Say no

Nights are not quiet where I live because the windows open into a busy street. You get used to cars because the noise is constant, like a river. But voices of people in the night are not easy to get used to, so they wake me up.

Some people are coming back from a party, singing. I wake up in the middle of a woman’s solo. then the others join in. It’s a sea shanty, far far away from the sea. They are headed for the underground tunnel, so their voices fade and I drift back into sleep.

I wake up in the middle of a discussion in a language I cannot identify. Czech? Montenegran? Croatian? A man speaks quite eloquently, laying out an argument to support a thesis. I briefly wish I knew what he was talking about. I imagine him tall and slim with white-peppered hair. Him and his companion dive into the tunnel and his voice grows a bristle of echo before it fades. And I fade too, plunging back into a thick dream.

In the dream, a guy I know is telling me that him and his wife are not going to get something-ed. I cannot tell what he is saying? Is he saying “divorced”?

I awake in the middle of two lovers quarrelling. Or rather, one person is yelling and the other is complying, promising, soothing, agreeing. It sounds like the person is agreeing to something hurtful and hard, but the other person is upset and wants it a lot.

”You always do this. You don’t tell me because what? You forgot?” And the other person says something quietly in agreement.

”Now you say it, but will you do it?” the angry lover bellows. The other person agrees.

Just say “no”, I think to myself.

”You want to live half the year (muffled) and half the year here? In this fucking place? In this? Fucking? City? But I want you to be with me. Be with me!” The other person complies.

Just say “no”.

”I don’t know what you would do without me. Waste money, waste time, waste your life. I shouldn’t care, but I do. I do!”

Just say “no”, I think, as they sink down into the underground tunnel.

And I sink down too.

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk