It was one of those dreams that you can't really remember when you wake up. Of course you can remember a face, or maybe the needle in your hand, but the rest is a blur that you'll never get back. I woke up.
The room was small. the first thing I noticed was the ladybug biting my hand. I shook it off. I stretched. The springs under the bed creaked, with, ever so slight, a sound.
I knew what the creak meant, even if i wasn't coherent enough to realize it at the time. As I worked all of the sleepies out of my eyes I would remind myself that I should have expected it. The creaking meant that somewhere, in the small Soviet built apartment, I had been living in, an otherwise moderately sane woman was about to take the plunge into absolutely fucking nuts.
Aunt Magda, my father's youngest sister, before him, was an over worked, underpaid artist, who, at the sound of the creek of my bed, would feel a tug of insanity. that insanity is commonly known as Polish hospitality.
Symptoms of this hospitable psychosis include a sudden bout with Alzheimer's that makes you forget that your back and legs hurt from working, cleaning house, and walking all over the city trying to get errands done before your kids get back from school. This is followed by an obsessive compulsion to feel guilty for thinking of resting your legs, when what you should be doing is making breakfast for a grown man, who probably could make it himself.
My door burst open.
"Oh, you're awake," she was speaking Polish, but I'll translate, "Are you hungry? I'll make you some breakfast."
She turned and bolted from the... (no, bolted is the wrong word. It was almost a scurrying. Shoulders and head slouched forward in a lurking fashion, small quick steps. Hands, chest level in thought. Yeah, that was more like it) ... the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen.
Meanwhile, I was in the bedroom trying to find and apply pants and a shirt to myself, while struggling to untangle myself from a bed sheet that I was having issues with letting go.
My clean pants were hiding beneath a mess of already worn clothes and a half open book. My idea of cleaning is throwing clean laundry on a convenient chair, and once a week throwing dirty laundry from the floor to a likewise convenient chair covered, inconveniently, with clean clothes.
By the time I had clothed myself with whatever I could grab (and thrown the rest back on the convenient floor), I could hear the stove turn on.
"ugh," was all I could say before the taste of my morning breath reminded me that I should refrain from talking. The room was still blurry, on account of the fact that I slept on my side, and slightly down, with my face jammed against the pillow. My eye felt like a stiff muscle. I made a groggy hobble to the kitchen.
"Aunty (in Polish), Shit it's bright in here (in English)."
She was already boiling water for tea, which meant I had to eat something. I get sick if I drink tea on an empty stomach... usually I forget this fact until I'm halfway through a cup of tea, and my sudden urge to vomit reminds that I haven't eaten anything yet.
"Oh, there you are," she wasn't actually aware that I was in the room until she by chance turned and saw me rubbing my eyes, "what would you like me to make you?"
I didn't have time to answer before she turned away.
Of all the things that I knew were about to come out of the fridge, the words "we have," where not actually inside of it, but managed to always come out, preceding the following assortment (which were inside the fridge, and were about to all end up on the kitchen table and counters).
The articles that would be pulled from the fridge were as followed : the words "We have (in Polish)," followed immediately by," ham, cheese, white bread, sourdough bread, chicken, more ham for some reason, rye bread, butter, goat cheese (hard and soft), swiss cheese, sliced beef, margarine, another kind of butter, eggs, sausage, blood barley sausage, bacon, oh look another egg I wonder why I didn't put that with the others, there is also lard, if you want I could smother some sausage in lard and cook that with bacon."
As the world was coming into focus, finally, and I no longer had to shield my eyes from the penetrating rays of the sun, not that the sun wasn't there, but my eyes were no longer hurting, I became certain that a cigarette had shit in my mouth while I was sleeping. I held back my gag reflex.
"Aunty, no thanks, I'm good."
A funny thing about translation is that it doesn't always come out how you want it to. For example, if I wanted to say "jestem dobre," to my aunt, I would be of the sound mind in thinking that I had just told her something along the lines of, "I'm fine," I'm good," "I don't need anything," "Look you fuckin' nut, it's seven in the morning I've been drinking all night, I just want to lay in bed for a while, instead I have to chase you down, wearing pants that, I'm pretty sure I put on backwards, so I can tell you not to trouble yourself because I can make my ow.. hey, smoked ham!"
