THE LETTERA Poem by Zeek4 A story concocted from an experience I had in Paris many years ago.
She had been pestering me for months to get some paint on the walls of my study. My wife Glenda reminded ever so sweetly that my study had the same paint it had when we bought the place, which was thirty years ago. Who knows how long the old paint had been there before that. The house was sixty years old; could that be the original paint?
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m the textbook prototype for a procrastinator. The destination I preferred was my reclining chair, named Lazy Boy. In her own smarty-pants way, my cute and charming wife said they must have named the chair after me. Not a very original poke in the ribs, but I got the not so subtle point. The message was loud and clear; if I didn’t get the painting done there was going to be trouble on the home front.
My initial objective was to push all the furniture to the center of the room. First, I went after my desk, which weighed a ton and a half. The book shelve was the real monster. I would need to clear the books or there wouldn’t be any possibility of scooting the shelves across the floor. I worked feverishly moving books as fast as I could; at the same time inhaling eons of dust that had accumulated on the top of each book. Finally, I found myself balanced on one leg trying to get to my old college English books. It was in a precarious place and awkward for an old geezer to get to. As I reached for the book I could feel the chair teeter, and in a flash, the book and I were launched into the unknown.
After suffering the indignity of having gravity direct me to the floor, I noticed an envelope had fallen out of the textbook. Once I realized no bones were protruding through my flesh, I picked up the letter to see the contents. As I pulled it out I got a flash of a memory of days long ago, when I was a college student. I stuffed it in my shirt pocket and decided to take a Lazy Boy break and read the letter later. It was so nice to once again be sitting in my old pal. Within seconds, I was fast asleep and dreaming…
In the dream, my body was on the verge of almost being skeletal. I was madly searching for my girlfriend, Anna. Everyone I ran into, oddly enough, spoke French, and then I realized I was in Paris. Yes, it was Paris where Anna was staying for the summer, and now she was embracing me and kissing my face. She was shocked at how much weight I had lost and noticed my body shaking. From past experience, she knew I was trembling because of hunger, and she was right, I was ravenous.
Off we went to get me something to eat. We found a little restaurant on a side street that was cheap and cozy. The only thing disconcerting about the place was the parrot. There it sat, right over my head, raining down small feathers and birdseed. Of course, I couldn’t read the menu, so Anna ordered me something. At this point, I was ready to eat anything, including a small child if necessary. At last, the food came. I could not make out what it was, but I dug in no questions asked. Halfway through the meal, I asked Anna to translate into English what my dinner was. She spent some time trying to find English words that would apply to the French. Finally, she came up with, “the underside of goat.” I had been eating goat testicles, which would not have been my first choice if I had known.
Next, I found myself with Anna in an outdoor fish market. A glorious red dawn was breaking, and we were eating delicious French onion soup. Later that day, we were going to her grandmother’s house in the country. At one time Anna’s grandmother was married to a French movie star. In Paris, she had a large home, but it had seen better days and was run down some. In the county, she had a villa, which was huge, but it also was worse for wear. The glory days were over for Anna’s grandmother, but she still was a wonderful woman.
When we first got to the villa, I was not feeling very well in the stomach. Anna asked her grandmother if she had anything for it, and immediately granny charged out to the garden and picked some herbs. I’m thinking to myself, “here we go, some phony folk medicine.” I wanted to be polite, so I gulped down the concoction. Within five minutes I felt just fine. To me, it seemed like a miracle.
For a moment, my dreaming went into overdrive and nothing made sense, just a bunch of scenes flashed through my mind I could not comprehend. Then there I was again with Anna, holding her in my arms, she’s crying. The next day I was to leave and head for Germany. We would see each other in California in a month.
“Jack, have you moved that furniture away from the wall yet?” My wife’s sudden incursion snapped me right out of dreamland and back to reality. “I’m just taking a little break, Sweetie,” I answered back a bit muddled and confused. It dawned on me that I had the letter in my pocket. I knew what it said, but I took it out and read it anyway.
“Dearest Jack,
I had such a wonderful time in Paris. I wish it could have lasted forever. Yes, I know, I’m not at school, and you are probably worried about me. I have been putting off writing this letter because it’s so hard for me to tell you this. My mother wants me to stay in Paris and go to the university here. She was very insistent, and no matter how much I cried and begged I could not change her mind. You know how much I love you. Please forgive me.
Love always, Anna”
I remembered how much that letter hurt me the first time I read it. The pain and loss were so great I felt as if I would never recover from it. Then one day, soon after, I saw Glenda walking across campus. I was in love!
© 2016 Zeek4Reviews
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