Looking Down, Looking Up

Melancholy...
shredding volley
riding waves of raving folly,
Misery
odd scraps of plunder
hiding hind old crippled thunder,
Mourning laments
thick and slurry
dished in mangled vulgar hurry,
Crumbling body,
dying time,
fading senses,
waning rhyme...1

#2

"What are you doing there?"3

I heard the accent, definitely American. And definitely only an American would be nosy enough and high nosed enough to stick his nose (hey, three noses in a row...) in matters not his in a country not his in a language not his. I emphasized the masculinity of the remarks in my mind in disregard of and because of the fact that the voice was definitely a... feminine one. They and their politically correct sh... oops... I stopped thinking as the delicate balancing act I was performing demanded all my attention or disaster could ensue.4

Well, admittedly I did present some kind of an oddity under the grey Belgian skies of Brussels at this very moment. My car parked in customary double parking fashion, driver's door wide open taking up at least another half of a car's lane, and I perched on one leg at the side of a building bordering the pedestrian walkway and performing the most stupid of pantomimes for anyone paying any attention. Not that any real Belgian would ever pay any attention to anything short of a kid making noise in the apartment above. Thus one did not have to be a genius to guess the voice belonged to something very un-Belgian like. I leaned over the low balustrade making motions as if to chase ghosts away, with one finger moving softly back and forth towards the remote wall, looking closely, then repeating the motion. After about five minutes of this strange performance I finally cleaned my index finger on my trousers and turned towards my car.5

She was sitting on the hood, head to one side, a silly grin lighting her face (against deep reluctance I had to use the word lighting), and as I turned around she clapped her hands and saluted me in mock fashion as if I was supposed to know her for years now. Damn Americans, think they own the world I thought again, and thus satisfied with my silent declaration of independence I allowed myself a contemptuous look of superiority measuring the said specimen head to toes, then back up again. I was expecting a cringing look of disapproval, a snorting hurt look of I am not a female object of desire you retarded francophone chauvinist and an energetic depart with flaming cheeks and dancing buttocks. Well, my first disappointment... or was it a disappointment? She accepted my inspection with genuine pleasure showing in her eyes... her eyes... once I reached them again on my way back from her toes I froze. Something definitely green, definitely deep, definitely, well, indefinable clamped all of a sudden its hidden hand on my mind and with the rigidity of a desert desiccated rock kept my head in its temporary position in the final leg of its journey and didn't let go. Mesmerized... bewitched... were the words jumping into my mind with an impossibility to do anything about it. 6

"Hey, wake up..." a pair of fingers snapping right into my face relegated reality its unalienable rights and I jumped back, almost tumbling over the balustrade in my rear. She started laughing, bending down as if in terrible stomach pain, and finally pulled a hanky blowing her nose and pushing it into her narrow sleeve. "So, now that I passed the first inspection, and you almost broke your neck over it, care to tell me about this pantomime you were performing against this wall?"7

She was still hiccupping, then laughing, then hiccupping... I decided I had nothing to lose so I smiled back, went to my car, opened the passenger door and bowed in mock gallantry.8

"Would you take a coffee with me? Then I will tell you all about it."9

She may have been confident, but not that confident. She hooked her eyes into mine, why was I feeling again this drilling sensation as if of twangs getting into depths of me never investigated before? Then the red of her hair passed in a flaming blur before my face as she got into the car, a white leg showing immodestly a bit more than expected to be shown, and allowing me to click the door closed behind her. I got behind the wheel and looked at her carefully from close by. Rounded lines, bordering on plumpy, rounded pouting lips bordering on indecency, a sea of freckles showing up on the temptation of bare shoulders...10

"You are not going to rape me or something?..." I asked, sounding almost hopeful.11

"A Belgian with a sense of humor and reasonable spoken English. How refreshing," she retorted, pulling down the dress to her knees and watching straight ahead. "You forget that I am the stranger tempted into a strange car in a strange city, risking her life and virginity..." the smile was debilitating to my senses... "for the sake of knowing a secret she doesn't really care for."12

"So why accept the invitation?"13

"Maybe because it is not the secret so much as the secret's owner that drew my attention."14