However the literal translation of "no thanks, I'm good," really comes out more in the fashion of, especially after taking into account the synthetic nature of the language, "I'm a good boy," ...
It was no wonder that she was now looking at me like I was retarded.
No man should be subjected to the unpleasant experience of eating polish sausage fried in a pan of lard with chunks of bacon in the mix. It slides around inside, and feels like you forgot to kill whatever you ate.
"I love riding horses," Kathy's hips swayed as she walked. Her hips weren't very pronounced, but things like that rarely really matter.
"you know, in high school, my friends called me horse."
"why did they did they call you horse," It was about three seconds before Kathy realized what I just said. A shade of pink slipped over her face as she pursed her lips to keeps from smiling. I watched her out of the corner of my eye.
"you're a shit," the edged of her lips made a prison break for her ears but were pulled back in. She ran her fingers through here hair.
I smiled. "You said you like to ride horses, what was i supposed to say?"
She didn't answer. She folded her are arms under her breasts, jutting her chin out. She bit her tongue with a smirk.
The streets of old town Krakow are cobbled. Street performers lined the edges, carrying violins, accordions, and other implements of their respective crafts and trades. The city was full of tourist traps. I needed to find a bathroom. Damn smothered sausage, I thought.
"Did you want see..."
"you on top of me, sure."
She rolled her eyes and sighed. Her chest rose.
"Did you want to see the castle?" she asked again.
"Not really, I'll probably see it with my school."
She shrugged, "O.k., what do you want to do."
I smiled. I smiled a lot around her, "You really make this too easy."
"What?"
I laughed and shook my head. her body angled toward me.
"You're english is terrible," the tease was underlined with a hint of I love giving you shit. I really need a bathroom, I thought.
"Oh, my English is terrible, then why aren't we talking in Polish? Or maybe we should speak Italian." She said something in Italian. Whatever it was, it sounded... inviting.
We didn't visit any of the tourist traps. No royal castles, with tapestries and lines leading to tapestries. No museums of historically famous Polish art. Instead we walked. we kept to the small streets of Old Town, the small art galleries of local artists, to teahouses in old cellars, and in quiet bistro's tucked away in the old courtyards.
"How long have you been riding?"
"Since I was little." She skipped. Whether from the thought of being a little girl riding, of from the recent victory in Italian, she skipped. Her hair bounced, so did her breasts. I peeked, Not that she would have minded.
"How long have you been playing guitar?" there's is a point where it's acceptable for a grown person to fidget like a child. It's usually when you're nervous, but happy. She locked her hands together behind her back and stretched. One foot came my direction just off the ground. Her knee peeked from behind the pastel flowers of her summer dress. I thought about her legs.
"Since I was in high school, we had a shitty band that used to play Kiss covers." I laughed remembering how bad we sucked, and that we actually played Kiss.
She rolled off from her grounded foot to her forward. Toward me.
"Hey." I couldn't wait any longer. "Let's go in here."
her eyebrows raised slightly, " are you hungry."
"Huh?" God no, I thought, "oh, I was gonna get a drink."
We walked into the Bistro and grabbed an out door table. The Small Ring wasn't too far away, with it's fountain, overlooked by the Pizza Hut, housed within a historical building. I shook my head.
"I'll be right back," I didn't bother sitting down, "If the waitress comes can you just get me some tea?"
"Where are you going?"
"To Touch myself," I said it loud. Her face went beyond pink. She looked from one table to another. Someone behind me understood English.
I winked.
Kathy, or Kasia in Polish, was once a student of my aunt. My aunt had tutored her in drawing and painting, for less than a real tutor would cost. Her parents saw a good deal in front of them, and like anyone who always felt slighted by the lack of profit to be made under Communist Russia, they took advantage of it. With a few silver words about connections and networks, Kathy's parents where able to procure the services of a talented artist, with no understanding of her work's worth, for about the Polish minimum wage, when she could have been making well over the American minimum wage, that was in the late nineties. It was significantly more.
