Author: vernakera

THE HANGING MAN

one

In a room shaded by heavy wooden blinds that barely let a ray of light filter through here and there, a man in his thirties carefully packs his clothes into a suitcase; patiently and meticulously placing his folded shirts over something he wants to both protect and hide. He rubs his still sleepy face with both hands, runs his fingers through his hair, straightens out his sweater and moves to the door, casting one last look to the bed where a woman is lying on her side, her back turned to him, facing the window. She seems not to be breathing, but she is just sleeping soundly, dreaming of something she most probably won’t remember in the morning. One could say that she had drunk a lot last night, and then she loosened her dress – one of those that women, well-used to their fastenings, shed easily, but men have trouble with, and after the dress, she loosened her tongue. It all happened so quickly, and ended even quicker. Afterwards, she drifted into sleep and he into a night of waiting for the dawn so that he could leave. With the first ray of sunlight, he left the room.

two

The road rumbled downhill from the hostel and then snaked toward a small square, from where the street turned right as if it wanted to escape the hill studded with small houses, balconies and shops.

In front of the first tavern in the narrowest street in the place, a drab-looking ingenuous drunk, just a bit older than him, tripped over him and they both stumbled as if they were going to fall, but they hastily straightened up, one man grabbing his suitcase more firmly, the other sending a guileless stare as if seeking a spark of understanding for what just happened in the other’s eyes. The owner of the tavern standing in the doorway shouted at the local bum, and the man said no harm done, it could happen to anyone.

“That guy is completely nuts!”

“It’s okay, I’ve always had a soft spot for crazy people”, said the man in a soothing voice with no clear boundary between the literal and sarcastic.

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PEPPI

one

It is impossible to live your life in isolation, cut off from your neighbours. You can escape your mother and father, leave your wife or husband, tell your friends not to call you anymore, disown your child, bid your acquaintances hasta la vista, but one thing is for sure – you cannot escape your neighbours.

He is not sure whether he is more appalled by his own predictability or the fact that others know him so well.

“There you are!”, nonna Sylvia screeches as they both emerge to collect the morning papers.

“No, it’s not me. I’ll tell him to call you.”

“Don’t play stupid, Peppi, better come and look at my computer, it’s been squeaking for a week now. I turn it off and on again, it stays silent for approximately an hour, but then it starts again. We can make pancakes after! Make use of me, I am in the mood today.”

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FIRE FENCING

one

He thought the smell of the jacket that has not been washed in years would make him throw up. He wanted to walk up to the man wearing it and ask him how dare he torture them like that. Clothes needed to be washed when they started to smell too much of people. It was simply unbearable; he thought he would collapse. Still, he was in a metro full of strangers and he could no longer think or speak in another language (baby, my English is terrible tonight). With the little patience he had left, he looked forward to leaving the underworld and breathing in the fresh October night he knew waited for him up there.

There was more; since time immemorial he was assailed by the same thought in a crowd, among the thronging multitudes. Standing surrounded by the bodies of strangers, pressing him all around, feeling their tiniest movements against his body, he often imagined one of them, most probably an ordinary man in his thirties, with a face revealing that he had not experienced much love on his skin, though from time to time he saw and heard that it existed, suddenly takes out a knife and randomly slashes at everything in his immediate vicinity. He imagined himself to be just one of the many people slashed, all of them standing in a circle, faceless victims of the man whose face is clearly visible, every feature standing out and becoming familiar to the general public that will read about him in tomorrow’s papers. And he feels that everybody, him included, is insignificant, just sheep someone decided to slaughter, and wondered what that would be like, to be born to make someone else’s face stand out in the crowd, to bring someone relief through an act of cruelty which he thought made him visible by gaining a twisted kind of identity at the expense of the invisible ones who just happened to stand there in the narrowest radius, mourned immediately after, and soon forgotten, completely irrelevant.

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FLAGS OF NON-EXISTENT COUNTRIES

This toddler-ish art project (or better to say activity) took place in December.

Thin cardboard triangles were marker-coloured

and hung in two rows as a holiday wall decoration.

The idea was to encourage anyone who pops in for a coffee to do a couple of triangles,

but in the end I did the majority of them,

aside from my boyfriend and my mum who also did a few.

I find them resembling flags, so I called them Flags of non-existent countries.

THE BLESSED FOOL

Happiness is permitted, if you dare take it.

one

We saw the fool for the first time that day in Vologda. We were in Moscow before that and when we had our fill of all the places to see, visit and experience, we headed north. The railway station was near Babushkin Square where we had coffee, tired from the trip and even more from the abiding responsibility to constantly lug our stuff around when we would much rather just happen to forget them somewhere, were we not well aware that the selfsame things we hated would be needed all too soon. If not today, then tomorrow, when our shirts start to lose the fresh smell and the underwear and socks need changing, beards start to bother us and need shaving. Like many things, a suitcase too is a good servant, but an evil master.

We sat and waited for two hours for the café to open as it started work at 10. Exhausted, we mostly kept quiet. Our heads stood upright only to listlessly drop toward our chest the very next minute, gathering strength for the next stretch they were supposed to stand straight the way they were supposed to. When the café opened, we were the first through the door, first at a table, first to order.

There was nothing of interest in the café, nothing noteworthy. White walls, wooden bar, burgundy furniture that looked like seats ripped out of a bus and moved into the watering hole. The coffee was not good, but it was coffee which was the only criterion it needed to meet for us to drink it. N.N. twice as fast as me, as usual. He just loves to burn his tongue, you will forgive him, he is an incredibly hasty man.

