Losing the Thread of the Conversation

Our town is used to seeing one woman or another running away from me, but it doesn't mean that I've reconciled myself to this. Especially if I think of Petra Varl Simoncic. Petra and me, we had a fierce quarrel as we were talking about Odeon and Zvezda.

Already, the name Odeon was getting on my nerves to such an extent that I was afraid that from then on, even the men in our town would run away from me. And I flung in into her teeth. "Odeon and Zvezda, Zvezda and Odeon. On and on. It leads nowhere." I even asked her, in fun, would Odeon run away if he were a train dispatcher, for example, and one day a bear came puffing around the corner instead of a train. Petra took Odeon's side again. That was perfectly normal. But by now, I was losing my nerves. Well, I didn't deny it; they where nice little people looking for their place in the sun again and again. That they began, each on his own wall, and accidentally noticed each other. Now I was moved, too; there was nothing to be said, for at first they had just innocently exchanged glances, and even those crossed the whole town. They got a shared job at the Calendar of Ljubljana and fell into each other's arms. All right. I even had no objections that they did many a thing during their work. It's even all right that beings like them are enabled to live in more than one place at a time. They made the best of this, so that they could travel, namely on the bags, the rucksacks, the aprons, and even on the T-shirts. Only that they were together. All right, all right, I was pounding the table already, but there was enough of this now. I was so excited that I completely lost the thread of the conversation and I knew no more why the hell I had got so disturbed about Odeon and Zvezda. And when entirely furious, I suggested to her that it was high time they did something clever. For the beginning, they could come and clean my flat or, if they were not able to, Petra Varl Simoncic, herself, could. I just tried to put her on firm ground, but I was obviously so very much thrown out of gear that she got frightened of me. She broke into a run and I, of course, shot after her. And quite close by there was a creek. And a little bridge across it. Petra Varl Simoncic ran as fast as she could and on the bridge something happened. I don't know whether there blew such a special wind, or what, but suddenly her skirt was uplifted pleasantly. Not even too confused, she adjusted it while running and I almost caught her, but what I noticed! I grasped a stone and I nearly threw it into the creek. "You pig!" I roared. The damn creek had been peeping under Petra Varl Simoncic's skirt, but already in the next moment, I got thoughtful, because Petra Varl Simoncic was obviously right. No way the creek ran above the bridge, beside the bridge or somewhere where I would have put it down to this creek, it ran exactly where it should. And I can admit it. I bent my head.

Milan Kleč, 1996

Links to works:

• Zvezda and Odeon