Surpris! by Henri Rousseau (II)
Agnes yelled to Tigresa so loud that her pitch was bending the bars. Tigresa was the one who fed the beasts, he had a high pitch, though not as high as the one that the owner of the business had- not as high as Agnes', I mean. Tigresa was younger than I was, he had a 5-year-old son licking the lime of some wall in Brașov, was missing three front teeth and moved like a living angel. "Maledetto, how many times will I tell you, have the meat ready in advance." "Signora, ain't no macelleria a questa piazza." "Ciucco... cómo te dizprezzo. Those creatures are gonna die tonight, they are worth one thousand times more than your whole race, what should I do with you now? mi dici stronzo... now what? one day I'll see you morto... one day..."
The new born were likely already dead. If not, their mother may manage to neatly twist their neck that night itself. Tomorrow morning the kids will cry at dictation class and may refuse their portion of bread. It happened that way in there. Natural instincts couldn't stand offspring. My head was approaching the cage, flies were laying eggs on Randy's lachrymal gland. Carmen... come on, move away. Why are you doing this? Leave this place, there is no use in anything what you are doing here... look how perfect he is... he'll go mad, in three, two, one... wow, he's staring static, he smells something... his glance, he knows what happens, he knows what this is all about, he can streamline the sadness, he's falling into an abyss, he's just like... he is... a reflection of... he's actually m... GGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.
"Eu am plecat de aici, that woman mad, ain't meat no where, no estoy llorando testa di cazzo, lasciami in pace, f...!" The new born died out of hunger that night. They refused the breasts.
Surpris! by Henri Rousseau (not a review of the painting)
It was a rainy evening. Zia Scilla had been hanging and collecting the same clothes over and over all day long. Alfio's trousers now looked like a stinky puddle. Mr Bosch had been undisturbedly drinking Budweiser since 1pm. Inside Lucceto's truck, a Czech cartoon show coloured the glasses with blues of three different intensities. I heard the rain. Each drop falling on the plate above my head. Duc, top, duc, top, duc, top, duc, dop, sigh. My legs tangled themselves, showing across the slim door, toes resting on the soaked grass, my arm waving the smoke away.
"Sei un photographe?" That was the broken voice of Mrs Pollet. I had seen her silhouette coming out of the fog before. The backlit stage made her look like ET's friend emerging from the saucer. "Hmm... ssssort of." "Vieni qui, s'il vous plaît." Aguamado's home was by far the best - cozy, like a Tiffany lamp inside a squirrel den. "Skype. My son. The camera doesn't work." In that place, everyone used to make weird associations regarding my persona. Once Ada asked if I didn't mind her telling her nan that my workmate and I were father and daughter. No, certainly I didn't mind. I didn't mind anything. "Let me find the codecs. Do you have a connection?" "Amaretto? Café?" Aguamado was the fluorescent-light seller, he was the oldest creature in the camp and Mrs Pollet was his wife, and she was a jealous lady. Probably they had spent the past 50 years together. They were planning to quit someday, but I knew they wouldn't do it anywhere in this life. Maybe in the next. "My son in Belgium." "Dai, dai, ma let her work, mamma!" Their daughter was also there, still with painted eyebrows three centimetres beneath hers. The music started baffling again. "Told you, mum, lei è clever." "Grazzie. Stay. Finish the café."
In the past week I had dreamed of Randy twice. He ate fifteen chickens a day and was full of hatred. I was forced to marry him in a garish ritual. I passed by the cage and he turned back. Glanced straight into my eyes, as if he wanted to scan my skull through before smashing it and spitting out the grey mass. Randy, go to hell. I knew my compassion drove him mad. My smell made him roar lower and longer than anyone else's and despise himself even more, if that were possible. Randy, can't you see where you are? You'll never have m... "Carmin! Carmin! Vieni! Hold my hand! Fast! Let me show you my new princess! She has a raincoat!" "Bimba! I've been searching for you the whole time, oh dio qué bella..."
