[[[ Mai and John]]]_______Afternoon napping_2

 

 I wonder

I started re-reading the stories I have written some time ago. Before I moved to this strange city.

In another strange city I have written these. 

I feel the need to visit them again. I now feel comfortable enough to translate my stories into English.

Perhaps I am now strong enough to unfold them and share them with others sitting around me. 

It was a pleasant and painful experience, you know, translating them. 

Something always gets lost in translation, but,

you also find something else in return.

:-)

Mai & John

(Afternoon napping 2)

written  on 04.19.2010

translated on 04.21.2013

=

A heart is glad, when, it knows that it can look into the heart of the other, and smile. 

No need to say nothing. 

A gently warm colour spreads upon Mai's body, as she leans deeply into a sofa. That gently warm shade, almost as soft as the brown hair of himself, to whom that shade belongs. That is John.

He stands in front of Mai, his right and left hands holding onto the arms of the sofa, his body stooping down a little, like so. He looks into the eyes of hers that says, yes it is you I see, you, I recognize you. And there is a hint of aimless anticipation in them, asking, demanding.

So what shall we do? What can you do foarme? What do you want froame?

As if enveloping her, his shade embraces her, gracefully. In that shade they stay. That is when he kisses her.

Mai stretched her arms out, her eyes still closed. Her hands reach out to him and rest on his cheeks. A little bristle. When Mai opens her eyes again, she sees John, sitting opposite to her, a little far away. His movement, a little too quick for her.

On the opposite side, the shape of John's mouth draws a curve, mimicking that of hers.

A short legged coffee table fills in the space between the two. On top of that short coffee table stands two cups of coffee, so alike. Still warm.

Mai suddenly opens her arms wide, a welcoming gesture, perhaps.

That awkwardly shaped, awkwardly sized space formed by her open arms, reminded John of the half-caught time in the air that they are in. This strange time of the day, late afternoon.

"John, John, John........welcome to my cafe."

"Yes yes, I can see now why you come here so often. Looks like a place stuffed with the smell of books. Good wood too."

John tapped his fingers on the table. It made thick, growling sound. He found it lovely. Mai's fingers, or rather, her fingernails dug into the wood, slightly impatient.

"It's just today, just once. I decided to share the space withya just for today. I know that you won't find this place on your own anyway. You have got no sense of directions."

"Why? Why can't I come again?"

"Because this is mine. It's my space-this, only I know of."

"What about all these people then? There are others here beside me too, that come and go as they please."

"Them, I don't know. But you, I know. With them, I had a pact, you see. I pretend I can't see them, and they courteously pretend that they don't see me. 

So, you see, all this space, all this and all that, everything here belongs to me, really.

But now, in that space stands you. You are this new thing. You take space, you take some of what is my own and so my space is that much smaller now. I gave in that much.

If you want to come again, on your own, that is fine. But when I come here with you, I have to make efforts to ignore you.

That, that's something I can't do."

Mai watches John twisting and pouting his lips in discontent, and she watches it with pleasure. A very young, nasty smile, thought he. Something of an expression that he remembers from his childhood. On a very young girl's face, perhaps.

John knows very well, that this is Mai's favorite game, playing hide and seek. That must have been her favorite game when she was a wee thing.

He looked at her curiously. As if he is studying her. He tries to open her up, little by little, as if peeling the layered skin of an onion.

She is more alive and less beautiful at times like this. She, in her black jeans and blue shirts. A coat just lightly sitting on her silhouette, hanging onto her shoulders.

She looked like a captain, wearing her coat like that. Something out of a children's book. Her casual carelessness, almost lonely. Almost sad.

John was still watching her, when she took out a book from her bag, and still he said nothing. He simply sighed. So she came here to read her book.

So the idea of playing with me is not in her mind, he thought. Disappointed, John's eyes closed themselves as if falling asleep.

Perhaps he really fell asleep.

When John opened his eyes again, he could not fathom the amount of time that has passed.

Looking over at Mai's side didn't help, because she was sitting opposite to him, still in that same stubborn posture-her eyes looked slightly red now- her hands holding onto a book.

The sharp edges of her short hair wavered just above her naked shoulders, the sharpness almost touching the soft roundedness. A little longer now, than before, thought John.

Woman's hair always reminded him of the time that has passed.

He saw her closing her book, stretching her arms wide and high. As if reading and responding to a sign, John quickly closed his eyes and softened his breathing. Pretending to be asleep.

He heard a thud and a dragging sort of noise, perhaps a chair being dragged, letting a tired body get up.

