Yes that was a long time ago,
but at that time
at that time a long time ago,
I
and you
we both existed in that time and space too, did we not?
Then why weren't you there with me?
Why weren't you there for me.
Senseless,
and meaningless.
Such, such meaningless thoughts.
"What are you doing?"
"Sleeping."
"It's too early for that. It's only three in the afternoon. My friend, you should look outside, the sun, it's so pretty it's so ugly. What is...that.....ice cream? ......how could you possible eat so much of it, using a spoon so small? You haven't had lunch yet, did you?"
I say nothing. I just lay there. It's an old habit of mine.
Loosing my voice, when it is most needed.
Inside of my throat, nothing but desert.
"Get up, will you?"
John pulled over the comforter that was half covering my head. The light in the room was so sharp that it made my head ring. Everything with faded colours and contours slowly started to develop their true colours, like a polaroid shot, slowly developing.
I see him now. An expression of worry and care staining his mouth. A little bit of ice cream too.
"What is wrong, are you angry?"
"No...I am just..."
"You feeling sick?"
No it's not that.
"what is it then?"
"I'm just....it's..."
I can't talk, looking into your eyes looking at me, I just-
-Feel, as if I could tell you everything. Everything.
Things that haunt me, things that make me sweat and sweat.
I feel as if, I could name it all, for you, for your sake, I could. Perhaps if I call them by name, one by one, they would never visit me again.
Perhaps then, then I would be able to
believe. Believe in ernest, that all my sufferings were caused by nothing but loneliness.
Loneliness, a thing with a name, a thing that I could overcome.
But my mouth does not open. O, yes. Perhaps I should have practiced. this.
I hear a familiar voice, telling me familiar things.
John is still looking at me. My eyes cannot give away anything. That is because of my own words, that I have whispered to myself, wondering, whether
you could possibly
understand.
Understand me
me? no
no
you won't.
Oh, suit yourself, you say, before going out of the room. You are impatient. You don't wait for things.
I hear your bare feet, slapping on the wooden floor. Soon I smell some coffee, coming from the kitchen.
I put my head sideways on the pillow and try to look at things, through my hardly opened eyes.
There is nothing, nothing at all to look at.
You are probably using Mokka pot to make your espresso, not filtered coffee, using french press. I know. I also know that you would take that cup into the reading room.
The sound of you, walking away, fades away.
Silence remains. That makes me close my eyes.
Nobody knows of my eyes, closing.
Even the loneliness and feeling of guilt becomes meaningless,
at moments like this.
Only an empty space is left behind.
I sleep, in order to fill up that space. That is the only way I know of.
I sleep,
to dream.
Everything that I hang onto, everything and all of it about me and myself, get severed in my dreams,
their voices cut short.
I try to move away from the smell of coffee that has somehow moved under the comforter.
Biting down my lips, I murmur
inside my mouth,
but I want
=
continues onto Three : thirty in the afternoon
:-)
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