Almond eyes without oven.

Laetitia is wearing colorful socks, a bit like mine, but wilder. Women have more choice when it comes to socks. Women have more choice in general. Her socks are pinky with yellow and green spots. I noticed those colors immediately, I’d describe them as bright little monsters devouring the pink. I am sure she disagrees with that statement. She ‘d call them cute little things. She is a girl. We disagree a lot, and often. Yet I fall about those raised eyebrows on her face, over and over. She chuckles, and eventually we laugh, and better even, we continue arguing while laughing. I like it, a lot. In this case, as in most cases, she wins the argument, because it’s her socks. I like her lightness of being, it feels happily light around her. I am not sure she knows that, the color of her socks matter a lot to her, she is a girl.
She hangs out, just here, next to me. She is hunting for Italian-American men, that’s the reason I guess we met in Bologna. I have not met Italian-American men in Bologna, neither am I one of them. I have not really helped her with her search either. It just seems counter-intuitive to me. It never mattered, she is rather flexible. I wonder why Italian – Americans seem so attractive. Americans living in Italy mostly are ridiculous, so are Italians living in the States. Italian-Americans probably are no better, anywhere. Every girl has got to have a dream, I sigh, I want to be in all those dreams. A good dream is wonderful and stupid, it stretches reality a bit, I do believe so. She likes blue eyes, I don’t believe her. It is a mess. We met in the midst of it.
I am French – Dutch, brown eyes. I am not on target. She is Franco-American. The color of her eyes never really mattered to me, it’s the twinkling of her bright colorful spots that make me smile. I think she is taller, but I am not really sure. We never stood against the wall. I think we never will. If she is taller, it would be by a hair not more, but would she have been a man, her genes would have made her taller than me, that is obvious. She is build differently than I am, completely, I believe in almost every single aspect. She got almond eyes, really big ones. I noticed that. I have none such eyes. She’s got the angular face of a model, but then with a happy twist. Her nose is crooked, yet very thin, granting some notion of distinguished elegance. I believe it is the first crooked nose that actually does not scare me. Crooked noses are my anti-genes, I don’t like them, I have felt that, my entire life. It is a weird thing, life is weird about these things, I just accepted my natural view, and avoided crooked noses intuitively. I am failing when it comes to Laetitia, I see her all the time, I could gently kiss that crooked nose.
Laetitia is thinly build overall, French sophistication all over, long thin arms, legs, fingers, probably long toes as well. Her tits innocently pierce in the air, young and fierce, breathing for existence. I am very good at imagining tits. She is beautiful. Yet for all her elegance, she somehow shrugs it off, easily as she walks nonchalantly on her easy-going shoes. Then, then you see her puzzling butt, it puzzled me, it puzzled my roommate. It somehow seems outsized in the midst of all those long and thin elements. It is not outsized, I know butts. It is womanesque in the middle of an un-earthy Parisian elegance, that is the shock, and makes all the difference between that long thin shadow, and the cute girl she is. Laetitia’s beauty is human, a wish-wash of distinguishable elegant elements with strong charachterfull ones. She is the kind of beauty that keeps on surprising you, it is dangerous stuff. Since I go to fitness, I look like a Dutch farmer. I wonder what I’d look like as a girl, very different then Laetitia does, for sure.
We speak French together, but mixed with English words. She would correct my French, I actually like that. It strengthens my mother tongue. Speaking French to me has always been more intimate then the casual English. I have been raised in French, my mother did so, yet I did forget most of it, the words, the education. My words keep on mixing up, like my life, especially in expressions, I just suck. Speaking French to her, immediately makes me bond, maternal languages do that. It is evolutionary psychology, you can’t fight it. And so the more with Laetitia as she stumbles on words too, we’ve got that together, it bonds, speaking many languages, speaking none of them perfectly. She would be angry now, if I did not mention again and explicitly, that her French is much better than mine. Give her 8 years outside France and she’d be like me. She does not know that. I know, we disagree.
