She is always busy. A friend once asked why she fidgets so much.
"Well," she said, "as soon as I sit still, I fall asleep."
She is doing perfectly fine this Christmas. There is so much to do. Buy a tree, decorate it, lights, candles, food, cards, Christmas dinners to prepare for herself, for her kids. School can always use a hand, she is good at making herself feel useful. She is good at her work too. Meetings, there are so many meetings. So many new and exciting plans. And then there's all the invitations for drinks. The gift-shopping for family. She likes that it gets dark early, it's perfectly logical she opens a bottle of wine at 4.30pm.
Christmas isn't so bad, she thinks, it isn't so bad at all. She is even able to listen to Christmas carols without feeling teary.
Two days before Christmas she wakes up alone and she can't get herself to do anything. Not even to take a shower, nor to buy presents or call a friend. So she sits still. First she falls asleep. The nightmares last about two hours. After which she sits again. She listens to music. And she knows she shouldn't but she can't help herself: she looks at pictures.
Then, she cries.
How typical of me to show up at the wrong address. Here's this meeting I've mentally been preparing for. It's an important meeting and not even because it's about money. There will be four people listening to me because I asked them to. I wrote them a letter saying, "dear sirs and madams, keep your money if you must, but I do not agree with your opinion of my novels."This pushed a button that started a formal procedure. They organized a hearing for me.
I am on time, I truly am. But at the wrong fucking place. Somehow, my brain hasn't registered the address. It wasn't "Prinsengracht 89", it was "Nieuwe Prinsengracht 89." These addresses are about two miles apart. It's pissing down by the way. So much for the bronzing powder. Why on earth do I need bronzing powder anyway? I know why: because I will not succumb to the wrongful idea that writers need to look pale for them to be viewed as literary writers. I am me. I have a fake tan.
So I enter the building, fifteen minutes late. I have never biked so fast in my entire life.
By now snot is dripping down my nose, my shirt is drenched from sweat and most likely I smell too. I am purple and slime has collected in the corners of my mouth, has formed a lining on my teeth.
I barge into the meeting room and know I must look like a wet feverish fury. They, the officials, are not amused. I try, really I do, to crack a joke about how I had a lovely coffee with this woman on the Prinsengracht 89 and kept wondering when the hearing was going to start.. Thank god they smile. Only briefly though as there is no time to waste. The hearing starts immediately. The chairman says what he is meant to say and then it is my turn to say what I want to say. "All right then," is what I think. "I will do this while sniffing and panting and smelling and sliming."
And so I do. I read to them the piece I wrote which states why I feel my writing is worthwhile. I make sure not to be angry, not to be insulted, not to attack other writers or them. Simply to explain what my personal view is on writing, and what my purpose is with it. Sweat drips from my face, I keep wiping it away with my sleeve. I hear my own voice. It is calm, I am actually making my point. It is happening.
When I leave the hearing I feel like something magnificent has happened. I have said exactly what I needed to say and in a way that is true to me. It's still pouring down, and that's fine too.
There was once a man who felt it was time for a change. He wasn't sure what exactly, just change. Any change. He changed his hair. He grew a beard. He changed newspapers. He changed jobs. He changed the way he spoke.
Next he changed wives. With that came a change in friends. He changed where he lived.
One day he walked his new dog through the park. He saw another man he knew from the past, that past which was no longer a part of his present.
"You look great!" he said to that man of the past.
"Really? I could hardly feel any worse."
"That's annoying isn't it? When you feel bad but everyone tells you how good you look."
The man of the past doesn't seem to register this comment. He states, "it's the disappointment. It eats away at me."
"Ehm. I'm not entirely sure what you mean?"
"Oh. I thought you must have heard." He kicks a stone. "She left."
"Ouch, really? That sucks."
"It really hurts. And the kids aren't taking it well either. The eldest is absorbing my grief."
He grinds his teeth and then gives the changed man a steely look.
"I could have accepted she had an affaire and all. But she should have told me and addressed the problems. This way it came as a complete surprise. She dumped it on me, then got up and left."
The man of the past is still looking at the changed man. His gaze cuts right through the changed man's expression of sympathy that now feels inappropriate.
"It's the disappointment," the man of the past repeats. Finally the muscles under his jaw soften. His eyes are damp when he says, "I am just so incredibly disappointed."
The amount of people we see but immediately forget. Then remember all over again the next day as we pay for our groceries. We're thinking about whether to buy sour dough bread or whole grain and looking at the texture of all those loafs on all those shelves, not at the person handing them to us. We smile and say thank-you but as we leave the store, we leave that person behind.
A man stands outside the grocery store, every single day. He sells a magazine that only homeless people are allowed to sell. A lot of people give him money and tell him to keep the magazine. It's fine by him. Or maybe it's not. Who's to know, when nobody asks. One day, a young lady in a white lammy coat speaks to him. She has jet-black hair which she wears in a tight ponytail. Clearly she has just come from work. She asks him why he is doing this. And shouldn't he be considering a proper job. And this is too easy, she says, isn't it? Who could expect to make anything out of life by taking the easy way out? She, for one, has worked so hard at becoming who she is. What does he do with the money he earns anyway? She hopes he isn't going to spend it on drugs or alcohol. He says it's for a bed at the shelter. She says she doesn't believe him. Housing for the homeless is free.
The man falls silent in confusion. He is holding her umbrella for her.
Two weeks later he is noticeably thinner. He looks more like how he was a few years ago. Worn, torn by life, hollow-eyed and high. He had fattened up over time, cut his hair, learned to make conversation, or at least tried to. He always says 'hello how are you?' and he even smiles. He never remembers a face.
Two months later he is dead.
