Mandy Jane

Her name was Mandy-Jane, she fancied herself as a bit of a folk singer and carried a guitar with her most of the time. They had met in a café Ache was at sometimes at the weekend, it was a community place, locals, students, artists, people with laptops, browsing the web for latest bargains, drinking coffee, reading books.

Mandy-Jane was sitting there with her guitar case a sandwich on a plate in front of her and a large café latte in her hand. The other hand held a biro and hovered over a bit of paper. Ache had nodded at her and asked whether it was ok for him to squeeze in.

‘Go ahead and squeeze all you want,’ she had said and a grin flashed over her freckled face. He squeezed and stirred his coffee for a while staring into the swirl inside the cup until the girl said something.

‘Sorry I didn’t hear you.’

‘If you are from around here?’

‘Yeah, sort of, down the road two blocks west and another south.’ He nodded.

‘I’m from the southwest too.’

‘Well I wouldn’t hardly call it the southwest, it’s just southwest from here.’

‘Oh!’ She looked a little perplexed for a moment.

“Where are you from?’

‘I am from the Southwest, proper, born and bred.’ She grinned again, showing big teeth.

‘Texas,’ he asked with the lone star state the only one that popped into his head quick enough to continue a conversation.

‘No,’ she frowned, ‘New Mexico.’

‘Ah,’ he nodded as if he knew the place by heart, ‘whereabouts?’

‘Las Vegas, and no it’s not that Las Vegas, it’s a small place close to Santa Fe.’

He shook his head.

‘Never heard of it.’

‘It was along the Santa Fe trail.’

‘I heard of that, but I can’t say I know much about it.’

‘Well I don’t either, although, we were taught a lot about it in School. It didn’t much interest me though, I think I was more interested in Janice Joplin and Madonna and boys of course as you are when you are in your teens. Anyhow it’s just a small place that gets real cold in winter and too hot in summer and apart from that there isn’t much to do there.’

‘I have never been to a place where there isn’t much to do, although I think I spend the first few years of my life in one of them, but after that it was just the city.’

‘I like it here, I like the city.’

‘I like it too but it’s starting to turn grey on me.’

‘How do you mean?’

I mean, I am starting to crave a place with nothing much to do and a pace that is impossibly slow when compared.’

‘Maybe you should go and visit before packing up, I mean there is really nothing to do out there.’

‘There are bars and cinemas and restaurants no doubt, and a few shops and a petrol station.’

‘Yeah there is all that, but there is no jobs. All them towns are slowly packing up. It’s pretty, but you can’t live on pretty.’

Ache nodded, but he didn’t clearly understand what the young woman was saying. It wasn’t plain like in black and white it was way more complicated, but you couldn’t know it if you weren’t from a place like it.

‘Everyone knows your business out there too, it’s sort of impossible to keep something a secret.’

‘Yeah well why would you need to keep things secret in the first place, might give people the idea you are hiding something or doing something you aren’t supposed to in the first place.’

‘Well maybe you are, there is a lot of wife swapping going on just that not everyone knows they are swapping theirs and that sort of thing can escalate and then blow up with a bang leaving people in a puddle of blood sometimes. Half the town ain’t on good terms because of things like that.’

‘Really?’

‘Well maybe I’m exaggerating, to make the place more interesting,’ she winked, ‘it would make me more interesting too.’

‘You play the guitar or do you just carry a case to look more interesting.’

‘Well what do you think?’

‘Honestly, I couldn’t say.’

‘I’ve played the darn thing ever since I was 9 years old.’

‘Is that what you do for a living?’

“I wait tables mostly, but I do get a little from playing the guitar too, just trying to pen some new songs. I got a gig in a few days.’

‘Writing the lyrics, hm?’ He edged closer. ‘And how are you doing.’

‘Well to be frank not so good cos I’ve been talking to you mostly.’

‘Well you were the one starting this, I just wanted to get a seat.’

‘I’m easily distracted.’

‘By yourself.’

‘Yeah, I know it.’

‘Maybe we get to carry on with the conversation some other time.’

‘Now you are asking me out!’

‘I am not!’

‘Why not?’

‘Why not?”

‘Yeah, why not? Anything wrong with me and that is why not?’

‘Shit! I didn’t come here to pick anyone up.’

‘You haven’t picked anyone up, I ain’t that easy, and besides you haven’t even tried proper and if you did, well I might just turn you down anyhow.’

‘So why would I ask?’

‘You couldn’t tell for sure if you didn’t and it would nag you not to be sure.’

He sighed.

‘Would you like to meet up sometime?’

‘Sure, why not. Unless you are some sort of weird pervert of course, but I don’t think you are and you probably wouldn’t tell me if you were. Come to my gig on Thursday it’s at a place called The Red Rooster, come down and we can have a drink after.’

‘And I get to see you play.’

‘There is that, but you got to pay to get in for that.’

He sighed.

She shrugged. ‘Nothing’s for free!’

That said Thursday Ache put a little more thought into what he was to wear that day, tried a couple of shirts before settling for white one in a retro cut. He put on his well worn leather jacket had second thoughts about shoes for shoes were important, the wrong pair worn by a girl could easily turn him away and so he could spend a great length at selecting the right pair for himself. He felt good when he left the house that day, sill felt good when he left work in the evening, had a bite to eat on the way, then went on to the place the girl had said. He had heard the name before, but had never been and now he stood outside a low one storey building with a flat roof and a red rooster glowing up on a pole towering above the building with head and tail appearing to move making the thing look as if it was dancing.

It wasn’t quite what he had expected and neither was the crowd of men that paid the cover charge to enter. There was a long dark corridor after he entered with a few neon signs that flashed on and off and the whole place almost dark enough to get lost in. Where the corridor ended it opened up into a big room with a ceiling that seemed higher than you thought possible from the outside. There was a small stage on one end with a barstool on it that waited to be occupied. The bar was at the other end and it was the end he turned to now to get a bottle of beer not because he was thirsty, but just to hold something in his hand, cos a feeling of unease had come over him and that feeling grew as he worked his way through the crowd and noticed the girls who took to dancing in front of men and gradually shed their clothes as they did. He felt himself tense up some but knew she was not here for that but was here to play her guitar and sing her songs, quite possibly songs she had penned on the afternoon they had met at the other end of town and in broad day light.

He took a drink from his beer and moved closer to the stage when the light in the room started dimming and the volume of the music faded all the way, until there was no more music and the only thing that made noise now was the noise of the punters and the girls who gave dances. The light on the stage itself was turned down all the way until he could hardly make out the barstool that stood at the centre of it. And then a spot light came on in a deep glow of orange and grew wider until it stopped. He held his breath and waited, but didn’t have to for long before Mandy-Jane came walking up on the stage holding her guitar by the neck and holding it somehow away from herself, wearing high heeled stilettos and nothing else and he couldn’t help but had his eyes move over her naked body, from her face to her breasts and down to her belly and further down to her crotch. There it stayed for a moment before taking in her legs that looked longer yet because of the shoes she wore and then moved up to her breasts again and then she sat down on the chair and the guitar started to cover most of her nakedness apart from one breasts which kept peeking out from behind and he kept noticing it even when he was listening to her play and sing, which was when he had to admit to himself that she was a pretty decent act and that wasn’t just because she didn’t wear any clothes, although, and he admitted to that as well, he might be a little partial because of it.

