A Litany of Breaths

[Leila]

That was the day that His mother came to visit us. We had bought the remaining furniture we neglected to buy, gave Zytka two weeks off and spent the rest of the afternoon waiting for the boat to arrive at the docks.

3:18pm

“Men who f’uck a lot get wrinkles.”
“How vulgar! One for each woman?”
“Something like that.”
“Really? They suck ‘em dry?”
“Precisely.”
“No, men lie about anything sex-related because nobody questions them.”
“How would you know? You're not a man.”
“Common sense. When there’s no demand, there’s no product. Economy is a psychology on its own.”
“A demand for what?”
“Truth.”
“I had a friend from Dibra once who could tell whether a man was married just by looking at his face. He never was wrong in all the years I knew him, not once.”
“And it doesn’t strike you as odd that he was interested only in men’s social status?”

3:23pm

“Sorry, I’ve got boogers. I have to blow my nose.”
“You got rid of them?”
“Yes.”
“Thick… or not?”
“Umm… what are the thick ones like?”
“Not watery… slightly more yellow.”
“Nope. White, see-through.”
“I thought you were sick from staying out so late in the cold last night.”
“I don’t usually have yellow boogers. They’re either white or see-through. E. had hers green when she was younger.”
“The white ones are the ones when you’re sick.”
“Ah.” Pause. “No, the white ones are when you cry.”
“The transparent ones are when you cry.”
“But these are the colors I’ve seen in mine. Next time I’ll show you.”
“They’re missing pigmentation.”
“Green boogers are interesting.”
“I don’t know where they come from.”

3:37pm

“I’m cold.”
…
“Don’t squeeze me so tight, you’re breaking my glasses.”
…
“I don’t have another pair.”
…
“OK, well, I do… but I don’t like them.”

3:44pm

“Tell me something.”
“What do butchers call surgeons?”
“I don’t know. What?”
“Colleagues.”

[Manulaki]

Devijim:

Nje cift ishin shume te trishtuar sepse kishin vite qe u mungonte nje femije. Nje nate vjen nje dervish qe kalon naten ne shtepine e tyre dhe i pyet pse jane kaq te trishte. Ata i shpjegojne hallin dhe dervishi qesh duke u lene nje molle dhe nje porosi: molla te qerohet dhe ta ndajne te 2 midis nj-tj dhe lekuren t'ia ushqenin peles. 9 muaj me vone behen me nje vajze, pela me nje mez. Dhe keshtu e mbyll vajzen e cmuar ne nje dhome qelqi, nena shterpe ne bark e shkretetire ne gji. Nje mengjes dimri vajza u zgjua dhe pa pertej xhamit boren qe kishte mbuluar vendin, dhe mbi bore 2 pika gjaku harabeli. "Ka gje me te bukur se gjaku mbi bore?" uleret vajza e mrekulluar. "Po, ka," i pergjigjen sherbyeset, "eshte dragoi ne maje te malit." Pa degjuar prinderit, vajza mori kalin, nje pale kepuce hekuri dhe u nis ne maje te malit. Dragoi i mori ere: ere bananesh, trendafilash dhe CK1. E ndjeu vajzen para se ti trokiste ne dere, e mori brenda me te mira dhe pastaj e urdheroi te qante mbi nje kazan qe kur te ktheheshe nga gjahu te mund te shuante etjen. Perndryshe do e hante (dhe per ta frikesuar -- por jo shume, i tregoi vetem 1/3 e grave te vdekura dhe te varura ne mur). Vajza mbushi kazanin me uje dhe kripe, dhe pavaresisht se dragoi mbet' i kenaqur, ai nuk e mbajti anen e vet te premtimit :) Detyra e dyte qe i vuri ishte te hante mish njeriu. Vajza ia dha kalit ta hante. Vjen dragoi ne shtepi dhe bertet, "Mish, mish ku jeeeeee?" dhe mishi ia kthen, "Jam ketuuuu ne barkun e ngrohte." Se fundi, dragoi dorezohet dhe i kerkon ta martoje vajzen, e cila i pergjigjet se do e martoje pasi te kete qepur 66 fustane nuserie me fije mendafshi. Naten e marteses, nusja hyn ne dhomen e dhenderrit i cili e urdheron te heqi fustanin e te futet ne shtrat, por kjo ia kthen se per secilin petk qe ajo do heqi nga trupi i saj, ai duhet te zhveshi nje lekure. "Interesante! Askush s'ma ka kerkuar kete me pare," thote dragoi dhe shkul lekuren e tij te pare nderkohe qe nusja ka hequr njerin fustan. Dhe keshtu vazhdojne deri ne mengjes, nje shtrese pas tjetres, dragoi flak tutje lekuren e tij te fundit dhe perpara nuses lakuriqe shfaqet dhenderri i pashem, pakez i frikesuar nga surpriza e kendshme. Me kete rast, 66 grate e varura ne mur u ringjallen dhe u liruan, te veshura me fustanet e nuserise. Atehere vajza qe akoma sodiste dhenderrin psheretin, "A ka gje me te bukur se kjo?" Dhe ai i sjell 2 kokrra shege nga bahcja e tij te cilat...

