Don't You Think We Ought to Know by Now? Don't You Think We Should have Learned Somehow? (assignment 3)

I breathe out the day.

I’ve been looking forward to our conversation.

Look at the sky; let the night wrap a blanket across your tired shoulders. Let the day wash away. The chain supporting the swing creeks in the back of my ears. It perfects the wrenchingly beautiful melancholy of John Mayer’s “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room”. I mumble the lyrics in the bottom of my lungs:

---nobody’s going to come and save us, we’ve pulled too many false alarms---

A child has spilled glitter across the black carpet of the night’s sky, and I swing a little harder in hopes of a closer glimpse. I tell myself that the stars will warm my eyes; they will whisper soft nothings of a calm and restful place in the distance. Are you still cold?

Three AM. The last lights of the apartments flitter away and a few more stars emerge from the fading shadows of society. Finally, I have my moments alone with Berlin. I ask her how her day was. She quickly responds with a pithy and dry relation of events from recent hours. She is trying to mask the dissonance of her baseline with a compelling, organized melody. She sings of clean streets, she sings of culture, she sings of a globalized community. Yet, her streets are clean but only for the poor who collect bottles for money. Her culture is simply spray paint dripping off the walls. And her grandiloquent talk of global citizenship is merely compensation for a dearth of national identity. But I won’t tell her that I hear the undertones through her rosy lyrics. After all, I can commiserate with the pain of being called out on a false smile. She looks to me, as if to ask of my day, but her question is swallowed in hesitation. The answer is presupposed. She can tell by the way my legs dangle limply off the seat of the swing, moving only to keep from stopping altogether. Casual anhedonia has left a bitterness in my mouth that makes me dream of apathy. For you see, happiness seems too unrealistic, even in a dream. Perhaps Schopenhauer was right: there is only happiness but for the absence of pain. And she understands.

She holds my hand as we gaze on together. I wonder if we are friends, Berlin and I. Neither of us is particularly gregarious, and her time with me is more a matter of circumstance than volition. Perhaps she knows that I had misplaced expectations. I had contemplated passion; images of torrid rapture with a man I would only know long enough for him to give me reason. And yet, upon arrival, I found her. She stood before me in a dull grey dress, with patched rainbow stockings clad upon her legs. She was pretty, to be sure, but her bare feet were tired and her eyes were worn with bags from staying up all night. Cigarette smoke still clung to her thin blonde hair and liquor seeped from her breath as she greeted me. Guten tag. Good day. I nodded in apprehensive acknowledgment as she swayed past me without making eye contact. But I see her more clearly now. And tonight, with flowing hair shining in the moonlight and a cigarette hanging lazily from red lips, she is beautiful. She is perfect. Her eyes, open only half way, tell stories of war and political turmoil; but the crow’s feet to their sides speak to the freedom of art and rebellion. Caught between austerity and anarchy she sits beside me, immobilized by her own irony. And I understand.

An ocean of moments washes over us. And drowning has never felt so good. Eventually, she will break the silence, lest we become too lost at sea. How was it? Was it everything you wanted? Was it everything you hoped for?

She is asking about my visit to Istanbul. I cannot tell if her question stems from legitimate interest, or if it is meant only to fill the silence. I am inclined to assume the latter is true, however she knows my unmet expectations about her were transferred onto Istanbul prior to my leave. Perhaps she is morbidly curious if I was met with continued disappointment. Regardless of the reason, we make an unspoken agreement to mutually humor the conversation. And so, I tell her. He was different. This is perhaps too ambiguous an adjective, yet my thin vernacular seems to find it the most fitting. When we met, Istanbul and I, I was instantly compelled. His demeanor was outgoing and amiable, and he greeted me with outstretched arms. He made me so very hopeful.

He was beautiful right from the start. Golden jewelry sparkled across embroidered clothing and white teeth peered out of smiling lips. His call to prayer echoed and played among the songs of birds as the sun rose upon him. He was entrancing. He asked me to dance. I agreed without question.

I had never heard such music. Drumming with culture, singing a colorful story of ornate modernity; the music was moving. I closed my eyes. I wanted him to move me with the dance, which was so foreign to my tired frame. I wanted it to feel good. But I became distracted, as the smell of rotting fish and crumbling foundations crept towards my nostrils. He told me to pay no mind and showered me with compliments. But his words were simply smoke in my eyes. I pulled away and focused my gaze. Mistaken charisma gave way to the image of an inaniloquent and unctuous man, who saw me only as a foreign trophy with which he might toy. I do not know what lay beyond that image. Perhaps a family, perhaps a culture of love and community. Whatever it was, I knew in that moment that I would never see it. I couldn’t. In the same way, I knew he would never be able to see me as more than his preconceptions. Our dance came to a shattered end while the music raged on. I was within throngs of people, yet I had never felt so alone. Of course, loneliness seems all the more noticeable when among others. Their very existence accentuates your isolation, leaving you on the wrong end of a harsh juxtapositioning. And I had wanted so badly to finish the song. Because sometimes you’ll dance with anyone just to feel the warmth of someone’s arms.

I see. She understands. She does not smile, she does not console; but she understands. We return to silence. Dew is collecting upon the grass; but BI feel the moisture only slightly against my numbed toes. I should go inside; it’s almost five in the morning. The sun will be rising soon. I give myself a final, gentle push on the swing, and the swing beside me sways along in the breeze. I never thought an empty seat could be such a good friend.