She has got no plan. She is 20 and a half. That is a fair thing. I remember the proud face, the pruned lips as she announced her age and looked at me – thank god there was no guessing involved. I am lousy at guessing ages, especially when halves are included. I have been pondering for a while what shocked me most, the 20 or the half. I concluded it definitely is the half. The aspiration to get older, I lost that. I want everything now. There is nothing I aspire at a later age. Maybe it is being 29 that changes everything, I am 29 and a half. I have no plan either, lost mine on the way, but at least I had them, which is already something that makes us different. It is important to be different.
We met through a drink, that became another drink. She is a welcome guest in my house. We gym together. I like to see her lost between the heavy appliances, randomly pushing extreme light weights. She looks hopeless, she looks cute, as to want to kiss her and tell her “ it’s ok, you can stop baby, we will buy some magic powder, you don’t need to do this”. As she hops from appliance to appliance, asking with her almond eyes “what’s next”, I get the feeling I know what I am doing, which I don’t, but really does feel nice. After sports we like gaming. Surprisingly enough she wins quite a lot of them. It’s the youth, can’t fight it. She is good. I like her to be good, it is more fun that way. We have fun playing together, at least I believe so. We are playful. That is a good thing.
She is French, more French then I am. Yet not enough French to annoy me, I left the country for a reason. French have the ability to depress me. The insistence on thinking and debating is a heavy burden on me, it just tires me out. It is too serious. In France, I needed to have an opinion, I struggled. I can’t be bothered to take my opinions as anything else but trivial. My thoughts are often too delirious anyways. My views paint the world as they wish, I never won a price. What matters is that my thoughts arouse me, that feels nice. Laetitia is light, maybe not the way I am, but it works, it works together. We rumble and tumble, playing plays, it really is like sex but without the painful faces and the moaning. I don’t like that part of sex anyways. Even when she has a migraine, I can make her smile with a random orange, clumsily covered by the words: “missing you”. The smile is all that matters.
She has been living in Cambodia for 6 months. I saw a picture of her on the bike of a motorbike. That is what I did in south east Asia too, crossing through the rice fields and the bamboo. I can see us on one bike together, crossing through Indonesia’s bush-bush. That would be nice. I should tell her that, I did not yet. She has lived in New York, and got those sweet state memories. I have been tied in many different ways to the US. It is hard to beat as an experience. It is a game changer, we both changed our games multiple times already.
Laetitia stirs the omelet. She is making me breakfast. There are mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, and a couple of other ingredients I approved. Laetitia smiles. I love being here, in the morning with her. She corrects my English. She truly beliefs she speaks all our languages better than I do, which might be true, I just speak more of them. It is a pity we didn’t roll out of bed together before this event, breakfast is better after some exercise. She would not agree with that, I am sure, I can’t be bothered though, it is written on my face. Would we be in love, it would be truly cozy right now, we are not, it still is cozy. We have our multi-lingual bubble, that does the trick. I like her face when she corrects me. We are going to work soon, Sunday chill way of working. I will do real work, she will browse through some text books, pretending it is called studying. It doesn’t really matter, it is a supposed activity for both of us, it is sunday. She has got fruit mixes too, nice ones. Not sure they really are healthy, despite the promotional sticker screaming “vitamins inside”. She is paying attention to those healthy things. She has to, she claims. I am not sure. The best though is her barsely coffee. It is not coffee. It tastes awful, I like it. I like her small ways, they don’t make any sense to me. I don’t even know them all, but I can feel they can’t be taken too seriously. I think that is essential. We postpone the work another bit.
While stirring we talk about cooking. I am a very good cook, on paper. I did it a lot when I was coupled. Cooking is fun when you are two, throwing ingredients in each other’s pans, bumping buts away from the oven, sex covered in tomato sauce. I truly enjoy cooking together. I am de-coupled for a year now, cooking is the first thing I dropped, I did so immediately. Standing in front of an oven is pointless without someone around – it is like fitness. Laetitia is not a good cook. I observed that. She defends herself – as always. She has no oven, it is not a complaint, it is a lame excuse. She is fun cooking with, we smile and fool around. The sex in tomato sauce is missing, we have no sauce, it is part of the health thing, I bear with it.
