ANAK SILOU

Katselin pimenevälle taivaalle. Synkkä ilta oli vaihtumassa kuulaaseen yöhön. Olin ollut koko illan yliopistolla etsimässä tietoa kolmensadan vuoden takaisista tapahtumista Etelä-Savossa. Väitöskirja piti saada valmiiksi, eikä tunteja laskettu. Jostain syystä minua kiinnostavat kirjat sijaitsivat aina kirjaston perimmäisessä nurkassa, seitsemän kerrosta maan alla.

Olin kävellyt keskustassa jo tunnin verran huuhtoakseni ajatuksistani nuo kauhistuttavat tilanteet, joihin esivanhempani olivat joutuneet Maaningan Kalapurolla 1700-luvulla. Kukaan ei auttanut, kukaan ei välittänyt. Nuhjaantuneiden kirjojen hapertuviin sivuihin oli tarttunut kohtaloita, joita en soisi kenenkään kokevan.

Kohmeisin jaloin harpoin lumisohjossa Senaatintorin ympäristössä. Synkeät ajatukset eivät jättäneet minua rauhaan. Kuka oli syyllinen? Miksei asiasta silloin noussut suurempaa kohua? Tuntui, että vain minä olin perillä koko asiasta.

Äkkiä näin ne. Olin ollut niin ajatuksissani, etten ollut heti huomannut. Niitä oli ainakin kymmeniä, ellei satoja. Ne tulivat Valtioneuvoston linnan takaa, pitkänä muodostelmana, leijaillen kevyesti mutta täsmällisesti aukion keskelle. Suurin osa niistä laskeutui torille, mutta muutama näytti ottavan vartiopaikan aukion laidoilta.

Olin paniikissa. Silmäni olivat niin sumeat vanhojen tekstien tihruttamisesta, että luulin näkeväni lentäviä lehmiä. Mutta sitä ne eivät totisesti olleet! Jokaisessa laitteessa oli neljä potkuria, joiden varassa ne tuntuivat leijailevan aivan äänettömästi. Pienimmät olivat käsivarren mittaisia, kun taas suurimpaan olisi mahtunut sisälle ihminen. Niin kuin siellä olikin. Tai ainakin siltä näytti.

Etsin katseellani sopivaa piilopaikkaa. Mutta minne olisin päässyt! Tori oli autio ja sen keskellä, valtavan jättiläismoskiittolauman keskellä seisoi vain Aleksanterin patsas katsellen minua kysyvästi. Sitä paitsi minut oli nähty.

Suurimman lentorotiskon kattoluukku avautui ja esiin työntyi jonkinlainen mato, toukka, liero mikä lie, joka kummallisesti hypähdellen ja viipottaen lähti etenemään, koskematta lainkaan maahan. Ennen kuin ehdin edes pelästyä, se oli jo edessäni.

”Tispa disthem chan mus. Nisoschutek enem olik.”

Tai jotain sinnepäin. Olento ei näyttänyt välittävän siitä, että oltiin Suomessa ja olisi pitänyt puhua suomea. Kun en reagoinut mitenkään, se väänsi mukanaan olleen laitteen katkaisijaa ja sai jonkinlaisen automaattikääntäjän päälle.

”Onko vaatimuksemme hyväksytty?” kuului nyt. ”Määräaika on umpeutunut tänään kello kahdeksan.”

Selkeä lause yllätti minut. Yritin kuumeisesti ymmärtää, mistä voi olla kysymys. Onko minun ilmoitettava tästä jonnekin? Miksei missään näy virkavaltaa, johon voisin turvautua? Jotain käsittämätöntä oli tapahtumassa kotikaupungissani, ja minä olin yksin vastuussa asian ratkaisemisesta.

Oli pakko keksiä jotain. Päätin hämätä sitä.

”Te ette ole täyttäneet omaa osaanne sopimuksesta,” sanoin. ”Miksette tulleet apuun Kalapurolla vuonna 1713?”

Olin kiero. Valehtelin. Mistään selittämättömästä ei tuolloin ollut kysymys. Esiäitini Anni Karttunen oli joutunut kuljetetuksi vihollisen mukana naapurimaahan ja hänen siellä ollessaan oli kotikylä tuhoutunut jonkin kaamean taudin hävittämänä. Tapahtumassa ei ollut mukana lentäviä laitteita tai outoja olentoja. Mutta oli pakko yrittää jotain.