devijim i mrekullueshem......

[Leila]

:)

A Rose By Any Other Name…

Even rain means to beautify the island. It descends like a well-trained dainty damsel for whom even fainting is an art. The day after His mother had come to visit, we had a good old fashioned rainstorm complete with all its messy inconveniences – maladroitness in all its glory, like back home. I hadn’t seen such a severe rainstorm since ever, I thought. Yet there was something comforting about it, something familiar which I perhaps had been searching for wholly incognizant of the roots of my nostalgia. His mother is a superstitious woman, not in the fanatical sense but in a more motherly all-knowing way. They’re so attractive, such a type of people. One can’t help but be drawn, if only out of awe, which I had just recently discovered was a very selfish feeling. I told him my mother was not like this. He said he was fine with us sharing a mother. So we do so like siblings of the same womb, mirror images of one another. But sometimes I think she’s mine more. I explained to Him that there is an unspoken allegiance between women and therefore He couldn’t have her, except in name only (for what is in a name?)

She immediately conformed to our schedule and joined us daily for breakfast and lunch at a restaurant just across the street from the butcher shop. Walking together makes people fonder of one another, more so than living under the same roof for years. It could be that home, being such a personal refuge, will make one dwell onto themselves rather than what’s around them. The closed-in space does something wrong to us. I suppose walking with someone forces one to become more extroverted.

An old man trying to walk past a tricky spot on the gap between two buildings distracted me as I was revisiting my old childhood fantasy of living in a glass house. Unable to avoid the slippery mud he walked right through it, carefully but quickly stepping on some stones that were nearby. He then proceeded to slip and fall suddenly and quietly. Some gasped and watched on as his awkward attempts to get up prolonged his agony. The rest, those closest to him, spared a second to look at him and quickened their pace. Eventually – even a second is too long, I walked up to him and got a hold of his wrist and shoulder with both hands to pull him up. The most pointless thoughts come up at the most improbable times and just then, while still trying to hoist up the stranger, it occurred to me that I hadn’t said “Excuse me” before I left His mother. Looking up for a moment I detected a hint of amusement on her scrutinizing expression which resurfaced my old and long forgotten anxieties. It has been one of my core convictions – that good deeds, at best, are justifications for one’s (other) shortcomings.

She has this habit of watching me in her little stealthy all-knowing way, giving me the impression that she’s analyzing me and is maybe slightly amused by me. His family having undertaken the peculiar task of “raising” me collectively is all her doing, which would be condescending if it wasn’t for the flattering testimonials she divulges at my absence. I can’t say that sometimes I’m not amused by her, as well, more than ever when she’ll stop me from lifting something heavy, be it suitcases or lifting the pot to drain the spaghetti. She thinks I’ll break somehow.

