Sisyphus' disowned sister

I was just thinking, with my head tilted to one side to loosen any cerebral fragments that could prove themselves beneficial in the aftermath of an admittedly preposterous conte, when everything fairly unheraldedly made total sense: It never made sense in the first place since it was never supposed to make sense. I never wanted it to make sense. I schemed it to be as pointless as possible from the very beginning when I put down the first and giddy word of an intentionally predictable tale.

Short stories subsist on brevity and often follow an immanent and coherent pattern: exposition (in medias res), complication, escalation, crisis, climax, the end. Some of them can lead to a resolution, some of them simply tell an open-ended plot.

And at odd times no end is the best end a story can find, sometimes we simply play for the sake of the game and not in order to win. Ludus gratia ludi.

I must confess, however, that this thesis leaves me with a sense of unease and residual sceptisism. I am really passionate about ends and endings. I like to pull things through. I am into full stops. I am either in or out. Up or down. Straight lines fail to please me. I am Sisyphus' disowned sister. I find no trouble in starting all over again. Again and again. I get a kick out of it.

The hitch with a story that ends without having an end is that it doesn't lend itself to a new start. It's like robbing Sisyphus of his rock.

I need my rock. I need my end. Moving a story into absurdity a priori and pre-designing an end-less end snaps my neck although or because I claim to be entirely d'accord with Camus and his (un)systematic ideas.

I have come to terms with absurdity and accept it. So, one ought to think that I shouldn't have an issue with any form of nonsensical phenomenona. But I do. Due to the fact that in this instance I tripped over my own mastery of absurdity. I managed to not only cope with the senseless condition of the present but carried it a little too far by orchestrating a game that I very wisely announced to lead ad absurdum before it had even kicked off.

This gambit certainly saved me a rude awakening but then again it can't do any harm to be taken by surprise when it involves life, can it?

Becoming blunt in the field of absurdity might make one impervious to disappointments but it will also cause indifference and apathy towards any kind of surprises and life per se. And apathy and deadness should for sure not be an objective.

And so I will make sure that this will have been the last time I stormed towards absurdity compos mentis, willfully and on purpose. Accepting absurdity is one thing, provoking it is simply suicidal for someone who has found the indubitable senselessness of existence to be the best impromptu source for unpredictability and as such stimulus and consequently life.

And after all absurdity is only genuinely absurd when it has no sense. Tricking absurdity by turning it into an aim and ambition gives it a meaning, which naturally deprives absurdity of its nature and thus de-authorises my own understanding of existence. Life doesn't make sense, and I am fine with it. But still I won't strive for it being senseless. How absurd would that be?

"Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It can become fruitful." ~ Albert Camus

A fantastic Ambush

Just back off, will you? I fold. I am out. Temporarily not available. Do you hear me? I am sure your magic tricks work when you are facing a willingly deceivable audience but me personally, I don't believe in magic. Not today. Sorry to disappoint you here. And yes, go ahead, if you can't help but tell me a dozen stories. And weave in as as many heart-rending happy ends as you wish, but please lets not forget that my heart lacks a pair of ears before you waste all your honeysweet fairytales on me. Shush, there is no reason to shout. Calm down. I was fair and told you in advance that your chances of victory were poor today. I warned you, I would deprive you of every single one of my senses if you would force me to. You gesture, I turn blind. You speak, I turn deaf. You flatter me with sweetness, I sacrifice my taste. You smell of persuasion, I donate my sense of scent. You touch me with kid gloves, I throw my tactile perception at you with my gloves off. Today I disregard the consequences for I simply don't want to believe you. Just like that. Today I am a stonewall built from the bricks of my sanity. But as stubborn and stone-cold as I am today, as soft and warm I might be tomorrow. My sanity's mood swings draw a high-frequency sine-curve when you meter it. So, just back off, if you may, and come back tomorrow. And make sure you check my sanity's schedule when you register at the reception, and tell them your name, dear Fantasia.

"Perseverance is a principle that should be commendable in those who have judgment to govern it." ~ Mark Twain

Flashback

London, January 1, 2010

"Can I have a regular cappuccino with an extra shot, please? To go."

"Chocolate on top, Madam?"

"Yes, please, thanks."

I don't give a shit.

I am in shock and everything I do, everything I say is controlled automatically by the emergency centre of my brain. It's lunchtime in wintery London and the one-way ticket from Munich that I hold in my left hand brands five simple letters into my palm: panic. What on earth have I done? Rewind. Please. Rewind.

This café, those people, those streets. I don't want it. Not like that. What a stupid, what a horrifyingly stupid idea. The chocolatey milk foam makes me sick, blending in perfectly with the nausea that is caused by a grave and heavy lump in my miserable throat. I am hiding my dazzled eyes behind one of those ridiculous London-chic sun glasses that felt far lighter on my crinkly nose when I tip-toed through this city's summery nights as a tourist chasing dreams for a day or two.

Today I shiver and every step on the uneven pavement aches. A suitcase. That's it. Me. And a suitcase. Pathetic but true.

Later in my hotel room I stare at my new mobile phone with a strange new number that doesn't make sense at all. It's not mine. My likewise unknown and new companion Home-Sickness that has been hard on my heels since the plane touched the British ground this morning is omnipresent and paralyses my senses as well as my lungs. I have to close my eyes to hide myself deep inside the comfort of a phantasy for a moment.

I lean back and whisper gently to myself that everything is fine. Everything is fine. I imagine that I will go home tomorrow. I imagine that my keychain is not completely vacant but carries a key to my car, a key to my flat, and a key to the past. I imagine what it would feel like to drive home from the airport, knowing every angle of my car just as well as every single metre of the motorway that would lead me back home while the speakers would roar with familiar sounds. After having navigated blindfold through the one-way-streets of my neighbourhood, I would look for a parking space and I would find one exactly in front of the Italian restaurant. The waiters would carry my luggage as always and the hackneyed "Ciao, Bella" would sound so sweet in my homecoming ears. I imagine every wooden step in the staircase that I would climb up and think of the board on the sixteenth step that bears a wormhole in the shape of a wolf's head. I would open the door to my flat and switch on the light. For a second my phantasy is painfully disturbed by the image of the empty hallway that I left behind. But right now all my furniture and posters that adorned the walls of the corridor would still be there. The light of my answering machine would flash, and while I would prepare a coffee with my old sky-blue brewer I would listen to your message: "It's me. Come round later if you like. And if you could pass by Sabo's and get me a package of cigarettes, that'd be great."

Then I would take off my shoes and walk over to my living room, light the candles and wind up the clockwork of my ebony grandfather clock before moving away the plants on the window sill to open the window and blow the smoke of a welcome-back cigarette into the patio. I would check whether my neighbour would be there, and finally I would grab my phone to tell you that I'm home.

This last thought throws me back into the relentless reality with a choking cough. There is no home. At least it's not mine anymore, and there is no car. And my keychain is boasting zero keys. My phone number is unknown to me and the rest of the world, and the flat ads on the screen of my Macbook look utterly uninviting.

I go outside to have a cigarette at least and call you at home, picturing you on the sofa that hosted the both of us for a new year's drink yesterday. I don't manage to speak a single word. Neither do you. After a gut-wrenching minute of silence I hang up, go back inside and welcome myself on the island with a pillow over my head to muffle the voices of my agony, my voice. If only tomorrow I would wake up next to the excitement and adventurousness that got me here. If only.

"Burning Bridges is an expression synonymous to the "point of no return."

You gotta be your own dog

Today I envy the birds. Not for their ability to fly, though, I can book a flight. I can go wherever I want. But for the fact that they can tuck their heads under one of their wings and blank out everything they don't wish to see and hear. Even the wind won't reach them under their feathers. But I don't have wings, and so I have to listen to the world and what it has got to say and observe the backdrop that is put into the limelight of my attention. And while I watch the scenes go by, I make a sad discovery: I am bullet-proof. In the end, I am. Every projectile that is fired at me bounces back and leaves nothing but a little dent behind that will fix itself quicker than I would like it to.

I have an explanation for that and it is far away from being a sensational finding but I tend to forget. I forget that they, that you are not me. You are you. And your rational and emotional gear wheels interlock differently than mine. Even when we stand on the exact same spot, listen to the same sounds and see the same images, you will turn the heard and seen into something entirely different than I would. And I won't try to impose my perception on you. You live your life. And I live mine. If I like what you find in the universe, I will make a decision and stay around, without reservations or conditions. If I don't like what you come up with, I just turn around and go. In some instances I will tip-toe in silence, in others I will tumble or stomp. I might be sad but when it comes down to it, I won't be sad about what you are not, but about the fact that my head and heart didn't manage to stay away from brush and colour and painted an identity onto your face that was based on my workings not on yours. I can't be sad about what you are not, can I? After all I picked you for a reason. I picked you because you are what you are. If ultimately you do what you do, I will just wish you luck and hope that you will be fine even if your decision is antagonistic to my ways.