The great white egret
She was already there, peeking from the side stairs, smoothing her spotless black dress with the gestures of a housewife. It would have been impossible for me to tell wether she was nervous or not. Checking the sole of her right high heel shoe and wearing neat gloves, small tight gloves, just like the clouds at Cape Cod that gentle morning, though the bay was slightly far away. I couldn’t see her face yet.
A wood stone road was insinuating the way. Her manners, the way she followed it… like a heron walks into the marsh waters, like a 50’s wife entering the kitchen to fix coffee for her man; ease, simpleness, total domain. She welcomes everyone, as if she was the first to get there, even though she was the last, and open her arms. The thread is threaded to the needle. Her feathered picture hat rises. The longings of a lost in the Atlantic tribe move at the speed of the clouds. White flesh in black dress, red lipstick framing squared pearls, head swinging left to right. A hat falls, a middle aged man holds his neck with both hands, a young one adjusts his sun glasses, a woman breezily marks the cardinal points with her hips, a guy takes a puff and holds the smoke for a while. The needle is floating in candor, people stare skeptically when the trumpet breaks up. Three shoulders start waving, five gloves begin to clap. She’s already slapping the air with open palms, closing some witnesses' eyes.
I was resting my back, bending a knee, one sole standing on the grass, one heel pasted to the wall. My life's purposes were summed up in tracing an S with that grey tube skirt. To follow her thread till the needle prickled me, that was all. It has been said I knocked them dead when I landed in town. I myself can’t tell, you know I don’t lie… much.
A country for old men
Dear President of the Republic of Spain,
In the first place, allow me to congratulate you. We have a bright country despite the weather. The public administration works so hard on itself, that sometimes it reminds me of an ascetic monk thinking of his inner self conception. They take it calmly and are deathly serious. It’s with great pride and pleasure to convey my gratitude and admiration through this letter. Long live the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
To continue and go ahead, I’d like to personally thank you for the extraordinary geographical location of our nation. It is right in the middle of the world map, not too west, not too east. God bless the holy Inquisition and plagues in the Middle Ages. Considering the latitude it’s not too high to worry in case you don't have a roof above, but high enough to keep the desert away and save on camels and fabric for turbans. I couldn’t think of a more strategic position, looks like the job of a location scout on his first movie, pure and innocent talent, just genius. Thank you.
In human related terms, for our educational system and social behavior I can only express my total satisfaction. A fully equipped squad of teachers training us to understand the mathematics of time and its relative nature, so that we have deep matters to think about once we graduate. We can positively affirm that our heads don’t stop swinging the ax, they work hard the spectral landscapes of our noble land. We have been nicely provided with all the information on how fields should look like in our imagination, in case we ever get a chance to be paid for our labour.
In conclusion and to summarize, my chest swells when I look around. Ours is a country for old men. They play pétanque, holiday at the coast, ride for free on the bus and look at our youth with compassion. What else could my generation ask for? I feel at the peak of civilization.
Whit all my respects:
xoxoxoxoxo.
When the future is unwritten
In two days a list will be published. A surname will be missed in the registry office, another will appear at a border, two initials will cross a secret gate, a country will enter a rank, a song will fall to the ground. I never dealt well with the being listed, not at the top, not at the button, nor anywhere. In high school there were two classmates that always searched for my name on the walls before than theirs. I don’t like to be spotted that way, underneath and above others, by a bitchy finger. No way.
In two days a list will be published and some things could change; many others will remain the same. My hair less and less curly, the bones of my face sharpening my expression a little more everyday… but my homeland will keep on being a fruit, some bands will still keep their name, my hand a pencil, my dad his alive gesture, his touch every second, fighting time, everywhere.
A list will be published in two days. I don’t believe in fate, but I trust in destinations. Wherever I’ll be led, I’ll consider it my place. No other option left. I’m a wanderer, usually, I have my spot in the way. In terms of logistics, they shouldn’t be a hassle. The suitcase I have is easy to carry and can be left anywhere, only kids want to steal it; an old kerchief folded on itself. God. I wish I could stay.
A list will be published in two days and, frankly speaking, I want to read certain numbers on it. I want to park my books on a shelf, keep my brushes in the left drawer, walk the same streets to meet my buddies… at least for some time, at least for a while. And if that’s not the case, fine, I’ll take the kerchief and fly. Maybe that’s best. Should I cool it or should I blow? This indecision's bugging me.
