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#     Cigarette ash and good advice
Sunday, June 10th, 2007

“I found myself by circumstance
Across a room where people dance”

The bar stool wasn’t comfortable at all, but a safe refuge from the hectic middle point of the ongoing party nonetheless. The same uptempo Persian Pop song was blasting throught the speakers for the fourth time that night and the figures on the dance floor continued hopping up and down. The poet sitting on my right seemed to have given up talking to me. I glanced at him and watched him blow smoke rings and sip his gin. He turned his head and his eyes caught mine.

“You’re feeling quite lonely in here aren’t you?” He said.

He was right actually. I considered several answers and decided for:

“Lonely?”

“Yes. It seems to me that you’ve created a distance between yourself and all these people. Why?”

As he was waiting for the answer, his idle cigarette smouldered and the ashes grew longer without falling off. The longer I kept silent, the more the ash-line would proceed. I wondered how long it would take before the ashes would fall off. It became a little contest between me and the poet’s cigarette. Which one of us could hold out longer?

“Actually, I am feeling quite content.”

Plup, the ashes fell. But they had won. I smiled.

“And I’ve changed a lot.” I added.

“Yes, you have.”

We both continued looking at the dancing figures, the poet and me.

“I’ve changed a lot.” I repeated, just to hear it again.

“Last time you seemd confused.” He pressed his cigarette butt in the ash tray. There goes my little winner. I made a subtle bow.

“Yes, I was pretty lost.”

“Not anymore?”

“Hmm…”

He leaned towards me to say something in my ear, as if he wanted to unveil the mysterious paths of life to me.

“Write.” He whispered.

“No.”

“Write! Please.” This time a little louder.

“I can’t. I mean I don’t want to.”

“Writing makes things clear for you. It will untie the knots.”

“That’s what I don’t like about it. I enjoy being confused. I would like to keep my knots.”

“No! No!” He seemed to be getting emotional, and continued: “Listen! There will be no end to the knots. You will untie the little ones, but there will always be bigger and bigger knots. Believe me!”

A girlfriend of mine appeared out of the crowd and walked towards me with open arms and wiggling hips, the standard invitation to dance. When she reached me, she took my hand and started pulling, meaning “Come.”

As I allowed myself to be pulled away into the center scene, I looked back and saw him form the word with his lips one more time:

“Write!”

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One comment on “Cigarette ash and good advice”

1. That poet is quite right.

   Hiram - August 2nd, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
   http://hiram.nl/

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