the-screenless-office/screenless/bureau/soup/dish_1.txt

Any day now, it should be any day now. I promise. Oh wait! Someone is running up to me. It’s Shifra. She says: 

“Late afternoon, it has been made official by the authorities: the building has to close. And not only the building, the buildings, the bars, the borders […] the box-office is going through the roof though. Ye, hm, no more access will be granted to anyone, offline I mean. An unprecedented amount of individuals have been reached too fast, too suddenly. The clouds froze, the grass faded, the branches broke into pieces, the ducks scattered in pounds with no bottom, the birds fell mid-air, and much more. Or not exactly like that. But it felt like that. No one could have predicted it, yet, it happened. By lack of time, a lot of things had to be left aside. On the news, a lot seems to be left out. Maybe it is due to a lack of information. Not due to a lack of attendance! Or maybe they are trying to save up some for the days to come…”

Vrrvrr, ding. My phone turns on. Andrew sent us a message on our Canada group-chat: “Canada releases 50 million pounds from maple syrup reserve amid global shortage”. Canada is at the heart of the world’s maple syrup supply chain and they have been stocking up maple syrup, in case of some kind of extraordinary event, like a sunken boat, a crashed plane, a world-wide crisis, and-so-on. My room is a mess right now. So I decide to clean it up. Maybe I can start by sorting it out. Let me see, the paint goes to the upper left drawers, tea bags go to the upper right ones, all the papers go on the shelves. Sorting out my mess. Hmm. And what about this? To the trash can? To the drawer? To the shelves? I’m keeping it! I’ll put it in a... box! 

“Zzzu, rizejuj”, what is that sound? Oh, wait, I forgot the radio was on, what are they talking about? “In the area called Te-ecetra, there is a cat on a tree eating a treat, drinking a tea, he got a cart full of rats and the tracks trace back to tac-tics and tic-tacs. The cat is known in Te-ecetra, for being fond of tea and treats like English people are fond of afternoon teas and biscuits. The cat is always seen carrying a cart full of rats, that leave traces around trees. For in order to enjoy his teas and treats, the cat needs to be high in trees, so not to trigger the rats in the cart, with the sight of tip-top teas and treats. Then alone on the top of his trees, the cat can peacefully think for hours, days, sometimes weeks, how good it is to be a cat in a tree, with a cart full of rats, enjoying teas and treats, in a remote area, while others might no be able to be like the cat in a tree, with a cart full of rats, et cetera, et ceartera, tnezzerac.” Oh my, the news are still completely unhinged. They really don’t know what to talk about anymore. Sh- I need to leave the house! 

No one ever came to the end of it, and whenever one tries, something else comes and interrupts it. We run out of time, run out of space, run out of examples. The process can be laborious or instinctive. Curate speech, classify facts, choose references, ignore others and this goes on and on and on. Hm. Where am I now? Oh, Centraal Station, of course. What am I holding? A piece of news on paper, even in a train station… At that time of the year, everything feels displaced. The cold, the lack of light, winter season puts everything in a different time-frame. The transitions from one moment to another are inconsistent. We go from one place to the other without really experiencing the whole scope of those in-between places. And why would you? It is cold outside. And now I finally made it to the train. The intercity direct is quite warm. I feel lucky about this. I was thinking about something. That piece of newspaper, what was it about? Maybe…

The other day, I was getting in the train to go back to Amsterdam. At the Rotterdam Centraal station, on my way to my favourite seat (I like to sit next to the luggage racks, so there is no one in vis-à-vis to me) I overhear a conversation between a woman talking with an elderly man sitting next to her: “Do you need to pay something on this train?” “Oh yes, did you not get the toeslag?” “No, no.”, and-so-forth. By the time I take my seat, she stands up, without a coat nor a bag, the chipkaart from the elderly man in hand and goes to the perron in order to pay the toeslag on the machine dedicated for that matter. The first one she tries is in front of my window I want to shout “you just checked yourself out! This is not the right machine!” (I did that once myself, it was very upsetting). She looks back at it startled, tries again. Still not working. She realises her mistake. Runs to the other side. By the time she paid the man’s toeslag the train’s doors close. I see her run to one door, then try another, but it’s too late, the train is leaving. I stand up, so surprised by what is happening in front of me, speechless. She stands there, with the chipkaart in her hand, without a bag nor a coat. And the train leaves and all the rest is unknown to my keyboard.

