A Litany of Breaths

[i_pakapshem]

all very intereting...
but i must have missed something; how did it go from an (seemingly tropical island) to a little village outside of warsaw?

[Leila]

O lal (how becoming of me) Polaket s'jane emigrante vetem in the good old US of A. Desha te te thosha before I was distracted by some purrty shiny thing, qe me pelqeu nentitulli yt -- anger is a gift. Right on, dude! ;)

Fiorke, you have no idea how right you are... :) Since one can't have enough of one good thing, do lumturohesh me lajmin qe lemshet e Humpty Dumpty-t strehojne kush e di sa Leila te vogla qe do rriten pas meje :)

[Ryder]

hey baby. nice writing.

[i_pakapshem]

O lal (how becoming of me) Polaket s'jane emigrante vetem in the good old US of A. Desha te te thosha before I was distracted by some purrty shiny thing, qe me pelqeu nentitulli yt -- anger is a gift. Right on, dude! ;)

Fiorke, you have no idea how right you are... :) Since one can't have enough of one good thing, do lumturohesh me lajmin qe lemshet e Humpty Dumpty-t strehojne kush e di sa Leila te vogla qe do rriten pas meje :)

damn me dhe nentitullet e mija, se prap se shpjegove. lol E di e di qe sjane emigrante vetem ne USA, nejse ishalla e shpjegon heres tjeter.

[Leila]

I... I... oh...

At least I tried. Better luck next time.

[Leila]

“I have a new girlfriend,” He confessed during our long distance call on my trip to Ireland. I froze in restraint not to run out of my hotel room and catch the next flight home to Him, articulating something dull and stupid to the effect of “She’s good to you?” In a strikingly picturesque hotel in the heart of Dublin, my piebald of a room full of clothes inadvertently (in their haphazardly guiltless way) impersonating my scattered sentiments about leaving the island, closed in on me in the most vicious way, overriding all common sense. It was the loneliest trip of my life and I felt trapped there – “Beware of the person who’s been cornered,” I always warned Him to be crueler then. I had been told by an overbearing, arrogant girl (and I almost wrote “friend”) that she intended to marry well into her 30’s because she wanted to travel and see the world first and that no one should make the mistake of doing any different. But what good is a lonely gondola ride, anyway? And who will hold your baggage when you search for your passport or nature calls? A lonely trip seems OK if one’s not fazed by the alternative of perhaps developing urine tract infection because they held it in for hours and hours of traveling.

“I tell her about you all the time,” He continues. I didn’t want to say something provocative or feign exaggerated disbelief just to force answers from Him because it’s sneaky, and at the same time asking openly was out of the question. He knew the effect He was creating and nevertheless continued with His mind games, rage’s outcome, I suppose, a way to avenge how He felt about my leaving. Aren’t all people this cruel to their loved ones? “She’s seen all the photographs of you sleeping, cooking, reading, driving… what else? She’s seen that videotape of you jumping off the rocks, swimming naked and showering in the wild. I even told her the story of your accident and about the calluses on your hand.”

“About that. Mrs. O thought I had hurt my wrist and didn’t believe me when I told her that it’s from writing.” Having made it His mission years ago to seep into my every pore, into my psyche, and rearrange everything to His liking, He becomes even more aggressive after my attempt to change the subject. “She knows the shape of your stomach, the way it curves in under your ribs, the concealing round shape of your sex, the way you always have bruises of all colors on your legs, and that you buy shoes much too big for you because you can’t find any your size.”

“I hope you haven’t told her about my allergies or else you’re giving her ways and ideas how to kill me… so, ummm, yeah… let’s stop necrophilia before it becomes a problem.” I tell Him that one day He’ll have memorized everything about me and who knows… maybe He’ll find Himself in love him with Him and not me. “Maybe being in love with yourself may not be so different than loving a whole other set of genes. Maybe it’s better. It’s like a marriage from birth, an arranged one… who knows by who.”

[Leila]

Not having been able to produce a visa for their translator, a company I had worked with previously in Albania turned to me to attend a 3 day seminar in Dublin. With my erratic job experience and education, it was more of a favor than an offer. In their eyes, I made up for my odd temperament and slipshod expertise in the work place by the comforting thought that I had nothing to gain in spilling the company beans, I had no career ambitions that could make getting bought a temptation, I got the job done without bugging them, and lastly I had absolutely no qualms or reservations about getting around in foreign places or making new friends – keeping them was a different story and entirely unnecessary to them. At least this is what I overheard them complain about when hiring new employees.