Rosa's revelations
“Hi lil’ rat!” “Hi Carmen! How did you know it was me?” “I read ROSA on my phone screen.” “What a nice full moon, right? What’s going on over there? Tell me!” “It’s my break week.” “Right. Then you must be watching Lebanese movies, skipping robe and reading who knows what odd stuff… As if I could see you through a peephole.” “Sharp view, Rose. What about you?” “Apart from my 18-hours-per-day job, not much. Oh, wait! What am I saying? I’ve had a crucial set of revelations!” “Sweet! Let me know about that, dear rat of mine.” “The thing is that I believe I’ve solved the three oldest questions of humankind.” “Oh my days!” “Oh my days?” “Yes! it’s a new expression I’ve recently learnt.” “I wonder how those Lebanese movies are subtitled these days…” “Don’t tell me, we come from a wave! I’ve always been sure a..” “No, no, no Carmen. It’s not about that. I’ve come to know how joy is actually built up, also how sadness is, even how art is.” “You kidding, right?” “Nope. I have the three answers… don’t you wanna find out? haha” “Out with it!!” “All right. Joy is the filling of an inner potential in the physical plane. It may happen with many of your potentials at the same time, but just one should be enough to feel like that. Your capacity is fully filled up and spills onto real life. And there it goes: joy! As simple as that.” “Awesome.” “Sadness is formed in the opposite way, an alien potential comes to the real plane and drops itself on your head, leaving your mental strengths buried” “Wow. Please go ahead.” “And art is the act of recognizing a recondite or essential part of oneself in something done by someone else, or by yourself in case of being an artist.” “ Hmm…” “What?” “Joy and sadness were ok, but in this one… doesn’t it sound too summarized?” “Hmm… what do you mean? I’m on a phone call, I have three minutes of break before going back to work again.” “Sorry, I said summarized, but I meant reducetionist, it is a reducetionist revelation Rosa, let me tell you. And it sounds postmodern. ” “Hmm…it could sound postmodern… so what!?” “ You sure you haven’t been reading the French gang lately?” “Enough! I don’t get time to even cut my nails in this shift of mine, I call you to share the most important conclusions I’ve reached in my life and you have nothing better to do than throw salt on my wound!” “ Aww Rosa, I’m so sorry about that.” “Fine! I’ve been listening the complete interviews of Deleuze on my headphones.” “All eight hours?! You mad!?” “Yeah… my boss would chop my hands if I held a book, so I’ve been playing those youtube videos on my cell, phone in pocket, in the middle of this din, pretending I was listening to the radio. I’ve earned every right to be a reducetionist. HAVEN’T I? Mental health and deep dissertations are incompatible with night shifts.” “ I don't think it posible for a person to work and listen to Deleuze over an earbud. But, lil' rat, I understand you."
Moms are a lost cause
It never rains to everyone’s liking. That’s a saying in Spanish. For the past weeks the sun has heated the walls of my flat so much that the very thought of rain flows down my body and triggers cracks in the floor tiles. Water… what an extraordinary happening over this land. When I was a kid this region was going through a historical drought. Mediterranean sky is like a caring mom, sometimes turns the ground into a bowl of mud-oranges soup to smooth our throats. But most of the year it wraps us in layers of woolen sun, and lull us in fever, leaving us somehow drugged.
Raindrops don’t fall as much as I would like, but again, it never rains to everyone’s liking, which means that clouds can’t please everyone... Pleasing. Pleasing is a subjective matter, or it seems so. It has as many ways as there are people beneath the sky. "Please, please me as I please." What a warped line. Sometimes I surprise myself when thinking in this language… but that’s the case for a lot of us. Some children of Adam want to be pleased, others want to please so that they get pleasure back, some of them even try to satisfy others through their own pain… scary, right? Well, moms often do that, also businessmen, teenagers, scholars, clumsy lovers, good souls from everywhere give away their suffering to indulge others, to get some love back, to hear a clap. Why? Isn’t it easier to please oneself, and after that freely please others only when to satisfy is a disinterested action, a real pleasure genuinely coming from inside? What’s wrong with us? Aren't we sent enough difficulties from the sky? Why do we need to complicate life even more? I’m not talking about clouds, pleasing, rain, orange soup, or selfishness, but about that dangerous idea, that concept of sacrifice.