At first the audience went quiet to let her play and they were attentive and careful to listen, but gradually the noise level rose again and it got harder to follow the lyrics.

She would have played about forty minutes before she got up in the same manner she had arrived, bowed for the audience and was promptly awarded with applause and some yelling and whistling, she stood there for a minute and then turned abruptly and walked into the dark at the back of the stage and the whistling got louder and Ache was still clapping and admiring the movement of her hips and admiring her ass just as much as he had thought to admire her music before and the thought sobered him and he turned to sit by the bar and wait, to see whether she would come out and remember to find him. He had waited about twenty minutes and was considering to order another beer when he saw her come down and towards him carrying the case with the guitar and walking tall and upright and proud and the men nodded at her respectfully, even when some of them grinned as they gave her thumbs up for the performance.

She rested the case on an empty stool but didn’t let go of it as she looked at him and smiled in a tight artificial sort of way he thought.

‘You look great,’ he thought again.

‘Shall we get out of here?’ She asked.

‘Yes, yes and he grinned like everyone else had and rose and grinned more now cos he knew that he was taking her out now, whereas everyone else had only been staring. They got to the street and then walked and slowly the grin died away and when it had he glanced at her from the side.

‘You were good.’

‘I was?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well thanks,’ she said and the comment was laced with sarcasm.

There was a pause.

‘You were naked! I mean I didn’t realize you would be.’

‘It was either play naked or don’t play is what they said.’

He nodded and they walked.

‘You carried it off pretty well, you didn’t look uncomfortable or anything.’

‘Well I felt nervous I didn’t want to look uncomfortable as well, it would have ruined it.’

‘Yeah,’ he nodded, ‘you are right. What should we do now?’

‘I could really use a drink,’ she said and it wasn’t long before they turned into a bar and she got him to get her a beer and a tequila to go with it and he got himself the same and then they went and sat on a small round table in a corner of the bar, right next to an old grand piano which was never being played anymore.

‘I’m not proud of being naked when I’m playing, but I’m still proud of the songs. They are mine.’

‘You are proud anyway,’ he said, ‘you are a proud woman and I knew it the first time we met.’

‘OK,’ she said, ‘I just didn’t want you to take me for a tramp just because I play the guitar with no clothes on, it’s not like that.’

She raised the tequila and then downed it in one and took a drink from the bottle and after that you could tell that she had switched off and was more relaxed than before.

‘It’s good of you to come, I wasn’t sure you would.’

‘I said I would.’

‘People say a lot.’

‘Well I like to stick to my word.’

‘That makes you a gentleman.’

He felt his ears growing hot.

‘I think it just means I got some principals.’

‘Well I am glad you did, cos I wanted to get out of there and not with some pervert on my tail.’

He felt a tinge of disappointment, rise and fall when he realized that she had played him.

‘That’s all?

‘What did you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You asked me out!’

‘You made me.’

‘You are a nice guy.’

He nodded and drank his tequila and looked around the place they were in and noted other women in conversation, throwing their hair back and smiling at the guys they were with and then he saw himself at the table with the girl who had been naked not long ago, but was no longer and he somehow knew that he would not see her like that again unless he would watch her once more at the Rooster.

‘Cheers,’ he said and grinned at her, the sudden sadness still with him and the smile somewhat forced and wooden.

‘Come on don’t be cross, at least this is a way to get to know each other.’

‘Not cross,’ he said. ‘What music do you like?’

‘Jolie Holland, Howe Gelb, Lucinda Williams. Country stuff and folk and rock, I like guitars, I like it when they get dirty, start sliding. When you hear the distortion doing the playing, but you can still feel the melody underneath. I like the old blues guys like Mississippi John Hurt and the Carter Family and really all in all I like a lot of different stuff.’

‘I hardly know any of those!’

‘Well I can write them down for you.’

‘It’s OK,’ he shook his head, somewhat pained now and wanting to get away and he offered to get another round of drinks which was one way to get away.

‘Make it the same for me,’ she said and grinned and the tequila showed in that grin.’

When he returned with their drinks on a tray she pushed a page of her notebook towards him and smiled and his heart leaped for a painful moment, and then he read over the list she had made for him and he realized there was no mention of Janice Joplin and he mentioned it.

‘Well I figured you knew her anyhow, ‘ she said, ‘ I really wanted to be her when I was about 15 but when I turned 17 I realized I just didn’t have the voice she had.’

‘You have a good voice,’ he was quick to assure.

‘Yeah,’ she said and giggled, ‘but it’s a little voice, I don’t have her volume behind it.

‘How long have you been up here?’

‘Not, long!’

He nodded and thought it figured and asked her whether there were people she knew up here and she shook her head and he knew that he might well be people, all people she knew up until now. It made no difference to the way they stood with each other though. When they left he felt as if they left the evening behind and with it they left any future behind and they kissed good bye and then she slid onto the seats of a cab and he started to walk. He didn’t think he would see her again and the thought made his stomach contract for a moment and then he walked on.

'I got a me a couple of them small ones, the ones that fly and squeal when you kick them.'

'You kick them.'

'I do when they done stuff I told them not to.'

'But they are dogs!?'

'Yes, so what, they gotta learn don't they.'

'Why did you get them in the first place?'

'They keep me company when no one else wants to, and they don't talk back either.'

'Maybe nobody does because you kick dogs!?'

'Yeah, I thought of that.'

'Did you ever have a girlfriend.'

'Had a wife for sometime, until she left that is, which is when I got the dogs.'

'Did you hit her too?'

'I did when she deserved it.'

'When was that?'

'When she wasn't listening and talked back instead.'

'Is that why she left?'

'I couldn't say.'

Roadside Conversations

Most of the tables had been busy when he entered, now the place had emptied, the lunch time crowd thinned and only a few tables remained occupied. Ache was chewing on a gristly steak armed with only a blunt knife for a weapon. He had to push and wriggle the knife rather than slice and cut. A small group of men at the table next to his grew smaller yet until there was only three.

‘Take humanitarian aid,’ said the fat one in the middle.

‘Humanitarian aid what?’ Asked the one to his left, a man with a short red face and a big bushy moustache. The third man was glaring into his coffee cup and shaking his head, it was unclear whether it was in agreement or meant as a way to show that he was listening, his hair had been thinning for a while and he had grown accustomed to it, wearing it cropped short exposing, a high forehead.

‘Well what sort of life does it offer?’

‘It keeps people alive.’

‘But does it give them a life?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, it’s all good to help and keep people alive, but are they better of starving for the next 20 years, barely alive, with no prospects. Just about managing to cling on, because humanitarian aid keeps them.’