Toukka käänteli ylävartaloaan aivan kuin tarkistaen apureidensa sijainnin. Sitten se tuntui viestittävän jotain lähimmälle kopteriryhmälle, jotka lähtivät tulemaan kohti.

Sitten olento kääntyi taas minuun päin ja sanoi: ”Vie minut Maaninkapurolle. Selvitetään asia”.

En ollut aivan varma, halusinko lähteä iltahämärissä omituisen toukkalaivueen mukaan lennolle kohti Etelä-Savoa, mutta minusta tuntui, että minun oli nyt tehtävä kaikkeni saadakseni olennot rauhoittumaan. Oli pelattava aikaa, että viranomaiset saisivat tiedon tilanteesta. Olihan jonkun muunkin ollut pakko nähdä tällaisen joukkion laskeutuvan Suurkirkon portaiden juurelle. Joku varmasti hälyttää kohta poliisin.

”Lähdetään,” vastasin.

Nousin johtajaolion mukana suurimpaan lentolaitteeseen, ja me nousimme pian kaupungin kattojen ylle. Katsoin taakseni ja näin, kuinka koko muu seurue lähti mukanamme, peräkanaa kuin esikouluryhmä opettajansa johdolla, lentämään kohti erämaata, kauas asutuskeskuksista.

Noista ajoista on nyt jo vuosia. Kun katselen taaksepäin, ymmärrän, että olin silloin kovin väsynyt. Viikkokausien oleskelu kirjaston uumenissa etsimässä historan hämäristä tietoja väitöskirjaani varten ei tehnyt minulle mitenkään erityisen hyvää. Aloin nähdä ja kuulla asioita, joiden todenperäisyys ei minulle välttämättä milloinkaan selvinnyt. En muutenkaan silloin oikein osannut asettua mihinkään. Päiväni täyttyivät levottomista ajatuksista, jotka eivät antaneet rauhaa yölläkään.

Nyt on kaikki toisin. Olen tasapainoinen ja pystyn taas elämään muiden ihmisten parissa. Väitöskirja jäi tekemättä, mutta olen löytänyt paljon muuta elämääni.

Tapaamme toukan kanssa enää harvoin. Vain silloin tälllöin läymme enää Kalapurolla heittelemässä virveliä. Se on myöntänyt huiputtaneensa minua silloin torilla. Uhkavaatimus ei ollut lähimainkaan umpeutunut vaan määräaika olisi ollut vasta kahden viikon kuluttua. Heh heh, kieroa peliä siis! Tämä oli sen neuvottelutaktiikkaa silloin. Luo epävarmuutta, uhkaile, kiristä!

Mutta minä voitin sen! Olin vielä kierompi. Johdatin koko joukkion muualle. Ja valtakunta pelastui!

Anak silou mutee hem. Tispa olem chan muos: nisoschutek enem olik.

WATER MOMENTS

"Give me your hand," Annie screams to Pete.

"Your too far away," he answers, the running water still blocking his movements. "Come closer."

Annie takes a couple of more steps towards the older man, who is trying to crawl from the muddy water up to the solid ground. The flow is still rushing and throwing big lumps of sand up in the air. Annies shoes are slippery and she almost falls herself, when trying to help the other.

"You must try a little bit harder," she urges the man. "I cannot come down so low near the hole."

She grabs his shirt but soon has to let go of it. She gets one if his legs into her hands but the shoe gets loose.

The fierce flow from the broken water pipe continues. The water burst is washing the whole street, cleaning all the dirt from the past weekend, the smudges on the pavement popping up here and there, chewing gum, cigarette butts, melted asphalt from the street maintenance. If you look carefully at the street gutter, you can see diverse collection of waste paper, receipts, candy paper.

It just had to happen today. Annie was sure from the moment she woke up that something evil would happen today. Still she took the tram to the library, where she was going to listen to a literary speech by a doctor of arts. The man was little past fifty, youthful face, and quite attractive presence. The subject of his talk was his idea of writing absurd stories with invented words and absurd plot.

After the speech the lecturer, Pete was his name, stayed awhile to sell and write acknowledgements to his recently published book called Blockad Powder. It consisted of ninety stories, one page each, with absurd stories that had resemblance to Alice in Wonderland, or that's what he said.

