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Friday, December 20, 2002  My attitude is that, basically, I just don't care. I ride a nice little dreamy feeling through my life. If I think about it, it's like I'm this Arabian hero floating a puffy-cloud magic carpet above all my enemies, these guys waving their swords vainly at me from below. Sometimes my attitude lands me in trouble, and I mean prison by that. The worst thing I did, until now anyway, was pushing my best friend into traffic. He survived, but with considerable loss of blood. Unfortunately there were witnesses, and I got five years. But I painted some really fabulous pictures in the prison workshop. The warden, I hear, even hung one in his house. The other inmates used to stare at me with amazement while the paint flew spattering everything around. I'd take a break, and one of them would come up, let's say it was this con Lev, who was not bad with the silk-screen but was confined for life because he had once used his chemicals for the wrong purpose (on his wife). Lev would come up to me and say, "That moves me. I feel it. But I'm not sure what it means." And I'd turn to him and say, "Yeah, what it means...." I answered like that, because I didn't have any idea either. They let me out after two years because they figured I'd reformed into a painter with promise. But it was precisely getting out that brought my career in the arts to an end. I didn't want to be a genius of abstract expression anymore and would've probably bid my paints goodbye. But the outside world didn't even give me the chance. Somebody stole them in Penn Station. I'd just arrived and was waiting for Marlene (more about that in a second) when the guy in the seat next to me went into convulsions and dribbled goo and, then I noticed, blood out of his mouth. He fell on the floor and fibrillated, politely, like he didn't want to disturb anyone. A young girl with a backpack looked right at me, jabbing my eyes with a panic in hers. I wasn't sure what she expected, so I set my ham sandwich on the guy's chest. Marlene showed up at that moment, and when I went to grab my things -- there they weren't: my paints had been stolen. Marlene was my girlfriend before prison, and she was still willing to be my girlfriend again after and despite it. I explained to her that it was a mistake; these things happen, etc. She thought about this and decided she didn't have a problem with what I did. Her only condition was that I agree to move with her to the city. "It's the center of the universe," she said. I didn't care. All I was after was a little sanctuary, a place in which, you know, to dream. Our apartment was small for three people. But I was comfortable enough. The building had a doorman and a canopy. We had cable. There was a silk Persian rug on the floor and a collection of art books. I decided to read them all the way from the Renaissance to Jackson Pollock, resting with forays into an illustrated Kama Sutra. Like everything in the apartment including the apartment itself, the books belonged to Marlene's Aunt. Marlene was the only thing I had claim to. But the operation to order things more to my liking turned out to be simple. The armoire was Marlene's Aunt's prize possession, a new acquisition. The evening it arrived she put a chair in front, sat down and contemplated it for an hour, making occasional comments as she noticed some new feature. "Look at the women carved on the base, the ones on the left have sad expressions. The ones on the right have happy ones. Isn't that clever? What a find this was!" I hadn't even been thinking, at that moment, about anything dasterdly or devious. It was her fault, for giving me the idea. "It's so big I bet I could stand inside it," she said, much to her own misfortune. "Why don't you try it out?" I said. "Stand inside, and I'll take your picture." She was happy to do this, absurdsly so in my opinion, which confirmed for me that I was probably doing the right thing. She stood inside, and with no compunction or doubt, instead of stepping back and snapping the photo, I stepped forward and slammed the door shut, turned the key and locked her in the ugly piece of junk. She pounded on the doors for awhile, shouting and whining. But by the time Marlene came back she was quiet. Maybe she'd fallen asleep, or maybe she was dead. "Where's my aunt?" Marlene asked. Ignoring her, I said, "I hate your hair when you tie it up in back. Why don't you let it out?" I wasn't trying to avoid her question. I did hate her hair that way, and I wanted it fixed. Marlene dumped her bags of groceries on the kitchen counter. "Your aunt's in the armoire." "What's she doing in there?" Marlene said lightly, putting things away in cupboards. It was clear wasn't taking me seriously. "I locked her in. I bet she'll be dead in awhile, and the whole apartment's ours." "Shut up. One of these days she's going to overhear you." "I told you already. She's actually here. In the armoire." Marlene rolled her eyes and sat on her aunt's couch. "Come here," she said patting the cushion next to her. I sat down and kissed her a few times. She became bored and stared blankly at the television. I began undoing her belt. "What if she comes back?" she said. "She won't," I said between