A Delilah to my Samson

"Don't you think your hair's gotten a bit too long?"
"Yeah."
"You're better off cutting it. Just the edges. Don’t you think?" God love the woman who won’t give me orders.
"I wouldn't mind cutting it all off but it seems to have magic powers that keep your son alive."
"Hë?"
"I mean He'd actually die if I cut off so much as an inch."
"Don't be silly."
“We’ll experiment. I’ll cut off an inch and if He never notices, it’ll be our little secret. If He does notice, we’ll say it was my idea.”
“But wait… He won’t be too mad, will he?”
“Naaaahhh…” Yes!

[Leila]

“You know the whole problem with the world is that whole bartering system, the mother of all evils. But it’s a necessary evil.”

“It sure would eliminate stealing.”

“There’s that, I suppose.”

“Because look here, nobody would feel the need to. They don’t need work, they’re working within their own homes, and as a result they already have their own food.”

“You’re proposing the annihilation of the only way we know how to live. Chaos! It’s a system, albeit full of faults, but it’s worked for us.”

“Worked for us how? Look at the world. We’d be better off without it.”

“No, we wouldn’t, my dahling revolutionist! What if you come from some exotic place where they have exotic fruits I love and I want them? I really, really want them.”

“First of all, my sweet one, you wouldn’t know those fruits for the obvious fact that you wouldn’t go to those places. You’re better off this way anyway because you can’t wish for something you can’t perceive. There’s not a lot of mobility in such a system. Kapish?”

“So what? Travelers come back with all kinds of exotic things. And you know about my cravings. I would need to trade something with these travelers, whose occupation is traveling to these interesting places all the while I’m just a dull homemaker with tomatoes and oranges in my backyard. Whoopee. They wouldn’t scatter around exotic fruits out of the generousness of their heart unless they have a reason to be generous, such as the desire to please their loved ones and… well… I can’t be everyone’s ‘loved one,’ at least not without starting a whole new sort of trade… of the oldest kind. And that's not to say that everyone would actually do it for a fruit, but it's an example. What else would one have to offer them?”

He laughed and squeezed me painfully.

“Ow! But that’s the only way I can get my precious fruits without clubbing them upside the head and taking it from them, and that’s not only stealing but murder as well. See how things escalate? Had it been assault, they’d know who to get revenge on and I’d never be safe. See, we need trade; it’s not some bullshit system that could change, or an option. It was built out of need, not as a different way of living. Any other system would be to go against the grain, against human nature, social Darwinism. You know… human society progresses through competition? All that stuff.”

"Yeah, yeah—"

“There isn’t a thing one can’t exchange… at least I think so… for the moment… haven’t been proved different. Maybe I’m wrong... I’m easily swayed just as long as the other side offers me a valid argument, and this is a reasonable fault… is it not? I wouldn’t want to be ignorant just because I’m hard-headed, you know what I mean? Because that’s beside the point and the point is I hate to be wrong, but not as much as I hate being wrong forever. So correct me and often. Ow! What I mean to say is that a relationship is an intimate exchange. Conversations, too. We’re trading thoughts right now. Well… so it’s settled then. Should the system collapse during my life time, I’ll become a traveler who eats exotic fruits. No, no. A pirate! They don’t need to make a living. Travelers do.”

“So you’d be like a kaçake, then.”

“Sure I would.”

“They’re rebels.”

“Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

“And they steal.”

“Overstating the obvious.”

“But that’s what I meant to evade without the bartering system.”

“Didn’t work for me. I’m a pirate, thanks to you.”

“That’s not rational. You—"

“Rationality limits you.”

“According to the crazy man.”

“… whose name was Nietzsche!”

“Thankfully, not everyone feels like you.”

“Except kaçakët and pirates.”

“Criminals, you mean.”