Laetitia is de-coupled too, although I am not certain. Her Parisian ex, or some Italian – American might be popping around serious bubbles in her head. You can’t tell who she is masturbating on, she is very private about these things. Being de-coupled is a mindset. I am very strict on that. Actually quite proud to be strict on something. The D-C mindset is a free one, absolute free one, it excludes single minded masturbation. If you do, I call it ghost coupling. That is the worst of all worlds. I don’t do that crap. She might agree, but I am not sure, she can be very private, and we do not talk about opinions that often after all.
Laetitia is strange to me. I actually listen to what she has to say, not too much though, I enjoy haphazard fragrants of her personality only. We talk a lot, but I have no clue what it is about, there is also no need, we have no pretentions. Just living life. She gives a touch to the banality that surrounds me, a smiley one. We live our lives, quite independently, mish-mashing our bilingual language recreationally. I love it when she laughs about my stupidities, they make more sense that way. Painting fits Laetitia better then reading I noticed. I gave her some color pencils and a notebook. I am more than ok with that, that she paints while I read, I like her colors like the one on her socks.
I remind myself, having breakfast without sleeping together messes up my biological make-up, seriously. She has no plans, no pretentions, is only 20 and a half, it is irrefutable, she is going to confuse me. I wonder if she knows. We have set the limits together. We are safely out of reach of one another, 19-26 for her, 23-33 for me, we established that officially by sms. I am happy we did, although useless. I’d say we are positioned in each other’s forbidden garden of non sense. As she smiles and get’s under my skin I am getting to like her, I feel we’re getting closer. That is how humans work. It’s biology. It’s ridiculous. It are the small ways, one should never get to know each other’s small ways, especially when it leads to more non sense, I do not strictly oppose any non sense.
She is stirring something else in the kitchen. She has no oven, so she stirs stuff because she does not know how to cook. She looks at me with her almond eyes. She smiles. I am smiling back, it is stronger than me. I approve the ingredients, and push her butt away from that stirring with my butt, there is the mutual smiling again. We are playing, life is nice playful living. I cook her something nice, with what is left to be saved to be honest, I don’t tell her. We eat it together, legs pulled up on a third chair. We could sit like this in any country in the world, speaking our mish-mash of languages, it feels like that, it feels great and free. We could have a motorbike waiting right there out of her little window, and go ride through some bamboo sticks, run through some corn fields, and the best is, we might just do that today. She is like that, I am like that, we are not that difficult.
She is gonna hit me if I ever kiss her, she promised me. She did not tell which cheek she would slap, so I am training both. I do so with WII boxing, it is very good at learning me avoiding hits. I do hate getting slapped. I wish I had the WII earlier. I wonder if she’d smile while slapping me, our lips still brushing each other. That would be ok. She could slap again in that case, as long has her lips brush mine and her eyes twinkle bright yellow and green spots. She can gently bite too then. Maybe though, she’d really bite, painfully, as my lips touch hers, she could make me bleed, madness, really. I would laugh though. Uncomfortable situations are best laughed away. She’d get me something to stop the bleeding out of my lips, she is sweet like that. I’d be more then fine.
It is breakfast time, she is here, it mixes up my biological make-up. I am coming to terms with it. We went to the theatre the night before. I looked all night at her almond eyes as I had no clue what the play was about, they always smile, green and yellow spots. It is that she cooks so badly without her oven, that I have to push her butt away, I use my butt, they bump together. I look at her forgivingly as I do so; she smiles even more. She still doesn’t know she cannot cook, maybe I will never tell her. I like bumping her butt away, too much. I wonder when she’ll slap me, as we crunch through “une craquotte”. I’ll be fine, so will she, we are like that.

