Sunday, March 27, 2011

To be born an astronaut

My friend's daddy got a telescope from his son for his 50th birthday. It was a clear summer night so we put it together in the garden right away.

I looked into it.

Outer space opened up right in front of my eyes. It was a good telescope, I felt like I was holding the sky in my hands. I stood there, watching, for a very long time. I studied the Milky Way and I searched for constellations.

The Moon amazed me. I marvelled at it, I was stunned by the view.
But at the same time I couldn't resist the other planets. As soon as I caught a glimpse of a pretty planet, I got lost in it. And the ones I found pretty were the ones that were close to me. I felt a peculiar fraternity, which filled my heart with warmth. I reached out for them, and I stroked them in my imagination.

I was an astronaut, going through millions of years, with ashes of lost civilizations under my feet. Mistique. Fantastic. Gripping adventures. I opened my arms, and I knew that everything I saw from here, was going to be mine one day. I felt the intention and the power in myself , but then the Sun came up and rid me of the buzz. That is when I learned that we always have to fight for our dreams much harder than what we first imagine.

I asked myself, how could it ever be possible to bathe in the beauty of the Moon all the time, when Saturn, Jupiter and Venus are also here? Dear god. They are all so marvellous, I wish I could trace them with my fingers. I am small - I thought -, I am so tiny, how amazing is it that I can take in this much of what is up there with these two little button eyes of mine? Who is brave enough after all this, to tell me that tomorrow I am not going to find a planet even more beautiful than these ones? And if I do, then as sorry as I am, I am never going to be able to give men a home, I will always remain an exotic island. Why? Because I was born an astronaut.

And you are the supernovas. I ask you not to be angry with me for wanting so badly to touch all your surfaces.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Mug

She gave birth to her child. She complained. Yeah, she was really good at that. There was a child, coz she had wanted one. But there were problems with the sex. The problem was either the fact that there was sex, or the fact that there wasn’t or the fact that there was sex, but not the kind she wanted. How long should she have waited? Then they got divorced to top it all off. The man, and the woman. At one point they got divorced together. And some of them even had a second child.

There are people, who are happy. But what is happiness and where is it nowadays? Why does she say that? Back in the day, there were wars, they took them to fight, to Vietnam, there were single parents and all. But she didn’t know of that. And then there’s cancer. But then again, cancer existed back in the day as well. The kids are hyperactive. So what can she say to that? Let them run it off.

Look. There should be a tradition in every family, where every member shouts their pains into a mug, the woman, the man, then later the child as well, when it grows a little. Everyone needs a mug, she says. I should go to bed, she also says. Yea, yea, that bloody ambiguity. Not go to bed like that, I mean, I’m tired. So shout it, she says, holding the mug in front of her. The bills, the unpaid bills, but you know, I don’t always say these things, because you tell me I’m complaining. Stop whispering. But I’m telling you, she complains. You complain. The woman complains as well, she gave birth. Or she didn’t. Should she go to that goa party or should she enroll the kid at school? The unborn kid, who might never even be born. Where should I go?, she asks.

I have a different problem. Not the social networking sites with all the photos from Tunisia and the dated wedding-photos and pictures of the newborns, but the fact that my hands have started to wrinkle. My hairdresser, this wonderful little creature, she’s 22 and she’s complaining and she took the woman, who is really 30 years old, for a 24 year old. I mean, that’s something, right?

But you know, that’s not all. Like, remember all the stuff? Like when we were sitting in our rented flat about 12 years ago, full of libido, when we thought nothing of nothing and especially not of something, although I majored in Hungarian and Esthetics, and the other one majored in American Studies and gender studies, and that third chick cried so hard while on the phone, because she had a broken heart, but while crying really hard, she was looking at herself in the mirror. And we didn’t believe her. You can’t just cry into a mirror, especially not when you have an audience. And next year, she wasn’t living with us anymore.

But if you look at it close, stuff happens in the world, to women and to men as well. It’s like a computerized squash-game. Like, commodore 64 in the graphic-section. Dollar-sign, comma, eight, colon. There was ratio in that. The woman hits the wall, he fucks her, the woman doesn’t hit the wall, he doesn’t fuck her. That’s a way of looking at it, right? Of course, she remembers.