He smelt something like coffee, just brushing his nose and then he felt something cold on his cheeks. (He knows now, that when she concentrates on something, her body grows cold, starting from her fingertips. A familiar coldness. Something he recognizes.)

The smell of coffee lingering on her hands, let him know that she drank coffee while he slept. So I was sleep, for a time as long as a cup of coffee, he thought.

Sort of hard to translate that back into the measurement of time.

That small fluttering pair of hands. Like a pair of small birds, flew from his cheeks, to his ears. From his ears, in one elegant movement, they flew up up to the roundness of his head. As if patting a child's hands the small wings pat patted John's head feeling into his soft hair. Then they retreated meekly.

That's when John sat up straight in his sofa.

But when he did that, all he saw was a body, a small one, round and crouching into a perfect Cee. Her upper torso leaning on the coffee table, perhaps trying to sleep.

That is so disappointing.

The man feels her brown hair with his fingers, as that is the only thing he can do now. A reflection of the gestures of her hands. He caresses that head, sitting there as if waiting for some uninvited but welcomed warmth.

Through the elongated windows, he sees lights dancing into the room, but in a hue that is rather exhausted and defeated. Times like this, colours like this, reminded John, always, of Red Butler. Times like this and colours like this, they pull in, seduce a person too easily, too quickly. There is an art there, a deadly sweet flavor. 

Times like this, in between different compartments of time, just hanging there between the late afternoon and the evening. The air and everything in it turns slightly golden, in that autumny colour.

He felt his body tightening and his heart starting to ache. It was just the fact that he was watching all that. On his own. His loved one sitting so close to him, so near, and yet not being able to share such such moments. That was what pained him so.

That feeling made John somewhat impatient. That impatient feeling lingered in his heart, weighing his chest down. Then it moved down through the arms, resting in his fingers. That's when his fingers reached out. Akin to the motion of a hand, gently mixing some droplets of milk into a cup of hot tea, just like so, his hands reached out,

touched and shook the round and small shoulders of hers. Wake up, wake up now.

Responding to that touch Mai trembled unintentionally, and that shudder opened up her body a little. John beckoned that half-wakened body, saying come, come.

Like a small kitten getting rid of the Summer heat, the small woman walks over to him. Her body stumbles towards his, her cold hands and feet trying to find some warmth, and when they did find it, her body dived in. The man's body welcomes hers without complaints, without any resistance. But he did want to resist the sleepiness on her body, keep her away from its grasp, so he spoke to her. As if speaking to himself, in a voice almost like a whisper he said,

"Everything's yellowing, the air, the sky outside, the table, your cup...all that's...very lovely. I believe winter is passing, for sure."

That was his voice asking her to stay, stay with me. Trying to keep her near. Sounding out each word carefully.

"There is a tree just outside the window there, and the sunlight's dangling in between the branches. That's just...pretty."

He could feel her mouth curving into a smile. (her head resting in that indentation just below his collarbones)

" It's like listening to you singing, I can hear you through your body. That's nice."

She said, her voice still stuffed with sleep. There was so much air in it, it almost sounded like a laughter.

"No, I mean..you should look at it, it's a shame that I am the only person who's looking at it...it's really.."

"That's okay. I can see it clearly. Talk to me. I want to listen."

Maybe she will dream it if I explain the picture good enough, that was John's thoughts. So he does his best to explain that colour that he is seeing. 

Her posture, hanging onto his body like a sloth, looked rather tiresome, so he moved her a little, so he could have her lying down, her head on his knees. He hears how her breathing becomes quiet, almost soundless. Very soft. 

Is she sleeping? Within her closed eyes, does she have the colour that I am seeing, in there too?

Mai's face, and his fingers outlining her face as if licking sugar off the table,everything is yellow and golden.

John looked into her face strangely, for her face wearing that colour, was not alien at all. it was strangely familiar. Just looking at her made him feel thirsty and dried out. So he let his fingers follow the ways of her eyebrows. To get some moisture.

Such a masterful shape, like the wings of a giant bird. Somewhat like the pristine and poised picture of the nineteenth century scholar she once showed him.

She has always appeared in that colour, to him.

That's something John knew. He knew about it very well. 

There were times when he wanted her to stay in him, in some other colour. Something, a colour that would last longer, a colour that is easier to hold inclosed within one's hands.

Because she was a colour that anticipated sudden disappearance.

Burning up in an instance. 

How easily it makes one's heart blow up and hope. How easily it unsettles one's grounds.

That yellow. In that colour.

=

This cafe actually exists. 

:-)

I wrote about Mai and John, there.

Which is..

-here.