Misunderstanding

I’ve been reading your blog, said Ilona, our cleaning lady, and I absolutely agree with you. It’s become virtually impossible now to tell the truth. Truth is a crime today. Take blacks for example. I mean, Negroes. We all know that in terms of intelligence they lag far behind us. It’s a well established scientific fact that their intellectual capabilities … I mean, you wrote about it, didn’t you? You did. You were brave enough to admit that in your blog and I admire your candour.

Ilona came from Budapest. She is 35, fluent in five European languages and has a degree in art history from her local university.

What? – I said. What? What are you talking about? Who are ‘us’? What kind of nonsense is that? I never wrote about black people. I never wrote about their intellectual capabilities. I never wrote that they are in any way different from ‘us’ whoever ‘we’ may be. Are you mad? All I wrote was that we shouldn’t invest too much meaning into such human characteristics as skin colour or race, or nationality, or religion. It messes up our own capacity for judgement. We should write about people, not about their attributes. All I wrote is that inverted stereotypes are the same old stereotypes. It doesn’t help if you convert a negative stereotype into a positive one. A stereotype is a symptom and we should at the very least try to understand what does such a symptom mean, what is behind this symptom and what kind of a bigger picture does it fit into. Only when we see living people, complex and contradictory, are we able to sort out some of our problems, if we still have any.

This is precisely what I mean, said Ilona. I think we should care more about our racial purity. I met a man once, he was from Latin America. From Chile, I guess. He wanted to marry me. I said no way. You may be good in bed and you may be a good glazier and a good ceramist but I’ll never have children with you because I don’t want my children to be underachievers. We, whites, I said, shouldn’t mix with the people of colour, no matter which part of the world they come from.

And what did he say? – I asked.

He said that he was white, said Ilona, but he wasn’t. I also liked what you wrote about the Jews. They do control the world.

Oh, no, I said. No, they don’t. And I never wrote about ‘the Jews’. All I wrote was that we should at the very least support Israel no less than we support other countries in the Middle East. I mean, what is Israel if not an ultimate success story? I mean, the country and the people deserve our support. If we allowed OPEC to be created and if we trusted all those terrible dictators with trillions of our money, if we launder our regular financial ejaculations through any fixer we could find overseas, I mean, we should, at least, extend at least a part of the same courtesy to a single democratic country in the region, shouldn’t we?

Right, said Ilona, because they control the money. Our money. We make money with our blood, sweat and tears and they control our money and use it to control all the people around the world. They are no better than the Nazis because, you know, the Nazis were just the people who cared about their own country.

What do you think about David Cameron? – I asked.

I think he’s gay, she said. What do you think?

Well, I said, I think that he lacks ideas. This is what I think. I think that he lacks vision. This is why he painted himself into such a dead end. He doesn’t seem to care about anything but a miserable competition with a minor political force. He is obsessed with UKIP. Thanks to this obsession and to this stupid rivalry and to all the limelight it receives the conservatives managed to elevate an obscure fringe party to the position of a major political force. There was nothing strange about UKIP exploiting the national prejudice to their own political gains. Every radical political group does more or less the same, be it about class or ethnic background, or whatever they can put their hands on. What was strange is that a major political party took this bait and pulled those marginal oddballs into a position of great political influence. What is this if not the evidence of total cluelessness? I mean the conservatives have no ideas about economy, about foreign policy, about reforms or about our future. All they seem to care about is immigration because ‘there are too many foreigners in our land’. This is why we should close our borders for European plumbers and keep them open for Rotherham gang rapists. Great thinking, but what else should you expect from a PR man apart from such smoke, mirrors and Potemkin villages? This is why he goes down next year although it’s kind of unfair because the Labour don’t seem to have any ideas either although, to be honest, they don’t even pretend to have any. Which may be not such a bad sign, after all. It may only mean that we as a country are now in such a good form that we can easily and comfortably do without any government at all. I think that many rich countries suffer now from their governments much more than they gain from them. All our governments today are almost uniformly incompetent, pesky, myopic, petty and stupid. You know, Belgium had no government for about three years and it only served them well. I think it wouldn’t hurt much to have some freaks on the top of our system for the next term if only to show us what we have taken for granted all these years.

Absolutely, said Ilona reaching behind the radiator with her duster. Absolutely. This is precisely what I think. We should stop all those barbarians from abroad from coming here. You’ve nailed it.

current affairs

Why don’t you blog about politics? – asked me Sebastian.

Well, I said, I guess, I’m not informed enough. Or, maybe, I’m not interested enough. I, basically, don’t even know what it is. Usually it’s all charts and stats, and numbers and it all either happens somewhere else and has nothing to do with me or completely unverifiable and feels like a big scam. I’m a bit lost when I read all these stories about Syria or China, or economic growth, or riots. I have not the slightest idea what really happens in those faraway places and what all those numbers and funny words may really mean. Even if I blog about my own personal life I have barely enough information to make heads or tails of it. How would I know the truth about some guy on the other side of the planet who tried to steal a handful of cheap cigars and was shot and killed by another guy in uniform?