kisses, "Even if she does we'll hear her opening the locks on the door, and we'll run into the bathroom." As it turned out, Marlene's Aunt wasn't dead after all because she beat on the doors again while we did our thing. Marlene happened to be distracted with passion and pleasure, and she believed me when I said the noise was probably somebody working next door. The pounding stopped by the time we were done. Marlene went into the bathroom, and I walked over to the armoire and lit a cigarette. "Mmmm," came this hungry moaning sound from the armoir. "I sure would like a cigarette." "Why not?" I said. "So you're going to let me out now?" For an answer I shoved a cigarette halfway through the hole. "When I say 'go,' start puffing because I'm going to be lighting it, okay?" The cigarette jiggled up and down like she'd wrapped her lips around it. I heard the toilet flushing in the bathroom, while I struck a match and the tip of the cigarette began to glow. Puffs of smoke came out the hole. Marlene emerged. "What are you doing?" "Giving your aunt a smoke." A billow of smoke came out the keyhole, followed by a choking cough. The cigarette fell to the floor. "Hey!" I said, "You just burned a hole in your carpet." "Marlene? Is that you? This bastard has got me locked in the closet. Oh, my god!" came the voice out of the armoire, underscored by soft shrieks. "What?! What happened?" Marlene's face turned red and she began to run in circles in front of the armoir. "It was an accident," I said, "I bumped the door shut." "Let her out! Let her out!" As calmly as I could, which was difficult, given that Marlene was still running wildly about the apartment like a crazed wind-up toy and her aunt was shouting and moaning, I tried to explain the situation. "Let's say I do let her out. Then let's say she calls the police - I'll go back to jail." Marlene stopped in the middle of the room, puffing. She put her head in her hands. "Ahhh!" she said shaking her head. Somebody then knocked on the door. I looked through the eyehole in the door. The bald head of Mr. Stanley C. Eldorado floating on top of a vermillion sweater. I might as well tell you that he was an immigrant from Russia while it was still the USSR. He took his American name when he naturalized and chose Stanley because it was the closest thing in English to whatever his Russian signifier had been. He chose Eldorado, after the automobile, because he ran a used-car lot in Inwood. Marlene's Aunt, who he'd been after for more than ten years to marry him, was the one who talked him out of making himself Mr. Chevrolet, which he'd wanted to do because he thought it sounded romantic. Maybe it was a Russian thing. The glass in the eyehole had the weird effect of making his strange face look normal instead of the usual other way around. "Hellooo," he said, "I'm here to see the armoire. You are in there, I knowooo." Marlene and I both froze. "Who's there? Help! Help!" said the voice, sounding more muffled than before. Probably, it was an oxygen problem, and Mr. Eldorado didn't hear. Eventually, he went away. "Look, Auntie Emmy," Marlene said, "This was a mistake. A joke. We're going to let you out, but can't you forget about it?" The only answer was a coughing noise, sort of like a laugh. "Sounds like 'no,'" I said, carefully crafting on my face the sincerest, most remorseful smile I could. Marlene looked back at me with compassion and understanding, a perfect cipher for my requirements in a female. "Look, Auntie Emmy," she pleaded, "Please just cooperate so I can let you out." There was no answer. "Alriiight, since you're going to be in there awhile, I guess Alexander and I can start arranging the apartment the way we like it. We can put the table by the window. We might as well put the television in the corner, and let's get rid of those ugly vases." "They are not ugly!" came the voice. "I'm sorry ... but all you have to do ... Well, okay the vases can stay. But I'm going to take down some of your pictures. Who can live beneath those ugly abstract things? You're not looking at them." This veiled threat of extended imprisonment didn't draw any concessions out of Marlene's Aunt either. "Wait til your mother finds out about this," was all she said. Marlene looked at me in consternation and defeat. "Let's go to bed," she said, "I have to lay down and think about this." "Why bother?" I said, "You think too much, you know. Life's a dream, follow your inclinations." "No, no. No. Easy for you to say. I've got to think this through. I've got to come to a decision." A decision, she said. That would've made most people want to drag the guts of her thoughts right out of her head to find out what it would be. But not me. I take things as they come. Even in a restaurant, for example, I always ask the waiter to bring the best thing on the menu and not to tell me what it is. I like to guess while I eat it. What a pleasant surprise it is to find mushrooms beneath the crust of a casserole, to taste the unexpected cayenne pepper,. It's the same with people. I don't read too deeply into their words and actions, forward or backward. Let what comes, come. I don't do this out of conceit. Who could live like me out of conceit? I'm usually taken for an idiot, or for a dangerous character. So when