Today I talked with mom about all of this stuff. Not about the rain, because she already knows about that. Guess what she said when I asked her to stop wearing down herself to make everyone happy. She quoted an Elton John line without realizing. “It’s no sacrifice at all.” Yeah, with moms it’s a lost cause.
False friends?
English and Spanish share some common words. Some of them mean the same thing, some of them don't. The second kind is unfairly called ‘false friends’. I confess I have a weakness for these… same length, same weight, same sound… and a supposedly different meaning to make you think about. Sometimes you really have to bite your tongue, I guess it is a natural instinct to fall into their fake love. But these babies tickle me somehow and I’m the kind of person who peacefully surrenders to a laugh.
Having said this, notice that misfortune is not necessarily shame, but desgracia sounds a lot like disgrace. It would be difficult to be worried and distracted at the same time, but you’d be if you were preocupado and also preoccupied. It is certainly not the same witnessing an event than witnessing a success, but suceso means the first. An exit is good to escape, but éxito is the actual success way. Something going on over here now will be considered actual, but not necessarily effective or real. The brave action of attempting becomes a facade when you mistake pretending with pretender. Inserting your persona in strangers is what you seem to aim if you talk about introducir yourself.
But keeping the tickling aside, there is a pair of false friends that fascinates me over all. Realizarse and to realize. The English word implies a step from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge, from blindness to vision, something like that, right? The Spanish one means to materialize your creativity, to satisfy your inner self, to bring your will to life. What a fortune to confuse these two verbs. What a genuine relationship they can share. I've got a crush on this couple of false friends.
The odd couple
The odd couple exists beyond Jack Lemmon and Neil Simon. It actually is a natural phenomenon going on at my flat now. Enough of perfect matching souls, wedding ribbons and better halves. We’ve seen too many of them throughout our lives. I’m going to vindicate weird couples, since the oddest one has got together in front of my eyes. It is an on and off relationship, I agree, but it has been formed thanks to me, and it usually lasts as long as a visit before leaving to France (which happens to be a lot): my old friend Luna and my brother Ignacio, ‘Lunigna’ to simplify. God knows whenever she comes over they both become a double headed freak and join strengths to bring the craziest side out of me.
Luna is barely 155 centimeters, Ignacio is around 191. She is a good witch, he is a scientific madman. She doesn’t see the need for wearing shoes, he doesn’t see the need for getting a cab (even if it is a shared one, in a foreign country, being completely lost , at 3 a.m. and without a map.) Yeah, they are both equally stubborn. Luna reads Rousseau and shamanic treatises, Ignacio reads manga and algebra papers. He plays online chess, she plays billiard at bars that look like dens. She listens to Camarón, he listens to Dire Straits. Luna smokes rolling snuff, Ignacio leads the anti-tobacco brigade. He lectures me about prime numbers, she holds forth over the secret of white rabbits. She speaks with a childish timber, he sounds like a biblical thunder.
Who said couples have to be alike... They just might share certain patterns. These two have nothing on Earth to do with each other, but when it comes to disagreeing with me, they are a pair of tanks lined up in a parade. “But Carmen, what are you trying to say? Wow, you really don’t make any sense.” “Forget it Luna, my sister doesn’t even know how to explain the most basics terms.”
Last night they boiled my blood like a frying pan heating tap water; now they are sleeping like innocent black and white angels. But revenge is a cold dish, and a blank document somehow a fridge to store my counter. I have to love Lunigna, though. They are just like Jessica and Roger Rabbit… or maybe more like Jerry and Tom or even like Hardy and Laurel.