CARRIBEAN POLAR BEARS

Bologna – Short Story 26.
Carribean Polar Bears


I bend over the bar. For her, not for drinks. She says: “Finnish”; and it all starts right there.
“Finnish”, I smile. “Finnish” I wonder and I smile. F-i-n-n-i-s-h, I let it drup in, drup, drup,
drup, letter for letter.
“Lapland”, I think;
“Cold”;
“Foreign affairs” (I just read an article that mentioned the Finland model, questioning myself
what that could be);
“Somewhere north”;
“Cold”?!;
“Bears”? No, no bears I believe, and I smile.
I take another sip of my Friday eve beer. It’s a pity for those bears, I like bears. Maybe I
should go to Greenland and find some bears. My colleague, my Friday beer friend, smiles as I
express my sudden desire to meet some bears, somewhere in the world.
Although bears do trigger my mind, it surprises me how little comes up with “Finland”;
never been there. I have to take a deep breath to swallow that fact. I so genuinely believed
I visited every country in Europe. I realize that it is a self proclaimed lie after all. I quickly
check the globe in my mind, zoom on Europe, slightly disturbed by this unravelled truth:
Reykjavik, Lisbon, Skopje, Kiev, Belgrade, Chisinau of all places… been there, how could I
miss Finland?
So from now on my line should really be: “visited all of Europe, except Finland”.
I have to say, it is quite a disappointing statement. Maybe “abastanza Europe” is better, I
smile, I can live with that.
I look at her. A bit in admiration that she dares, dares to come from that one country I do not
know; the abastanza part of Europe, I look at her again. She is very charming, more even then
I hoped noticing before. Minds are crazy, intuitions delirious sometimes, I like that, it makes
life wonderful and sweet. I could not have placed her wonderful as “Finnish” ‘cause I have
never been there, my personal acknowledgement.
The whole triggers Mr. curiosity. Now I have to ask her what abastanza Europe is doing in
that Bolognese bar. I do not dare to mention abastanza Europe, maybe later I think. As I want
to open my mouth to say her name I realize I forgot her name,… probably the unexpected
realization of “abastanza” annihilated my mind space completely. Without any trace of
shame I ask her name again. I embrace the unfolding spinning of life, what ever it is; mistakes
in the end are what makes my friends smile. My colleague does smile as she hears me saying
that same phrase again: “what is your name?”. It really is clumsy.
“Jane” she answers, smiling. I look at her a bit in unbelief. Probably I just ignored the name
before as it just could not land at the same time: Jane and abastanza Europe. Jane from
Finland. Now “Jane” has always been a brunette in my mind, and probably not only in mine.
I mean, Jane belongs to Tarzan, that is well known. Jane has a dirty face and bewildered eyes,
is running right out of the jungle, bamboo leaves sticking out of her hair, uncivilized, crazy
beauty. If you ever fall in love with Jane, you’ll drink coconut milk out of gigantic ocean
shelves, paddle in canoe’s, eat self caught fish grilled on ingenuously lit fire somewhere on
deserted beaches full of palm trees, and have a tan the rest of your life. A life I personally
do not strictly oppose. “Jane from Finland in Bologna” is a paradoxal mystery, like “polar
bears on a Caribbean beach”, or simply put: “Jane is Blond”. For a second I wonder if she is
kidding me, not sure whether it is the blond, Jane or the fact she is here that I doubt. I smile as
I realize – kind of in time– it is all a ridiculous twist of mind.
Not that I mind ridiculously happy twisted thoughts, I love them rather. After all I am
sitting in a bar looking at Italian male hands. I lost a bet, and I have to find an Italian date
for my colleague, with that sole requirement that he must have big hands. It doesn’t take
me long to realize she either tricked me into mission impossible, or she just is one of those
impossible requirement persons. I believe the latter is not far off. I do hope she will find her
mister perfect, or fall so crazily in love that it does not matter anymore. Jane, I do feel, does
not complicate her life that much, but that is a wild guess, an opportunistic thought. Very
probably I self picked that thought just to please me. I mean, a smiling Jane from Abastanza
Europe, would she care about preset requirements?
While discussing male hands it starts to strike me; the ever returning mental presence
of “Jane”. I am happy, such a simple thing to smile and feel happy to connect without a
reason. And there does not need to be a reason, not a pursuit, not a follow-up, no rather
not, rather it is just that happy moment, “hey, never knew you were around here”. Even
my colleague from logistics, otherwise very pre-occupied with impossible requirements, is
contagiously taken by my smiling. It didn’t occur to me in Bologna before, unannounced full-
hearted oblivious smile sharing, while I have been here for 4 months. Ex digestion time I
call it, this freeze of heart, it belongs to the art of shifting gears from dual happiness to single
happiness.
One must know, with a well independent smile firmly entrenched (again), it really does
surprise me when someone somehow, sneaks into your mind and enlarges that smile just
beyond the usual edge. It is kind of unfair really from one point of view. There is no real
reason, no obvious causation for the invasion, let’s admit it just is sneaky, but luckily not
upsetting.
I realize Jane is adding that ridiculous centimetre on the edge of my smile, I wish I could
reach out, blow a bubble and invite Jane for a minute or ten in my ridiculously wonderful
bubble. A gigantic oceanshelf with two straws would help. I can see that bubble, although
abastanza Europe still does not ring a bell in me. I can see my self opening the bubble
door: “hey, who are you, sneaking into my mind space, walking in the corner of my eye,
whispering questions in my ear, questions I know only you can answer, cause they are about
you…”.
I do smile seeing her smiling, and I do feel that unreasonable: “she got something stopping
me”. As I leave the bar – entrenched independence requires not to stop for too long as getting
ridiculously happy seriously can make a fool out of a man – I know she got my name, and if
she finds me somewhere, maybe she’ll learn me what Finnish abastanza is all about. In the
end, she does study languages, and I got a few of my own, we have all the words to bridge our
worlds as they so could, imaginably, collide.