Marlene mentioned bed, I didn't pursue the matter of her aunt any further. I was tired, anyway. I pulled open the sofa, took off my clothes, hopped on in and went, actually, to sleep. But Marlene must have tossed and turned the whole night because she didn't look very good in the morning. "We're going to have to convince my aunt to keep this quiet," she said. "Maybe we can find something on her, and blackmail her to keep quiet." She paused. "What am I saying? This is my aunt." "Your face is all red and tired," I said, "Why don't you splash some water on it or something?" "Shut up. It's because I'm worried. It's because of you." She went into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. I followed her in, my eyes locked on the endearing motion of her behind, and kissed her on the back of the neck. She arched her back. "Maybe," she said, "my aunt wants some water." "I bet she's asleep, so we could probably put a glass in there real quick before she can get out." We opened the armoire up, standing back to let the stale air pass us by. Marlene's aunt had made a pillow for herself out of coats and was curled up like a little baby. I put my finger on her neck to feel for a pulse. "What are you doing?" "She's alive." "What do you mean, 'She's alive,'" Marlene mouthed silently with horror. "Oh, my god." She sat on the floor. I filled a glass with water and put it in the bottom of the armoire. "There's a lot of space in there," I whispered. "Especially for your aunt because she's so short. It's like a little apartment. I bet I've seen apartments smaller than that. What's to worry? It's like she moved into her own bedroom. And even when she was free she never went outside on the street anyway, 'cause she's too afraid." "You know," I said, "there's no sense suffering about this. It cancels out the whole point of having the apartment to ourselves." Marlene's aunt moved around and murmured. She was still peacefully asleep. I suggested we put in the t.v. to keep her occupied and rigged it up while Marlene made her some sandwiches in the kitchen. Running the cord through the crack where the doors shut I could get them closed again. I hurried in fear she would wake up at any moment. I also found a flashlight, a watch and a pillow for her. I even set one of her paintings that I admired on the bottom of the armoire to decorate it. Goodies inside, I closed the doors up, and Marlene I sat down to wait, prisoners of our prisoner. Marlene lost herself in her thinking and her decisions, while I imagined a perfectly white canvas and attacking it only with blue paint. Everything had been some shade of blue in prison, and it was the color I liked to use most in my pictures. My veins ran, dreamily, with blue until sometime later when I noticed the light of the flashlight glowing from the cracks around the doors. "You're up," I shouted, "You want me to put a cigarette in the keyhole?" "You are such a bastard," she said. She seemed to blame me for the whole thing, as if Marlene was totally innocent. "You know, Marlene," she said, "there are even carvings on the inside of this thing. They paid a lot of attention to detail when they made this ... It's right in the center in relief on the back here." [ continue..] Love - A Thousand Miles Closeby Amir Saleem I am sorry I can’t introduce myself right now, because I am running. The sun has not set yet but it is dark. There are dark clouds all over the sky and they are filling the air with water. It seems as if today they are going to cry all of their tears away. I am trying to run as fast as I can but the rain is faster than me. So far it hasn’t let me win. The wind and rain are trying to stop me but I am not going to let them do that. The wind is firing the rain drops like bullets on my face but nothing is going to stop me today because today I have to reach for a place, I have to reach for my life, I have to reach for the bench; yes___ the bench. I go pass the lamppost that is only illuminating the rain. I cross the road, jump over the wooden fence and land into the world of my yesterdays. It was raining, but that day it was not raining to stop me, rather it took me to places. Places that I had always seen but I had never been there before. It was a very soft rain that fell like breeze on my face. That’s why I was not running, I was just walking. I had never met this park in the rain before. I used to stay at home in the rain. It was the first time that I had gone there in the rain. I don’t remember since how long had I been coming in this park, sitting on the bench under the willow and watching the sunset. It must have been a long time. It seemed as if the bench belonged to me, as now there was no one who would sit on that bench but me. It was a wooden bench of a medium length. On one side there was a meadow and on the other face, just behind the willow there was a big pond. Everyday the sun would play hide and seek with me from behind the leaves of the willow and then would drown in the pond. But that day, there was no sun; instead rain was sinking in the pond. I had hardly reached my place when I saw a girl approaching the bench hurriedly. I stopped. I wished her to pass by and not to sit on my bench. Or may be I wished her to sit on my bench. I didn’t know till