Annie remained to the library to discuss with Pete of his ideas. She didn't buy the book, though. Pete explained that the western literature is moving towards a more demanding and challenging style. Readers want more than just easy stories with a self-evident plot. They want to be distracted, equivocated.

The lecture was already over, but Annie and Pete were still discussing.

”Does the writer have to listen to her inner visions, or to think merely about the reader, and if so, how much?” They continued outside, to the sunny street.

”But how can we avoid making a book too simple, too entertaining?” Pete suggested they should sit down to have a cup of coffee somewhere.

And then, just in the middle of a sentence, just when they had found a decent cafe, something went broke in the city maintenance worksite across the street. The asphalt was drilled in order to lay a new water line under the street. But a pipe broke and the water just started to flush all over the place. Annie and Pete were near the ditch were the water was bursting, and Pete just fell down because of the power of the rushing water.

And there they are now, trying to survive in the middle of a flood. Pete is flowing and drifting along the water, and Annie is trying to raise him up to save him from more misery and trouble. But the water stream continues, and nothing can be made to stop it.

I must interrupt here to assure you that everything will be okay. You don't have to worry, the city was actually in need of proper cleaning. The water rushes forward, rinsing all the stains from the sidewalk, all the dog excrements, the cats' hairs, doves' feathers. Bad memories, ugly stories, stinking lies are getting wiped away, likewise.

And now, the running water finds new waste and garbage to be flushed away. In front of a big department store it catches a long receipt with a sum of sixty thousand and five hundred euros, but the goods was only one pair of socks. With a whirl, the flood carries the receipt to the reach of Annie, who has just managed to lift Pete from the disaster and is now sitting on the pavement with his head in her lap. The receipt flies in front the couple, where it lands. It appears to say: ”Look at me!”

Annie picks up the receipt, reads the shocking sum, sixty thousand and five hundred, and the goods, pair of socks, with disbelief. What is going on in our city? Why do people let water lines brake up, why do respected writers have to fall down on the mud, and especially, why do shopping centers make huge errors in their billing?

”It's no error,” says Pete. ”It's normal. And the water was opened on purpose. Have you not noticed? It's everywhere. The world has gone crazy.”

Towards the evening, the flush of the water slows down. Little by little, the citizens start to go around. They go everwhere to enjoy the new cleanliness of the city.

AT THE BARBERSHOP

I have used this same barbershop for many years, maybe five. It’s located inside of a shopping mall, in the back of a cosmetics store. Did I say five years? Whoa, is it already so long ago, since I left home?

My mom and dad had divorced some time ago. and I lived with my father who hated me. He was always accusing me of things I didn’t do. He never wanted me, I’m sure, and he was only happy when I finally left home. He re-married with a much younger wife, but then suddenly he got cancer or something, and died six months later.

There are only female hairdressers in the barbershop. I think I can recognize several of them, although the staff seems to change all the time. But it’s not so important for me who’s doing the job. I have only little hair, so it is not very hard work to cut it. Sometimes it’s a trainee, who goes back to the barber school the following week to continue her studies. Sometimes it’s a young and beautiful lady. Usually I don’t pay any attention to the hairdresser.

This time it is different. From the first moment I thought that I knew the hairdresser. I watched her through the mirror, while she was preparing her scissors and other apparatuses to cut my hair. She was approximatele the same age as I, little fleshy and with a grey hair. She used big round glasses that didn’t quite match her style.

“Alma, is that you,” I said when I eventually recognized her.

“Oh my God, Christian,” she said dropping the scissors onto the floor. “I really didn’t know who you were at first.”

Alma took her scissors from the floor and laid them on the desk. She was my father’s second wife. I never understood what my father saw in her. Ordinary looking girl, nearly my age. And I never understood how she could stand my father. He was such a drag.

“Have you been working here long,” I continued. “I think I didn’t see you last time.”

“No no, not long,” she answered. “Oh my good, this is so embarrassing.”

From the mirror I saw that she was nearly blushing.

“Actually, you know, after your dad died I moved to south,” she continued. “When I came back, I got this job as a hairdresser. But I didn’t know that you live in the neighbourhood.”

“So, how do you want your hair to be cut?” she continued in a less emotional manner.

“Oh, just take half of it away, it grows so fast.”

“Shall the ears be in sight? And sideburns, do you want them to remain?”