I promised myself something a while ago. I promised myself that I wouldn't want to keep everything forever. Some objects and figures are only good enough for a cameo appearance if you refuse to put them into different clothes. And I do refuse. A chicken won't become a sailor only because you place a captain's hat on it's head. And so I let you breath a last breath on my stage and turn around to carry home a tiny bag of sadness that my reason will identify as irrational disappointment as soon as I unpack it. Because this is the way I work. The question, what is worse, sadness or disappointment, I pass on to you before I stow away brush and colour. For good.

Goodbye

I was so unsuspecting

with my suitcase and my thirst.

Curiosity fell fondly over my shoulders,

and winter was under my feet.

The icy air froze my lashes.

I always loved Munich most under a blanket of snow.

You said "go", and I smiled and believed in adventure.

Fearless and thrilled I set foot on the island

and homeless my heart broke without warning.

My feet slipped on the ice-free ground

and I fell on my knees

while my lungs burst with nostalgia.

I might go back there when I'm old.

And I will be soothed by the cold.

I always loved Munich most under a blanket of snow.

I might never go back,

and dream of being home under a blanket of snow

while being displaced in one city or another.

I came with a selection of songs

that now carry the imprint of the past.

I came with a book full of names

that now belong to history.

So I look out for new chords and melodies.

I search for new names to scribble into the book.

You say "come back", and my smile is cracked.

I'm trying to figure out the silence and the empty pages,

and what it is that they are doing to me.

I am writing epic letters to myself and to you.

There is still the same mind under the travel hat.

I had to move, and I don't do backwards walking.

Winter will abandon us,

it always does.

And under the blanket of snow

lie a million things and sentiments

that grow like weeds when they catch the first sunshine of spring.

I always loved Munich most under a blanket of snow.

I look up into the British sky

and I smell snow.

My heart plays tricks on my senses.

I might go back there and pay a visit

but with the British seasons in my pocket

the snow of my home will never feel the same again.

I was so smart then, in my adventurer's gown.

I felt so fortunate that I didn't look back when I waved and left.

In January I said farewell, today I mean good-bye and see you soon.

I always loved Munich most under a blanket of snow.

But deep down I prefer the sun.

Sphere & Space

Sphere and space don't always behave the way that physics ascribe to them. And neither do we, floundering and marching within them.

Sometimes, I think of the world as a wide open space with no limits and frontiers.

Sometimes I don't think at all. This is when time and space absorb me entirely, when my low-angle perspective shrinks the universe around me to the size of a pebble, and I lose touch with reality and myself.

Sometimes I think of it as room where you can't open the window. Every day you wake up and the room is smaller. You don't notice at first. It happens sluggishly, in inches.

And then, one morning you open your eyes and the room is so small you can't move. You can't take a breath. Any gesture could be fatal.

The truth is, we could see it coming. We just didn't have a thorough look. Repression, stress, weariness and tedium cling to us like a leech. And we bleed élan, foresight and discernment. We blank out the colours and everything behind us, everything beside us. Wearing blinkers we focus on the snow-white light behind the window that could be anything, the end of a phase, a dream, an illusion, the truth or the future. But the window can't be opened, and so we turn around and realise that there is a whole world out there, not just one tiny fraction of a horizon limited by the edges of a window-frame.

We all know that it is the change of perspective that broadens the horizon. People, their views, their stories, a journey, a look from above, a kick in the backside, a kind word, someone's worries or a scolding. And time and time again, when the gray and tiny pebble sits heavily on my comprehension of self and reality, I promise myself that I won't forget that the world is a big place after all, and that I can stay where I am or stray if I feel like it. And that I will always recall that I have two legs to move if I want to, a head to turn if I have to, a brain to spin if I must and a heart to freeze or ignite if I need to.

The world is a big place after all, isn't it?

An Airborne Dream

In stoic composure the windscreen wipers sweep of the thick snowflakes that hypnotisingly hit the front window without respite. "Tick-tock, tick-tock", they seem to squeal, and with every white load that they push over the edge, I can feel seconds being taken away from me.

The flakes look sharp and icy, and the sound of the snow chains milling and groaning their way through the uphill serpentines is comforting while the fir tree tops slowly and delightfully devour the sun. The headlights gallantly take over the task of illumination and turn the white flurry into a flickering delusion.