I had been sitting in all morning, attending one commercial after the other, collecting business cards, and in tandem making an effort to console awkward Ludwig, shy as a girl, one of the representatives who had previously been turned down tactlessly by the Italiana with the infamously bizarre Mireille Mathieu haircut, “Honestly, Ludwig…” deep breath, “if I ever saw a real hate crime to one’s self, this is it – wanting to screw a girl with not enough sense to fix that!” I motioned towards my hair with both hands. He straightened up his dainty frame, ran my sentence in his mind a few times to make sure he got it right as he nodded his thin, pale chin, and didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day. I spent the next few seconds retracing my every word, wondering if Ludwig knew my nationality and if I just helped form possible stereotypes. I looked at him one more time, almost regretfully but still mainly pissed off. Poor Ludwig; he didn’t know how handsome he was if he stopped being so self-conscious and quit trying to win a girl’s affections by pouting about the previous one.

[Leila]

That night, He continued to amuse Himself in disclosing random details about an imaginary woman, such as the way He explained to her how I did my hair, that I’m ambidextrous, that I have a penchant to create words that don’t exist, “… and that you are too disgusted to eat cherries or grape that have already fallen from the stem, and that you sabotage your eyebrows by plucking above them and at both ends to make them look smaller.” Common sense aside, dread was more than enough to think of her like a real person and judging from His history of choices, I was convinced that she would have to be a remarkable permutation of Monica Bellucci slash Catherine Zeta-Jones slash Gene Tierney, a woman that would “fill” his hands, and this disturbed me. If there’s a type of woman that disturbs most women, it would be one that is their complete opposite, that doesn’t confirm or endorse her looks and personality.

I changed the subject, “Bought some Aubrey Beardsley prints today. I don’t want to be bossy in these matters, but I assure you that you will like him.” Finally, having run out of things to say about Moshe Dayan and Archimedes Death Ray, our only form of gossip, but not wanting to hang up, our speech became more slurred as we became more sincere – a fair balance, considering the routine conversations when alert. I thought I heard Him vow something along the lines that He would steal all tenderness from me before He died, so that I wouldn’t love another. That's not hard to believe. We went to sleep, ignoring the time difference. His Albanian “Goodnight, grape” kept me up 15 seconds longer to come to two conclusions. First, although grape meant something sweet like honey, it aggravated me because I really didn’t like grape and only ate them out of habit. Second, I entertain my nitpicking more than I should; there is no Gene Tierney doppelganger anywhere in the world. It’s impossible, I’m sure.

* * *

I woke up in the middle of the night only to find a stranger in my room, bent over to my level and watching me sleep. He was pretty visible in the dark room, pale by nature as he was, staring at me with his pink eyes. I began backing off slowly enough, inch by inch, as to not send him into a panic to try to stop me. It seemed that the only thing I could hear was the sheets rustling, taking different shapes as it adjusted to my moving body, and I missed out on his greeting.

"A person's entire belief system, my dear, can only be shattered 7 times before they go mad," he said as if he had been talking for some time now and was continuing his speech. I hate hearing “my dear” being used seriously; it’s so pretentious. I stared at him and understood at once what he meant as if I had been listening all along -- beliefs are the foundation of one's sanity. His being there tested my sanity because logically and naturally, I believed that there was no paper-white man with white hair -- Little Albert's real-life nightmare, and white suit and tie. In fact, it was ridiculous that the next color I would associate him with would be pink, a pretty innocuous, gentle and feminine color, a symbol of love and happiness. His face was still too close for comfort and I put a pillow between us. It was an instinct, although I couldn’t for the life of me understand my obstinate desire to hold on to my sanity; it wasn’t like I would miss it once it was gone. “It matters not what exactly shatters their beliefs; they can all be broken in hundreds of different ways,” he continued advancing towards me while I frantically attempted to figure out how many chances I had left, hoping I’d die before my 7th time, but the chronology of my life came back to me a stupefying mass of green grass slithering and sliding under my bare feet. I closed my eyes tightly, a futile struggle to try to remember something about my life and all I could remember was walking on grass.

How many ways can you shatter belief? How many ways…? Think! How many… belief in God, death of a loved one, change of lifestyle… none of which I had experienced. What else? Belief in God, death of a loved one… I said those already. How many did I count? Five? Six? Think!

He lunged at me to get a hold of me fast as I fell backwards and screamed.

[Leila]

Shenim per veten qe mos harroj te shkruaj per diten e sotshme.
Desh mbyta nje burre me shallin tim dhe jam e sigurte se do me lejonte ta ndiqja deri ne fund aktin tim. I fala jeten. Kjo s'do te thote qe atij tashme i perket te vdesi nga dora ime? S'jap borxhe, as koleksionoj te tilla... Me sakrifica nuk ngaterrohem, kurrsesi. Megjithate, dicka duhet ti bej nqs e shoh serish. Ti fal shallin?

[Humdinger]

Dhuratë tunduese nga ekzekutuesja, por në më pyet mua... më tunduese akoma do ishin 5-hënëshi yt.
Jo??
Ka vend per ankese??