Naja Aidt - Baboon

There was a big bloody scrape on my knee. A woman asked if I needed help. The sun blinded me. I noticed a small group of people had gathered around me. I got up and limped away. A young woman muttered, "Look, he's shitfaced," when I passed her. The manager was waiting for me in the store. "Sir, I'll have to ask you to leave at once. The customers are disturbed. We can't take responsibility for that." "Responsibility!" I shook my head and clenched my jaw. I made a show of taking out my phone and calling the police. "Police!" I hissed so that he'd know I wasn't pretending. An impertinent police officer told me that they had already talked to the store detective who reported the theft. My wife would hear from them within the next few days. She might get off with a fine, but there's a chance it'll go on her record, as he said. The manager gently grabbed my arm. "It's all going to work out. " I jerked my arm away with a lot of force. It swung backward and knocked over a pyramid-shaped display of cans of clam chowder. There was an enormous crash when the cans knocked each other down. They rolled all over the place. My hand throbbed with pain. A little girl tripped over one of the cans and began screaming. Her father came rushing over. "What the hell are you doing, you idiot?!" Standing a few inches from me, he lifted his fist as if to punch me in the face, but controlled himself when the girl pulled on his leg. "Fucking idiot," he hissed, giving me the evil eye. Then he picked up the child, gave me the finger, and stomped away in his plastic sandals. People glared at me shaking their heads. Some began to restack the cans. The manager grabbed my shoulders. "That's enough," he said with a clenched jaw, "now you've got to go." He gave me a little push. "And don't you dare come back again."

Then you were suddenly standing in front of me, red-eyed and pale. Maybe you had been standing there for a while. In the background I could make out that scrawny woman's strained gloating face. "That's the way out!" The manager raised his voice. Your hand slid in mine. We must have looked defeated. Then we slowly began to walk, and when we got out to the parking lot, you broke down sobbing. I put my arms around you. The air shimmered with heat. We had forgotten to take our groceries and didn't go back for them. A blue Mercedes roared by us, and with the horn going off they shouted and laughed at me through the open windows. I looked at you, and for a moment it was as though I didn't recognize you. Your face reminded me of an old ball that's been kicked to death and left at the edge of a large green field. Misshaped, gray, and flat. I left you standing there and got in the car. I suddenly had no desire to touch you. A little while later you crawled sniffling into the passenger seat. I accelerated and heard you gasp several times because of how fast I was driving as we headed out of town.

Tuesday morning it became clear that autumn was now on its way. There was a new coolness in the air. Drizzles later turned into hail. But between showers there was also intermittent golden sunshine that made the withering leaves light up like copper. A strong scent of damp earth and rot pervaded my morning walk down the familiar walkways and paths. I was melancholic. I thought intensely about death. Summer passes so quickly and who knows if it'll be the last. Because death is tugging at me. And I have to hold on tight with my arms and legs to not give in. It's strange, incomprehensible, that I, who desire life with such strong intensity, have this fierce drive in me. I found myself in the green darkness of the big trees. In this instance, linden trees. They always make me sigh. I put a heart-shaped leaf in my pocket. I sat on the ground, dug my hands down into the loam and closed my eyes. What makes me drift around so restlessly in a world that I'm unable to enter even though it gives me the greatest pleasure when it pierces me? I sat this way for a long time as it poured and the rain ran down my face and I tasted it; I sucked on my dirty fingers. Then, quickly, I made my way over to the old silver maple. My solace, my anchor. Crying, relieved, banging my tired head against the trunk. Leaves fall gently. The sun breaking through. In a flash, everything seemed interconnected as it's meant to be; I watched the shadows of the trees' canopies on the path, and noticed how the wind moved the leaves in the treetops, light falling, shifting quickly between shimmering sunlight and dense darkness, and the sounds of gentle rustling, whispering, and mumbling, all so soothing; my heart about to burst. I am warm and cold, and I was also warm and cold too when the church bells struck ten, and I pressed my mouth against a stray branch, and prayed for my life, and began to walk that Tuesday past the rose beds and the little pond with ducklings. A child lay on her stomach gathering twigs from the water. A young man was absorbed in photographing the greenhouse. The gardener carted manure in a small wheelbarrow. I squatted and stuck my greedy nose into a rose. When I stood up I saw you for the first time. You were leaning against the tool shed with closed eyes. Your skin was very white. You looked happy. Then you opened your eyes, squinting at me. I must have given you a thunderstruck look, because you smiled shyly and made this little movement with your hand, which later I would dream about with such longing, almost a wave but not really, a commanding movement, gracious, apologetic, awkward as a blush. I stood there boring my eyes into your back as you walked away. Your steps were light and springy. I sat down on a bench. And heard the clear incessant sound behind me of the oak tree's acorns hitting the ground with small cracks.

* * *

Walking under the big trees brings up an immediate and direct feeling of happiness in me, which I desperately need. Wednesday came, the earth was still damp after the night's rain, a gray haze lay over the garden, and I embraced the gnarled maple, pressed my chest against the trunk, tried to control my breathing. It's always especially bad in the morning. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw something dark and fidgeting stop. Your coat. There you were looking at me. A blue wool hat was pulled down over your ears. You were studying me with your head at an angle. I nodded. Again that wave of your hand, and then you were gone. I didn't continue my stroll through the garden. I didn't lie among the ferns down by the pond. I didn't visit the roses, the wisteria, I didn't gather snowberries from the ground, I didn't kiss the first chestnuts. Instead, I sweated like a horse and went home. Strangely broken-hearted, confused, embarrassed. But with new signs in my body as well, ones that nearly drowned out the coursing blood, the pain around the heart, the sensation of falling, and the usual frightening thoughts that follow. I went home and took my member in my hand. I was warm and cold. I never got tired of rolling the foreskin back and squeezing it forward, my hand racing back and forth. I collapsed into the sticky puddle on the floor. Awhile later it was evening, early and blue. And it turned out that I was already having vivid dreams about you, as if I were hearing your footsteps on the gravel, as if I were touching the swinging ball of your blue hat. I woke up in the middle of the night because I was freezing, and it hit me for the first time that you must've thought I was mentally ill. Who would hug a tree in broad daylight? You must've seen that I was out of my mind, and on top of that, perhaps I even frightened you.

* * *

I don't remember anymore how it began. Slowly, slowly. A little anxiety that grew. Insomnia. Tremors. Sudden panic during a flight. Feeling anxious in the dark enclosure of a movie theater. Headaches, difficulty breathing, frantic checking of pulse and heart rate, dry mouth, pins and needles in my feet. Fear got the better of me. From the fear came a wish to die over the years, a longing to be released from the agony. But also a fear of that same death. An inferno of opposing desires. One day I stopped working. One day I stayed in bed. I stopped answering the phone, I just stopped. I let myself be dismissed from the high school where I was teaching, received unemployment, sick days, and later, social security. And later, much later, the earth, the trees, the rain. Especially the trees. Their certain endurance in this world, standing , in the same spot, moving and under the influence of everything around them, but they don't move, they never move until someone cuts them down. And even then, it doesn't necessarily end their lives — it's not easy to get rid of a tree. The stump sprouts and soon it's tall and dense again, growing wildly. I now dedicate my life to a silver maple. No evil can reach me when I crawl up and sit like a monkey in the twisted branches. And this was right where you found me, the next time you happened to see me. This time you came closer. Smiling. Curious.