Life is cheaper in the countryside, we have to keep that in mind. And then there are glowing eyes, and commitment, we have to keep that in mind as well. But then you need a car, because otherwise you’re forgotten forever. The happening is always in the six and in the seven, just pay attention to it. Pay attention to it. You are too big of a snob for eight. And you’re not smart enough for twelve.

You think you’re so special? Nothing has any effect on you, is that what you think? Toilet paper, eight-pack and all the stuff on sale in your own brand anywhere? Come on, look at yourself!
Noone is above anything, some of us get ruined one way and others get ruined another way. Yeah, I mean, every bad thing had its good moments and vice versa.

Wow, how fucking smart she is all of a sudden.

She complains, she gave birth, she complains, she didn’t give birth. Just let her shout it into the mug. Just make her stop bothering me with all the mugs …

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Silence

The silence was massive. We never spoke. I drowned myself in another world, I didn’t play with the kids. They formed their own little commune, where noone could enter. I just sat and stared at our only room’s rotting walls, the small window’s paint chips, the cracks in the wood of the ceiling, and then I just strolled around in the back garden, among the hills and valleys and I sat down in the grass.

I was so calm, I felt so free, I dreamt of eating as much as I could every day, I imagined multi-layer salami sandwiches, pretty clothes, a lot of books, a bike, 100-piece marker set, a huge boksz of pencils, a whole shelf with papers on it, notebooks and pens, colorful envelopes … I was satisfied. I knew this was going to be mine, we would have our own house, we’ll have food to eat, we won’t live in a dark hole with an old lady who never let me play int he back yard and who scolded me for shouting, she never gave us any pears, but we stole one anyway when she went into the village. When she got back, shoe counted them, and then … But when she left again, we went to the attic to collect all the glass we could find, so we could sell it and buy something really pretty for Mummy.

Int he kitchen there were two big buckets on the long bench. We brought fresh water in them with my sister, the well wasn’t that far, out on the street, almost right in front of the house. But the real party was when we went to get milk, up to the village. We had to go in the evening and we took the top off the jug and turned it around and around fast and we were amazed by the fact that not even a drop of milk left the container.

It was even before this, we lived in another lady’s house, our dad was nowhere to be seen. Mum worked the night shift and the morning shift at times, u pin the capital, on these occasions I had to wake my sister, we washed our faces, I made the beds, I locked the door, took her to daycare, and I went to school. I was in the first grade, I was six years old. When mum worked the afternoon shift, I went to pick my sister up from daycare after school, we played at home, we had dinner, I washed the dishes, we tidied up and then went to bed. Mum got home around 11 pm, we were asleep by that time. Everything was so calm. So quiet.

I loved going to school, teachers praised me, they patted my head, I was so grateful to them, that I felt I owed it to them to study. They showed me a bunch of wonderful things and they payed attention to me. I was happy, yes, of this I am sure. I gave little kisses to my books every morning, I knew, that one day I would be a teacher, too. I taught my sister every day after daycare. I knew I would be one of those smiling teachers, like my teacher, with an open look in my eyes. I never doubted the fact that I would one day become a teacher.

It happened even before these times, when mum left dad and we moved to this other village, where we lived with yet another old lady, there was no floor, it was sand and dirt, you know, it was one of those houses where we had to water the floor every morning, so it wouldn’t be dusty int he rooms. I was 5 years old then. Dad came after us, he begged mum. And then on an early summer evening we were just standing in the doorway, we were waiting for dad, he had to pay us that day. We were hungry. Dad didn’t come. Mum didn’t say anything. She didn’t raise her voice, not once. She cried quietly, we just stood there hugging her, it was getting chilly. We turned, slowly, I let go of the gate, and then the old lady came up to us and gave us both a loaf of bread. One for me, one for my sister. And this is why I loved mum. Although later she couldn’t even look a tus, she couldn’t smile at us, she couldn’t protect us and give us hugs, I loved her for that moment. Because that day she stayed hungry. And there were a lot of days when she stayed hungry. And back then, she would hug us, even if she was hungry … I was happy.