Hey, Old Man!
Brno can be mystic too
Hey, Old Man!
“Hey,
old man!” is the starter of every morning, even on weekends, Hampl pesters you
even at off hours. “Lousy business…” he says with a helpless gesture. And you
think, “Bloody workaholic”.
“Old
chap, you’re out of the set, we don’t see you any more in the club, at Dufek’s
dacha. What happened?”
It
could be put like this: “Pajo, old man! I’m so glad to see you! Drop in
tonight, by all means!” Or, “Old man, you’ve slackened a lot, got thin and
peaky. Are
you
okay? Really? Don’t you want to tell me something?”
“Take
it easy, chap, things will sort themselves out. Life is a strange thing, you
know…” Well, that’s for sure.
Nonstop:
in the shop, in the club, at parties, at the barber’s and at the gas station,
even your MISTRESS does it! Over and over again they harp - old man! Old man! Old
man! Perhaps, only your mother calls you by name…
…But
you’re not an old man. You’re just twenty eight. It’s just that a year ago you
accidentally found yourself at a psychic hotline in one of the restaurants next
to Capuchin Square. It may be hard to believe, but some spirit offered each of
the ritual’s participants to choose blindly his or her chapter in the book of
fates. This demon could allegedly repeal the already traced line of life,
obliterate the past and give a carte blanche. With a cunning smile you watched
your agitated fellows in misery. When it was your turn to choose a page number
in the endless book, you decided to dodge (after all, why not?), and asked the
spirit to give you a hint, to point out the numbers of the most ordinary,
mediocre, commonplace fortunes. The spirit could think of only one chapter. There
was no choice. When the lottery was over, each participant cloistered himself
in a special closet. There, hidden behind the dark and heavy velvet curtain, he
was going to listen attentively to a short audio play that would define
everything, all the nuances and details of new adventures for body and soul.
You left the restaurant at daybreak. Water carts were rolling along the
sidewalks with quiet rustle. Only near Moravian Square you managed to snag a
taxi. The driver was expressly polite. And
you suspected nothing. Only at home, having kicked off the shoes, did you see
your reflection in the cupboard mirror – your hair was white as snow… “Hey, old man…”
nodded the man in the mirror.
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