Post-despair
Oumaya had a family but she felt alone in this world. This feeling she had brought onto herself almost single-handedly. It materialized in the shape of solitude, even when surrounded by her two children. Even when surrounded by a dozen acquaintances, even during intercourse, she had managed to cut off all the bridges that led to any degree of real intimacy, vulnerability, the kind that can make one blush or cry or burst out laughing. People knew her, but no one really did. She had come to disclose enough for others to be informed about the shallow waters of her heart, but never enough to provoke the idiosyncrasies that made a difference, even if they wanted to.
Her close friends were still in her life like faraway satellites, as if the furtive roads and one-way shortcuts that once bound them had turned into freezing water, an ocean that separated them and stranded her on a cozy little island of loneliness, with her only means of communication reduced to pointless gesturing, or else a well-articulated whisper of the little she still had to tell them, granted they still cared enough to read her lips from that far and decipher her calls for rescue.
How did I get here? She sometimes asked herself on slow days when her solitariness caught up with her. Consciously and meticulously, her mind retorted, as if racing with the question that prompted it. It is in fact true that she has been observing herself succumb to the act of getting stranded, witnessing how the closest friendships can dry up if not watered. Do cactuses die? Even the most independent ones can run out of pride.
With that distance, whose single silver lining was the vantage point it bestowed on the stranded, she had come to closely observe how life had tied her friends to one another well beyond her grasp, in shared, present endeavors that eclipsed the ardent nostalgia she fed on in warm pangs of ever-dimishing intensity. Random sentimental flashes, ephemeral dopamine hits of a far away summer when Saturdays meant an early ride to the north with Cohen as her copilot, a beach of one’s own, a sip of coffee with feet in crisp water, a World Cup match at 9pm on the porch of a mountain house spent rolling joints and flirting with a man pretending to watch the game while playing another one. Friendships don’t survive on nostalgia, it’s a carb-only diet, her lucid mind impeded her tipsy heart. Friendships are rooted in the past, but they thrive in the present, she affirmed in her head and smiled at her ability to sound like an octogenarian bank.
And so that solitude, while heavy in its genesis, had become her way of being, the weight of it having been channeled where it belongs, the cursed writer that she was, whose strandedness was not the cause but the consequence of her own disposition, her inability to erupt.
She had a rooted conviction that she was born to write, that she had so much to say because of how intensely she could cogitate, her dappled ability to go on at 200 miles an hour about all and nothing, and over time she had refined the quality of her thought process to the point where it mostly produced wasabi honey out of the sea of input made available to it.
And maybe she did have something to say, but to this point she was still unable to crystallize any of it into palpable substance. She had even concocted the right metaphor for her dispiritedness. A volcano cooking up an unceasing stream of lava deep in its bowels, but bereft of the courage to erupt and ravage its evacuated surroundings, at the least making for a picturesque natural phenomenon.
To vent about her existence she took on the habit of confiding to a digital doc; an amalgam of observational musings and unfinished rants always up to date with her latest introspective breakthroughs, accessible anywhere and anytime.
Could they be reading this? she asked herself while typing away. Of course they could. Who’s they? Not an actual human per se. But maybe one day, if she became a person of interest, someone would be well acquainted with her innermost realizations or her newfound fondness of space gummy bears. Until then, it was completely possible that the same artificial intelligence which judgmentally underlined her typos before it automatically corrected them could be scanning her words with a half-second lag as she typed them, feeding upon her personal notions, fine or crass, to learn something new and serve it to the multitudinous crowd who now relied on it like the blind on their cane. A soup of influences it so well formulates to please its servile prompt master. The machine has outpaced the data, she recently heard someone say, it has computed everything we have and it sits there like a fat, agile ogre famished for more.
Oumaya’s life had amounted to nothing if compared to that of many of the people she had come to read religiously. Most of them had written and published their magnum opus before their fortieth revolution around the sun and there she was, 42 in a little while, with nothing to show for herself beyond a cold digital folder of unfinished prose.
