Olja Savicevic - Adios, Cowboy

Subject: RIP gecko

From: blondie@smail.com

To: ksain@veterinarski.hr

salute! me again! thought of you today when ma killed a gecko that lived on the terrace and that you called by a name I thought was a kind of iced cake. in winter it hid in our corridor and now it’s snuffed it. how stupid how can people think that such a useful creature is poisonous I cant believe it including that mother of mine. how can it be dangerous when the creature is transparent you can virtually see its inner organs. if youre wondering about jill I havent mentioned her shes well like a cat she eats sleeps purrs walks on roofs. im fucked. otherwise I like February there are those few days of false spring and when I get out of the morning shift I have two or three hours to get down to the beach. only you cant go down even to the little lagoon anymore without running into those sons of bitches my former friends. friends indeed. that little ear the younger barić got banged up too and sometimes that Angelo angel eyes I mentioned to you that came back from america and plays the harmonica and some other types from the center. not tomi iroquois his dad got him a job on the railway and he slaves and hell soon have to get married cos hes got sanjica in the family way. married for gods sake and not yet eighteen. and the tiny shithead has got himself a pitbull that he leads on a rope without a muzzle. their latest game is putting the screws on kids behind the tech. I heard from dada she isnt coming I really miss her altho in recent years shes thought she was something else hey im only kidding. I know shes always Rusty at heart. that girl I told you I fancy shes got measles so shes staying home its stupid to have measles when youre not a kid. regardless of everything ive written to you things are sometimes so bad for me I cant describe its like someone gouged out my stomach. incidentally did you know that ned montgomery nearly died form the aftermath of measles some years ago thats really bizarre at the end after all hes almost a super hero. you fix all the bad guys and sons of bitches and then youre fucked by some measles amoeba.

daniel if you remotely remember

Subject: animal stuff

From: blondie@smail.com

To: ksain@veterinarski.hr

today there was a program on national geographic about chameleons. you remember the spotted chameleon was the only little picture of the animal kingdom that absolutely no one in the old settlement had when we were kids they must not have made enough pictures. maybe youll be amused to know that somewhere in a drawer I still have an album and an empty place for that forgotten ace of a spotted chameleon. imagine remembering that.

Subject: hospital

From: blondie@smail.com

To: ksain@veterinarski.hr

ah well now I realize youre never going to get these emails and that the address is crap but there. today I spent a bit of time in the hospital cos I got involved in a row and got two stitches in the temple. the first and only time till this morning id been there since my old man died. the point is that dada and I knew hed had it and wouldnt be coming back but we shoved that all away in ourselves and pretended it was nothing for as long as we could and we were ok until we got to the stinking hospital. in intensive care I saw that srećko type who was in the bed next to our old man. all bandaged up like a mummy cos he had shot himself in the mouth and blown his face off. the whole facade. a nurse was standing by his bed trying to get him to respond srećko srećko wake up come on you have to stay awake. imagine the fucking mess. when I cried everyone thought it was cos my old man had died but I wasnt thinking of my dead dad at all I was just crying cos I was afraid and thinking of that srećko who had such shitty luck he survived and is now a million times more fucked.

bye your friend d.

Subject: cosmos

From: blondie@smail.com

To: ksain@veterinarski.hr

im not doing anything just rotting at home and watching documentaries on national geographic. I dont like looking at earthquakes and floods tidal waves and such catastrophic crap. some say what the hell thats all people deserve when theyre so arrogant it puts them in their place. as tho they werent people fuck it all as tho they were some superior folk who dont squirt spray into the ozone or as tho they were hypermoral types. and in the end its always the poorest who get the roughest deal in these tornadoes and typhoons and earthquakes theres no justice. theres only justice in films. is nature just? no way. are people? like hell. thats why I like films about space best where theres no nature or society. if I cd measure the stars like tycho brahe id like that. you think everything up there is dead if it isnt alive. space is hyperactive all those black holes meteorites protuberances like rings and with tails. and fusions of hydrogen with helium helium with hydrogen. fusions in the great belly of arcturus the brightest of all the stars with a gigantic yolk that those who are here next spring will see. and the pulsar the pulse of space the lighthouse of space that beats kaboom kaboom like a heart, comes into being after a supernova explodes and rotates very fast. imagine a space lighthouse a galactic rotor. id really like to see that. or neptune’s sea of diamonds. be a person who looks closely at the stars an astronomer a stargazer ptolomey and nikolaus copernicus or that lyudmila karachkina you told me about who named all her asteroids after artists so that in the sky there is a charlie chaplin star and a planet dostoevksy. if you cant be an astronaut be an astronomer and so what if you cant walk on other stars discover one fall in love with it give it a name. the stars gave a name to someone called tycho brahe how could he possibly have chosen another profession with a name like that I wonder. its not like that fancy boulevard of the stars in Hollywood celebrities and the like. my stars would be like sheriffs badges and partisan stars in constellations the only people who cd get them wd be a true person if he was brave and good. high wide deep. in the galaxies there wont be the twinkling names of thieves murderers and criminals whove made themselves filthy bloody millions which are badges on earth because they just thought how to make money and left us without any beauty. the president of space will never honor them. let them be given shitty streets in their pathetic states where people die of alcohol hunger violence neglect. who gives a fuck about people. or those conformist pests who sell their souls and betray people for small change. and the constellations wont have the names of those sods who shat on love and friendship cowards who at the key moment crawl off into their holes. in a word there wont be either big or small sons of bitches in the solar systems just old verified gods, gauchos and the true cowboys among us great lads and lasses will get the radiant badge of space.

d.

IN A BLACK-AND-WHITE FILM, a serious-looking guy says in a fatherly tone: “Go west, young man. There you will find wealth, fame, and adventure. ”

The time of day, the weather, the town and the room, nothing is specified — it resembles all the places he’s been and the times he was there, all at once. He feels warmth, a pulsing in his groins, happiness around the corner, barely supportable but unstoppable, and that’s how he knows he’s young and strong, and the sky is bright in the town, or maybe it’s on an island — because he can hear the sea and the sound of a moped. Some rays of sunlight penetrate through the curtain on the balcony, flicker in the open doorway, over the shoulders and naked thigh of his wife and shine on her brown mane. She is sleeping. He presses his lips into her back. He enters her without waking her, slowly and deeply, seeking in that depth the mystery far inside a woman, which overwhelms him every time. He holds her in his arms, and his mouth is full of her hair. He draws her to him with a hint of fear from backstage that this is all going to stop. These are the first years of our marriage, he thinks, and he lays his hand against her bare belly, chews her hair, her nape. As he presses himself against her backside, through the open balcony he sees this same wife of his crossing the road in a white raincoat and a Ferrari suddenly speeding up, knocking her down and running over her, over her head, and then in reverse, back over her birdlike ribs. His wife becomes a plastic blow-up doll with round lips for rubber cunnilingus, and the Ferrari’s vermillion tempera disperses, flooding the image, the balcony, filling the room, the bed, his mouth, his nose and the television set.