Alison..very nice portrait....can I have some of your hair...mine is getting a bit thin...hang on....let me adjust....almost gone...yikes......great photograph of a very charming lady....
Every evening, returning from my workplace, I had stayed at the cable car station, with a head that is about to explode by the mental strain. Something in my brain was wailing, singing and droning, but through the long workday I didn’t have the time to go to the doctor. “What for”, I said to myself, “if it’s bad, it’s going to be really bad. If it’s for good, it will pass away”. But, my head was singing its own song and this song could not be killed even by the deafening sound of the oversized city, where I had unwillingly landed.
Often, the cable car was late. Amidst the night cold of the semi-lighted station, I was tapping with feet and, because there was nothing else to do, looking at the buildings around me. Contemporary, dark and modern, they were futilely trying to smile at somebody with their reflective windows and colors.
One evening I found out that in the corner, next to the station was standing, happily spared, a little two-story house with peeling walls and with a small courtyard full of box-shrubs.
Every evening now I looked at the spared house.
My wish to cross the small yard, to walk up the seven stone stairs and knock on the door, had grown bigger and bigger. Because every evening, up there, on the second floor, a window was shining with reflections from television channels.
In the end of a sad winter day, the car was delayed.
Unexpected snow had fallen. Kids were throwing snowballs at each other, and I was sitting on the station thoughtfully as the strain of the workday was echoing in my head. Where alien conceptions were trying to overcome my own. When the cold froze my soul, and airplanes started a combat in my head, I turned my back to the coming cable car. I crossed the frozen, snow-covered box-shrub garden. And climbed the iced stairs of the house. Up there, on the second floor, the window still was mysteriously flickering.
I pushed the button of the doorbell. Far, like amidst a deep cave, a bell rang. Nobody appeared. I rang for a second, and for a third time. Nobody answered. I carefully pushed the door and it suddenly opened like an unsatiable mouth and absorbed me.
I found in the corridor, under a light bulb sleeping in a lampshade of glass flowers, a drift of fresh snow. My footsteps echoed in this uninhabited stomach. A spiral staircase took me upstairs. I love spiral staircases. I’m spiral staircase-mad. I have decided that, when I solve the problem of all mine and foreign conceptions, I will start building villas. With two bare hands and a place given as a gift from the state, with bricks and tiles from old construction sites, with broken window-frames from houses unneeded by anyone, I believe that I will succeed. I can easily construct. And even easier demolish.
The stairs appeared endless to me. The sound of the television became louder though, and that gave me hope. This house can’t be this dark if a TV is singing in it.
The staircase took me to an enormous living room, amidst which I found a snow-white bed. On it lay a woman so familiar, I greeted her. She nodded. Where had I met her? In this illusory world nobody can be sure. Do they know somebody - or do they not.
The woman was neither young nor old. About my age. Neither sick nor healthy. She wasn’t ugly. She wasn’t beautiful, either. She wasn’t shocked by my abrupt entering. Not even surprised. She appeared to me delighted. But, I can’t be sure. Not until now I presume that she had more than one visitor. Actually, it doesn’t matter.
The woman nodded again. I came closer, even more timid and nervous, and I sat in the corner of the bed, wondering what is happening, being sorry for the cable car I missed, cursing my love for old houses without reflective windows, where light from high windows is flickering over old box-shrubs.
The woman raised her hand and stroked me.
I have never felt such a weight on myself. Except maybe once, when, near the sea, I had put on a deep sea diver’s ballast belt. From this stroking all headaches suddenly flew away. The buzzing and droning stopped. My thoughts about the contradictory conceptions evaporated. But, fear haunted my heart. “Damn it”, I said to myself, “after all we’re living in the 21th century”. I felt that, under the sheets, the body of the woman was breathing. That calmed me down. I looked at the TV screen that had filled a distant corner. What do you think I found? Under the sounds of cold jazz, my whole past life was playing in slow motion. All my insignificant future. I shivered, scared, and the woman calmed me down with her lead palms, quietly laughing. Yes, the woman was cheerfully laughing, tapping me with a cold lead palm.