‘Are you saying they would be better off dead?’

‘You are a fat greedy pig Pat,’ the man with the cup said loudly.

The fat man snorted.

‘Listen, how many times have you opened the paper and read about people neglecting the upkeep of their pets. Like some guy having ten dogs and they are close to starvation when found by animal welfare, they call it inhumane treatment. Humanitarian aid often keeps people on the brink of starvation, if they were dogs it would be called inhumane.’

‘They are not though, so what is your point. You want to stop all aid?

‘No, that’s not possible, not now, but we have to face up to the fact that certain areas can only support a certain number of people to prosper and have a life. Just think of a room, there is a number of people you can fit into it, comfortably, but of course you could squash double or triple the amount in there, they would fit, but no one would have a good time.’

‘Birth control,’ said the man with the cup.

‘You know what I think about that,‘ said the man with the moustache, ‘it’s against my religion.’

‘Hank,’ said the man with the cup which after looking at once more he firmly placed on the table eyes still very much on the object before he looked up and at the man who had just been named Hank. ‘You know there is 25 living Sumatra tigers out there in the wild. Twenty-five! At the very same time there is a billion fat people sitting in front of their TV’s watching Big Brother reruns eating fries and growing ever fatter. And the planet is being ransacked for those people, those twenty-five tigers will have to go as well, and they will and you know it and I know it and you are worried about birth control being against your fucking religion.’

‘Don’t say fucking religion, it’s serious, it’s my beliefs you are insulting.’

‘For fucks sake when was the last time you saw an angel hover above your house?’ With that he pushed his chair back and rose and he was a tall man 6’2“ or 3” easy. ‘Think about it, it’s not that complicated.’

He straightened nodded to the fat man and walked out. Ache who had been following the conversation turned his eyes back to his plate, a final scoop of mash and some recently chewed on bits of gristle. He placed his fork and knife on the plate and pushed it away from himself, reaching for the glass of water, picking it up and drinking from it in one swift movement.

A half hour later he was back in the car and about to get it started and leave, but remembering the conversation he got out a small red notebook to scribble down the essence of it.

‘You know that someone I met told me that their grandfather or

perhaps father had met a famous scientist, way before I was even conceived, sometime back in the fifties. I am not sure whether that would have been Einstein or Oppenheimer, but it was either of the two. So they told me about it and you know what I wondered and then asked?’

He shook his head.

‘I asked whether anything happened or whether something changed for them.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What did you expect to happen?’

‘Could have been, they had an idea just as they met, you know. Like you shake hands with them and they go, ah, just solved the riddle of the universe or something and then proceed to explain and that would become the main theory on the subject and you would have been there when it was born.’

‘Not the universe.’

‘No,’ she looked irritable, ‘the idea.’

‘So what happened to the person who met the scientist?’

‘Nothing. It was just a story they could retell.’

‘But there is nothing to it!?’

‘I know. Have you met anyone real famous?’

‘Hm, Woody Allan once, I even talked to him.’

‘Did it change your life?’

‘No, but I remember it, I remember the day I did, not the date just the hours that followed.’

‘How was it?’

‘He was very polite and seemed eager to get away.’

‘And what did he say?’

‘He said he was leaving.’

‘And then?’

‘Then he said thank you and he left.’

‘And you?’

‘I said thank you and left too.’

‘It’s not mind-blowing like you’d think it would be.’

‘No.’

‘You know what I saw recently?’

‘Where did you see it?’

‘I saw it on the television,’ she said, but her voice had lost some of the earlier vibrance and he suspected she had made it up, as she often did.

‘What was it?’ he knew she would feel encouraged to tell, no matter how far fetched an idea she was about to spill.

‘It was one of those documentaries, about cities and people and how cities came to develop and which way the would be going in the future.’

He nodded.

‘This one was about London.’

She knew he had a thing for London ever since having visited as a teenager.

‘And what about it?’

‘Well, they said that it was no longer economical to sustain as a city. Beyond economical repair is what they said I think.’

She looked up at him expecting him to react to the challenge. It was nonsense he thought, she was simply out to wind him up. A city beyond economical repair, what could they do with it. It was too big to rebuild or relocate.

‘Did you hear what happened? I think it was in the papers. It must have been wherelse would I have picked it up from right.’

He nodded, tired to hear another story, but listening.

‘Well you know all the anti abortion stuff going on always, right?’ She nodded mostly to herself perhaps due to the lack of his showing excitement.

‘Well so it gets real hard to have an abortion even if you are like 13 or 12 or you know have a child where they can tell that something’s gone wrong with and it wont come out right. I mean the way it’s supposed to. It will have some disability and have to live with that forever after because well because you are not allowed to abort. I mean you are the mother you ought to be allowed to do what you want, it’s your body and then part of it and it’s not like we are about to die out right.’

He yawned.

‘Anyhow, listen now cos this is what happened, right. This kid is now like 16 or maybe even older like 18, right, and it’s severely handicapped.’

‘Like how?’

‘Well like severely, I forget, like it needs help all the time can’t really do much by itself. And now listen, what it does is it sues its parents for not aborting it and therefore giving it a better life next time around.’

Now she had his attention and he looked up and looked at her, dumbfounded wondering whether he had heard right.

‘What next time around?’

‘Next time the mother would get pregnant and have a healthy child.’

‘But it wouldn’t be him I mean the first one.’

‘How do you know that? I mean there is no way to prove that if you aborted a child the next one would be the first one again until it was born, like its mind and soul and spirit. You know!?’

‘And what happened?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Did the kid win the court case?’

‘It’s not decided yet but they reckon there is a good chance it will and that would mean there would be many to follow. They are worried where it would end though cos of the government saying you can’t do it so ultimately they are the ones having to pay out. But it would also mean that any child with the smallest deficiency might get aborted in the future, just to make sure. And that would involve the government again making the decision cos they wouldn’t want to pay out. Although the parents could sign for the child, but then the child might just change his mind when he grows up some.’

‘In a way they do that already, designer babies, make sure its tall and smart and blonde.’

‘Why blonde?’

‘Just as an example, could be red or auburn or anything.’

‘Blue.’

‘Not blue.’

‘You said anything.’

‘Anything that’s normal.’

‘That’s exactly it you have to define normal and normal keeps on changing.’

‘Blue then.’ His patience started drying up around him.

It was an ordinary night he thought flicking through channels and wondering whether there was food. There was a stack of ready meals in the fridge but he presumed most of them out of date and didn’t bother to look. He poured a brandy and a glass of water pulled up his legs and watched a documentary linking global warming to an excess of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. He fell asleep quick and woke at three when his bladder urged him to, the brandy on the table and the glass of water untouched. He turned off the television and the silence broken only by the toc of the clock returned.

He brushed his teeth.

The next evening he walked into the bar again, it was better than to sit home alone he thought. Something might happen and the likelihood to meet someone, anyone, was better too. He talked to a woman that night, the woman told him about the way global warming was linked to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and he recalled the program from the night before. The woman had seen it as well, but unlike him had not fallen asleep.