Madrid
A good friend of mine wrote once that, in his heart, Barcelona was twenty five. Now that I think of Madrid, I guess I could write something like that. I still remember when I reached that city in a moving van. I was carrying with me a cheesy poster of Splendor in the Grass, the complete works of Gardel, and The Little Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach. I had a black covered notebook tied to my bag with an elastic rope and I used to take fast notes of whatever I saw, anything I heard, somethings I read and mostly what I felt as brand new, familiar or somewhere in between.
I was a hunter back then, just like I still am somewhat, but in Madrid the prey weren’t grazing and stretching before me; they sprinted at the speed of dreams in a transatlantic flight East to West, fleeting, in dry flames. They showed their shiny fur as in a colored film and danced aimlessly in the rain, up and down along the fire stairways, on the pavement of the backstreets as well. It was an animal ballet, it was a thrilling hunt.
I used to hold my mirrored gun and wait for the sun to leave before watering myself down in electric lights. I used to walk Madrid at night. I crossed it underground to reach Heinz’s store and joke with him about noir, yakuza and cinecitta’s. I used to travel in time whenever I went to Salvador’s class and later came back home floating on a cloud, my heart between my teeth, my blood gushing out.
Madrid was also a set of shut eyes facing the sun. It was the sleeping car of a slow train, shared with mom and dad. It was the 5-year-old me posing with a flower avenue at my back. Hopper’s strips, red ballroom heels, charioteers and dramatic plays. Madrid was older than me, but it was also twenty five.
My life with Rob
Rob was white-brown-black. He had a hole in his leg and something going on in his ear that made him unable to keep balance, avoid idiots and jump on time to fall with elegance. I never cared. In winters, he liked to sit on the couch besides the brazier. Heaters in this remote part of the world have a spacecraft shape and are located below a round table in the center of the living. The table is covered by thick cloths with fringes on its edge and Rod used to play with them on the couch while I took siesta. Once he scratched my eyelid making me wake up in the most unexpected pain. I remember he stared at me paralyzed, feeling the wound on my face like it was tearing his heart apart.
He wanted to smell nice, so I used to shower him in the bathtub and place him under the round table, close to the heat, to dry him up. He didn’t move an inch till his hair was afro-style. That annoyed the hell out of my roommates “He’s not supposed to be so scented. It’s not natural.” But what could I do? He liked to look smart.
Sometimes he had to go to the closet and wait in there for a while. Mom was visiting me and she didn’t like white-brown-black guys. I embarrassingly apologized to him and gave him a puppy dog glance while sealing his mouth with a hush. He knew how to behave and got my back.
At nights he used to go mad and cry. The shouting usually lasted till I opened my bedroom door and let him lie down on my pillow. Then he stomped my head and messed my hair up. I didn't mind.
One day a roommate got a red rash… he was just too jealous of Rob and asked him to leave the flat. He found a girl from the other side of town and left me behind. Years have passed. I think I can’t move on, though. I want Rob back.
Dear Jan
Dear Jan,
I haven’t heard from you for the past two months. I guess you may be already in Nuremberg getting ready for your course, or perhaps back to Sheffield babysitting that sod, or hopefully plucking apples with Vincent at Limoges. I miss you so much. My mother got a parcel sent from the east coast, she said your surname was written in the return address. I’ll go get it next weekend, I’ve not been home lately, you know. I bet it’s one of those film magazines they publish annually. You are a kind soul.
Days are getting shorter and piling up nicely. I’ve been cleaning up the shelves and organizing them. I found a book you lent me some time ago. I’ll let you guess which one it is by a quote: “Then he also left, leaving forgotten in the little hotel three shirts, an unpaired sock, a walking stick with ivory handle, a shower gel with sandalwood and two phone numbers written by pen in the plastic shower curtain.” Read it again.
I knew you’d guess it on the second round.
I’ve been trying to remember our last talk. I know it lasted for two hours and that we screamed with laughter, but I can barely recall something about an unfinished preface, Ancient Carthage and some incident with your loan. I hope things are going better between you and Paul. He's a stone in your road, though. You are a kind soul.
Sorry for not picking up the phone. I know you called me a few weeks ago. I was probably scribbling some nonsense and then I completely forgot about it. I’ve just remembered you asked me for a recording of me fooling around with those tales by Chukovsky. I might do it one of these mornings. I promise this time; you'll get it by fall. Let me know if you need me to check something of yours out. You know I’m a mess but I'm always down for your stuff. You are a kind soul. I miss you so much.