“Hey, suppose you were the leader if such a system allowed it. Would you put me in prisons or dungeons for that? For being a criminal?”

“No, I’d hold you as an example of what we do to criminals.”

“What do you do to criminals?”

“I screw them.”

[Leila]

Incentive qe ta mbaroj me pas. Ika se me pret agai per nje dreke misterioze.

“They say a snake is a hundred times more powerful than we think it to be.”

“And women?”

“Maybe a thousand times more powerful than she seems.”

“Who knows. Exercising healthy skepticism once in a while can only do one good.”

“What are you reading?”

“Medea. Have I told you about it before?”

“Yes.”

“No, I couldn’t have.”

“I remember her name coming out of your mouth.”

“Oh. If I have told you about it, I couldn’t have done it justice because up until now I had forgotten half of the details.”

“Pa hë.”

[Leila]

(Të prënë, ore, të prënë! lol... mos thuaj me "cicë!")

“There was Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides.”

“Fate, law and the…?”

“The black sheep, respectively. Euripides was a recluse, lived under a cave, and criticized society. He wrote Medea, which broke all the rules, all the prerequisites for a dramatic hero.”

“Because she was a woman.”

“And a foreigner, and smart, and powerful. It starts out with Peleus who killed his brother and seized the throne as king. His brother had a son named Jason and hid him. Eventually Jason grew up and demanded his throne. Peleus makes a deal with him and sends him off to get the Golden Fleece which would prove that he deserves the crown. This is a whole story on its own. The crew, the Argonauts, was fantastic; every great hero was there to assist Jason, including Hercules, and they have all these great adventures together. They get to the island where the Golden Fleece is located and then the king of that island puts Jason through a series of tests, as well, but his daughter Medea had fallen in love with Jason and helped him through the tests. The night that her father was going to kill Jason, she saved him and ran with the crew back to their ship where her brother ambushed them. They kill him. Imagine that! Medea killed her own brother and cut up his body into pieces so her father would stop chasing them and collect his son’s body parts. You know ancient Greece with the proper burial idea, like with Oedipus’ sons.”

“Who would you kill for me?”

“I’d set up a genocide for you with no remorse. So now they went to Jason’s homeland, a city that starts with the letter ‘I’ but I can’t remember it.”

“Is this how you’re going to tell stories to our children?”

“I don’t know. It’s a good thing you’re my first child so I can experiment and make all my mistakes on you. Peleus still won’t give up the crown, so Medea convinces his daughters to kill him in order to make him immortal. And of course, Peleus dies and never becomes immortal. People find out and exile Medea and Jason. Now they’re in Corinth, and Jason, being the ambitious social climber that he is, betrays Medea and marries the princess of Corinth without telling Medea. He was able to do this because his marriage ceremony to Medea wasn’t official. And this was OK because marriage was always a political and financial arrangement. This didn’t make Jason a bad guy, but he did promise something to Medea and he’s backing out on his word on a technicality. Very spineless of him. And meanwhile Medea has lost everything, even her identity, to be with him. She can’t go back to her father, she can’t go anywhere. But she’s not a psycho. She’s very logical and eloquent, especially when she makes the whole speech on women conforming and marriage and love and how her status was even more despicable than the rest of the women because of her past and her being a foreigner. She has expectations for having sacrificed so much and, expecting the special treatment for what she went through, is furious when betrayed. And she makes a great point, too. She says that it’s better to be average, it’s better to be part of the masses, to be careful lest your head rises above the rest or have it decapitated. In other words, don’t bother being better or wanting more of yourself. King Creon, father of the bride, wants Medea exiled because he hears how angry she is. Why shouldn’t she be?”

“What was Jason’s reaction?”