So, we saw the fool for the first time that day in Vologda when we exited the café and took a back alley, not really knowing where we were going. We just wanted to take a stroll. We knew that we would later go toward the centre, inquire about accommodation, do everything travelers usually do, but we wanted, as we always did when we arrived in a new place, to let it guide us where it wanted for the first hour. And it is precisely because it led us to him that we are writing this because in many other places it led us nowhere worthy of mentioning. It is perfectly natural to choose something extraordinary when you feel the need to address people, right?

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DO YOU WRITE AT ALL?

Nothing makes me more beautiful than my own understanding.

one

People who manage to save up usually hide from themselves money they do not have in places they do not know of, so that later they have enough to seriously consider a trip, not just give it a thought and forget about it.

He is one of those people and that is why he loves it when he manages to trick the profligate in himself. Though both his room and flight are paid for, with the presumption that he would also be getting some money on the side, he is glad that he would be able to relax and not limit himself to eating doners and napkins.

Besides, this is his first business trip and as chance would have it his companion is a writer friend of his boss’s, who, wanting the business to be completed as quickly as and in the best way possible, along with the unexpected escort, gave him permission and blessing to stay in Prague for an extra few days and relax.

He accepted (something like that is generally turned down only in case of the flu or insanity), and took the offer as compensation for not completing the task by himself; little boy on a business trip.

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LIRKA

My dog Lirka should be approximately 3 years old today. She was found a year and a half ago on a mountain in Serbia. She started visiting daily a holiday cottage of a very nice family in search of some food and when they figured out she was pregnant, they took good care of her whenever they could and they were there for her until she brought her puppies into this world. Afterwards, the puppies were adopted but she needed a stable, full-time home as well. No one really knew whether she was kicked-out of a home once the previous owner discovered she was carrying, or she was a stray dog all along.

Lirka is difficult to describe. She might have had a certain trauma. She is pretty cautious; I think that’s the word that describes her the best, but also myself in a way. She is both very cautious and very outgoing (if that’s possible) and that’s the very same description I got from one of my dearest friends – she said once: you walk in quite an insecure and quite a self-confident way at the same time.

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THE LOYAL DOG

one

He is in his bathroom. He inspects his face in the mirror. He is beginning to believe that the visage does not hide too much information. It is just a horizon that the more forthright think they have crossed when they look at him. However, people usually get things wrong. His eyes have never been the thing that allows insight into his inner workings. When he hits his boiling point, his cheeks blush bright red, but his eyes remain calm in an attempt not to reveal anything. Maybe the cheeks are the mirror of mental states? The mouth definitely is. He cannot hide his crooked smile when he pretends to enjoy somebody’s company, in a situation he finds distressful. And there are plenty of those, everybody would agree. It is a smile that mostly resembles a rictus. Sometimes he gets scared that his face might stay that way, if he goes overboard with faking enjoyment.

Similarly, he cannot hide his doglike smile of delight when a person that excites him makes him laugh. He does not even have to like the person; he finds things that are not too familiar, nor beautiful sometimes, exciting. His lips spread over his canines, glinting in all their glory, when he hears something that excites him.

Anyway, who says dogs don’t smile? That is the only thing they do when they feel good.

And an important and good difference between people and dogs is that you are not likely to ever find a dog with a rictus grimace.

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BOUQUET

Then Tantalus took the grapes and drank the water

in the world where everything is forgiven.

one

He is getting ready to leave, looking around for all the little things you cannot leave the apartment without. He repeats like a mantra keys, phone, money and turns the TV off. Once again, he realizes that the overly loud TV voice was the thing that unsettled him and made him anxious. He felt like he had to compete the entire morning in his apartment, adjusting to that voice and doing his stuff parallel to it, instead of having simply turned it off. People sometimes forget that they have power over the objects surrounding them.

Having checked whether he had turned everything off, he sets off for his father’s place where they are supposed to have lunch. It was both a routine and at the same time anything but. They both liked to eat fine food, to prepare a rump steak, sauté or tripe for one another, to prove who is better at preparing steak tartar, who is more in touch with popular sauces and culinary combinations, can tell the difference between radicchio and endives, and who is actually the impeccable keeper of the atavistic hunting ancestors’ habits, yet still knows perfectly well how many minutes are needed to cook a cutlet just right to correspond to the needs of a European body and just raw enough to exhilarate a barbaric palate.

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SENSE OF NORTH / SENSE OF SOUTH

66°31’35”

one

The sky is low[1] and the sun is pale yellow and big, giving the impression that it is incredibly close. Albino Africa, cleansed of all aromas, diseases and threats. Inverted into white and imbued with the charm of the sharp gusts of wind that do not find it difficult to dare and dare again.

The heights are within an arm’s reach and the breadths are too broad. You almost feel closed in by the sky that at the same time engulfs you and shows you your limits, yet you are free to roam in any direction you choose because the expanses are so huge they are both an honour and an affront to your warm boots.

two

The bus travels from the airport to your destination down a smooth road lined by trees of perfect shape, colour and size. It seems like nature was not untampered, left to its own devices, and if it was, it would appear it knew exactly what shape to assume to look like scenery found in a children’s picture book. Suddenly, the driver breaks sharply. A moose! Almost a tragedy. Soon, reindeer herds appear on the left side of the road where one always breaks away from the rest and grazes alone.

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