Who cares about the truth? – said Sebastian. Are you interested in traffic to your blog?

Well, I said. Of course, I am interested.

Then forget the truth. You can’t know the truth. It is impossible. Do you know what Bonini paradox is?

No, I said.

Bonini paradox, said Sebastian, states that any model of reality is either too complicated to be a model or too simple to be real. It means, basically, that you can’t know the truth, this way or another. The truth is just too complicated for people to really know it. Either we don’t have enough information to know the entire truth or, if we do have that much, we won’t be able to unscramble all the information we have in such manner as to comprehend the reality. Either way we, essentially, end up barking up the wrong tree. But the good news is that no one cares much about the truth. Or, better to say, we all know the truth all too well to really care much about it. Bonini paradox or not, most of us have enough common sense to tell the true from the false and to know what happens here or there without actually knowing all the details. We don’t need all the explanations. We just, you know, know. Because things happen and we know how they generally are. Take Jimmy Savile: the first time you saw his face had you any doubts the man was a super creep? This is why it doesn’t make any sense to blog about the truth: everyone knows it. You see? The truth is not only impossible to blog about, it doesn’t make any sense to blog about the truth. This is why we blog about politics. And if you blog about politics, you don’t need any truth. What you really need is a good story. You need a villain and you need a victim and if you have a good villain and a good victim you’re all set. Take a child and take a monster and you have a good story. Doesn’t matter if it happens or not in this boring real life: if your writing is any good it will, sooner or later. Take an innocent child who just went out for a walk with his friend and take a bloodthirsty trigger-happy maniac and make them chase each other and kill each other, and you’ll have all the attention you crave. Take people and take recession, or global warming, or whatever disaster you’re able to come up with and make them chase and kill each other. If your story is outrageous enough you’ll have traffic beyond your wildest dreams. It must be savage and it must be dreadful, sickening, disgraceful, atrocious and intolerable but it shouldn’t be much different from what others are writing about at the moment, otherwise they won’t notice you at all. An innocent child with his eyes wide open went out of his house in the broad daylight to listen to the birds singing, to watch the clouds in the sky and to dream his dreams of happy life and wonderful future and was killed by a lonely psychopath, a robot without emotions, a maniac on the prowl. This is how I blog about such things. Seven thousands unique visitors a day and nine thousand views. How about that?

I know a better story, I said. Bloodthirsty mutant aliens abduct babies in the broad daylight right out of unattended prams and badly supervised nurseries, molest them in wild orgies, kill them without mercy, drink their blood for breakfast and sell their tiny little organs to the obnoxious rich people who gradually become immortal through this trade. How about that?

You seem to have a real knack for it, said Sebastian begrudgingly. Tag it ‘immigration’ and you may even have riots in the less thriving parts of our country. And you know, he said, if you have riots you have something to blog about for years to come.

whistle day

Why don’t you whistle? – asked me Josh.

Why should I? – I said.

Because today is Whistle Day, he said.

What? – I said.

Whistle Day, he said. The day everybody whistles. No one speaks. All whistle.

This is what I thought, I said. All whistle. But I thought it was a local phenomenon. I thought it was because of some football game or something. I thought it was some new kind of support. A football chant.

No, it’s not, said Josh. It’s not local. The entire country whistles today. The entire world, in fact.

God, I said. Why?

Because of Jay Gerbrich, said Josh

Who is Jay Gerbrich? – I said.

Don’t you know? – said Josh. Jay Gerbrich is the ten-year-old boy who was able to overcome his severe coprolalia entirely on his own, without any help. He is an American, a son of a TV host and a music teacher. He had the disorder since he was four. It was one of the most publicised cases in the history of this syndrome; the boy became a national celebrity. All the doctors gave up on him: all the psychologists, all the psychotherapists. At some point his parents literally ran out of money and lost any hope. And then he started to whistle. Have you seen the boy on YouTube? No? The Whistling Boy. He opened an account and posted his videos, and he asked everyone to whistle with him to help him overcome his problem. At first the service took him down repeatedly and he had a lot of problems with the administration because in the beginning his videos were mostly coprolalia, very severe. But he also received a lot of support. After months of struggle he decided to sue the company and eventually they settled out of court, reportedly for millions of dollars, and the company made some changes to their rules allowing those who have the disorder to upload their material. At that time he had already had quite a following and there appeared hundreds of thousands of such videos. A lot of people suffering from this disorder came out and tried to overcome their condition in public, like he did. In the end he was able to whistle for hours without ever saying a word. It took him about a year and the day it happened was later adopted as International Whistling Day. The UN supported the initiative, and many celebrities and other international organisations. The boy received a lot of awards. On the first Whistle Day they invited him to the White House and whistled all together and recently he was invited to Oxford to promote his case, and they all whistled there too. Do you know that they debate a law in Parliament now, which would make the Queen and the entire Royal Family whistle on this day?

Why don’t you whistle? – I asked Josh.

I whistle, he said and started whistling. Will you whistle? – he asked.

Oh, no, I said, I’d rather have coprolalia.

the problem of traffic

What exactly happened to the Garfields? – I asked my wife. Why should we send them our old crockery?