“No sideburns, no. And yes, cut my hair so that the ears come visible.”

She started her job, cutting with the scissors from all around my head using the comb to assist the job. The hair must be evenly cut all over the place, not make it short somewhere and long somewhere else.

“How did you stand my father?” I asked her. “Did he ever talk about me?”

She was now ready with the scissors and took the cutting machine in her hands.

“I loved your father,” Alma answered.”He was always sad that you were on so bad terms with him.”

“But he hated me!” I replied. “He was alway bossing around, showing that he was the king of the house. How could you not see it?”

“He had a hard time after the divorce with your mother,” Alma said. “He tried to help you concentrate to your studies, so that you could study. Did you succeed with the university? I think he paid it all.”

“Yes I did. I graduated last month and have a master’s degree now.”

“Gongratulations!” she answers. “Shall we go somewhere to celebrate on the evening?”

“I think it’s a good idea.”

Cutting men’s hair is easier than doing women’s hairdressing. I do both.

“Hello,” says a young man entering the barbershop. “I want my hair cut, do you have vacancy?”

I have grieved enough. I should not spend my entire life moarning and thinking about one past relationship. I’m quite young, I have to find new people around me.

“Yes we do,” I answer. The man is nearly my age. “Please take your coat off and have a seat. You can sit there, between those two.”

I’m glad I found this job. It’s a good way to start a new life. Here I meet people every day, coworkers and customers. And who knows, some day I might bump into a new opportunity, which would wipe away my longing, once and for all.

“Are you new here?”

Ok, we were happily married and my husband died suddenly, one year after our marriage. But I have to think about myself. He was much older than I, and someday it could have formed a hinder for our happiness, I have to think.

I go to collect my scissors and other appliances. When I come back, I see something familiar in the young man’s nose. And the whole face. I think that I’m only dreaming because I wast just thinking about my late husband.

But then the young customer continues: “Alma, is that you?” with a voice that cannot belong to anyone else than my late husband, Mike. Or to his son, Christian. I become overwhelmed and drop my tools.

Christian tells me that he is still angry with his father. They had long fights, when Mike urged Christian to go to sleep early. Otherwise he could not concentrate in his studies. The father saw that the university studies were starting to go downwards because of tiredness.

I tell Christian that his father loved him and wanted him to graduate from the school. I hope he understands that what seemed to be austerity, was love and caring.

The boy has graduated from the university. Mike would have been very happy to hear the news.

We decide to go out and celebrate.

I think I do not have to mourn anymore. I lost Mike but i found Christian.

WITH THE GRANDFATHER

Grown up in the same family, yes, that’s what we were. But quite a different childhood we had.

When my brother was five, he was a victim of an accident. Our father used to take us to bicycle trips, where we, the two youngest sons, were carried on his bike. I was sitting on the frontside, on a seat that was put on the handlebars of the bike, and my brother sat on the carrier that was on the back of the bike. We were driving on the street, far away from home. Suddenly,for some reason, my brother put for his foot between the spokes of the back wheel. The bicycle crashed and we all fell to the ground.

The ankle of my brother was broken. Fortunately, a childrens’ hospital was quite close, and we went there. The doctors examined my brothers foot. We got instructions that he should stay in the hospital for several days, until the broken bones would be mended.

My brother was too young to understand the reason why he had to stay in the hospital overnight, and many nights. He thought that mother didn’t want to have him anymore, she had abandoned him and he probably has to stay in the hospital forever. He couldn’t understand that after a couple of days he would be back at home again.

After this incident, my brother’s behaviour changed remarkably. He started acting quite aggressively at home, crying, shouting and bullying me, his younger brother. My parents were quite confused and helpless about his reactions. Some times they called a doctor, after my brother had been shouting without any pause for several hours. The doctor couldn’t help, but my brother ceased slowly when he got tired. One method for calming him was to promise him a small allowance when he had been without quarrelling one whole day. Some times the only way for my parents to get along my brother’s bad moods was to ask the grandparents nurse him for one evening.

I also visited my grandparents, now and then. But my visits had a totally different air than my brothers. I enjoyed staying in their small, old-fashioned aparment, with only two rooms. There was not much furniture. One room was kitchen, and the other room a combined living room and bedroom. Their eldest son, my uncle, also lived with int the apartment, in these two rooms, because he never had the capacity to acquire a home for himself. He was 40.