I didn't drive too far. Brussels is not a city short of coffee shops or tea rooms or bars or you name it. I squeezed my car into a tight spot, hang on the window an old pink police notice hoping the agent on duty will not pay attention to its age, took her hand with absolutely no hesitation and guided her to the back of a noisy bar which started filling up with youngsters in search of a good ephemeral time out. It was getting dark, I found a table towards the back of the establishment far from the huge loudspeakers, and pulled a chair for her.15

"Old fashioned..." she murmured.16

"Polite..." I smiled back and went to the counter ordering two beers. I returned to the table to find her in a heated discussion with an imposing youngster at the table next to ours. "New friends already? So short in our relationship and you are already cheating on me?"17

"Just asking him kindly and determinedly to respect the no smoking sign above his head. So short in our relationship and you try to get me drunk already? It was supposed to be a coffee." She pulled the bottle from my hand, drank half of it in one go, dried her mouth with the back of her hand, and took out a small notice book from her purse. "OK, now the truth and all truth and nothing but the truth. What was it all about there on the street?"18

"Hey, you a journalist or something? And here I was thinking the beautiful gringo fell under my Latino charms and I am in for an easy lay and easier good bye," I answered, taking a long sip from my bottle and fixing those incredible eyes for the umpteenth time. She did not answered straight away, did not even smile.19

"I did not tell you I am a witch, did I?" she asked not releasing my regard for a second.20

"No, neither did I tell you I am in reality a frog just kissed into humanity by a princess which meanwhile ran away with the gardener," making an effort not to avert my regard under the green salvo pouring from those eyes.21

"And neither did you tell me you did not have sex for at least five years now and you are still waiting for the big love of your life to sweep you off your feet." This time she did smile and helped me close my hanging lower jaw. She finished her bottle, took mine and finished it as well, got up pushing unceremoniously past the big guy she had the argument with and returned with two other bottles. How the hell did she know it, I asked myself sipping carefully on my drink and watching her sipping on hers. "Simple," she said, "I read it in your eyes. Otherwise I would not have joined you in that dilapidated car of yours."22

"Dilapidated? This is a brand new BMW dear unnamed lady, a jewel, not a car."23

"Not even a GPS..."24

"But one hundred and seventy horses..."25

"Give me just one horse, muscle and sweating blood between my legs..."26

Here we were, not even knowing each other's name and we were having already our first fight. Did it mean something?27

"I was saving a spider..." I said, waiting for her to finish spraying beer through her nose, coughing her laughter away, mopping the shirt of the big guy which did not seem too appreciative of the sudden humidity hitting his neck, and wiping watery eyes in a brand new hanky she pulled from her purse. This one found its way next to the previous one in her sleeve. "Do you collect them?" I asked.28

"Saving a spider?" she answered, disbelief, amusement, wonder, and... something else building itself inside those green sunsets.29

"Yes. A youngster. It suddenly dangled from a thin line just in front of my eyes inside the car. So I had to stop, I picked up the thin web in my fingers and you saw me just as I was trying to balance it and persuade it to attach itself to the wall."30

"Saving a spider..." she repeated the words one mindedly, no question mark attached to the end of the statement this time, but distinctively hearing the three dotted infliction in her accent. "To be eaten by a bird, or squashed by a shoe, or dried by the sun, or die of pure and simple lack of flies supply."31

"I had to make a choice. I made it. It is a life."32

"It is a bug."33

"It is a life. It was my choice. I made my choice."34

"Are you some kind of a nut?" she asked, no mockery in her tone, just lots of question mark.35

"It's a matter of definition," I answered. "Yesterday I saved two bees. Define nut."36

The hours crawled by, the bottles piled on our table, what did we discuss? What did we not? Life, creation, abortion, poetry, the war in Iraq, European disunity, famine, trust, loyalty, capital punishment, religion, free love... The subjects flowing into each other, the words flowing into the subjects. She looked at her watch. The ring on her finger as blinding as a sun at midday.37