But if compared to most people, one would say she was doing well. She was fixated on the notion of belonging to the column of good people on God’s balance sheet. She was bent on being good to others and she often dwelled on that thought and dissected it in an attempt to understand whether that goodness was instinctive or premeditated. She was also fully aware of the distance between what she knew and what she actually did, between what she wanted to do and what she actually ended up doing, actively torn not between good and evil, rather between good and indifferent.
She walked with the weight of the world on her shoulders, which she carried with an inward posture, now and then remembering to straighten her back for mere seconds before unconsciously giving in to her default stance. Her hands, and her fingernails in particular, betrayed her effortlessly charming allure for which she remains thankful to both her parents, with an inconsistency that only teeth could inflict. Yes, she helped others as much as she could, yet rarely out of her own comfort, to which she thought better that than nothing.
She knew that to truly love someone she would first need to love herself for who she was, an act she was fated not to fulfill despite being conscious of its importance for a while now. And so she settled with giving to others what never compromised her deeper self, a suboptimal way of loving that spared no one, not in the least her once husband who had been demoted or promoted, she could not say for sure, to the rank of father and father only.
Do you have a tissue? Florian interrupted Oumaya’s existential brooding as he paused with humid nostrils by the bench from which she had been pondering with her laptop now closed on her lap, both her hands resting on its lukewarm chest.
Can I sit? He added right after lighting up his cigarette, glanced at her book before slightly moving it, and placed himself to Oumaya’s left to spare her the second-hand fog scurrying out of his mouth.
You know, you could kill someone with that brick of yours. It is however a rare sight, I think. A bible and a grinder, he grazed the rare edition of The Douai-Rheims Bible then perfunctorily kissed his hand and crossed himself, still unable to inflict a reaction on his bench mate.
And how are you today? replied Oumaya, breaking a silent pause that could have been interpreted as dismissal to this point, but allowed her to detach from her introspection and make an opening for Florian’s intrusion.
I’m getting used to the draught between my teeth, he replied with a slightly more playful tone.
I’m lucky I’m only missing two molars, not the front liners. That would have been a deal breaker even for a blind date. In its stride misery can be merciful.
From the side of his eye, as he peered at the pond in front of him, he could see a smile forming in Oumaya’s gaze and the greedy comedian in him that life had failed to extinguish wanted to capitalize on that eye glow, inch it down towards her closed lips to foment a stretch.
I slept with a badling of ducks yesterday. Well not with it, old friend, not with it. More like next to it. They kicked me out of the refugee home because I’m not a refugee.
You are my oldest friend, mind you, he interrupted his own flow.
We’re at our… seventh encounter, aren’t we?
And counting, Oumaya acknowledged without questioning the math.
So I told them I have been expelled from my home with nowhere else to go, isn’t that the textbook definition of refugee? but they told me some people had it worse than me. I showed them my fractured finger but this blue veering to crimson only seemed to amuse them, he snarled unexpectedly as he raised his hand and stretched it to show Oumaya the damage.
“We’ve seen worse,” the nurse reiterated without wiping the smirk off her face. The doctor had dismissed me as definitively and fast on my way to bodily decay, but not yet there. He did not venture to diagnose my mind. It was as if my desolate condition had been reduced to one that would always lose against the worse they’d been referring to.
“You should not pass judgement based on appearances” I told them and left the hospital with my tail between my legs. I walked and walked and arrived to the pond without having thought of going in the pond’s direction, to the ducks, and there they were, in a circular formation with their necks arched and their heads stuffed in their chests, all adjacent like the fond of an artichoke, and from their union emanated warmth that lasted a few inches before it dissipated, devoured by the freezing air. I snuggled next to them and they accepted me, quarrel free, not in their midst but in their immediate vicinity and that acceptance, with the semblance of warmth it provided, sent me straight into the lap of Morpheus. When I woke up they were already gone to wrinkle the skin of the pond with their morning stride and I had a feather in my mouth. God knows what those little fucks did to me in my sleep.’