“Cold, detached, patronizing, condescending, holier-than-thou telling Medea that he forgives her for badmouthing him all around town. He’s one to talk of forgiveness! And then he rewrites history, and tells Medea that she never helped him in anything, that he did everything, that she was simply an instrument of Aphrodite who favored Jason, that Jason did her a favor by taking her away from her homeland and bringing her into civilization. You see an obvious divergence between Medea and Jason. Medea is much more logical and moral than he is, while Jason is irresponsible and chalks up everything to women being inferior. And you wonder what the hell was it that she saw in him when they first met.”

“It’s fairy tales. It’s expected.”

“Fairy tales are telling. Anyway, Jason justifies his marriage to the Corinthian princess as being a smart move because his children will be his heir when he’s king, and he can provide for them and Medea, as well. He also claims that the world is better off without women.”

“So he’s gay, then.”

“Ancient Greece, baby. It was normal; women were there only for babies, as for companionship and mental stimulation men turned to one another. I guess they felt like equals and there wasn’t any reason to be patronizing with someone who was their equal.”

“And she had nobody.”

“She had the chorus, which represented the women of Corinth.”

“Did they know what she would do?”

“They’re conspirators to a point, united by their sex.”

“See what you women do when you get together?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Go on.”

“Medea convinced Creon to let her stay one more day and she cooked up a plan. You know you said we don’t need trade? Well, the king of Athens couldn’t have children and Medea promised him that she would help him and his wife to conceive a child in exchange for protection from her enemies and to provide her with a sanctuary should she need it.”

“He’s not risking war?”

“He is, but he needs an heir badly. And now he can tell Medea’s enemies that he’s bound to his promise.”

“So he has more honor than Jason.”

“Only out of necessity. People are never good just to be good. Let me tell you about the princess.”

“She’s a spoiled little stupid brat.”

“Who hates Jason’s children as if they’ve done something to her. He has to beg to keep them around instead of exiling them with their mother.”

“Well, he is spineless.”

“Medea made a magic robe and a crown for the princess as a gift so that she will not abuse her children. She makes this whole show to convince Jason that she’s changed, that women are emotional and irrational and worthless. Basically she plays into Jason’s weaknesses, and Jason is very self-involved; he loves to feel like a hero, no surprise there. She has her sons deliver the gifts to the princess, and as she puts them on to admire herself, the clothes go up in flames, which was all part of Medea’s plan. Creon comes and hugs his dying daughter to put out the fire or to mourn her, and is burned along with her. Medea then proceeds to kill her children for two reasons. First, they risked being punished anyway for giving the princess the gifts, so they’re conspirators.”

“Who would punish them? Their father? The princess and the king are dead.”

“With a father like that, you can expect anything. The second reason was that this was her way of hurting Jason because the children belong to the father. Wherever she went, she would have to give up her children. So she killed them and left Jason without an heir. She took her revenge one step further. You can imagine how Euripides’ audiences squirmed on their seats when they watched all the troubles this woman went through and how she was repaid at the end. And maybe they’re a bit afraid, remembering Clytemnestra throwing the net and murdering Agamemnon with an axe. The decay of society, the unfairness, the hypocrisy, the double standards that bugged Euripides and his audiences weren’t award-winning themes back then. He was a misunderstood, starving artist. Well, I don’t know about starving, it’s just an image.”

“She could have killed them to erase all proof of their union.”

“Yes, that’s the third reason. Medea has semi-divine ancestors, her grandfather’s Helios, the god of the sun. He gives her his carriage and she leaves the scene. And there is this great dialogue between her and Jason about their marriage and the children. The children being dead, Medea can start over with her life, seeing that nothing remains for her in the life she thought she was building with Jason.”

“One of Jason’s faults is that he can’t relate to women. Jung says ‘an undeveloped anima.’ It may not be calculation on his part as much as it’s ignorance.”

“That doesn’t help his case.”

“He projects his ignorance and lack of growth onto women, and they have to bear it. It’s not fair but he doesn’t know better.”

“I think he does.”

“Come, let’s sleep.”