I remember sitting on the large windowsill of the grandparents’ apartment, admiring the abundant traffic on the busy street just below the window. The street had four lanes, biggest street I ever had seen. My family lived in an area of narrow streets and two-story detached houses, more than hundred of them, next to each other. There was nearly no traffic in the neighbourhood. The grandparents lived more towards the center of the city, in a quite urbanized part, where there were lots of cars.

I remember sitting on the windowsill playing a game with my brother. We competed against each other with car brands driving past the house down on the busy street. The rules were simple. Both players chose their own brand and started to count how many cars of that brand he could see. You could be sure of your victory, if you chose Volkswagen. Therefore, if either of us chose Volkswagen, the other could take two brands. Still it was an unfair game.

The apartment was located on the third floor. There were street lamps hanging over the street suspended by a wire quite near the window. You had almost a feeling on being able to touch the lamps. Tirelessly, the lamps were just swinging from one side to the other. When it was windy, the swinging was even stronger. The light the lamps projected on the street was swaying at the same pace.

My grandfather was already 80. He was walkin stiff and hunchbacked. There was somehow unpleasant smell around him. But I loved him. In the closet he had some secret tools that I admired. There were several shoemakers trees and a stand, where a shoe could be put in order to fasten a new sole to it. It smelled shoe polish, shoe leather, grease and turpentine in the closet.

The toilet was small and a little scary at the same time. The toilet tank was up, near the ceiling, and there was a long chain which you should draw after you have been peeing. The chain was connected to a lever, which opened a valve on the water tank letting the water run freely down the pipe in the toilet seat. The mechanism made a big noise, starting from the metallic slam, when you pull the wire. You have to pull heavily, otherwise the process doesn’t at all. If you managed to draw the wire determined enough, the water started to flush down the pipe, which made an enormous and frightening sound.

TO THE LIBRARY

“It’s amazing, how they come and go, flying in the air,” Norma speaks to herself. “I just have to look at them, over and over. I lift my eyes up from the book, and there they are, white and innocent.”

Norma loves the wings. She is in the bus, travelling to the university library, where she spends much of her time, trying to keep up with her assignments to the writing class she’s taking. In the library, she usually takes a seat in the balcony, at a long and round table with a balustrade to the high opening. There she has a clear view to the lower floor and to the huge window outside. People sit still in the library, just reading, and normally there is no sound to be heard. Nothing moves, except the paper wings hanging from the ceiling. They seem to float in the air by themselves.

In the middle of her dreaming, the bus arrives at the library bus stop, and Norma goes out.

“What’s your agenda?” asks Papa Andrew while taking a short pause from the drilling.

“I have to go to the library,” says Norma.

“No trespassing,” says Papa Andrew. “Have you not noticed the fence and the signs?”

“But I have my assignments to do,” says Norma. “I have to finish my homework to my writing class.”

“You just have to use the detour, that’s all,” says Papa Andrew.

The road in front of the university library is closed. Papa Andrew has mounted a fence around the pit in the ground that he and his team are digging. There are several warning signs around. A huge road roller is moving in the middle of the street obstructing the way. The workers open a hole in the asphalt. The new water pipe must be installed today under the narrow street. People going to the library have to use long detours in order to get there, using the back door.

“But just for once, may I pass?” begs Norma. “I do not know any other way to the library. And it’s getting cold here.”

“Don’t you people read too much, anyway?” says Papa Andrew. “Are the books really worth of all the time you people spend with them?”

“I hate mud and noise and dirt,” says Norma. “Please let me go to the library.”

“Just walk round the building, it’s good exercise for you, sitting so much.” Papa Andrew answers. “Go left or right, it doesn’t matter. FIrst you go round the corner, then down the stairs and up again on the other side.”

He puts his helmet on, takes his tool and continues drilling.

The street work makes a big noise, but Papa Andrew is used to it. He uses earmuffs to damp the noise. He is also used to wear helmets, safety footwear and overalls.The job is hard, but he sort of likes it. Not least because he can earn more money than an average salesman. Papa Andrew has a black thick beard, which has been the cause for his nickname. He has been working in various construction buildings his entire life. Now he works in the street, drilling a hole in the asphalt in order to dig a channel for a water pipe.

Norma turns her back to the worksite trying to damp the noise by closing her ears with the palm of her hands.