You should write, you know. You have a way with words that makes me abstract from your missing molars, Oumaya remarked, her eyes drawn to the electric green algae that had made their way to the pond’s surface. Shot up then yanked back down from his pedestal with a single phrase, Florian let go a rejuvenating laugh, a sort of roar which startled but did not scare away the pigeons that had gathered by their feet, bullying for crumbs, and in that moment he felt the mellowness of banter thaw his bitter heart.
I am a thinker, he blazoned with certitude and gleaming eyes.
The writing I shall leave to those who yearn for recognition, love, adoration for their way of thinking, he bellowed comically for that last part, benignly staring at Oumaya whose taciturn smile stretched to a simper.
Besides, I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to make any valuable use of my writing hand other than displaying it for sympathy, or a cigarette.
Like a self-deprecating connoisseur, Florian whiffed a lungful with a sleight of hand from a glue tube on standby in his pocket, which instantly rendered his language more basic and blunt, bringing out his deeper self with the spontaneity of a child.
Have I told you about Kassel? Such a beautiful place. The whole city is a gallery. Artists from around the world come and show their art. It’s my Oma’s birth town. My father’s mother.
Have I told you about my mother?
She’s always like “Florian, why are you so revolutionary? Why are you so antifascist? Enough with the solidarity already.” She doesn’t get it, she doesn’t believe in anything. She only believes in my brother and fucking Lidl. I still remember my momma coming from work and then she was throwing shit at my father. Plates, porcelain, all broken.This comes back to me when I sit and it’s quiet, I get these memories from my childhood. Which is basically trauma but I’m not psychotic you know.
She cooks for my 38-year-old brother and does his fucking laundry and for me she doesn’t even pick up the phone, she didn’t call me on my birthday, it’s on Sylvester, New Year’s Eve, you can’t forget that. She didn’t call… she just didn’t. I don’t know why I still love her but she’s sick and she won’t go to the hospital. She made her own plans for her death. We have a family graveyard and she wants to be a tree, this is an option now, instead of being buried you can choose to be planted as a tree so nobody has to pay and take care of the fucking cemetery arrangements. Fucking Mama.. I mean I would love to… if she has to die I would love to take care of the fucking graveyard, but no.. You know she would love you? She would make you lasagnas and talk to you for hours. But me? Straighten your back, Florian. Bring the trash out, Florian. That’s my mama.
And she’s not this way with your brother? Oumaya asked the question she thought Florian wanted to be asked at that moment.
No, she’s not. I’m Florian and my brother’s called André . Thirty eight years she calls me André. Do you know how that feels? I’m the fucking first born, that’s insane. Did I tell you? My mama, she won’t give me any phone number. Not my brother's, not my cousin's. “So you have no flat. Why? What did you do?” I'm like, Mama, could you please give me a break here? I need 50 bucks, I need new shoes, I can come to Kassel. “No, no, you're not coming.”
I don’t give a shit, I love my brother but I’m not André, I’m Florian. I even changed my name from Florian J to Jim Sylvester. I have my own music radio station. I have fans in fucking New York but I don’t have my phone or my MacBook, so I can’t… It’s a lot to take. I don't know where I’ll sleep tomorrow. Tonight I’m in one of these homeless shelters, I’d never go there but it's so fucking cold I’m not sleeping outside again. They have no beds, all they have is diseases and junkies who steal from you, I don't have money for a hotel and my mother won’t pick up. It's just so much. Actually, I'm even sorry to say all this to you. I feel so stupid, but it's nice to talk to someone.
I have a friend called Ziad, we share food and shit. There are some nice people in this shelter, but they have huge problems these people. Me too, but it’s not on a psychic level, it’s on a physical level, on a humanitarian level. Sometimes I really don’t know why I keep on keeping on. And then I meet people like you, we don’t really know each other, apparently we trust each other, we help each other. Last year I went to the fried chicken shop around the corner. I went there with 40 bucks and brought food to my hood and gave some to everyone. Later that night some people broke into my place and stole everything, you know? It’s like the song ‘one step forward two steps backward’.
Why would someone break into your place? posed Oumaya, with a timid inclination to cross examine in an attempt to delineate truth from fabulation.
I don’t fucking know.. Jealousy?