“Oh my god, my god”, I said to myself, gasping. I’ve been so naïve, I’m so naïve even today. As poor as I’ve been, I’m even poorer now. How have I walked past with the good and the merited, to strengthen the positions of all kinds of creative conceptions which just waste tons of paper. And the life, this wasted life of mine, was flowing like a river there, on the flat screen of the color television set, but it didn’t shine with the colors of a rainbow, but with the monotony of the uniformity. Sometimes evanescent sparks flashed, but it was so sudden, unexpected and fragile, the woman just shrugged with sympathy. All the time was heard the sound of wonderful cold contemporary jazz. The woman and me tapped out feet with the rhythm.
Then something cracked. The music stopped. A thoughtful man appeared on the screen, tapping his feet in the emptiness of the winter night. A man with snow-white long hair. I ran to the mirror to convince myself about the truth of what I saw. The woman’s hand attracted me again, only to feel it even heavier, but not that cold. I stared at the TV screen as an announcer with a serious face appeared on it.
The announcer started talking about the fate of the world, concerned about the fate of the people, but in his story I didn’t see neither my own fate nor the fate of the woman nailed to the bed, forced to watch TV all the time, day and night.
“Turn on the lights!” the woman suddenly asked me, “Turn on the lights…”
Her voice sounded crystal-clear, and overcame the flow of actual information. The voice was surprisingly melodic, and powerful. I immediately obeyed. I started walking at the door, ready to run from the fear. I flipped the switch. Behind me something rustled and I turned around. I froze with surprise, wonder and envy.
From the heart of the woman, slowly and gracefully grew a mighty flower. Unknown and unseen. Incredible and absurd. Slowly opening its leaves, and slowly uncovering a scarlet blossom. And quickly growing roots to the floor.
The roots shattered the floor and went down, down, down, to the heart of Earth maybe, to reach it and embrace it.
The flower grew large leaves. Opened its blossom. Released its mindlessly wondrous aroma. Mightily set off to the ceiling. Smashed it, spreading pieces of plaster. Then disappeared in the sky. The room suddenly became cold, and the TV went black.
The woman kept smiling guiltily, struck by sudden pain. I kissed her on the head. It was cold, and blood erupted from her mouth.
“Go away!” the woman whispered, her mouth spraying blood, “Go away!… Go away!… Go to your conceptions…”
I stood benumbed, wondering how to get out of here, when the TV turned back on. On the screen, under the sounds of cold academic jazz, ran other people’s fates, but who cares about other people’s fate?
I ran down the stairs, they were spiraling endlessly, to the heart of Earth, where we have all came from. I quickly passed through the corridor, frightened that one of the flower’s roots would pierce the ceiling to stab me. The door was widely open. I shut it with all my strength. I didn’t turn back. My face still felt the strange weight of the unknown lady’s hand. A weight that even today I feel whenever I hear words about conceptions and anti-conceptions.
On the bus stop I sighed with relief. People were lined up by two. Nobody turned back, why would they disrupt the nice order? Only I was restlessly fidgeting, only when they scolded me I calmed down. I put my hand into my pocket and found out that I haven’t got a ticket. I asked the woman standing next to me for one. I put some money into her hand. I felt the lead weight of that woman’s hand again. My eyes met hers. It was the woman from the old house. Mysteriously smiling. Understanding everything and everyone. With a heavy string-bag in one hand, and a portable TV in the other.
I accepted the ticket. I paid, and the touch of her hand suddenly felt tender, warm and inviting, like her in all her beauty. When the cable car came, I helped her get on. I glanced at the screen of the portable TV in her hands. Even covered with winter frost, it silently and invisibly worked. I looked at the old house I just had left. The window was full of darkness.
I often pass by that house. Spring and autumn, strange flowers grow and dry on its roof. The apartment blocks around it are surrounding it, even more and more ominously. Some day, it will also be destroyed. Everything could be built on the site. But, will this fateful flower grow?
I pass by the old house sitting in the cable car, holding the seat in front of me, as like an unexpected blow of wind could take me back there. To walk up those endless spiral stairs again, to the heart of Earth and back. And always, oh, always pain strikes into my heart and my head starts ringing, buzzing and droning. Then, I say to myself with a sadness few could understand, that this is probably a root of that scarlet flower that connected earth, home and sky with roots, stem and blossom.
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