Through the Lens, Through Myself

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I open the window, and there's a parade outside. People are marching with flags, celebrating something. Poor fools on poor land.

They gave me a huge room that looked more like a corridor. It was completely empty. It needed furniture. If I put a chair in the far corner, it would immediately feel better.

I'm in a man's bed. Clumsy, hurried movements. He turns his back to me and waits for me to leave. There are terrifying spiders on the floor. I scream, and he turns around and crushes them with his hand, almost with pleasure. It's a pleasure he never experienced while holding me or kissing me.

So many crosses, all broken into pieces.

"Anne, look."

She says she's not much of an admirer of such things. She's upset with me, angry. For some reason, I had slept somewhere warm, and she hadn't.

I want my old clothes back.

"Anne, please, come with me. I'll buy us coffee, and we can sit somewhere warm."

I guess so.

I suspect that the sound of you laughing is as pleasing to the ears as the smile on your face is as beautiful to the eyes.

Me: "Then we are in trouble."

We got out of bed. They found the condom there and were very upset. For some reason, I wanted to say that the condom was unopened, as if that made any difference. We left the room. He stood on the stairs at the entrance to the apartment and played the saxophone while I smoked in the doorway. He played magnificently and soulfully. Grisha came up and told him: "You'd better never play again. You have absolutely no talent."

We went down the stairs and ended up on a broken, rusty carousel in an abandoned lot. Next door, past the fence, our neighbors were having a party. We started talking about something important. I said some very important words about myself, which I can't remember now. It didn't matter who I was saying them to. I was saying them to myself, because I didn't love him, and he probably wasn't listening anyway. Then I looked back and saw the neighbors' girls sitting behind us, laughing. They wanted to mock my words, but didn't. One of them was very heavy. As if out of spite, I pushed the rusty carousel, and it started spinning. The heavy girl began to fall. I told them to hold on tight. Everyone was laughing.

I jumped off and ran up the green slope. You were there, on the slope, sitting in a lounge chair. You were watching me from afar. I ran toward you, but an Spanish mailman stopped me. He said: "I've been looking for you for an eternity to deliver your documents. We don't sign things here; we use a fingerprint." I put my fingerprint on the receipt. He looked me in the eyes from under his brow. I asked: "What? Do you want to ask me out on a date?" He answered: "No." He was unattractive and balding. I said: "Oh, you deserve a spanking for an answer like that to a beautiful woman." He replied: "You deserve a spanking for talking like that." Turning around, I said: "With pleasure. Set a date, I'll show up, and you can spank me."

I burst out laughing and ran to you to translate this Spanish conversation into English for you. Watching me run toward you, you smiled and leaned back in your lounge chair. Suddenly, you changed, wrapped your arms around yourself, and said: "I'm so cold." Your wife came over and covered you with a blanket. She looked back at me running toward you. Laughing, I leaped right over your shoulder, pretending we were strangers and I was just fooling around. I started jumping and flying up with each leap. I jumped over a ravine and found myself at the top, in an abandoned garden. There was an old wooden gazebo there, slowly falling apart. I was hanging from the beams, along with some other young folks from that neighbors' party. Then they flew further, taking long leaps. But I was afraid to fall.

I closed my eyes and, instead of flying, learned to travel through thoughts. Beneath my feet, I saw the flying earth. I crossed a desert, saw a lonely traveler trudging through it, lingered there for a moment, and moved on. I opened my eyes, finding myself in a square in my city. White light and dry stones. The sound of the sea and solitude.