I am muffled up on a window seat on a bus. It is a small vehicle and it grumbles in the manner of a diesel. The faces of my few fellow passengers are blurred and they seem to be sleeping peacefully. Beautifully and almost unnaturally arranged in their seats, like flowers in one of Monet's bouquets, they remain motionless and pastel against the glooming scenery behind the windows.

Eventually one of the faceless creatures on the other side of the aisle puts on familiar attributes and the mouth that starts speaking to me is yours. I know I know you inside out, and your sharp and familiar gaze hits me just as hard as the frozen crystals impinge on the glass. Your lips are moving, and I can tell that you clear your throat in between your mute syllables but the sound never makes it past your tongue. I watch remorse and discomfort flash through your face until finally your mouth lingers in a sad still and your iris begs my pardon.

I sit silently and lamed, and in horrified anticipation I observe the feeling that climbs up my spine while the sky is disgorging the frozen night. The lost seconds are given back to me and intensify the pain in slow motion. I didn't understand a word you said but I know that you have just broken my heart. This agony cannot be mistaken. It's brutality is unparalleled.

I close my eyes and I can hear and feel myself shattering in reflected hush, but before the emerging nausea can reach my throat, I open my eyes and find myself on a plane. My dizzy eyes catch sight of the propellers slowing to a stop while the other passengers are already getting ready to disembark.

In a daze and carrying the ache of a broken heart, I stumble over the airfield and wonder how you made it into my dream and why my brain asked you to stab a knife into my sleeping me. I don't really know you. You don't really know me.

On the backseat of the cab that is taking me back into town, I slowly come back to my senses and I wonder if some day we will sit next to each other in a bar filled with chatting voices and easy sound. We would sink into on old sofa that would be green and cushioned and nobody would notice us. And we would talk and drink red wine and share all the stories that we would have kept safely in our chests, and we would be calm and curious, and it would be of no importance if we would know each other the day after because all we would know would be the here and now.

"A dream is a succession of images, sounds or emotions that the mind experiences during sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not fully understood."

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

On days when the ground is as shaky as daddy longlegs in their webs or when the turn of tide becomes a revolution, when uncertainty is a reliable invariable or when your brain is hibernating under a blanket of summer stories, it is about time to stop thinking and cling to the things that are set in a carefree stone and to grab a butterfly net to recollect them.

Those things, we don't argue about. Those things that are manifested in our genes and egos without conversion right and do deserve some acknowledgement whilst they are flapping their funny wings.

I am talking about the petit trivia, obscure foibles and aversions as well as the compulsive rituals that always have and always will grant maximum satisfaction or horror to our wide-eyed selves.

For instance the ridiculous fact that we try to pick up four peas at a time with the tips of our forks when nobody is watching or that we sometimes still try to not step on the cracks between the paving stones. Or the joy that comes over us when we find a particularly chunky piece of chocolate in our Stracciatella. Or, to keep to this sweet example, about the fact that we insist on putting Ben & Jerry's Phish Food into the microwave for exactly 27 seconds and under no cirumstances eat it with anything else but a soup spoon.

About cringing when somebody plays a soprano aria or drags us into a musical theatre. About loving the wind because it is leading us to believe that the seaside is waiting around the next corner even when we are positioned in the heart of the continent. About never sleeping on trains and counting trees instead, about rescuing lost earthworms and turtles, about wearing our favourite and worn-out jumpers although we have a million impeccable ones. About saying million instead of three. About not being able to sleep late, about smoking a cigarette out of the window when the whole world is asleep and being happy just for that reason. About hating the steel guitar with all our hearts and radically dismissing every song featuring the latter. About turning on the light in the middle of the night because our neighbour told us earlier that the house was haunted. About loathing board and card games. About not buying a book because we don't like the title. About buying a CD simply because it has a beautiful cover. About the irritation that we feel when someone overtakes us on our morning run. About not having the heart to delete certain songs from our iPods because we would feel guilty due to an utterly stupid sensation of nostalgic obligation although we never listen to them. About rather getting soaked than carrying an umbrella along. About playing G-flat major pieces only because we like the black keys.

About being human. About being us. About our very own small joys and pleasures. About being able to be silly as, afterall, a brainy man once said: "Never stay up on the barren heights of cleverness, but come down in the green valleys of silliness."

And, now, lets have a frugivorous drink and use a see-through straw to cull the berries.

A Night Owl's Linear Secret - To whom it may concern

A carousel of voices. A social combat. Conversational wisps are competing with random blobs of treble and basses that drop down from the speakers in the corner.