then. But she did sit there and I was surprised. May be she sat there because the willow was the nearest shelter from the rain. It was after a long time that someone else besides me had sat there and it felt good. I turned to my left and stood under another tree, with no bench of course, from where I could see her. She was sitting there with both of her hands in her lap and her eyes wandering here and there but looking nowhere. She was interested in nothing I guess. She was only waiting for the rain to stop. After a while the rain turned into a drizzle. She stood up and walked away. I stood there for a while, staring at the bench and then walked on. Next evening, after a long and tough working day, I went to the park. White clouds were playing in the sky like naughty little kids. It was about twenty minutes to sunset. I reached my place and____ there was someone sitting on my bench. Do I need to tell you who? She was there again and I couldn’t believe it. She deprived me of sitting on my bench for the second time and today the sunset as well. It was the most beautiful injustice ever done to me. Now there was no other way for me but just to stand another tree and that’s what I did. When the sun was setting, a strange thing happened; I saw two sunsets, one in the pond and the other in her eyes. After that day I never went there to see the sun sinking in the pond but to see the sun setting in her eyes. I had given that bench to her without telling her. And she, without knowing it, took it from me. The days kept on creeping and it seemed to me it’ll carry on forever. After every hard working day, I would see her and all my tiresomeness would take wings and fly away. She was like that. She was not special but different. And what was that, that made her different; I could never have known until a child solver\d my problem. He made her smile and yes___ that was smile. I had never seen her smiling before but that was smile all over her, on her lips, in her eyes, in the movement of her hands, in the wavering of her hair, in the walking of her feet. SHE was smile. So far everything seemed like a movie but it wasn’t a movie. I wish it were so that I wouldn’t let the bad part come and keep it happening forever. Till then it did seem as if it will go like this forever but then the bad part came. It may sound despicable to you, did to me. Even that I feel cheap to say that it was people. They would sit on my bench. Cheap isn’t it? I let them sit on my bench, I didn’t object. But the cheapest part is that they took away all the smiles. I only allowed them to sit on my bench, not to take away all the smiles. But, well, I could say nothing to them as they were not bad but they just couldn’t wait. They were kind of people who just do it. While I knew how to wait. I can wait forever. All my life I had been waiting for nobody, now I could wait for her. I could wait for her smile to come into my eyes, for her words to come into my ears. I kept on waiting and things kept on changing. She changed too. She had become special, not for me but for others. For me she was still different. She was still coming to the park but now I could only see one sunset, that in the pond. I lost my bench too. Now there were a lot of people on and around my bench and I was waiting for them to leave. I wanted my bench to be left alone, just with her. But how to make them leave, I didn’t know. The only thing I could do was to wait, that’s what I did and that’s what I am good at. And today is the day. I had been waiting for this day. It is raining as hard as it can and I am running as fast as I can. First time when it rained I found her. Now it’s raining again and I’ll find her again. I am sure of it. After jumping over the wooden fence, I land into the park. It is twenty minutes to sunset. I step into a little ditch full of water and lose my balance but I have no time to fall so I don’t fall and keep on running. I know they are not coming today. The rain will stop them. They are afraid of the rain. But what about her? She had changed quite some time ago. She wouldn’t want to come when no one else is coming. But I am coming, she will have to come. She is a brave girl, she won’t be afraid of rain. Today I’ll forget everything that happened before. Today it will like the first time. Today everything will start all over again. The bad part is over and this time I wont let anyone near my bench but just her and I. While passing by an iron bench I lose my balance again and my knee hits the corner of the bench. These iron benches do hurt you know but my wooden bench never hurts. I don’t have time to feel this pain so I keep on running towards my place. And finally I am there. Yes, I have reached the bench. I can see the place now. The raindrops are trying to hide it but I can see the place. All the days of the past are scampering in front of my eyes. I am feeling tired now and I am feeling pain in my knee. There is no one on the bench posted by CoolSoulSmith a.k.a Rinci|ak --------------------------- Thursday, December 19, 2002Casablanca. Mosque of Hassan 2My next country to visit..this wonderful country is really a paradise on earth
 posted by CoolSoulSmith a.k.a Rinci|ak ---------------------------
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