‘It’s the icecaps,’ she said, ‘they melt and release pressure on the tectonic plates, which in turn makes them move causing eruptions and quakes.’

It was so plain a fact that it made sense immediately. The size of eruptions would grow and there was no god to prevent the ash of those to penetrate lungs, and then set and kill. Like that. He saw it, but chose not to acknowledge, there was no point to it, it was an inevitability with which he would have to live from now on.

He looked at the woman who was still talking although he was no longer listening to the words she said. She was heavy in all respect, enormous breasts pushed into the bar next to him while her behind rested on a stool that supported a quarter of it at the most. Her face had a radiant glow, round and forever smiling. The way she talked made her appear well educated. He imagined her to be at least twice his size, would possibly squash him if she were to sit on top whereas the other way around he could see himself bounce like a small boy on a trampoline.

Now she looked at him and he nodded in agreement, but she could tell that he hadn’t been following. He apologised.

‘We will all be dead before long,’ he said.

Now she stared intently.

‘The eruptions and the dust is why,’ he said, ‘would you like another drink?’

They had a few more and when they finally left she forced him into a corner pushing him along with her breasts, until there was nowhere else to go, then attempted to pucker him with her lips but couldn’t reach his face because of conflicting body masses wedged against each other.

She gave up at last, slowly took her breasts from punishing him and started to apologise profoundly. He was amused his ego a little boosted and somewhat happy to be free to move about again.

When he got home he thought of what could have been had he wanted, sat down and poured another brandy, downed that in one and went to bed.

Alcohol tended to take the urgency of his mind, the night became somewhat more bearable and the next day more miserable and altogether the next day urgency tended to grow. Next days were places he wanted to get away from, wanted to get away from the crowded stink of the city, away from a job he found demeaning at best.

Like many others he was under the delusion to be meant for better things. Like many others life had failed to live up to his expectations so far and like many others he slowly concluded that he would have to try harder.

A few days later he went out again, different location but much the same position he sat down at the bar and ordered a beer. A tall bony woman with deep brown curls returned to the seat next to him minutes after. Mustered him as he mustered her before both turned back to their drinks and minutes before conversation ebbed out.

‘Sally,’ she said suddenly turning and offering her hand as if the proximation of another so close, but without a word, was something she could no longer tolerate.

They shook hands only to drift back into the silence they had occupied before.

‘I have two kids, you know,’ she said a little later. ‘They are five and seven, I don’t get out as much as I like to, because of them. They are a handful.’

He nodded wondered what to respond to the woman.

‘It must be rewarding though.’

The woman sighed then nodded.

‘They are a handful. They used to say it’s bad to feed them sugary things in the evening cos it wakes them and they never go to sleep. It might have been the case when we were of their age. But now, nowadays it’s just the world that surrounds us that is like sugar, or speed. There is just no taking a breath any longer. Instead you change the channels.’ She paused for a second. Everything seems to have submenus now, just in case you was to get bored. It shortens our attention span, I know it shortens theirs, they don’t listen to nothing properly and they can never quite concentrate for any length of time.’

‘Sounds like hard work.’

‘Yeah,’ she nodded, ‘ but it’s rewarding seeing them grow and trying as best I can to make them grow into decent people.’

‘Are you a single parent?’

‘Yes I am, but I have no interest in being hit on.’

‘I wasn’t going to,’ he said a hint of defence in his voice.

‘I just thought I make it clear from the beginning, not that you get the wrong idea, just because I am alone in a bar. It’s just a place you get to talk to people other than the ones you get to talk to normally.’

‘Yeah.’ He couldn’t help but wonder when the woman had last talked to anyone other than those, or perhaps anyone aside from her children.

‘So what brings you here?’

‘Well.’

She scrutinized him intensely.

‘Just an after work drink, just to get out some. Just to see some people. Not so different from your own need to get out.’

‘Don’t talk to me of my needs. You don’t have kids do you, you don’t look the type.’

‘What? Why?’

‘Father types don’t sit in bars at this time.’

‘What?’ She started to wind him up. ‘What about you? What about mothers?’

‘It’s different, we have to take the time we can to get out, it’s harder for mothers believe me.’

‘Whatever.’

‘I don’t mean to argue, I am just saying, making conversation, making time pass. In a way I am like my kids, I find it hard to concentrate, I can barely read to the end of a sentence.’

‘The guy smiled at me.’

‘What guy?’

‘You don’t listen do you? Ever! I have to say everything twice at least.’

‘I listen, I just… what guy?’

‘Just a guy in the street he smiled at me as if he knew me, as if he was happy to see me.’

‘You are a pretty woman I always tell you that.’

‘But it wasn’t like that, it was as if he knew me.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I smiled back, and then I turned and looked again only to see him turn as well.’

‘Did you know him?’

‘No, I’ve never seen him before, but we could have met somewhere, maybe.’

‘Well you are a pretty woman, I would smile at you.’

‘Right, I had to practically sit on your lap before you noticed me.’

‘I may just find someone on the internet. mail order there are women in Russia and Asia who would pay for the chance to come here and get married.

Sylvia shook her head in disbelieve.

‘What,’ she started to stutter. ‘What if she isn’t right when she gets here, what if she smells wrong?’ She nodded. ‘What if she smells wrong?’

‘What do you mean she smells wrong, you mean she stinks? It’s a matter of hygiene, if you travelled for twenty hours or more you may smell too.’

‘I don’t mean that,’ she said slowly loosing patience with the man. ‘I mean chemistry smell I mean getting excited or not. What if you can’t stand the way she smells, her body, fresh from the shower all clean but… but well you can’t stand the way her body smells, pure and simple.’

‘I see what you are getting at, and what do you think I should do? Fly out there first and hand pick one?’

‘God it sounds awful, like you are going shopping. Get some milk, pasta, vegetables and oh get me a wife too in the wife isle ok.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘You know but you were going to go ahead anyway?’

‘Well, it was just a thought I thought to spring on you see what you would say you know. I am just at a child bearing age now, it’s all down to the plan and its time for the settling and departure part.’

‘Well what about me?’

‘You?’

‘Yeah me, you were just order a girl and wave good bye or what?’

‘Well I knew you wouldn’t come out there cos we wouldn’t know what might happen.’

‘So you knew that? Cos what, cos you asked me?’

‘Well we went by that conversation once, like when we met, around that time, I wouldn’t have thought you would have changed your mind much since.’

‘That’s almost two years ago Ache, two years is a long time a lot of things change in that time.’

‘Hm, I think mine held tight mostly.’

Sylvia shook her head. ‘I don’t know why I ever stuck around, did you listen to one word I ever said.’

‘Sure I listened.’

‘But did you understand.’

‘Look Sylvia, you are a woman and I am a man, I try to put myself in your shoes as much as I can and listen, but it doesn’t mean I always understand where you are coming from.’