“…”

« Goodnight. »

« Gjumin e ëmbël, të pafsha në ëndërr. »

« … »

« When will you tell me a story? »

« Once upon a time, there was a princess named I—»

« Heard it! »

« Once upon a time, there was a… »

« Heard that one, too! »

« … »

« Tell me something nice. »

« You’re nice. »

« That’s nice. »

« … »

« I love you. »

« Me too. »

« Have you ever gotten the urge to walk up to a total stranger and
announce that you’re breaking up with him or her? »

« Shut up and go to sleep. »

« You never question anything. »

« Mhm… »

« Except me. »

« That’s right. »

« You’re nice. »

« I know. »

« Show me you love me with your foot. »

« … »

« You didn’t have to kick the bed. I would have been happy with just a little twitch. »

[Cupke_pe_Korce]

Imagination unleashed, huh? Damn, I'm so jealous of your avant-gardism....as always ;)

[Leila]

Je shume provokatore :) I like that about you.

[Leila]

“Medea convinced Creon to let her stay one more day and she cooked up a plan. You know you said we don’t need trade?..."

"You know how you said we don't need trade?" Ehh... nejse. Serves me right not to revise.



The Mother, the Son, and the H. S. (His Shpirti)
“… therefore the Mother has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Shpirti.”

Newly equipped for the next few weeks with a goody bag from the U.S., I held off exhausting my new resources, a hoarding of books, magazines, and DVDs, amongst them Blow-Up with Veruschka, until his mother had left us. It was a long week for all three of us who went to great lengths to make it entertaining for one another. Although she took pride in the sensible things and saw herself as a practical person, it was a well-known secret that she couldn’t live without her husband, which wasn’t a sensible thing to admit especially at her age when she should know better. There were never any obvious acts of love between them, probably no private passionate declarations to one another either, but everyone in the family took extreme measures to not get in their way.

We studied each other and Him in relation to the “other.” He, for His part, seemed oblivious to our schemes. Under one roof we seemed to become one, as our only priority was to consider one another first. No toes were stepped on, but this didn’t stop her from sighing with relief for every biblical script I could recite; it meant that I hadn’t fallen prey to my Islamic past. I assured her that my family’s religious past had nothing to do with jihad ideology and that the scripts didn’t dictate our lifestyles or mentality by subtly slipping in stories into our conversations of how my grandfather would serve pork to his unsuspecting fanatic guests in Elbasan, and how the men in my family found it ridiculous to allow their women to wear fehrexhe, not that they’d want to wear it anyway. They saw it as a backwards thing to do and very un-Albanian. We were forbidden to have others read our cups of coffee, meddle with or encourage magic, and to wear nuska, although, the rules being less strict for me in particular, I was given one over 13 years ago, right about the time when He left Albania, a coincidence that turned out to be very meaningful to her. We had missed our fate. Three years later, I left as well. Three years later, he followed me across the seas unknowingly, and three years later still, we finally met. This, too, was a significant coincidence for her but I’m not as superstitious as her. In fact I’m not superstitious at all.

The rupture of the (heroic?) triadic identity we had adopted during that time period served as the catharsis of her whole stay. We were all relieved to finally purge ourselves of that layer of necessary congeniality and eagerness to become once again egocentric, our true natural way of being.

[Leila]

Boreas took care of the butcher’s shop during the weekends, while Cesare helped all week with reduced hours during the weekends. Boreas would always misquote Nietzsche or some other prominent personality, claiming himself free of any ideologies, and then chewing Cesare’s head off for not respecting the sanctity of marriage enough to not make any cynical comments about it. I teased him by poking holes into his beliefs, which is a virtually unproductive task to take on but it gave us a good laugh here and then. “Nietzsche once said…” something that Boreas had missed; “How do you feel about that, Boreas? Surely you agree, no?” And of course he’d say something unpleasant about women meddling into men’s business, which was to be followed with an equally hostile reply on my part about women being able to wear pants and men not being able to wear dresses. “You are not as free as you want to believe, my dear Boreas! So you found a pseudo-intellectual approach to religion. Yippee! While you freed yourself of an idea, which is God, you made yourself a dead man’s bitch, be it Nietzsche or whoever you’re filling your head up with nowadays, which is not a bad thing to be considering the alternatives but you can’t even fart without questioning how they would do it. You take everything to heart. Ergo, you’re not your own person. Bless your little heart; you’re still good, albeit cumbersome. What is freedom, anyway? Come to work tomorrow in one of your wifes’ dresses, please. Oh, let us match tomorrow!”