I really don’t know. Because I stopped dealing? Last year I stopped all the illegal activities. I used to smuggle kilos of Mary Jane and MDMA from Koning to Kasperstrasse. Never got caught at the borders. They even stole my ‘No nation no border’ pullover, that’s so ironic right? It was a Polish dude and a German dude who did it, I’m sure of it now. Have I told you that my dad wrote a fucking doctorate thesis on the friendship between the Germans and the Poles? The Polish like the Irish are mostly catholics, so there’s a lot of white guilt and white privilege in the mix.
My dad was a Christian theologian… did I tell you that already? Then he became a psychotherapist, he was such a great man.. Wolfgang. He died in 1995. It’s kind of ironic because ‘And out come the wolves’ was a hit record in 95. You know, Wolfgang means a gang of wolves, and... out come the wolves. With that observation his voice came down to a murmur as he yanked on his oversized Rancid t-shirt.
I read Die Tageszeitung this morning. I think this city’s doomed. But I still say fuck Erdogan, fuck all the fucking AfD.
Anyway, thank you for listening, Oumaya. And for the 10 euros, he muttered with a discrete bow while lighting up a cigarette that had rested between his lips unlit for the past 10 minutes, then flicked his skateboard to a vertical position with his right foot, grabbed it and tucked it under his arm.
My skateboard is more important than Germany to me. You can break my bones, but don't break my board, he yelled, his head titled heavenwards for dramatic effect, now far enough from Oumaya to drop his skateboard back to the ground and jump on it to give his arborescent body a strong enough thrust forward.
That was the last time she saw Florian after having seen him almost every day for a week. She was reminded of him in a trice a couple of months later when a duck trod impetuously out of the water looking for tussle as she approached the bench that had once housed their amity, a ruffle that prompted her guilt in the form of a relentless inquisition. Why didn’t she help him more while she could? Why was it that she felt trepidation every time she saw him draw nearer from a distance but then felt so inclined to prolong her confabulations with him when they occurred? Why did she just settle for the occasional 10 euros and never more? How does the world’s conscience assess her relative heedlessness of a man so evidently on the brink of self-obliteration? Was she good for what she had done? Better that than nothing? Or was she unpardonable for not having done more even though she could?
These questions tormented her mind without altering her days otherwise, and not by a whisper that early February day. February third, at the corner café on the far end of the canal that foisted itself between her building and the rest of the city. Adjacent to her table a man she had never seen before drew her out of her book by asking her to keep an eye on his belongings while he, she assumed, went to answer nature’s call.
When he came back with damp hands which gave her the impression that he was a clean fellow, he thanked her for guarding his laptop, his original edition of Gulliver’s travels and a Moleskine notebook that showed signs of regular, if not excessive usage. And how are you today? he asked a few seconds later, riding on that natural thawing of the ice between two strangers. She did not know why, but an automatic smile had crystallized first in her eyes and quickly enough on her lips and something in her gut, too strong to resist, evinced those unexpected words out of her throat as if they had been stuck there for years waiting to break out: Do you want the short answer or the real answer? Her smile made the direct trip across to his face and was now his smile. Real please, he replied as he closed his laptop screen while elegantly crossing his left leg to rest it on his right knee, signaling his readiness to entertain a conversation where he would mostly be on the listening end.
I’ve been waking up angry at nothing, really. Just riled up for no reason, she added with more intensity.
Something about this man’s gaze and physique made him at once familiar and gave her the basic assurance that he was a listener of prime quality, that he was old enough, intelligent enough, interested enough to engage in a conversation she never thought herself capable of initiating. Something completely unthreatening yet warm about the way he looked at her made her feel seen to the point of wanting to divulge her darkest self, a validation of an ancient thought of hers that intimacy was not only the fruit of time. She was also honest enough with herself to know that she would be capable of getting physically intimate with him despite the fact she had just met him, but she also knew that was not what she was longing for when she allowed him into her world.
Also, about 20 minutes ago, I inhaled a line of that white powder that makes the world go round, right here, in the WC, she continued, incapable of pretense and surprised at herself as she heard her own voice thicken with obscenity.