‘Well I am glad you try Ache, I am real glad you try.’

“We going to fall out know over the hypothetical order of a bride.’

‘There mere fact that you thought of it makes me mad.’

‘I just wanted to see what you thought about it, it wasn’t even about ordering one, just the notion of it. I think it’s an awful thing, near enough as bad as stealing, and selling women under false pretences.’

‘Ache.’

‘Sylvia?’

‘Shut up.’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘You are talking rubbish and you would be better off being quiet, you would appear less of a fool.’

Sylvia knew that he hated to be taken for a fool, and so he was quick to shut up and quietly sulk. He could do that for hours or even days, but didn’t like doing it much since it reminded him of his dad and few people him included liked to become their parents if they could help it, although it prevented few not to.

The thing that had forced the thought on his mind in the first place had been the fact that although he could imagine leaving the city and all he knew behind, he entertained the idea that it was to happen with an unspecified woman by his side. Since there was no one per se whom he saw as his partner, although to all other eyes Sylvia was closer than most partners of others, he had merely thought of ways to fill an opening.

The kids suddenly appeared on the street and right in the middle of it at a leisurely pace looking provocatively into oncoming traffic, knowing cars would have to stop one way or another those were the rules and drivers had to live by them. The kids handed all responsibility of their action to the driver, he was responsible not to hit them.

The driver in this case was a fifty five year old podgy man. He had been miles away when he was suddenly alerted to kids on the road two at least he thought maybe three before he turned the wheel and hit the breaks. The car slowed and started spinning that way, turned, and he could see their laughing faces as he slid past not fast but with force nevertheless. He saw the metal bollard which stood almost the height of the car which, he could tell, would bring him to a halt. And so it did, dug deep into the drivers side rendering the door useless and pinching him some on the hip. But the damage was to the car not its occupant or the kids on the street, whom he could see now through the rear mirror high fifing, before trotting off, hoods pulled tight to keep the evening chill out.

There was ice on the street, he thought.

How stupid can you get, he thought.

Damn it, he thought as he pushed with his shoulder against a door that was no longer operative. His face reddened with anger as he could see the kids stroll out of sight.

They hadn’t even bothered to check whether he was OK, and he presumed correctly that they didn’t care either way.

And the car wasn’t even paid off yet. It was still being paid for, every month a sizeable chunk of his meagre earnings paid a little for the car and a lot for the interest and every month it got that little more difficult with work drying up right around him and payments getting slow to reach his account. The red numbers the bank send out in monthly statements grew larger, to the point where he no longer looked, but merrily glanced, then quickly discarded the bit of paper, which after all was just a bit of paper. And paper was patient, much more patient than he was or would ever be. His face was a deep red now and he swore loudly, still pushing at a door that would not open when he saw the law arrive from behind , slowing then pulling in behind him the light on the roof spinning silently and a large copper stepping out into the cold.

It was the moment he remembered the beer he had had after work and before taking the car. He knew they would turn that against him, the coppers first and the insurance company second and in the end the town itself would charge him for bending a bollard by an inch when the damn thing had dented his car, and his pride and his life by amounts that could not be measured in inches for there were not enough of them.

The laughter of kids lingered on his mind if not in the rear mirror when the policeman put his knuckle to the window knocking twice. He pushed the button to lower the window but the window didn’t move and the door wasn’t meant to open ever again so the only thing for the cop to do was to walk around and to the other side of the car where he pulled the door open easy, crouching down on the icy road and looking inside, where the man was still holding onto the wheel his knuckles showing white from the tight grip.

‘Are you ok?’

The man nodded.

‘Are you injured?’

The man shook his head.

‘Can you get out of the car?’

The man nodded again, but didn’t move. The policeman stood up and stepped back, knowing that it was best to give the man some space for the moment.

Eventually the man pushed himself across and over the midsection of the car then slumped onto the other side as if it had been a great struggle and for a moment the policeman worried and wondered whether it might have been advisable to call an ambulance after all but in the end the man took a deep breath and got out of the car into the icy wind that had started to blow down the road.

‘May I see your papers, please?’ the policeman asked.

‘What exactly happened,’ he asked as he looked through the mans papers.

‘Kid’s,’ the man shook his head, ‘they walked into the road like they owned it, they knew I was there and they knew I would have to stop. They knew I would have to. They knew they would get away with just standing there and looking and knowing that they would get away with it. They knew I would be hell-bent on stopping. And they just laughed when they saw me hit the bollard. They never cared, they just knew I wouldn’t hit them, no matter what.’

‘Did you have anything to drink?’ the policeman interrupted the man’s inept mumbling.

The man looked at the policeman, as if it he only just noticed him, then nodded.

‘I had one beer, a small one at that, but I suspect you will have to test me and no matter the outcome I will turn to be the guilty party.

The policeman shrugged his shoulders.

‘There is no one else here. Either way beer and icy conditions don’t help the matter and I suspect the beer won’t work in your favour.’

‘I’m still paying for the car,’ the man mumbled, but the policeman chose not to hear him.

There was an arrogance inside him that was hard to put up with, it was equally hard to understand where it had come from in the first place as there was little he could claim his achievement.

Arrogance.

People had died to find out things. Like what to eat, and how to cos not everything that was there to be eaten could be eaten just of the tree, some had to be prepared in amazingly unconventional ways to be palatable.

Sometime later they sat together up on that same hill, although with the season having progressed there was more shrubbery in the way of things and he wasn’t a hundred percent that it was the exact same spot. But the fact was that they still managed to look a good fifty miles into a distance which in a city he couldn’t even imagine.

‘What’s out there,’ she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Space and solitude and peace.’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Mostly space I think, it just sits there.’

‘What for.’

‘Well, that’s a daft question.’

‘Tell me then.’

‘Well it’s just there, always has been, might have been something other than empty when the Indians were here but they are not now, so now it just sits there doing nothing.’

‘And you like to go there and sit on it?’

‘Not there in particular I just wanted to show you what’s possible.’

‘Possible how do you mean?’

‘You know, when we leave the city, a place where we can go where we can be.’

‘This is not even a place and you know it as well as I do. You are nothing but a dreamer, get real.’

He huffed.

‘It’s all real and I have been getting all the info on it.’

‘Show me.’

‘Ain’t got it here now but the facts are that you can live out there in a somewhat small community for cheap, and live good as well.’

‘But you would still need the money and jobs are hard to come by in them places.’

‘It’s nothing for you to worry on, I got that under control. The money is being thought up as we speak.’

‘Thought up is talking fancy.’

‘I’m working on ways, so you don’t have to worry yourself.’

Now the girl huffed, didn’t like being kept out of the loop.

‘There is so much tourism going on out there, people like ourselves come, curious to see how it used to be, or just curious to see how it is outside the city with nature on your doorstep.’ He tried to hush her and chase the worries from her mind.

‘It’s the ideal place for a kid or two.’ He added carefully.

At first she didn’t respond, but he could tell that she was working those lines over.

