Ben Sur Al-Zar (A short story, English version)

Ben Sur Al-Zar (A short story, English version)

A Story by Selman Repišti

New York, an innocent game, and a single, wrong swallow


- Are you pointing to us? Do we know each other?

Yes, I am speaking to you. Join me in the evening walk down an abandoned, dirty street, painted on the canvas of the autumn edition of Manhattan. Now slowly lift your view as when, in obeyance, you want to speak with the personification of Oneness, with the Only One. And just stick your pupils to a luminous window on the back floor of the art deco building that I'm showing you with my ring finger. (I use my index finger when I am away from someone else's view, that is, when I have the opportunity to regulate my nasal hydraulics. I use my middle finger in very, very rare moments for leafing through the first issue of impoliteness bon ton. In a symmetrical gesture, I use my thumb when I wish someone luck, and I almost always forget about the little finger, as if it does not exist.)

Ready for what you will see? Behind the large rectangular window, side-edged with two caryatids, there is a toddler, named Ben Sur. A three-year-old child, on a rugged floor of its room, just crams a huge, slanted queen into its small, baleful mouth. Fluffy sip (for which it had previously taken a huge run-up) was accompanied by a pair of loud punching of the palms in the wreck of that floor. Instantly, with one "trash" shriek, the door opens and pushed out father's huge, fat figure. Like a rescuer who quickly and composedly helps shipwrecked sailors who have lost consciousness, grabs his daughter and skillfully moves the most charming chess figure out of her throat.


There is more kitsch in beauty than in sadness


- Ben, is not that a male name? May I call you Big Ben? What's the time in London? - Andrew finally turns his head to his fifteen-year-old, up to now his fifth girl.

- No, you cannot. There, for your information, it's a teatime. - Miss Al-Zar readily answered.

- I will order an espresso macchiato, no matter what time it is.

- And what does that say about you? To have good taste?

- I want to say that it makes me happy and normal, just that. Who wants a cup of tea nowadays? And even in public...

- You claim there is some aesthetics in normality? In a coffee grain and a drop of milk passed through the roaring mechanism of a high-speed machinery? - Ben questioned him with his big pupils, behind which appeared to have been hidden two miniatures of distant Neptune.

- If you want to philosophize, beauty is in good luck. Sadness has always been and it remains  the same as ugliness. It's completely logical to me - Andrew said calmly.

- Well, you did not truly mourn. In my homeland, painting and sculpture have emerged from deep collective pain. My nomads wanted to convert their internal storm into temporary external objects, so could look them in the eye and let them know that they are not afraid of them. The figures were from the sand. They have been driven by the air whips of desert storms. Ocher-sculptures disappeared in front of the eyes, bombarded by the twists of that same sand. In those moments, my people have felt a kind of collective relief. For a few moments, the whole crunch could breathe. And the drawings on the surface of the sea of sand had a short lifespan. Despite you think that the chisel in the wind's hands wants to make them more beautiful, they, in fact, erase all the contours.

- Winners write history. They are happy. Who survives, writes. And he'll laugh. Is not that enough?! - exclaimed Andrew.

- Have you ever heard that a good writer is the same as a lucky literate? Does your life resemble a turbulent mountain brook that collapses from the Cordillera slopes or to a stinking and standing water that drains away every passing year? �" Ben Sur disappointedly added.

- It looks like we don't fit together. - concluded Andrew.

They both agreed.


You should pronounce just as it is written ... in other words ... respect the cliché!


- There are two questions that bother me, madam! - said mademoiselle Al-Zar, raising her fountain pen into the air.

- Go ahead, Ben Sur. You always have something to ask. - tired, but obviously interested, said a sixty-year-old professor of American literature.

- English and Americans always make T-V distinction, right?

- As far as I know, that is not true. They never use this form of politeness. But they have other ways to express it...

- But how is that possible? "You" is always followed by "are", and "are" is used for the plural. Even with "you" when we use it to replace only one person, that is, the singular.

- I am afraid and completely sure that I have never heard or read such a thing, nor thought of anything similar to it.

- But is that so, when you reconsider it now?! - Ben Sur got angry.

- I do not know. It takes time to mentally process such insights. For now, that opinion does not seem true. For the first time, I hear someone say something like this. And what's the other question, please? - the professor replied calmly.

- Yes ... Why have writers who do not agree with the ruling politics through modern history been classified as children's writers? To say it in a more appropriate manner, they will put them in the drawer labeled as ''children's literature'', which they seal as soon as possible.

- Um ... Well, that's not as you said... Take an example of...

- Does this mean that a narrator who is not interested in politics has not grown up? I mean, he is not considered a mature person?

- No ... it should not be true.

- OK, but they nonetheless think of them in such terms, right?

- Let's just leave it for another time, okay? - The professor nodded, expecting curious Ben to agree. At least due to politeness and respect for her professor.

- Fine - our heroine answers firmly (and says to herself: "... like with everything else, we should leave it for never").


We are young, as long as we seem ridiculous in the eyes of others. We are getting older, as we begin to consider ourselves to be silly


October returned from vacation and moved to Manhattan again. In the meantime, a pleasantly creamy coastal haze gave birth to some new skyscrapers. From my perspective, these skyscrapers point to a series of deodorants in the refills of a supermarket and upright set up of air-inflated preservatives. Such a complex panorama resembles a mega-installation of a neo-futuristic hedonist in whose world the seasons are a sort of anomaly rather than a rule. Nevertheless, Ben Sur still enjoys the autumn edition of her dilapidated, multi-story building where she has been living since that small, intimate accident with a large, cool wooden figure.

If you are still interested in an afternoon walk, I will again ask you to look at the same window. But, prepare for a totally different scene. Dusty wrinkles of a formerly well-known face are imprinted in the glass of that window due to the weight of time. Of the face, to whom were (only or even) left a view and a smile. You've noticed well, this face looks at itself because the outer side of the glass is so blurry and murky that the window has become a large, framed mirror. And who is this face laughing at? You're wrong here. It's laughing at us because we did not manage to get out of the suit tailored to Jane or John Doe. The worn jacket, which we thought was designed for us exactly as we wanted to be, is funny to this face. In fact, it is a straightjacket, in which our souls hang on someone else's horizons.


Selman Repišti,

November 22, 2017

© 2017 Selman Repišti


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Added on November 22, 2017
Last Updated on November 22, 2017
Tags: T-V distinction, America, Manhattan, New York, autumn, literature, short story, writers, love, climax, old age, chess

Author

Selman Repišti
Selman Repišti

Montenegro



About
My name is Selman Repišti and I come from Montenegro. I am 30 years old and I am a psychologist and writer. I have published five books, 20 scientific articles and more than 80 popular articles.. more..

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