From Now On

Jack’s face looked phthalo green in this light. Meg had her head supported by her two soft, pink hands. What peculiar ring she wore, made of some kind of a white stone, or petrified whale sperm. You looked at it for maybe ten minutes. When your eyes locked, she smiled a silly smile. Complete meltdown in you. Somewhere in the back, Bob and Frank compared their iPhones and all of their splendour, the darlings. A fresh batch of young girls coming into the bar distracted you. Seventeen? About. Danger! Danger! They were laughing and wearing funny knitted woollen hats. Much too hot in here. Zip zap, tip tap toe, dance across the floor, knots and buds, a shadow, smudge, a phantom.

Simone pulling your arm brought you back on earth. This was the reason you all gathered tonight, her dooming departure… an eight month trip to the Orient. My God, you were gonna miss her, no man could tell… Cheers, babe. Olga and Bette were laughing like mad. That was probably the best thing to do too. What the hell! Discussing the state of affairs in the world, and solving them in between two beers. Though blurred eyes you watched your friends laugh. Universal Love ruled between these walls for a night.

Later, you found yourself stumbling to the toilet, where you pissed on your shoes. This made you howling with laughter. When you returned you asked Meg: ‘Will you varnish my skull? Just for fun?’ Sure, why not. Confetti, meat, the pipe dream of a waitress’ smile. Out of nowhere, you invent a piano player and a man in uniform. Where were those can-can dancers?

A cold wind blew outside. You shouted: ‘let’s box up the moon! We have no need for it now, for Lady Luck will shine on our path from now on!’

Celluloid Lives

Eight hours long in a room full of strangers with familiar faces... Eight hours of being subjected to a friendly atmosphere that grew more macabre by the minute. I sat on my chair, locked up with a whirlwind of self-conscious thoughts that grew stronger over time and more and more horrific. I know these people… I love these people... then why can’t I for the life of me talk to them?  

The family had gathered in a little village in the south of the country to celebrate the 94^th birthday of the Madre familias. The woman had fought herself through two world wars, eight Popes and three Queens, and single-handedly raised a family of five children, all with nothing but her husband’s high income and the help of a battery of nannies and maids. Now she was being wheel-chaired into a room to be the birthday girl. We toasted her with a glass of pink champagne. Here's to you, Grandmother... love you!

After I had been sitting smiling in my chair, a diversion was created. The family was summoned into the next room to watch a computer presentation my uncle had made. He had transferred all the old celluloid films my parents had made back in the days when my older brother and I were still young & cute. Films I had not seen for the better part of 30 years. My uncle had put a score under it of music of the time: Sgt. Pepper, Jethro Tull, Van Morrison, Iron Butterfly and the likes. I watched from behind the back of my aunts who were dressed in black. 

And there it was… my youth in 8 mm, with In a gadda da vida blasting through the room. A psychedelic nightmare as well as a soft dream in faded colours. Two unreacheable kids jumping up & down on their beds without making a sound. A walk in a zoo, a giraffe in close up. There I was twirling on a merry-go-round, my face tense, pale, half happy. Laughing birthdays, people mouthing silent messages through the ages. Large cacti in our window sill... my grandfather, still alive, playing the piano in the room with the dark brown cork padded walls. I wore surrealistic swimming trunks while sitting alone in an inflatable orange swimming pool in the garden while all the neighbour kids were playing together in another pool two houses down the block. Different trunks while digging up my grandparents’ garden. All around, my hippy aunts swirled around in India dresses, the uncles wearing beards and straw hats, looking exactly like the cover of Pink Floyd’s Ummagumma. In the sun... in the sun. My brother tried to set up a folding garden chair, succeeding when the lights went low. The dog slept under the table. Mom had long red hair.

When Life Gives You Lemons

(sorry, Angela, wink.)

Waking Up

Each morning, after waking up and having let existence slowly seep into my being, I strech out my arm and slide open the one curtain I can reach from my bed. Then I sink back onto my cushion and stare for a long time at the tree next to my window, and I notice that the little yellow leaves have once again reduced in number overnight, giving way to the skimpy black branches more and more. Then my eyes fall on the corpse of a bee that has been laying on my windowsill for weeks now… a small but monumental mummy, covered in an ever thicker bluish layer of dust. Little bugger, I think... lying there, being dead, ruining for me another day that has yet to start. My eyes travel back to the tree and the white drops of water on the window pane. The quivering leaves are buzzing in the frame, like butterflies caught in a windshield wiper on the highway. Small fields of colour against the frantic black lines.

The Second Law

The story starts with a description of the scenery. Some trees. Firs. A blackbird hopping from one branch onto the next and back again. The clouds and the effect they have on the lighting. How the rain fell on the dried out earth and the view over the lake. All done in an esthetical pleasing manner, masterly creating a perfect sense of forlorn lives and isolation. But all this was more than made up for in the second chapter with the murder of Mary Barrett.