‘You want us to go out there and start what? A family? Grow rednecks? That’s what kids out there grow into I imagine.’

‘Why, you take it one step further than you need, we are not there and we don’t have kids for the moment, but it’s a thought worth thinking, I for one rather see my kids grow up there and climb a tree or two then run around concrete blocks with no sense or thought for anything that is natural.’

The girl sighed.

‘You are a romantic fool, a dreamer and I never said I wanted kids anyhow. Lets get into the car and go back to the place we know.’

It was during the first few weeks they were out there, everything they saw still new and mysterious and their curiosity at heights. Even the girl kept turning around as much as turning over everything she saw for everything was a curiosity and everything new to her young city life.

They were having an early lunch or perhaps a late breakfast out by the interstate, the liveliest place to be found within a good range of distance and the closest they got to the hustle of a bar in a city. The girl looked hungry for the city already and it had only been a little over a months maybe two. They sat sipping coffee, after having placed orders for steak and fries, and the silence between them grown heavy again. The place wasn’t yet filled up with lunch traffic and the breakfast crowd had thinned, it was the in between moments when the waitresses got to sit and have coffee themselves or stand outside and enjoy a couple of smokes.

What happened, happened fast. Suddenly two badly disguised men wearing masks that covered little more than their eyes reminding him of Zoro or the Lone Ranger, stood inside the room holding shotguns, big old scatter guns that would easily rip a hole in a man. He couldn’t recall them ever walking in or being there for that matter so one moment they were not and the next they shouted commands and pointed big guns all over.

They both froze, the scenario seemed from a movie or a book not anything real that happened and that was the way they both reacted. Faces in awe and bewilderment. Whether to freeze up and let faecal matters work there way or turn, look, applaud. Or dive beyond the seating and rescue the day, perhaps get blown to bits in the process. But the robbers made clear what they wanted before foolishness got out of hand. Demanded wallets and purses out on the tables to be collected and got the waitress to empty the register, spare for the coppers.

He got a good look at the man shouting the commands, deep voice, with slight foreign twang. A big heavy chin with coarse stubble greying on the sides and a drooping moustache on its way of becoming a handlebar soon, if care wasn’t taken. Then they were gone and him and her about five hundred worse off than before. Plus the cards were gone too, that being the inconvenience that was to linger. There wasn’t enough left to pay for the food was what crossed through his mind, but they were never charged for it that morning.

‘Oh God,’ she said after.

‘God has nothing to do with it,’ he replied, ‘God is just an excuse for having not enough imagination for making up your own story or finding reason for it. God is there cos we like to explain everything we see and if we can’t do it ourselves then God is a good excuse for reason and logic. Even if we can’t explain God.’

‘God is just another way of saying that which can not be explained.’

‘Something along those lines makes sense now,’ he said and they drifted back into silence before the police got there taking statements from people.

‘Anything you can tell about the two men?’

The officer stared intensely as if it was a way to get information to fall out more readily.

‘Light pants and shirt might have been Cuban, slight accent.’ He shrugged his shoulders.

‘Are you saying the men were Cuban?’

‘The shirt was Cuban, I don’t know about the men. They were nondescript, you wouldn’t see them if they stood in front of you.’

The officer nodded, hesitated as if there was something else to ask, but then just moved on.

He could see the book taking shape.

Decomposing bodies adding nourishment to the soil and making plants sprout faster.

Stand taller.

He could see how he was complimented on green fingers and asked about the ways he had with plants. Tapping his nose sideways with a finger indicating secret ways he had, but couldn’t disclose. The mystery of the growing bush, a potential title for the second part, or perhaps just making a chapter. Either way he was getting excited again and he thought she was getting it too. They smiled at each other in sharing a secret between them, but then shied away before the feeling could grow proper.

‘That was quite some lunch.’

‘Livelier than you get in most cities if you ask me.’

She pulled a face when he looked at her.

‘Once is enough for my liking.’

‘Seeing the money go hurt, but seeing it and getting away might have been worth the money.’

‘What did we learn from it?’

‘Just an unsuspected experience, you couldn’t get that rush any other way, not if you paid someone. It makes a story though, think of the next party we are at, see the faces when we tell?’

‘Just that there is no parties we get invited to out here and if we did they might be yawning if we told, might happen every other week for all we know, better even, they are the ones who did it. Could be it’s everyone’s sideline, towards the end of the month as is now if you check on the calendar.’

He shut up then, didn’t want no more of her smart comments, felt still shaken from recent events. It made a fine story that much he knew no matter what the girl said. So he wouldn’t tell it to anyone who lived out here, why would he, if you could get people paying to hear it.

It was about that and it was about making the money needed to stay out. Making it. Making it anywhere and that included the middle of where they were now. Whatever did Frank Sinatra know anyway.

At the end of the road up in the sky fat and almost round, larger than life at that moment hung the moon, looked within reach but was divided by endless miles of cold dark space. The thought that they were stuck on another almost round planet that floated just beneath or above the moon in the middle of a much larger nothing that he could not comprehend, filled him with a deep dark fear, nourished by the inability to understand.
They were nothing if he looked at it like that, small and irrelevant and incredibly lucky to be there and incredibly lucky to have, warmth and weather and green forests and plants and animals so strange that you could not think them up and then themselves who in our own concept were too strange to comprehend, insatiable, ready to destroy and consume everything for a moments satisfaction.

And at that point the question whether they were indeed fit to be human would rise to the forefront of his thoughts again.
The big nowhere where one didn’t have to think of worldly matters where one could be as ignorant as one wanted to be was what he was aiming for. Whether that aspiration was something to aspire to or not would throw up too many  questions irrelevant to the matter at hand.
Out there however, he reminisced on a future past, thought of houses on hills surrounded by cacti, brittle bush and a small spring with water blubbering from it. The image had come from a number of books he had read, a number of images he had looked at and a fracture of reality he had seen with his eyes.
He sat up in the chair by the window with the view down the road, steadied himself and sighed. Sylvia. He thought of the woman, had thought of her for a while, thought of her and the girl, as if they were one and perhaps they were and in the end they all were moiré than one, played many roles in a life that demanded more than one personality.
Now look over here and adapt, he thought. Now be over here and be green, or perhaps some other demand was put forward, and again he would bend to accommodate. Bent like the tree bend away from the rock to grow further. They would all bend to grow, if it was the choice they had, it was better to bend then to perish.
Existential questions. He had spend too much time alone of late, asking himself, seeing what the world was made of, but unable to hold on to the image, unable to understand or communicate what he saw. It materialised as a feeling. A potent feeling.
The old woman at the market that day had just stared at him. Her eyes were of a pale blue, a milky blue, surrounded by wrinkled facial landscape. Her mouth moved steadily from one side to the other as she pushed her fake teeth around in it. She didn’t say anything, just looked as if she was waiting for an apology, and he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Couldn’t help seeking excuses that would justify, justify perhaps only her age which was justified by living itself. But it wasn’t simple like that.

