Zbornik Mednarodnega literarnega srečanja Vilenica 2004 - Ljudmila

Aleksandar Prokopiev
Cabins
The cabin of the lift looks amazingly like the one in your own building:
the construction six grey panels set in pairs on each of its walls. And the
lift door is also metal, another grey duplicate that closes automatically
when you press the button of the floor you’re going to. The mirror’s missing;
but not the ceiling light-box, which dimly illuminates the cabin.
The woman who enters the lift with him isn’t you: actually, it’s your
neighbour Goga. And he doesn’t press the button for the second, but for
the fourth floor. Your neighbour, who’s dressed in (quite tight) jeans and
a (quite wide) faded blouse, begins a very warm conversation even before
the lift’s started: You know, neighbour, I never take the small lift, I
always take this big one. And I always have my mobile phone with me so
I can call somebody if it breaks down and I get stuck inside.
Sometimes, in his pockets, he finds pieces of paper with mobile phone
numbers written on them. They all start with the inevitable 070. Mostly
he simply can’t remember who gave him the phone number or where he
got it. And he always reflects on the possibility of someone else’s finding
his own number on a piece of paper in their pocket and having the same
problem. And how both of them are practically unaware not only one of
each another, but of their present selves as they try to think themselves
back to a former moment.
The lift doesn’t stop, and the lifting lasts a long time, like in porno
movies. - It’s OK, only the pipes leak, says Goga from the bedroom, and
he’s already in the bathroom singing some la-la-la canzone. He’s stripping
off his long-sleeved shirt, then his trousers, when - a two-dinar coin falls
on the bathroom floor. He reaches for it and the rubber chimney-sweeperdoll
falls out of his pocket. His colleague Olga gave it to him as a goodluck
charm. On what occasion and why exactly, he simply can’t remember.
Back to the same old thing: he can’t remember, suddenly his blood’s
boiling and he’s in a nervous sweat while outside it’s raining cats and
dogs and, soaked through, he searches the phone-booth floor.
He’s bending down in one of those blue door-less phone-booths in
the main city square. He picks up the two-dinar coin and the chimneysweeper-doll,
but can’t find the phone-card. Is there a single sensor in
this absent-minded head of mine to tell me where it is? - He empties his
pockets onto the shelf in front of him: there’s the cinema-ticket from yesterday
evening’s film; the electricity bill; in an inner pocket he finds an
empty ball-pen tube - surely the pocket must be completely smeared with
ink - but the phone card isn’t there. - Give me the shampoo. I’ll do it. Top
to bottom. - Goga leans on him, closing the bathroom door. The shower
fills her hands with water and she pours the white ejaculating fluid from
the shampoo-bottle into them. She rubs his hair, the foam drains down on
his face and irritates him, but he lazily observes her juicy lips dancing in
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