[sound of slurping. off screen.]
“Yes, you could say that.”
[pencil put to paper. words scribbled.]
“Would it be important, though?”
[beat.]
“No.”
[notebook shut closed.]
“Any of them got in touch with you after?”
“No. They cannot.”
“How’s that?”
[notebook opened. pages shuffled.]
“I made sure.”
[graphite scratching paper.]
There are only so many times
you’ll tell your story.
Besides, who’ll listen?
At one stage, you’ll say,
“What’s the point?”
Beating yourself up
over history.
And instead, you’ll pull up
that beat up deckchair
all the way to the far end
of the back yard —
where there’s still some sun —
late in the afternoon.
You’ll stretch out in it
and allow yourself,
for once,
to be soaked up
by the orangey rays of light
as if that was perfectly alright.
She was leaning against the doorframe and still had her coat and thick knitted scarf on. She was texting someone on her phone. Typing a long message. From time to time, her coat sleeves got in the way of her texting. The sleeves were a tad too long or her arms short. Every now and then she jerked her shoulders to pull the sleeves up. After a while she sighed, her eyes still on the screen, and whispered, “Dammit!”
I wasn’t sure if he was awake, but he definitely was mumbling this:
“You first become you mother. Then, a decade or so later, you turn into your father. It’s almost inevitable.”
He made a pause — I thought he might have lost consciousness or his body finally gave up — he then added:
“And after that — you become your lovers. Each and every one of them.”
He exhaled, as if that was his last. A long beat.
“Does this ever occur to you?” he sighed, to my surprise.
I put out his cigarette, tucked him in and helped myself to what was left over of his double Scotch.
With feet stuck to the pavement, there’s not much one can do. “Will someone come and fill the trench?” Mr Suárez was wondering. Yesterday a truck came by, ‘Landscaping and Removal,’ advertised a faded yellow-and-pink sticker featuring a leaning palm tree on the hood. Two men got out of the truck, one took photos of the trench with his phone, then spat in the trench and smiled a toothless grin at Mr Suárez. The two men then climbed back in the cab and left. It’s been 71 days with no sales on the corner of Martel and Clinton.
