survived

or: how milano was very nice, thank you for asking

they call it survival. all different levels. could be surviving a bombing, a stabbing, a broken heart, a car crash, whatever it is, it isn’t good. nobody says they survived falling in love. nobody says they survived winning 2 million € in the Lotto.

since somebody took the time to write to me and asked me if i “survived” the four day easter weekend bank holiday with two mates coming down from london with the intention of all of us leaving pieces of ourselves over the vlasmarkt or mechelseplein…the answer is yes. i think…no i was trying to be clever there and its not clever…i know that… the truth is sadder…dealing with the reality that life is already passing us by and getting wrecked three nights in a row is about two too many…

but that’s it for the whinge. the truth is, if i keep bearing down, i can take my dutch language exam as early as july…i’ve been taking the practice exams and it still feels like i don’t have a change…the reading comprehension is good the oral comprehension less so and written, well, we mustn’t say a word about that yet. i will practice by writing graffiti in dutch on the walls of bathroom stalls like the romans did, didn’t they. or was that only monty python? nah it was all the rage in pompeii and herculaneum.

as you may recall, i am also studying for the ad5 exam in august. my whole boring career rides on passing this one…

so i find myself in the unusual position of being too busy to allow my existential dilemmas eat me alive slowly like a flesh-eating bacteria. so no time and nothing to write about…well, nothing but eleanora, right?

well, short story even shorter, i worked up the indifference to walk up to her during the smoke break right after the easter holidays were over and asked her if she had a good time going back to italy for a few days.

i did it because i was feeling a bit sick in the head after the anticlimactic reunion with tommy and fake ringo, all the way down from london town, and wanted something better than my life swimming past my drowning mind with indifference, to look forward to…c’mon we lads on the lash had the time of our lives…so yes, i had nothing to lose approaching, casual-like, looking up at the nightening sky…i thought about using the can’t find my light bit but no, we all deserved better than that so i told her straight out, smoking puffing around my head as i marched with bluster and purpose in her direction, no doubt terrifying her with my certainty but in the end, i just stopped in front of her and said “so how was milano?” - and don’t worry, i didn’t make us both suffer by trying to ask her in dutch as if we were still in class and not on a smoke break…i said it as if we were good friends…that’s right. i told myself, if i act as though we were friends convincingly enough, like those star wars jedi mind tricks, and no i didn’t really believe that, i believed she’s wonder to herself, who the fuck is this guy, why is he talking to me when we are not in class?

ok, she was taken aback a bit at first, of couse. she was used to sitting there quietly contemplating dante or boccaccio, smoke streaming carelessly from between her lips, an airless exhale of almost regal certitude. so it was natural that she was abackamacka when i just popped up there to ask a question out of nowhere.

milano was very nice, thank you for remembering, i think she said.

so there, all out of conversation. cool, i probably said and exhaled more smoke. it’s all a blackout at this point. then i said well, gotta go study and waved off walking away.

now she has something to think about.

who to avoid if we ever paired-off for question and answer exercises in class.

or who to seek out…yeah, right, fat feckin chance. but i’m playing with house money now, i think i got a try out.

photo: Bernard Buffet, 1999.