It doesn’t help.

Suddently there comes a loud bang from the worksite. Huge amount of water starts to squirt from the hole the workers are digging. The spurting water knocks Papa Andrew down to the ground. In no time, the spit is full of water.

Papa Andrew is in the middle of the mess, lying on the ground, trying to grip on something to get up.

Norma is safe, because the water does not flow towards her, but streams down the slope to the other direction. She jumps over the fence on the edge of the hole.

“Give me your hand,” she screams to Papa Andrew.

“Your too far away,” he answers, the running water still blocking his movements. “Come closer.”

Norma takes a couple of more steps towards the old man, who is trying to crawl from the muddy water up to the solid ground. The flow is still rushing and throwing big lumps of sand up in the air. Normas shoes are slippery and she almost falls herself, when trying to help the other.

“You must try a little bit harder,” she urges the man. “I cannot come down so low into the hole.”

She grabs his shirt but soon has to let go of it. She gets one if his legs into her hands but the shoe gets loose.

Finally she manages to get a firm hold of the mans hand. Norma begins to pull him away from the muddy water, and slowly, little by little, she manages to help him up from the whirl of water and mud.

The old mans face has small wounds overall and his clothes are muddy and wet. His overall is shreded and one of his safety shoes is gone forever with the flowing water.

The other workers have already made an alarm, and the authorities have switched off the main water pipe. Gradually the bursting of the water from the hole slows down.

“What happened?” asks Norma. The man is now in a safe place. His head rests in her lap. “Where did the water come from?”

“From the pipe, of course,” says Papa Andrew.

“But I thought you were just installing it.”

“The old one was still on the bottom of the hole,” says Papa Andrew. “I didn’t want it to be shut down, so that the people can continue using the library. My daughter sits there every day.”

“Is your daughter a librarian?”

“No, she has been without a job for three months. Everyday she goes to the library, where she sits down to write the story of her life. Or the imagined story. Someday she will publish, I guess. Her mother has died, and she still lives with me. I have a permanent job, so we’ll manage.”

“I think I have seen your daughter. She must be the one with black hair, just like yours. We both read and write, and then we look at the ceiling, where the white wings hang, wondering how they fly and keep us away from the worries.”

LOST AND FOUND

"It can't be true," Peter says while rushing into the back stage. "I was sure I had it with me, but when I parked the car, it was not there."

The air is stale and hot in the small room. Marvin looks at him absently, examining some papers from his briefcase. Two other gyus lie on armchairs, seemingly half asleep.

"You're late," Marvin says without raising his eyes from the papers. "This contract is really garbage. We get too little money for the evening."

"Then why did you sign it in the first place?" says one the men in the armchairs."You still have to pay us, remember."

"I just bought it last year, old but in shape," says Peter without listening to the others. "No dimples, the valves still working fine." Sweat begins to form in his forehead.

"No kidding?" says Marvin. "What are you actually talking about?"

Peter grabs his phone and starts to press the keys. He walks rapidly towards Marvin, then back.

"When did you use it last time?" asks Marvin. "You definitely had it in the last gig. Have you been playing it in the mean time?" 

"Myrna didn't like the new hat I gave her yesterday," Peter mumbles while waiting his wife to answer his call. "Birthday present."

Peter is nearly bold with some deep wrinkles appearing now and then over his eyebrows. His left leg is shorter than the right, which makes him limp slightly as he walks.

"Oh, you had a party yesterday for Myrna?" Marvin says. "DId you play your instrument there?"

Marvin is a short, fat man. He always wears the same leather jacket and black trousers. He looks like having been too long in the music business, organizing gigs for small bands. Usually for his own.

"Darling, sorry to call you during your exercises," Peter says in the phone. "But I am in a terrible situation. I have lost my tuba."

"You have lost what?" his wife, Myrna, says in the telephone. "The line is quite bad, I can't hear you. I thought you said you have lost yout tuba."

"Myrna, listen, I want you to check, if I let the instrument at home," Peter says in the phone.

Marvin comes closer to his fellow musician, trying to hear Myrna's voice better. Suddenly there's nothing.The connection is lost. 

"How old is Myrna now?" Marvin says. "Is she still as attracting as she was?"

"She has put a little weight," Peter says. "But it's better that you forget her all the same. She took me instead of you, you know that. Five years now."