She is struggling to catch the words that are addressed to her and to turn them into something actually affecting her. The lips, they move to make a point. The eyes are worse, they ask for applause, they cry for attention. She takes a prolonged sip of her white wine, a sour brew that is offering her a million sweet reasons to dive in and sink into oblivion. The aftertaste puts her into red alert that is immediately defused by the benign gaze of her night's companion.

He is observing everything she is trying not to be, and still, when their eyes meet, his devotion is reflected by a brief flash of warmth in her chest. At the mercy of the personality he imputed to her, he breathes in every single move she makes. Every word she utters is cautiously stored away in his mind and recompensed with authentic understanding.

She finds herself unarmed confronting his natural nature, she finds herself disarmed by his blemished perfection. And so her ratio and her reason shake hands and sign a contract of romance. But with every clause they add and with every consent, the apprehension in her grows and translates itself into a heartbeat of a noxious accelerando.

She knows that the iron band around her throat that is accompanying the allegro is called blind panic, the only Achilles' heel shared by ratio and reason. Panic has been responsible for the fatal ends of numerous reasons.

And she also knows that her rational way of being has encountered the strongest enemy that it could have found at the front of affection: affection itself. Affection for someone her ratio wouldn't even have put on the substitutes' bench. So, while her ratio was doing a dirty deal with her reason, a feeling rose from the dirty ground without leaving footprints and sent it's fellow fighter panic onto the pitch to win the game.

But this time she and her ratio would have found silent but true pleasure in victory - one without edges, one without deflections and sounds - but pleasure nevertheless.

Now, all that is left is that crystal-clear emotion that is targeted at someone out of sight, someone out of reach. All that she holds in her hand is that fiery feeling that is laughing at the perfection seated in front of her because it doesn't give a damn about perfection. Her ratio's prey has died with it's hunter while the affection's victim remains unscathed in the shadow - for as many reasons her reason had, as few reasons her heart could present. Her ratio aimed at the future, her affection, however, is aimless and wallowing in the hollow present.

Numbed by her discovery and stirred by the panic, she empties her wine, charms her companion - who is still carrying the alleged banner of victory - off to buy her another drink and stands up from her chair.

She stumbles through the nocturnal crowd and across a dozen bees in her chest until she finally reaches the door and steps outside to walk away while her back is frozen with the fear of being caught. And while she paces through the parallel universes of the passers-by, she can hear her ratio cry while a smile finds her face and the allegro becomes cantabile.

"Do nothing secretly; for Time sees and hears all things, and discloses all." ~ Sophocles

Mala malus mala mala dat

Today's topic is hard to swallow for someone who counts on the basic goodness of humanity. Today's topic is hard to cough up for someone who inhales euphemisms just as artlessly as oxygen. Today's topic is The Evil and the impeachment of it's existence.

Before I try to get to the bottom of this unsavoury matter, I shall utter, however, that I presuppose that we all share a common understanding of what is good and what is evil, and I will build my thoughts upon the assumption that our acquis communautaire is the moral idea that has been established with Kant's categorical imperative: "Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

This moral law unveils the evil at one blow. The shape of the evil, however, is a blind spot. It is the gown it wears that bestows the imprint on it's blank face. And gowns, it has a great many. Today it may appear as the incarnate portrait of the depraved dressed in a black cloak, whereas tomorrow it might skip impetuously around the corner as a smug beau. It remains uncertain, though, if the evil cultivates such images of it's selfs to serve our ideas or if it has established itself within them as one of it's numerous identities. No matter which of the latter may afflict us, one thing comes always with it: it's draconian grip, it's relentless breath that it blows into our defenceless necks and the stifling severity of it's company.

But the evil doesn't exist autonomously. The evil is born from two like-minded figures that bear the names Egoism and Greed for Power. It's parental home has a sign over the door that says Selfishness and in the backyard Empathy and Justice are laid to rest.

When it comes to the Evil's life expectancy, I refuse and will hopefully always refuse to give up my naivité and my trust in the good. I do hope that some of the evils will die if you treat them with either tenacious ignorance from above or fight them openly with an adament sense of justice from within. I do hope that the good shall triumph over the evil simply because I have to believe in humanity at large; and I will cling to my greenness as long as I can - even if some might call me a fool.

"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." ~ William Shakespeare

Romeo, you know I used to have a scene with him

Today I woke up cold as a stone with the wind blowing through my room. The window was closed and so was the door. When I opened my wistful eyes, one after the other, I found a farewell letter on the fluffed up pillow next to me.

"It's time for me to go", the handwritten words said. "You and me, it's not working out."

