Senna Jawa
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- May 13, 2002
- Posts
- 3,272
1. It was a fluke. I was about to be sent away. But the nurse which was taking care of me, had suggested that we visit her girlfriend who was working in the surgery. My nurse, Ginny, was a dumb young woman. She made little money but was kind, a kind of. It actually made sense to say goodbye to her girlfriend, an older woman, who assisted in the operation performed on my head, indeed, on my brain. My brain was affected only marginally, but I had to stay in that hospital for six weeks. I would have had to continue to live at an institution, then ... I don't know ..., if it were not for the older nurse, who showed me her souvenir from the surgery, MY surgery. My Ginny grabbed the piece from her older friend and went straight to my hospital shrink. The shrink asked around about that small part of junk which had resided in my brain and soon knew what it was. The moment he passed his knewly acquired knowledge to me, I knew right away who I was and what had happened. My transfer to a new institution was cancelled. Instead I will treat you to my story. Many people are too dumb, too stupid to listen to me. Their attention span is too short. Thus I have to spend my energy on writing.
2. Now that I remember the happenings so precisely let me start from the beginning. I don't mean from the very beginning, like when my grandmother was born, etc. - that I will leave to my authobiographers. No, I was on the Greyhound bus, sitting as comfortably as I could, my bag on the seat, next to me, in order to discourage new passengers from choosing me as their neighbor. I even pretended to be asleep. It was late and dark anyway, I was dead tired, and instead of developing some important ideas I actually had fallen asleep. Embarrassing, but I had commuted between two jobs already for a third winter, couldn't stay sharp and alert all the time. With two jobs and my superb qualifications I should commute in my own jet, I should not even have to commute at all, but my dumb supervisors will never pay me right salary. Anyway, I was only too soon waked up by a short Jewish boy, a college boy as it turned out. He looked at me in a friendly and confident way. Too friendly. I didn't like it. I didn't know him! He asked me if I would be willing to leave my two seats to the pregnant woman and her child, both standing next to him. In return he offered me a place next to his, in the back of the bus, where the smell of urine from the "restroom" mixes with the odor of the disinfecting chemicals. I mumbled something incoherently, put my bag with my belongings and documents on the shelf above my head. The boy helped the woman and the child get settled and led me to the back of the bus. (It's funny, I didn't look at the woman and her child but I still remember their awkward moves in the dark, when they clumsily took possession of my bench). The boy was not only a college student but even a music major, which did not impress me unduly. He was somewhat dumb, he merely mentioned his studies in passing, but he had a magic box - in his hands that box was magic. It was a small tape recorder. He also had several tapes full of top quality pirated recordings of classical music. He told me about the pirate business. I remember every word he said. People are not very intelligent, don't say much, it's possible to remember what they say, except when they are really stupid and talk a lot. He didn't say much, he operated his small box with monkey dexterity, with both hands fully employed, like he were that old Spanish virtuoso playing classical guitar. The music was incredible, not just pirate but evil, it was so radiant. Violin, piano, concerts, on and on. It is against the Greyhound rules to have a radio or tape recorder on, but this time the bus was swinging in the ocean of the Canadian night, on the music waves. Nobody said a word, not the driver, everybody was listening, including children. After each piece the small Jew would make a dry technical comment, two, three words, to which I would respond with all my insight, based on my intelligence, since I am not musical and music does not interest me. The boy agreed with me enthusiastically each time, his Jewish brown eyes were getting larger and larger, he would say "Yes! Yes! You are talking about this opus" (or allegretto or whatever, beats me, it's stupid to know too much, when you know the essence, the things that count), "here, listen!", and his monkey hands would instantly find the right tape and the right place on the tape, like in a circus. Never and nowhere on this Earth there was as comfortable place as this dark, crowded Greyhound bus. Then the last concerto ended, the boy had to leave the bus. I decided to express my gratitude toward him. I did it against my better judgement. People are so stupid that they are never grateful when you treat them well. I told him, what impressed me the most: his ability to recognize from playing only a one second portion of a piece, that it is not the one he is looking for. I told him with all my normal openness that that's what I will always remember from this trip. His eyes, if it is possible, opened even wider, his nostrils were trembling, his face was an odd combination of a bird and a horse. He raised his small hand with the music box, like protecting it, but he meant more than defense.
3. My bag, with few belongings and all my documents, got lost or stolen from the bus. Police arrived after the small devil left the scene or, rather, me, fallen down, my blood flowing to the restroom and mixing with the old urine on the floor quite well. Police asked everybody on the bus what happened. Nobody mentioned the small monkey with his magic music box. Police report does not even say anything about the tape recorder or music. Nobody said that there was any music in the bus! When I speak, like I did on the bus, I make sure that people hear me, but nobody remembered that I said anything in general and about the music in particular. I remember the entire episode vividly, but if I didn't have a small piece of plastic, a scrap from the tape recorder, in my new wallet, the souvenir saved by the older nurse, I would assume that everything was but a dream. I would sue the youngster if he had any money, which I know he didn't. And people would laugh at me in the court, that all that my brain retained was a small piece of junk, of plastic. If it were at least steel.