"I will call you a cab," I said. 38

"Don't you want to take me to the hotel?" she asked.39

"I drank too much," I lied.40

"Thank you," she lied.41

I watched the parting red tails of the cab as it swerved into traffic and within seconds disappearing from sight. Suddenly I had this guts wrenching feeling to have missed the one occasion in my life to life. I pulled the new blue police notice from behind my car's wiper... the bastards... returned to the bar and kept drinking by myself till I fell asleep in a pile of stinking vomit I didn't even remember retching.42

#43

I heard the knock on the door, and waited for the bell to ring. There was a knock again. I looked irritated at the wall clock, who the hell would knock on my door on a Saturday at twenty minutes past noon? I hope it is not again Jehovah's Witnesses I thought to myself angrily as I went to the door with the half cut onion in one hand and the sharp knife in the other, ready to shove both in their faces and scare them away once and for all. I pulled the door open. An emaciated face, a pair of grey eyes, a battered suitcase carrying several unidentified stickers.44

"Your eyes are grey," I said. 45

"They are always grey when I am worried, or in pain, or angry."46

"And which of those are you now?"47

"I don't know yet. I will know soon. Am I late?" She was not laughing, not to the best of my interpretation of that haunted look on her face. I did not answer. I picked up the PDA from my shirt pocket, palming the onion like a beginner magician and picking it between thumb and forefinger, then pocked at its keys with the tip of the kitchen knife. "You will damage it," she added, as I kept poking at the plastic screen leaving small indentations wherever I touched.48

"You are three years, seventy six days, fourteen hours and twenty two minutes late," I finally answered, pocketing back the soiled computer. "And an advancing number of seconds," I added, my face impassive, my chest thundering soundlessly.49

"I always sucked at math. Is it just late or too late?" she asked further, glints of green sparkling for a few moments in her eyes and drowning again in the grey mass.50

"How did you find me?" I asked back, not willing to answer, unable to answer.51

"I noted your car license plate number. It was easy."52

"It was not easy, this was a leased car. I changed twice since."53

"You will be surprised how easily corruptible lease companies are these days. It took me just one week to find you. Then three more weeks to find out if you were... free."54

"Did you follow me?"55

"Yes."56

"I thought you were a witch, you could know everything about me without asking."57

"True, for that I would have to look into your eyes. I did not have the opportunity."58

"And now that you have the opportunity what do you see?" I asked angrily, feeling my left hand squeezing the onion till drops started falling on the floor and the pungent odor started stinging my eyes. She got closer to me, eyes unblinking, breath irregular, gasping...59

"Five years plus three more and you have not yet touched a woman still waiting for the big love of your life to sweep you off your feet."60

"Lucky guess..." I said, unconvinced.61

She looked at me for another full minute, then lowered her eyes to the onion in my hand and smiled.62

"Looks delicious. I am hungry."63

I looked down at my right hand, the knuckles around the knife's handle white, trembling.64

"Looks painful, sharp."65

"Will you keep me out here until my cab comes?" It did not register on my mind immediately, I believe I filtered out some words, or maybe they were not said at all. I let her in, carrying her suitcase and amazed at its lightness. I lead her to my living room watching her sink gratefully into the deep armchair. Old Toy dragged his creaking frame forward wagging his tail in happy dog fashion, licked her knee several times, then lay at her feet falling asleep instantly. I returned to the kitchen and continued where I was interrupted from. "I did not know you have a dog."66

"You did not know many things," I answered, my efforts at indifference failing miserably, at least now there was the drinks counter which separated us. "Where have you been all this time?" I asked.67

"I was sick."68

"Flu?" I asked, wishing almost immediately to have been better at hiding the derision in my voice.69

"Cancer," she answered, and as I turned in one wild motion towards her I caught her looking at my back, smiling. "Now she left me, but one never knows."70

I laid the knife on the kitchen table and went over to sit across from her.71

"She?"72

"Yes, you know, cancer and love are always she's for me. Once they bite they never let go, same like a woman. Maybe a bad analogy, but both grow uncontrollably, both leave deep wounds in your body, both have this insatiable need to control your life."73

"One is death. One is life."74

"Well, no analogy is perfect."75

"So is it a is or a was?"76

She hesitated, measuring carefully my regard, as I was watching here and there those green sparks trying to surface now and again, then sinking back into those immeasurable depths.77

