The day started somewhat late, deeply burrowed between thick, warm blankets that may or may have not been made out of feathers. At the right side a curtain muted sunshine tried to break into the tiny blue room, accompanied by the comfortable heat of the radiator. The cats - all of them - should be out there, probably wondering what the fuck is wrong with the new, scary people who should be delievering their meal by then. At the left side there was also heat, but mingled with a sort of sour scent. A shared bed. Hell, still gara get used to it.
He had come up late last night, probably around 2 am after driving a beaten up white truck with all the furniture - new and old, that was to go in or out of what would be called "Home" in a few days - or weeks - and from then on for an unspecified period of time. I was awake when he arrived home, but nicely in bed and tired as hell, inspite of having indulged in a bubble bath. I closed my eyes and drifted into sleep as Iheard him come into the bedroom, take off his sweater and then quietly close the door behind himself, to avoid disturbing me. The sweet thing. Like there is a thing other than an earthquake or the rare case of insomnia that can disturb my sleep.
Around 3 am I was woken up by a sound and a sour smell. It was him. I couldn't figure out what could have he eaten that would smell so foul, but didn't care much as sleep was prioritary.
It was around 10 am, perhaps. The acrid scent was the result of something he prepared himself as a quick dinner, probably a strange Hungarian concoction that makes sense only to the people born and brought up in this flat lands can understand, like raw raddish and onion with lard, a sausage and sauerkraut.
His day was quite packed with appointments, as usual, plus a trip back to the Ikea warehouse, to replace the matress we've got wrong. (Our bed - being a sofa-bed - uses two separate mattresses of 80x200 cm, which is good because I like my bed outrageously soft while he likes his bed abnormally hard. The mattresses weren't both at the same place, but one - mine - was at the store and the other one was at the warehouse. Add to it, the packed mattresses don't look anything like mattresses, but rather like sort of pillow. Add to it, it was dark, we were tired and we didn't notice the guy gave us a completely different mattress of 120x200 cm.) Then we was supposed to run up home to move some more things and unroll the mattresses, since it would take them 3 days to get their actual shape.
My errands would have included a trip to the Official Translations' Office to get my diploma translated, a trip to some paperstore to get myself a map, so I manage to drive myself around Budapest successfully (where in the freaking hell are my maps?? I had several), a trip to the Evangelical Church headquarters to inquire about a Lutheran church near my new home (since I've been basically chased out of my usual church by a relative who believes to be anointed with the power of God to decide who can and who cannot enter the church, and I'm not feeling feisty, but am ok with picking another church all for myself), and maybe also go to the movies to see what's there to be seen and also to take on the chance - once at the mall, and raid one of my favorite bookstores with the complete list of all the books that have been offered to me via e-mail, and I've decided to get a glance at.
However the day went on drawn in long, lazy, hazy lights, with the hours meshing one into the next, with a liquidity seen only on days of rest and extreme pleasantry. Clouds washed away, as if spilled fresh in a pool of celurean blue, washing off the sky, but getting lost themselves as well. Things needed to be done, like the laundry, washing my hair and finally tackling a recipe to make chiles rellenos, the Mexican way. The hair was done, the laundry was taken care of, and after a trip for the supplies for the chiles rellenos - which proved inapropiate, as it seems I paid for a rather fine piece of meat, simply because I don't know what the other cuts are - I set to my first cooking task since we arrived.
It was hell. The peppers refused to get burned even when I pur them directly into the flame and expected them to get charred, blistered or at least change color. Could it be that Californian pepper bells react different than poblano chiles? Not that I've seen poblano chiles in my life, but still. Wishing to avoid, then, the deep frying - it's not my kitchen and there's no deep frier in here, though I may need to get one! - so they went into the owen. It was one of the worse ideas that could have occured to me - kitchen related. The peppers didn't get cooked, the egg remained unpleasantly raw and it ruined half a pound of perfectly delicious meat and mozzarella cheese. I was supremely disappointed.
He came back just for lunch, which again extended eternally with the heating of a soup that refured by some sort of demonic stubborness, to get heated. A bag of pasta for the soup was prepared, but half of it baked itself into the bottom of a pot way too small to house so much pasta, and then only a spoonfull was eaten, the rest went to feed the puffy wastebasket.
All the errands planned got moved 24 hours, and then only the raiding of bookstores and movies remained on the list, but as the day stretched, the milky skies slowly darkened, like a plant wliting too slowly, or a love dying so softly into emptiness.
The hours spun around the face of the clock, round and round, two skinny witches circling around and unseen but ever so powerful altar making magic happen. There, before my two dark eyes the day was gone, and a mind fixed reading a book that hasn't been published yet, completing as it read the pages unfinished, the story of a character and their journey through life, lingering long on specific details, taking pleasure in the picturing of a gesture, a soft smirk, and words pronounced slowly with the absolute conviction that they are their own, invented by their own, but nothing is theirs, as they don't get to exist if I don't decide it so.
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