"How are you going to play in the concert without your instrument?" Marvin says. "I don't pay you just for standing still on the stage. Besides, this is a four man band, not three."

Peter is pressing the keys of his phone to call her wife again. The line is busy.

"She doesn't love Peter," says Marvin to the two men in the armchairs. He has walked to the corner of the room, where the two men, drummer and guitarist, are waiting for the gig to start. 

"We were playing in Myrna's birthday party yesterday with Peter," says the drummer to Marvin. "The tuba is there, at his home, i'm sure. Peter can go and get it with his car. We still have fortyfive minutes before we have to start." 

"You were playing in the party?" says Marvin. "Why did Peter not ask me?"

"Darling, I'm glad you answered," says Peter on the phone. "Can you search my room, if I let my tuba there. I can't find it in my car, anyway."

"It's here, I see it," Myrna answers. "Shall I bring it to you?"

"You don't have to," Peter says. "I still have time to come and get it."

"Why did you not ask me to play on Myrna's party yesterday?" says Marvin to Peter.

"She doesn't love you," Peter says, slamming the door, and hurrying out to his car.

CYCKLING

I must have a cheese sandwich every morning. Coffee is fine, of course, but that is only the second most important thing to have. I hate nothing more than to wake up and find out that there is no cheese or sandwich left in the kitchen.

Like this morning. I wake up, alone as usual, grab my pair of slippers from under the bed. In the bathroom, the laundry is still waiting to be washed. I look around in the kitchen. The yesterdays paper is just where I left it on the table. Bread, where is the bread? Did I or didn't I leave some bread for the morning? Cheese, where's my cheese?

Nothing!

Why, for me, this agony? What have I done to get into a situation like this?

I hate the world. They all treat me bad. From the beginning.

Philip had to go work in spite of the disarter in the kitchen. No excuse. Just take the car out of the garage, drive to the city, think about something else.

And what would he do, where would he go, other than to his normal job, living his normal life? Turning the steering wheel in the middle of thousand other drivers. Just swallow your dreams and get moving.

In the intersection there was a bunch of cyclists bugging the car traffic.

“Why don’t they ride their cycles somewhere else?” Philip began to get really annoyed. He was drivinghis car in the rush hours, in a hurry. The morning at home was lonely and distressing, as always. His car was old, bursting stinking fumes out the exhaust pipe. The motor was coughing.

“I would never ride a bike in the center of the city,” he thought himself.

Suddenly there was a biker beside him. The old man had a t-shirt with a picture of a dogs jaw, sharp teeth glistening. He shouted something, but Philip didn’t hear because of the closed windows. Maybe the man complained about the exhaust gases, or the noise of the old motor. He could also have uttered some vicious words about Philips driving style: he was not the most tranquil man behind the steering wheel. Philip reached out to open the side window.

“What’s your trouble?” he shouted to the cyclist, when they both were halted in the red lights. Philip didn’t quite see the face of the cyclist, only his t-shirt with the face of the dog.

“You didn’t use the blinker,” answered the cyclist. “I was close to bump into your car.”

“Don’t you have enough money to buy a car?” Philip asked. “It’s not safe to ride a cycle in the center.”

“This vehicle is safer as yours,” the cyclist answered. “It is also more quiet and doesn’t stink as your car.”

”You might get hurt there in the middle of the traffic,” said Philip and closed the window.

The cyclist gave the finger to Philip.

Traffic lights changed back to green. Philip stepped on the gas, and the car went past the cyclist. Philip steered a little to the right, just in front of the cyclist. Then, suddenly, he braked and slowed down, so that the cyclist had no other chance than to hit into his bumper.

The bike collided with the car, and the cyclist fell down and crashed in the pavement.

Philip did not halt the car. He watched the cyclist in the rear-view-mirror.

After a week the police finally found him. The old man in the t-shirt with dogs teeth had died in the hospital the next day Philip collided with his bicycle. Many eyewitnesses remembered his car, but nobody was quite sure of the license number. Fortunately the car was captured to many surveillance cameras of that area.

In the interrogations Philip first claimed he didn’t remember anything about this kind of episode. Later, in the court, he claimed that he wasn’t even there when the incident happened. He was driving in a nearby street.

The court did not believe him. He was accused of murder.

The justice was quick, and sentenced Philip to prison for four and a half years, for manslaughter.