My question mark has left me. For good. It took all it's belongings but left the full stop behind.

And now this chubby little chap is sitting on the wing chair in the middle of my living room, looking at me with a demanding stare and it's hands folded.

"I am not ready yet. Go away!", I cry.

The full stop doesn't care. In response to my tears it jumps up and down on the cushion and shrieks like a peacock.

"I don't like you!", I shout defiantly against the wind and the cocky yell.

"I want my question mark back. I love it! We are the perfect match."

"So why did it dump you then?", the full stop sneers and chuckles as it plunks down into the chair. "You and me, baby, we are made for each other", it adds with a sudden graveness.

"Ha, yes, oh, Romeo, you know I used to have a scene with him", I shoot back, and now it's me who giggles. "If you find yourself a perpendicular line to team up with, I might reconsider your proposal, sweetheart."

The full stop gives me a scrutinising glance and seems to ponder.

"Come on, that's a deal, isn't it?", I encourage it and point at the door. "If you come back as an exclamation mark, I will only be too happy to give us a chance and live happily ever after and all that." I underpin my last sentence with a promising nod.

"Okay", it says. "Okay, that is a deal indeed." It jumps off it's chair with a determined expression, gives me a peck on the cheek and off it goes.

As soon as the door clicks shut, I wipe the kiss off, grab my phone and give my old friend, the dash, a call. I haven't heard from him in ages.

Homo Homini Vulpes

I have got a secret, and it twines around me. It tastes bitter. It tastes sweet.

I have got a secret, and it twines around you. It sounds chipper. It sounds neat.

And so I try to be silent. And so I try to disguise.

Words. Words. Words. On my tongue. And in my throat.

Words. Words. Words. Must not be disclosed. Must not be told.

I am composing a song, and I put it in a minor key. It is about me.

I am composing a song, and I put it in a major key. It is about you.

And so I try to be silent. And so I try to disguise.

Tones. Tones. Tones. On my tongue. And in my throat.

Tones. Tones. Tones. Must not be struck. Must not be intoned.

I am drawing a picture, and I paint it in green. It is about me.

I am drawing a picture, and I paint it in blue. It is about you.

And so I try to be silent. And so I try to disguise.

Shades. Shades. Shades. On my tongue. And in my throat.

Shades. Shades. Shades. Must not be painted. Must not be drawn.

I carry a weapon, and it is pointed at me. On the trigger, your finger.

I carry a weapon, and it is pointed at you. On the trigger, my finger.

And so I try to be silent. And so I try to disguise.

Bullets. Bullets. Bullets. On my tongue. And in my throat.

Bullets. Bullets. Bullets. Must not be loosed. Must not be released.

"The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. He is always hungry." ~ Mark Twain

For the Sake of Symmetry

Sir, I beg your pardon, I didn't order that.

Don't you like it?

Oh, yes, I do, I do. But still, I have been served already. And I got what I wanted.

Have another look. It suits you well.

Yes, yes, sure it does but my budget, you see, it doesn't allow for further expenses.

Touch it.

I don't know what...

Touch it.

It's nice. Fleecy.

It's handmade. A single copy.

How much is it?

Oh, it's sold already, I am sorry.

Come again, what did you say? Sold already? But why did you show it to me then? And why are you giving me that smirk?

I thought you might like it.

I do, I have told you. But how much sense does it make to present a piece that is not for sale? I didn't even ask for it, you literally imposed it on me.

You liked it.

I ordered a circle, and I got it. 360 perfect degrees. And there is no space for more in a circle, is there? 361°. What would that be? Vertigo plus 1°? 720° minus 359? Too much? Not enough? Too much! That's what it is! My 360° were consummate - a perfect blend of what I need, what I like, what I know. And now you dangle this tiny 1° in front of my tempted eyes, you let me touch it, you make me want it, and then you tell me I can't have it. Forgive me for being so frank but you should work on your sales technique - your approach won't make you rich.

You liked it.

I don't understand. What do you mean by this? I would have taken it - and probably I would have kept it on immediately.

Excuse me, Madam, but I have to go now. We would be honoured if you visited us again soon.

Oh yes, sure, go, go. And no need to lift your hat. I will put my 360° in a bag and take them home. And I will be wondering all day why all of a sudden 361° look more round than 360°. Thanks for that. And yes, probably I will be back soon. To return my circle and buy a parabula instead - for the sake of symmetry.

"I shall now recall to mind that the motion of the heavenly bodies is circular, since the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle." ~ Nicolaus Copernicus