4. I am not sure that I should mention a recent conversation with a friend of mine. He is a simple guy who does not know much about anything. I told him about the bus full of jerks who saw me lying on the floor but didn't tell police how it happened. My friend said that the passengers (and the driver) must have liked musician better than me. Some friend! I swear that I have caught a glimpse of a smirk or amusement under his wooden mask of a face.
wh,
1988-03-12
2. Now that I remember the happenings so precisely let me start from the beginning. I don't mean from the very beginning, like when my grandmother was born, etc. - that I will leave to my authobiographers. No, I was on the Greyhound bus, sitting as comfortably as I could, my bag on the seat, next to me, in order to discourage new passengers from choosing me as their neighbor. I even pretended to be asleep. It was late and dark anyway, I was dead tired, and instead of developing some important ideas I actually had fallen asleep. Embarrassing, but I had commuted between two jobs already for a third winter, couldn't stay sharp and alert all the time. With two jobs and my superb qualifications I should commute in my own jet, I should not even have to commute at all, but my dumb supervisors will never pay me right salary. Anyway, I was only too soon waked up by a short Jewish boy, a college boy as it turned out. He looked at me in a friendly and confident way. Too friendly. I didn't like it. I didn't know him! He asked me if I would be willing to leave my two seats to the pregnant woman and her child, both standing next to him. In return he offered me a place next to his, in the back of the bus, where the smell of urine from the "restroom" mixes with the odor of the disinfecting chemicals. I mumbled something incoherently, put my bag with my belongings and documents on the shelf above my head. The boy helped the woman and the child get settled and led me to the back of the bus. (It's funny, I didn't look at the woman and her child but I still remember their awkward moves in the dark, when they clumsily took possession of my bench). The boy was not only a college student but even a music major, which did not impress me unduly. He was somewhat dumb, he merely mentioned his studies in passing, but he had a magic box - in his hands that box was magic. It was a small tape recorder. He also had several tapes full of top quality pirated recordings of classical music. He told me about the pirate business. I remember every word he said. People are not very intelligent, don't say much, it's possible to remember what they say, except when they are really stupid and talk a lot. He didn't say much, he operated his small box with monkey dexterity, with both hands fully employed, like he were that old Spanish virtuoso playing classical guitar. The music was incredible, not just pirate but evil, it was so radiant. Violin, piano, concerts, on and on. It is against the Greyhound rules to have a radio or tape recorder on, but this time the bus was swinging in the ocean of the Canadian night, on the music waves. Nobody said a word, not the driver, everybody was listening, including children. After each piece the small Jew would make a dry technical comment, two, three words, to which I would respond with all my insight, based on my intelligence, since I am not musical and music does not interest me. The boy agreed with me enthusiastically each time, his Jewish brown eyes were getting larger and larger, he would say "Yes! Yes! You are talking about this opus" (or allegretto or whatever, beats me, it's stupid to know too much, when you know the essence, the things that count), "here, listen!", and his monkey hands would instantly find the right tape and the right place on the tape, like in a circus. Never and nowhere on this Earth there was as comfortable place as this dark, crowded Greyhound bus. Then the last concerto ended, the boy had to leave the bus. I decided to express my gratitude toward him. I did it against my better judgement. People are so stupid that they are never grateful when you treat them well. I told him, what impressed me the most: his ability to recognize from playing only a one second portion of a piece, that it is not the one he is looking for. I told him with all my normal openness that that's what I will always remember from this trip. His eyes, if it is possible, opened even wider, his nostrils were trembling, his face was an odd combination of a bird and a horse. He raised his small hand with the music box, like protecting it, but he meant more than defense.
3. My bag, with few belongings and all my documents, got lost or stolen from the bus. Police arrived after the small devil left the scene or, rather, me, fallen down, my blood flowing to the restroom and mixing with the old urine on the floor quite well. Police asked everybody on the bus what happened. Nobody mentioned the small monkey with his magic music box. Police report does not even say anything about the tape recorder or music. Nobody said that there was any music in the bus! When I speak, like I did on the bus, I make sure that people hear me, but nobody remembered that I said anything in general and about the music in particular. I remember the entire episode vividly, but if I didn't have a small piece of plastic, a scrap from the tape recorder, in my new wallet, the souvenir saved by the older nurse, I would assume that everything was but a dream. I would sue the youngster if he had any money, which I know he didn't. And people would laugh at me in the court, that all that my brain retained was a small piece of junk, of plastic. If it were at least steel.
4. I am not sure that I should mention a recent conversation with a friend of mine. He is a simple guy who does not know much about anything. I told him about the bus full of jerks who saw me lying on the floor but didn't tell police how it happened. My friend said that the passengers (and the driver) must have liked musician better than me. Some friend! I swear that I have caught a glimpse of a smirk or amusement under his wooden mask of a face.
wh,
1988-03-12