The bathroom was around a corner... The door was thick.
I didn't hold it against Kathy. She was still paying for it, in a way. Anytime we stopped at a gallery she would chat up the owners. They sometimes knew her father, or a friends of hers, sometimes not. She would drop my aunts name and get word that they'd be willing to sell some of her pieces. I don't know how much the pieces sold for.
I left the bathroom, feeling better.
My aunt would get invited to garden parties, by friends. Friends like Kathy's parents. She appreciated all their help. I could have been drunk and retarded and still known that she was being fleeced at every turn.
Kathy was outside at the table. Her legs crossed. Her face was like a stone.
"Why do you do that?" I asked.
"Do what?"
"You always look pissed off."
She was about to say something but paused. Then she tried again. She almost laughed. "I don't look pissed off."
"No, you laugh when you're around me, but whenever I see you walking alone you always look serious, and you look straight forward." I sat down at the table. Her legs slid against each other as they uncrossed and crossed again.
She was trying to object but, she kept stopping before she said anything.
"Look, watch this girl," A Polish girl walked by. Her eyes burning a hole into something a thousand yards ahead of her, her shoulders were straight. "I bet if I chucked my phone at her, she wouldn't even respond."
Kathy laughed and hid her face in one hand, "I do that all the time, and I've seen other girls do it too."
"It's like your trying to ignore a fart."
"That's gross, and the fart we're trying to ignore is creepy guys," she laughed.
"Hey," her tone interupted her laugh. "I was thinking."
"I'm so proud of you."
She pursed her lips again. Her arms folded and she tapped her foot. She was fighting a smile.
"What were you thinking?"
she didn't answer right away, "you are a pain in the ass, you know that?"
"I'm glad you like it." I sat, leaning toward her. Smiling.
She leaned toward me. "I want to hear you play guitar."
I leaned back, "yeah, not gonna happen, I haven't played in front of anyone in years."
"...and I have never told anyone about what we talked about last night, I think you owe me." I watched her bring her straw to her lips. It darkened as cola pulled through it. She didn't take her eyes off of me.
I drank my tea. I wondered if I was getting the short end of the deal. I hadn't played in front of anyone in years.
"I haven't played in front of anyone since Gina."
She didn't say anything.
I had never thought about playing in front of someone as being a problem. That was until she asked me to do it. I didn't even realize why I had a thousand excuses to get me out of playing. I shook my head.
"We are totally sleeping together afterwards."
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. She smiled, but I won't describe the smile. That's for me. Only.
Bio
Aharon Vadel was the name given to a Seraph of destiny. As the Seraphim, or Thrones, were the highest choir of angels in the theoretical Catholic heaven, the writer chose the name of this angel as representing a higher ideal than himself.
Aharon is now the pen name for writer uses in place of his own persona. The Writer has always been fascinated with angel lore since actually before he could remember, and is working toward writing a series of short stories, and some not so short, about angels found on earth. The fact that similar concepts have been dealt with by authors such as Neil Gaiman, and Steve Jackson causes some notable concern for the writer as he is often worried that his writing will be seen as standing in the shadow of these men.
The Writer is currently working toward dual degrees in English Studies and in Sociology. He hopes that these backgrounds will be a positive influence on his life and writing. Thus far he believes that they have been.
The writer joined Write Monkey Write to challenge himself as a writer. Although he knows himself to be young in the craft he often suffers from an over inflated sense of ego, and must from time to time remind himself that he has a great deal yet to learn… especially in the department of grammar.
About Aharon.
The pieces under Aharon at Write Monkey Write are usually in third person, or in a first person other than the writer. Unless specifically a memory The writer hopes to be able to write from the perspective of various personalities, and with different voices. Although this is the intent it is at times not fully realized and the writer often invited criticism that will help him improve.
Why would a Monkey Write the random sets of sound that the once monkey's call the written language. Does the monkey write for fame, does the Monkey write for the glory of god, does the monkey write for love. This only the monkey knows, and this is only shared with what god he chooses. Write Monkey, Write.
-Aharon Vadel- get well card
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways - I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.
- Socrates