It has been a while since I indulged my bloodstream with that substance, but hey, I would gladly join you on that ride if you’re kind enough to share.
As if his riposte to her compromising declaration was the only right one at that moment, she put down her cup, stood up and led the way to the water closets which were unoccupied and still clean at that time of the day. He followed like a reticent adolescent wanders with both hands in his pockets.
After you, she signaled, while handing him a rolled hundred dollar bill resurrected exclusively for this noble function, then her phone on the back of which four little lines of cocaine laid neatly. He stood with a straight back, the phone carefully held like a small tray in his right hand, the Benjamin Franklin straw in his left hand, brought it to his nose and made a line vanish, back, then a second, forth, producing almost no sound, then passed the phone to his generous companion.
I’ve learned to do that without bending over, somewhat less compromising, he alluded jocosely.
You’re a lefty then, she remarked as she posed the phone on the toilet paper dispenser, tucked her hair behind her ear and slightly leaned over to breathe in her share.
I’m fine with some compromise among good companionship, she mumbled as she brushed her nostril of choice with the tip of her index finger.
Shall we go for a walk, risk a few slips?
As they reached the spree their steps produced a muffled crunch on the fresh snow that had covered all the imperfections in the ground. Over the next hour, Oumaya elevated an outsider to her morning confidant, as she vouchsafed parts of herself selectively, consciously yielding to the liberating motions of disclosure to a kindred stranger, while being crystal clear in her mind that she would not venture for more. An accidental slip of her foot on an almost invisible frozen patch inexplicably brought with it the thought of Florian having just enough money to end his life, which invaded her mind completely like an irrepressible shiver.
Unconsciously, she slowed down then so did he, and they stood still on the bridge to take in the transient sunshine next to other static strangers equally bearing a life of their own, about whom they knew nothing except the little that their appearance revealed.
On the spree’s surface a thin layer of ice had formed overnight, thick enough to cast a motionless spell on the meandering ducks that were now huddled in small schools by its sides.
I’m André by the way. Florian made it quite easy for me to find you.
“Hard cover Douai-Rheims Bible, faded red, it will be there like a brick by her side.” And his instructions for all this were: “If you’re capable of it, do it in jest.”
I hope I managed.
This is for you, he added, to finish a proclamation devastating throughout, and handed her a midsized yellow envelope out of his satchel.
With a steady hand she reached to grab it, clenched her teeth unthinkingly, devoid of tears but with a devastated heart as the realization dawned on her like a ruthless gust of wind bursts forth and conquers the bones.
He finally made it back home, Florian, he interrupted her descent into the abyss. He’s in Kassel making his peace with our mother. She’s a tree now, she can no longer pain his heart with words. She’s barely a one-year-old sapling.
The thought of a living Florian took possession of her wholly, lifted her spirit up at once from the gutting agony that had subjugated it a few moments ago. With an admonitory stare laced with awe of his execution, she could now recognize Florian in André’s eyes and nose and jaw. With that trick of the mind that does not interrupt action, she tore the envelope open and could then discern Rancid’s And Out Come The Wolves CD cover with all its visible scratches. It was this or our father’s six-hundred-page doctorate thesis, quipped André.
Instinctively she opened the box, perceived a neatly folded 10 euro bill which she unfurled. On its negative space it bore in fragile, childlike handwriting:
Just keep on keeping on.
Florian, aka not André.
The wind had subsided into non-existence making way for a reposeful silence to reign over as they walked back to the warmth of the café toilet for another line and a Jameson. With a pervious heart that did not look to understand she listened closely to André recount his brother through the fundamental memories that had tied them together before it set them apart all the way to now.
He’s not out in the clear, you know. It’s hard to guess how this ends.
But you made a difference, that I can say.
I’ve been coming to the neighborhood, trying to put out some of his fires.
I guess I’ll see you around?
At quarter to four she washed her face in the water closets that now reeled with the sloppiness of a hundred hasty visitors. André headed eastward to the train station, Oumaya walked westward back to her ordinary life and unknowingly a step closer to eruption.