"A was, but you never know. Look at me, it took me three years, seventy six days, fourteen hours and twenty two minutes to get back to you. She may come back as well, it is a she. Unpredictable. This part of the analogy works."78

"You still wear your ring. Though I see it moved to your right hand."79

"Divorced, one and a half years ago. We stayed good friends. The ring is a protection against certain characters."80

"Like me."81

"Unlike you." She took the ring off her finger and placed it on the table. "I will leave it here, a memory. One needs memories to keep on living. I don't think you have many. So for whatever it is worth I leave with you a memory. Will this stew take much longer? My stomach demands certain rights, you know... I may be a witch but I am a hungry witch." 82

"And what will be your memory?" I asked, fearful of any answer, unable to think any deeper than the sensation of pure fear that suddenly started sipping into my bones and was sinking now heavily and painfully in the rest of my body.83

"A good lunch?..." she exploded in laughter, waking up poor Toy who moved to another corner of the room, far from those noisy humans. Everything about her laughed, her face, her mouth, even her chest, so much thinner that the previous time I remembered. Yet there was quiet in her eyes, no laughter, no expectations, just grey clouds.84

"When is your cab coming?"85

"I asked for it at five."86

"And when do you fly?"87

"Don't know the time exactly, about eight, I have to look at the ticket."88

"Can I see it?"89

"Of course." She started digging inside her voluminous purse, pulling out the various occasional feminine traveler's treasures - lipstick, several packs of hankies, an unopened pack of female pads... blushing... loose change, a few chocolate bars bitten into... "Here it is. Let's see..."90

"May I?" She handed me over the tickets, the earlier blush deepening around her cheeks, down her neck. "You were here two months. It took you a week to find me. The rest to follow me. Today you fly back and you come to visit me just a few hours before your plane leaves. Why?"91

She started stuffing the things back in her purse, unceremoniously pushing the items one after the other in no special order.92

"Maybe because I did not intend to come even now. Maybe because I did not want to impose. Maybe because I am a sentimental fool."93

"We are three years older, do you realize that?"94

"Yes, and since you are older than I am it means that percentage wise the impact is stronger on me..." she was not going to cry but the twitch in her chin was unmistakable.95

"I thought you suck at math."96

"I lied." She pulled a handkerchief from one of the packs and dabbed at her eyes. I did not react. Just got up and out of the room and returned a few moments later with an envelope in my hand. I opened it and pulled the thin piece of paper from inside and laid it on the table in front of her, next to the plane ticket. "What is this?" she asked, looking at the dried up beer label.97

"I peeled it from the first bottle of beer we drank together. I decided to keep it. Maybe because I am a sentimental fool too?" 98

I got up, went to the kitchen again and returned with a pair of scissors, placing it between the ticket and the label. Then took the ring from the table top, slid it on the ring finger of her left hand and waited. Toy was watching us with big tired eyes from his safe corner. Then he crawled closer by, laid his head on his front paws to get a better look at the drama evolving before his eyes. Speaking of dog intuition...99

I regarded her eyes, watching another evolution. Uncertain what it was going to be. Yet knowing that one way or another it will be decided here, today. It could not have happened three years ago, it will not happen three years from now. Here, now. Something began to bubble in the depths of those eyes, little flickers lighting up and then turning off again, white spots penetrating the grey fog turning blue, turning green, turning white again, whirling waves hitting against the iris attempting to break it then giving in to the resilience of regard, will, determination... Her right hand moved picking up the scissors, her left hand moved picking up the ticket and with one swift swish cutting it in two. The eyes... suddenly thousands of fountains opened up pouring the richness of forest green inside the grey, beyond the grey, inside life.100

"Maybe because I am in love," she said.101

"Maybe because I am in love," I echoed.102

"Maybe because I am hungry," she said.103

"Maybe because I am hungry," I echoed.104

We kneeled against each other, the love, the hunger devouring us as our mouths fused in a raging abandon of blood, pain, and hope.105

#106

Blinding flashes...
scrambling lashes
waking dragons drowned in ashes,
Memories'
attempted howling
as the hurricane starts scowling,
Sunshine streaming
rich and raving
feeding lust to ease the craving,
Waking body,
rolling time,
screaming senses,
smiling rhyme...107