When we were alone He’d tell me to soften up on Boreas. People explode for anything. It matters none if the opponent is not serious.

“It’s interesting that I have to soften you up and vice versa. We’re guilty of the same crimes we accuse each other of. Anyway, as long as he’s married, the only message he’s getting out there is that his marriage is miserable. It’d be one thing if he wasn’t married, ‘cause then he could talk and not make himself look stupid.”

“It doesn’t matter. In his mind he’s being a man.”

“Well, then, how pitiful! He knows nothing of the people he quotes. Serious-lee! I can hear them rolling over in their graves whenever he opens his mouth to speak. Does the dumb nut read philosophy only so he can sit up all night and memorize only the woman-hating citations that he’ll serve us the next day?”

“Would you be surprised if he did?”

“Guess not. But can you imagine how the world would be according to him? Men would turn gay. Being gay would be a normal manly thing to do, especially to good friends if you sleep in the same tent during wars. It would probably become the true test – no, act of love and friendship among men.”

His expression told me everything. “Now you get my point. And it’s not like I’m homophobic, but they are and yet they don’t understand the world that they’re striving to mold. The guy thinks misogynistic quotes are like cigarettes that’ll make him cool. Criminals and men like him deserve to produce only sperm with X chromosomes.”

“Funny. So others will screw their daughters. You’re so cute.”

“That’s not the point, but that’ll sink their noses. And it’s such a funny curse because it doesn’t have to get them off their high horses, but it does, through no evildoing on my part; it’s a matter of how they perceive having daughters. They do it to themselves.”

“Is your head so far up there in the clouds that you think men love their wives as much as I do you?”

“Of course not. Marriage was invented as a contract. I’d be happy if – no, I’d be content if they loved their mistresses. A woman. Any woman, even if she’s the wrong woman to love.”

“My little troubadour.”

Cesare, for his part, would indirectly avenge women in his devious, quixotic way. On Saturdays, when everyone knew that the store would be filled all day with people constantly waiting in lines while gossiping with one another, he’d put twice the amount of milk in Boreas’ morning coffee when Boreas had already announced that he was lactose intolerant. And Boreas, not having a clue of what was being done to him, would later leave the counter full of customers complaining of diarrhea while making towards the bathroom.

Cesare is a character. That’s as best as I can describe him. Once, he was cutting meat furiously and his knife jerked up bizarrely and snapped right into his stomach before falling to the floor. He wasn’t cut but that didn’t stop him from screaming like a girl, lifting his shirt up and asking anyone who was willing to oblige to look over his imaginary wound because he couldn’t look at blood.

“Cesare,” they’d call him, embarrassed of the scene he was making in public. “What are you doing? Let go of your shirt! You’re a butcher, cutting up animals all day long, and you can’t look at your own blood?” They continued to tell him he was making a big deal out of nothing, that, yes, they would check him out, and that no, there was absolutely nothing the matter with his belly, as Cesare’s nostrils kept flaring ceaselessly from having seen his life flash before his eyes. And all day long, Cesare would sigh and breathe, “Pu-pu-pu-pu!” about his near-death experience, and with his shirt still up would call on people around him repeatedly, “Boreas! Oh, my God. Did you see that?”, a ritual which only ended when he went home. And even then, Cesare could be seen walking down the street with a lost look on his face and a confused step, all the while shaking his head nonstop. This about sums him up.