There was an arrogance inside him that was hard to put up with, it was equally hard to understand where it had come from in the first place as there was little he could claim his achievement.
Arrogance.
People had died to find out things. Like what to eat, and how to cos not everything that was there to be eaten could be eaten just of the tree, some had to be prepared in amazingly unconventional ways to be palatable.
Sometime later they sat together up on that same hill, although with the season having progressed there was more shrubbery in the way of things and he wasn’t a hundred percent that it was the exact same spot. But the fact was that they still managed to look a good fifty miles into a distance which in a city he couldn’t even imagine.
‘What’s out there,’ she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Space and solitude and peace.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘Mostly space I think, it just sits there.’
‘What for.’
‘Well, that’s a daft question.’
‘Tell me then.’
‘Well it’s just there, always has been, might have been something other than empty when the Indians were here but they are not now, so now it just sits there doing nothing.’
‘And you like to go there and sit on it?’
‘Not there in particular I just wanted to show you what’s possible.’
‘Possible how do you mean?’
‘You know, when we leave the city, a place where we can go where we can be.’
‘This is not even a place and you know it as well as I do. You are nothing but a dreamer, get real.’
He huffed.
‘It’s all real and I have been getting all the info on it.’
‘Show me.’
‘Ain’t got it here now but the facts are that you can live out there in a somewhat small community for cheap, and live good as well.’
‘But you would still need the money and jobs are hard to come by in them places.’
‘It’s nothing for you to worry on, I got that under control. The money is being thought up as we speak.’
‘Thought up is talking fancy.’
‘I’m working on ways, so you don’t have to worry yourself.’
Now the girl huffed, didn’t like being kept out of the loop.
‘There is so much tourism going on out there, people like ourselves come, curious to see how it used to be, or just curious to see how it is outside the city with nature on your doorstep.’ He tried to hush her and chase the worries from her mind.
‘It’s the ideal place for a kid or two.’ He added carefully.
At first she didn’t respond, but he could tell that she was working those lines over.
‘You want us to go out there and start what? A family? Grow rednecks? That’s what kids out there grow into I imagine.’
‘Why, you take it one step further than you need, we are not there and we don’t have kids for the moment, but it’s a thought worth thinking, I for one rather see my kids grow up there and climb a tree or two then run around concrete blocks with no sense or thought for anything that is natural.’
The girl sighed.
‘You are a romantic fool, a dreamer and I never said I wanted kids anyhow. Lets get into the car and go back to the place we know.’

‘What winds you up when we are home.’
‘What winds me up?’
‘Yeah, you know how you get wound up when they race motorbikes up and down the street and the noise just sits and doesn’t go away for hours.’
‘It makes me aggressive, it gets me to a point where if I had a gun and was a little more senseless I just point and shoot and imagine everyone would be coming to thank me for it too.’
‘They wouldn’t.’
‘There parents wouldn’t and it wouldn’t be right to, in peoples minds, but secretly,’ she paused, ‘secretly I imagine there would be a few that would be pleased about the new found quiet.’
‘But before you did go that far I think it’s a better idea if we just pack up and go somewhere else.’
‘You got it all planned haven’t you.’
‘It’s been in my head for a while, an urge that grows steadily.’

He had nothing planned and she knew it as much as he did, he had said so much to her, had told her how the adventure was to just go there, anywhere to see what happened. The difference was that it was not just choosing this way from that way, thereby arriving home by a different route and perhaps 10 minutes earlier or later. Perhaps running into someone who would not have been met otherwise by deviating from the norm, but that was as far as difference went. They both considered it unlikely to turn into a truly life changing experience. They wouldn’t give anything up if they chose this road over that, whereas to pile their belongings into a car lock the doors behind them and hand the keys to the next occupant they would give everything up.
Everything of course wasn’t much at the time. Everything for him consisted mostly of dreams, dreams not so much of departure, but dreams of being in an entirely other place. He would be able to realise himself there, find his true vocation find new meaning. That was how the thoughts went. Whether or not was something else, something no one could know and he could only find out. The feeling had grown over the years and with time he had gotten ever more ready to take the step that kept him. Fear was there of course, fear always was, but he thought he could handle it.

Sylvia looked fantastic, he thought, continuously trying to look her over proper, without appearing to stare. Very little reminded him of the drab looking nurse he had previously met after work. She wore a glittering top, in black and silver that accentuated a full bosom and made the most of her cleavage without appearing cheap. A tight skirt that finished at the knee and thick black tights that would keep the weather at bay.

Oscar smiled again, his heart fluttering with nervous energy while Sylvia remained calm and in control and altogether more at ease. More at ease was her personality. More at ease was what was required when they rushed in a patient with blood splattering from an open wound. You couldn’t be panicking. You had to keep your head on tight. That’s what she told him.

The waiter hovered above them, waiting to take orders and increasing Oscars insecurity.

They could have met after dinner for drinks and had a perfectly good night he thought, besides it would have been cheaper. Then again she cast quite a figure in contrast to their previous meetings, this wasn’t a casual drink, this was a somewhat formal dinner. An occasion.

Once they had ordered silence would decent, conversation freeze and an awkwardness arise that would be hard to shift again.

‘So what exactly do you do?’

Oscar shifted nervously, the moment had arrived.

‘I told you before.’

‘You said you stared at computers.’

‘Screens.’

‘Screens.’

‘What for.’

‘It’s really not very exciting, I watch the performance of a network, watch for glitches. If something goes wrong I aim to fix it.’

‘Does it go wrong a lot?’

‘Almost never.’

‘They are clever things, no?’

‘No they are just locked down to the max, means the user can barely do a turn. I mean it’s like driving in a car but it’s just the driving, you are not allowed to look out of the windows or touch anything. So the car lasts, right? Well that is the way we run the network, keep things locked down. It’s boring.’

‘And why don’t you get another job?’

‘I wouldn’t know where to look or what to look for.’

‘So you are going to stick it out till you retire?’

She raised a brow in disbelieve.

‘I don’t know. I’m saving up.’

‘For what?’

‘Leaving.’

‘Leaving?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Leaving where?’

‘You ask a lot of questions.’

‘Well you don’t say much if I don’t.’

‘Hm.’

‘Whereto, you got some secret plan? Got me curious now you have.’

‘It’s not much of a plan really, just saving up to get out of here.’

‘To where?’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘You don’t know?’

‘Well I got a notion.’

‘Yes?’

‘Get some space around me is the notion, I don’t much care where it is I think, space and quiet is what counts. I just go where I can afford a place.’

She nodded as if she understood.

‘Like become a hermit?’

There was his nervous laugh.

‘I knew you would make fun of me.’

‘No I can see it.’

‘I don’t want to be no hermit, I just want to ease the pressure to perform. Instead of having a million people around me everyday I like to have just a hundred around me.’

‘A hundred are manageable.’

He nodded.

‘You might get bored though, or what if you don’t like most of them.’

