i finally got to talk to him. we tried to find a quiet place walking the great courrefours of an ancient ciy. we sat down in a cafe, but i could not get comfortable, somehow the barstools were too close together and his face was too near for me to get a talking distance, a distance from where to look into his eyes. i had to wiggle my stool quite a few times until it was right. then he told me about when i was gone and he had been to the apartment. 'he spilled the creme onto the table accidently, but then he scraped it back into his cup with his arm. he drank the spilled creme,' he said still in disbelief and a bit of disgust. i mimicked his expression. i wanted to learn more, but some hands began to pick little twigs and sticks out of my dishevelled hair. they were the hands of boys i had not seen in a long time. the misfits of my school days who had been my friends. i said, 'it's alright, i can get the sticks myself, leave me alone.' but they kept pulling at the sticks and i realized i could not do it by myself. so i let them, but i never heard more from his mouth though i was dying to.
i walked the long road to town. it would be a long walk and i was already tired. but i had no choice since i had missed the bus or the bus would not take me. i walked along the road where so many young men had lost their lives, wrapped themselves around treetrunks. did they live inside these trees now? it was a spooky walk and i was wishing i would already be there. i finally reached the first intersection and just then my sister pulled up in a van full of people. they might have been cripples or ones who were otherwise disabled. simpletons. or children. she said, come, i'll take you...
my sister and i took a walk in my village. always the familiar streets. at the red bricked buildings we saw little kittens and puppies and a woman who could not manage them all. i asked, who do these kittens belong to, but she did not know. i picked up a chubby grey one and though i pretended i did not really like it. we turned to walk back home and my sister said, go, tell the lady caretaker about the kittens, she needs to do something about them. so i did. i knocked at her door and a blond woman in her fifties opened the door. i described the problem and she promised she would take care of things. relieved i headed home. the field then was not built up with houses and the path was not yet paved. to the left of me were the old apple trees. the gnarly pear trees. they seemed so much bigger then. a girl with her dog on a leash passed me by. but my eyes were transfixed on the bark of these trees. there were no leaves or little twigs on the branches. they carried no fruit. it was more the bark of oak trees but all red and brown in its colors. the branches reached far and wide. in the last tree i saw my camisole, the black one i sometimes run in. it made me laugh to see it way up there, fluttering in the breeze, knowing i would not be able to reach it without a ladder. i remembered that i had climbed these trees many times but could not believe it anymore since now there were no footholds, only the roughly barked wide trunks and branches, not made for climbing, only for hugging, if you had really long arms. i reached the house then and something happened there, which i cannot yet remember...
