Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

even talk to me”, he says. “Not in English of course, but
then I say ‘hey little fellow’, and then they chatter back
in their own special way.” With a tender look he watches
one of his little fellows cram a piece of baguette into its
mouth, while another one is trying to trick him out of it
and a third one keeps an eye on us. “They’re something
special”, he decides.
When later on we have repacked our suitcases and put
them in the trunk of the Chevy, all of a sudden things go
wrong. The car key is gone. It can’t be, but nevertheless,
it is. I had it last, to open the trunk and now its no longer
there. While the temperature is already well in the eighties
again, we are searching in places where it never can
be. Under the car, in the exhaust, near the spare wheel,
in bed, behind the television. The thing is and stays gone.
We have a spare key, but that is bound together on one
ring that wouldn’t open with the one that’s lost. Key, key,
key, no key. Without keys we can’t drive. Without keys
we can’t switch on the AC. Without keys we can’t do anything.
Without. I drop in a chair.
“I’m so terribly sorry”, I say to Janny.
She has in the meantime reopened her suitcase and is
throwing her clothes on the bed because the thing has got
to be somewhere. And than I see it. Right where the slide
in suitcase handle is supposed to rest. Slipped in while
lifting it, because now I remember that I’d put it right
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