‘You only need like a few people. You never talk to more than a handful anyway, sometimes not even that, even when you could, doesn’t mean you would. How about you anyway, you gonna be a nurse forever?’

‘I like being a nurse, I feel like I am making a difference.’

‘I guess. I couldn’t handle it. All that blood.’

‘There isn’t so much blood.’

‘What about all the shootings.’

‘There isn’t so many, or they don’t get taken to us.’

‘Or there is nothing left to be taken.’

‘Yeah.’ She nodded.

‘You could be a nurse anywhere though.’

‘Yeah.’

The waiter delivered their food. Large plates with large portions, separate plates for salad. The conversation halted as they started to eat. Oscar spooning his food fast and furious, like it was a last meal or one someone was trying to take from him.

‘I am not very good at making conversation,’ he said in between bites.

‘I hadn’t noticed. So far you kept me entertained, I mean this is the third time we are meeting, you must be doing something right.’

‘I guess.’

Once the plate was cleared, he wiped it clean with some bread, then leant back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. A satisfied look on his face that mustered the nurse more carefully now.

His eyes grazed upon her every feature, as she continued to eat. Crept slowly across her brows, inspected the dark color of her eyes which he imagined to carry a hint of green. Down alongside the nose that he had previously thought to long, but which had since grown on him. Finally her lips, which appeared to mirror themselves, neither way up or down, either way kissable and he watched them move as she chewed, until she self consciously stopped to enquire what it was he was doing.

‘Just looking,’ he responded embarrassed.

‘Looking for what?’

‘Just, you know, reading your face. Taking it in, getting to know it really.’

‘OK,’ she said apparently satisfied by his explanation and continued to finish her meal.

‘What do you make of it?’

‘Your face?’

‘Yes.’

‘Strong minded and stubborn and attractive.’

‘How can it be all that many things?’

‘It’s expressive and that is what it expresses to me.’

‘Stubborn?’

‘You know where you wanna go and were you don’t.’

She nodded and finished her plate.

‘Sometimes I like being surprised when I find myself somewhere I wasn’t aiming to go though.’

‘Yes that about explains where I am right now.’

‘Somewhere you don’t want to be?’

‘No, but somewhere I wouldn’t have gone on my own accord.’

‘Why not, it wasn’t that bad so far and we still got desert coming.’

The waiter came and took the plates and handed them a desert menu and when they both ordered coffee’s he nodded to that. He left and returned carrying two cups on a small tray with a small jug for milk and a sugar bowl that matched both the cups and the jug. She ordered a slice of pie with vanilla ice-cream while he just returned the menu, thanking the waiter, but shaking his head.

‘Well?’

‘It wasn’t bad at all, but it wouldn’t cross my mind as a thing to do, unless it was a special occasion.’

‘I don’t understand men like that, why you would need a special occasion when you could just make one anytime you wanted to. There isn’t anything special about tonight, but we made it a little more special than ordinarily I think.

He nodded, chewing on the biscuit that had come with the coffee, somehow didn’t know what to say about it, felt like he might be getting cornered.

‘Whatever,’ she shook her head.

‘I’m having a good time,’ he said and it sounded like an excuse.

It had gone past ten when they left, the bill was split without much discussion. They went to a jazz bar where they stayed until the band packed up. The matter of relationships had flared up throughout the night and they had tiptoed around it like a pack of wolf’s tiptoed around a potential supper.

‘I’m getting on, that’s the impression I get from friends I haven’t seen in a while, they are all settled with kids, then there is me howling at the moon, waiting to be ready. I am not ready yet though.’

‘Ready how?’

‘Ready like,’ he hesitated, ‘like in my head ready, like to be at a point where I wanna get to before I would feel comfortable to settle. I don’t imagine the settling would be any easier, but somehow I would know that I found something I was looking for, so I can stop the looking part.’

‘And you are looking to leave.’

‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘ I wouldn’t want a kid to grow up in a city. A kid needs more than a small parcel of green surrounded by brick wall to grow into something proper. I need more, than that to live myself.’

‘Before you get thinking of having babies, you need a partner to have them with though.’

‘Yeah, but how can I look for a partner when I know that I want to leave the moment I can, it wouldn’t be fair on her, but it’s my plan. It’s what I have to do.’

Now it was on her to nod. There was impenetrable logic there, but the but loomed large as well.

‘That way the girl never gets a chance to say what she wants.’

‘It safes from unnecessary heartache.’

‘Maybe, but maybe life just can’t be planned like this.’

They became closest of friends from thereon, any romantic notions either one harbored were kept to themselves. The reasons of course were different.

In the city the dreams of escape were kept alive. Every day urges were reconfirmed.

Sylvia met Oscar and Oscar met Sylvia and their meetings became more frequent, at times they took place on the phone but more often than not they met in person, after hours after work, for a quick drink or a coffee and a movie at the weekends. Once or twice again they had dinner, but it took a lot of Sylvia’s wit to coax him out of his shell.

Oscar was a stubborn man, and once he considered a date for dinner a waste of money that would otherwise aid the getaway fund, it was hard to convince him otherwise. Christmas or a birthday making an exception, the fact that he enjoyed cooking made it harder yet.

As a photographer you never see the world with your eyes, you always see the world through a lens and you never see it for what it is, all it is, is an image, some work better, some don’t work so good. I feel sorry for photographers.

It’s the bubbles that rise first from the bathtub, moments on he pushes his head through the surface, gasping for air, water running from hair and face back into the tub. It was a long time since Oscar was six, a long time since he had thought of either his parents. He stayed in the tub a little longer, floating in the soothing warmth of the water, treasuring the silence of an early morning. It was almost perfect he thought, his eyes ran over the grime stained tiles on the walls, and the yellowing paint that started to peel higher up, nearer the ceiling.
It was still dark outside, with traffic slowly building up, by seven the last remnants of quiet would have gone, replaced by an endless stream of traffic, cutting through the graying mush that had fallen from the sky during the night, and would probably be gone by midday.
Another few minutes and he would have to rise.
More coffee, while getting dressed, a few slices of toast, peanut butter and jam and then he had to get going. He made sure he had time in the morning, time was the key to a balanced day his dad used to say and he agreed, being rushed the moment his alarm went of wasn’t for him.
He walked to work, a half hour it took him, past gridlocked cars spewing black clouds of exhaust. Large mounts of waste by the street, the odd rat scurrying away when he approached. The noise of an average day making it necessary to shout if attempting conversation.
He was wound up when he reached the office, wishing himself somewhere else.

The door to his apartment building opened onto a street towered over by the blank wall of a building dwarfing his own, some of the plaster gone it revealed the graying brick work underneath, like the cavity in a bad tooth. Immobile, like the flip side of a film set it stood. Half an idea realized, the other never developed. Closer to the ground, a graffiti artists failed attempt to color the neighborhood.

Building rubble was either direction you went, some had sat for so long it had turned into mounts of nature. Seeds, blown about had been caught and where now busy growing roots. A little bit of green surrounded by concrete waiting for it’s inevitable removal.