The man holding the mirror (an ode to Kiarostami)
Shirin, what a merciless prince stole the flame of your thoughts and the lightness of your heart. Why did he do so? Why did he put such a heavy stone on the top of your head? Did he want to test his aim with a bow? To hit the stone and set you free from its weight? Why did he place the stone then?
I can see you Shirin, I can recognize every feature of your face, every gesture of your hand holding your cheek, pinching your lip, clearing your forehead. I know from where all those tears well, I know that snowy mountain, I’ve been to that place. I know what's behind your eyeballs, what’s covered by your veil. But he doesn’t know, Shirin. He cannot understand. He doesn’t burn in fire, he doesn’t pour his water, he only watches the flames. What a thirst for ashes, what a pointless ignition, smoke, and lack of breath.
I guess you Shirin, I trace you along Negar’s jaw, I spot you between the eyebrows of Juliette, I encounter you at the edge of the right lashes of Golshifteh. We all drank from the same breast. What an incandescent signal, what an unconcealed leak. I know you Shirin. I’ve met you everywhere. You are under the surface of the river whenever I stare. I did notice your loneliness, your glance off into space. He’s in the other side, projected with his aim... but I’m in your line of the stalls, I’m facing the screen as well, under the same lighting, sparkling the same way. I can relate Shirin, I can relate.
Lucy (not a review of the movie at all)
Last night. Four people of an uncertain age in a car heading to the movie theater. A figurine of Jabba the Hutt hanging from the rearview mirror. Average percent of brain usage barely reaching 10 point 01. Let’s name them Do, Re, Mi and Fa, so that my spell checker doesn’t go mad. Fa is a female, Do and Re are apparently guys. Mi is just me. Ok, nevermind, the thing is that at some point Fa randomly asks: “If you could have a superpower, what power would you want to have?”
Mi: “Ok Do, you want to be invisible, but would you want people to be able to pass through you, or not? You have to specify.”
Do: “No, people could not. Though this power would include a shield, just like in X-men; I’m loyal to the conventions I mean.”
Re: “I’d definitely want people to walk me through.”
Do: “That’s cheating.”
Mi: “Do, you don’t get it; Re just wants invisibility to cross the road without being hit by a car ha ha ha”
Re: “My life is sad and full of miseries. I have to admit that’s probably my inner desire. ”
Fa: “I’d go just for the shield. It would be a permanent one, so I could forever preserve my life from any attack... and also keep away crow-guys.”
Do: “You know nothing in this field Fa. I think telepathy would be better than that.”
Mi: “But you want it just for yourself? Or also for others? Just pointing out that if there is no one else with telekinesis to communicate with, there would be no fun.”
Do: “How illiterate you guys are. I’d use it to read and control people’s minds, including yours and your guys-protection-shield Fa. Of course also to move objects, bend spoons and stuff... oh wait, came that with telekinesis?”
Fa: “That’s just evil! Re was right, it would be useful to see who’s an idiot at first glance.”
Re: I’m telling you guys, that’s the best superpower; you see douchebags covered by a red light… God I wish I really had that… I wouldn’t have wasted my life with random conversations… like this one…
Mi: C’mon Re, I’m sick and tired of you censuring us whenever we talk hypothetically… I’d want to be able to speak every known language or at least to use 2% more of my brain.
Fa: Mi, I thought you said you wanted to be able to teletransport.
Re: Mi wants teletrasportation just cause she can’t pass the driving license exam ha ha ha
Mi: Wow Re, look at you, you’re kinda under a red light.
Re: That’s the stop signal hitting this window, don’t get confused little sister.
Do: I don’t recommend teletransportation… we wouldn’t do any exercise. Not a healthy choice at all.
Fa: Well, you could get to the gym in the blink of an eye.
Do: You kidding me? If I could teletransport myself to Scarlett Johansson's flat and stay invisible, I wouldn’t lift a goddamn weight anymore for the rest of my life.
Competitive skills (an attempt competition letter)