Leather corner in Bologna

Bologna Short Story - 28

The winter is setting in. It is a late autumn eve. A real nasty one, the first this year. The rain chases the last bits of heat out the brick walls, there is a time for everything. I walk under the arcades, it is astonishing how handy those antique stones can turn out to be. It is a bit over eight, I am definitely late. Not too much though.

It is a rare local pub we found, just about a month ago. It was quite a hunt to be honest. Something to be proud of, something to be undisturbed in. We insisted on it resembling something like a traditional Parisian pub: dark wood, candle light, heavy wooden tables, excellent wines (that was me), and a corner, a bit hidden corner with leather fauteuils. That is the corner where we sit. It is our sunday eve corner.

Louisa and the others already sit, randomly rambling rambles, as I arrive, a glass of red wine in their hands. The ward, and his happy belly, greet me as I join them. A warm nod is all he needs and my glass is added amongst the mess of papers on the immense table. I smile, everyone smiles, little things make us so happy. Happiness is truly stupid, thoughtless, I like that.

We are a random bunch, posted here in those overly comfortable fauteuils. Only one I would dare to call a poet, the others are writers, mostly novelists, others more the journalist type. We had to select a bit, Lousia and I, everyone likes to pretend to write, only few really do. We realized that. I smile. I remember how we came up with those crazy selection rules sitting on top of a random hill at the Como lake. It was indian summer then.

It was just an idea a month or two ago, it evolved over time a bit, but here we are. We, writers of some kind. We, a collection of personal missions, hopelessly funny by whiles, happily ridiculous most of the times. We all have it, this burning ink in our veins, we all feel there is something in us that needs to be written, the way we absorb the world, the way we fantasize it, the way we crave it... and this, this is the visualization of our inner dreams, sitting and drinking, talking and laughing over flards of pieces of texts, words that somehow are part of something intensively meaningful to at least one of us. We read and comment, speculate, construct and destroy, we are committed. It makes the whole experience almost spiritual, just the way I imagined writing could be. I take another sip of my wine as Louisa reads a chapter of mine. I can see her smile, that is the immediate reward, her smile, when she likes it. I tease her, I trust her, we all enjoy each other. We are writers, writing, and we still can hardly believe it is actually happening, here in the corner, of a rare pub with leather fauteils in Bologna.

As Louisa finally finishes the piece, her head up, her blue eyes so straight-cut clear as always, and we see her struggle with what would be a smile on her lips while she tries to find a serious tone, she says: “but it is not true.”
“I know”, I reply her. She looks at me. Silence.
“Just a dream”, I add. Silence
“Just a dreamy story.” she adds.
“Why not?...” I smile. She smiles.
And in that smile we exchange, just there, we know... we know it could very well happen.

Sylvain