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.