“Amsterdam centraal station, our final stop ladies and gentlemen (train drivers probably never heard about gender-neutral speech), please don’t forget anything in our train. Thank you for traveling with NS and have a great day”. Look, we’re here. And you know. I thought of something during the ride. There is a cherry without a pit in my eye, you don’t see it? And that lemon with no skin in your hand, a potato shaped as a soap in your bathroom, also a wrinkled puppy dog on my laps, coverless books on the street, a virgin cocktail with integrity, an alcoholic beverage with ethic, structures of defamation, a kettle with blisters, some clumsiness’ stain, and much more. For there is no limit to the associations one can make within language, and no boundaries as to how you, whose eyes are actively running along the page, will read those associations, and make new ones out of them. Yet, I stopped my listing in the midd… Let me guess: You like to dance? Sing? Draw a bit on the side, have many hobbies but are no good at any of them? Or at least pretend so? You are unmentioned, yet full of references, like to shine, but only when invited to do so, like to be alone, but not lonely. Highly capable and naturally lazy, creative and bored, funny and awkward, blablabla. 

Whatever your mood might be, I always find you down the line. Whenever I find myself wander, it is towards you. I rush, slow down, see you on the horizon and you’re there, waving. I know you know, we’re gonna meet. And I know this doesn’t mean it’s over between us. I know our encounter is just the start of something else. Still every time, it feels like cheating. You make me feel like a cheater, or just like I don’t really appreciate things, don’t take my time, with you, with who you really are. I’m sorry. But it always feels like we just don’t have enough time. To make it all happen. Am I making you uncomfortable? Yes, you. Don’t look away. I’m talking to you. I’m trying to reach out, but let me finish first, otherwise it might already be time to say goodbye. We don’t want to say goodbye, yet. What are you thinking about right now? Please, tell me… This sounds so exciting. Oh really? We ran out of time? This sounds like an old story.

Then, go. I still have my piece of newspaper. “All the things you need to know about our cur…” I don’t really want to read this. Let’s think for a bit. This doesn’t always help but some thoughts have been knocking at my throat lately. I wake up in the morning, and as if the compilation of dreams dreamt during the night have reached the top of my body, I burst in coughs, spit out sounds of fury, trying to take shape, say something, but I take two paracetamols, 1L of ginger tea, some thyme drops and the words are swallowed back into my stomach. They’ve tried to contaminate the outside, but I keep them inside, safe, where no one can reach them. Yes, sometimes I just can’t close my mouth, the knocks reach my lips, and spits onto one, that makes two and two brings it to four, four to eight and all the rest is history. It might sound dirty, but it’s not. It means my body is working, no? 

We don’t appreciate what is within our guts, the fluids that are at work, the pumping trying to stay in pace, the foreign items being assimilated in order to keep everything working. “We do not talk of what is on the other side [. …] The only things we mention are the ones that come out of us, which we suddenly do not feel anymore but can witness.” It’s a strange thing we do not share what is closest to us, which we might think is the easiest to describe due to proximity. You might mention it, but really you want to disregard that feeling as fast as you can, roll it aside and not mention it, just one thing amongst others, not worth mentioning…

Oh, here you are again. I don’t know if you are trying to help. Or if you are actively nagging me. I do recognise you’re being useful, sometimes. Okay, every time. But I’m trying to work it out without you, and I’d like you to respect that and not make me feel like I’m dependent on you, please. It’s like going to the store without a grocery list, you have to trust yourself to remember the essentials. Obviously, not everyone makes the right decisions. I tend to come back home with enough to make a cake, when really I went out only to grab some toilet paper. Not my best decision-making, not my proudest choices. That’s the person I aim to become, the one who can remember and come back with the right articles from the store, along with others.

An original text by G. Schellinx et al.