If only, said my wife. Read the list.

But what happened? – I said.

Don’t you know? – she said. They lost everything. Their house, their cars. Ron lost his job. Everything they had was on tick. House, furniture, appliances, clothes, school for children, everything. And I don’t know how exactly it’s called or what the procedure is – repossession, I suppose – but they had to give it all back. Because of debts.

I still don’t understand, I said. How could it happen? I know that Ron wasn’t exactly properly rich but I always assumed that he should have had quite a cushion to withstand such things. He was a CEO, for goodness’ sake. He was … not entirely wealthy but pretty much well-off.

He put all his money into his blog, said my wife.

He had a blog? – I asked. I didn’t know that.

Well, said my wife. Apparently, he did. As far as I know, he blogged about his dog Charlie. He started his blog about two years ago because there was some problem with hookworms and, as far as I know, he eventually put all his money into this blog to increase traffic.

But what kind of traffic do you need to such a blog? – I asked. If you only blog about your own dog. I mean, why on Earth would you need a lot of traffic blogging about your golden retriever?

I don’t know, said my wife, but I think I kind of understand him. As far as I can see, he probably felt neglected after he started his blog. You know the feeling. You go out on a limb online sharing the most intimate, the most sacrosanct bits of your life and no one is interested. Or all the wrong people. Not the kind of audience you had in mind. I think, he probably felt this way. He probably felt that Charlie didn’t get as much attention online as his dog deserved. Charlie is a good dog. Poor creature.

What happened to Charlie? – I asked.

They had to find a temporary accommodation for him, said my wife. For the time being. I think I can totally understand Ron, she said. It must be a bit like you blog about your child and expect some response, some minimal feedback from people: a comment, a like. And there is none. Nothing. Week after week after week. Not a single human reaction. It’s like you’re suddenly lost in space with your child. While you are offline you think that you live in a society, in a world full of people but as soon as you go online it turns out that you live in a total emptiness. In a void. (My wife shuddered slightly). It must hurt, she said. No one cares about your child, or your dog, or you, or whatever you write about, not a single person among all those six or seven billion people. This must be scary. I’d definitely panic, she said, if such thing happened to me. This is why I hate the Internet. I think, this is what happened to Ron. He just panicked and tried to increase his traffic. To augment his audience. There must be tricks, there must be strategies. People peddle these tricks and these strategies for money. They sell attention. And eventually, as far as I know, he stopped blogging about dogs and switched to politics. He tried this and that. You know, Ron is a high achiever. Was.

Why? – I said. Did he die?

More or less, said my wife. It should have been a huge personal challenge to him. He just couldn’t leave it alone. He had to win. Agnes told me that he had lost his sleep. His health deteriorated. He became depressed, he developed some ugly rash that not a single doctor knew a hoot about. Apparently, he invested their entire savings into his blog. At some point he started discussing a suicide pact with his wife. He said that their children would be better off without him. He said that the Internet was an abyss filled with misery. De Profundis, he said. He said that never before had he ever suspected so much misery in the world. He said that he had been an insulated little fool living in a bubble. Said he had never known that he was such a nonentity. That he, in fact, didn’t exist. That he was nothing. He lost his faith in humanity. He started drinking. He stopped talking at all. Later on he would stay in bed for weeks with his laptop, drinking, crying and checking his ratings. Then one day, after he’d lost his job and all this repossession thing happened and they had to give Charlie away and move into some sort of council accommodation, he went out for a walk. There was no Internet connection at the premises or they couldn’t pay for the access, I don’t know. I think, they had problems paying for their mobiles. Well, he went out for a walk for the first time in months and he disappeared.

What? – I said.

Just didn’t come back home, said my wife.

For how long? – I asked.

For the second week already, said my wife. He called, though. Not Agnes, me. Said that he had to sort some things out and that the real world was ‘overwhelming’. Said, that he had been ‘transformed’. Yes, I know, said my wife, it’s all seems pretty tragic, but what I think is that Agnes and the children will be better off without him for a little while.

What do they need? – I said.

Look at the list, said my wife. Some things has already been taken care of, she said, like the washing machine and the TV set, courtesy of Sebastian and Josh, and the fridge, and the clothes. Sarah gave half her wardrobe for the cause. This here is the rest. We can pick out whatever we want and pass the list further to the Trestles.

There were five items on the list.

1. Ultimate Dyson DC41 Animal Bagless Upright Vacuum Cleaner with accompanying HSB Microfibre Cleaning Glove yellow or blue or iRobot Roomba 790 Vacuum Cleaning Robot red or light blue.

2. Mepra Stainless Steel 1950 Deluxe Cookware Set, satin blue or copper.

3. William Turner Old English Cutlery Set or Full ProPassione Laguiole Tableware Set with horn/brass handles.

4. Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica porcelain dinner set or Florentine Turquoise Wedgwood  full dinner set.

5. Horchow Haute House Erlinda Dining Table From the John-Richard Collection and Miguel Dining Chairs or Doucette Dining Table, Lilah Settee, and Melissa Dining Chairs.

What do you think? – asked my wife.

Well, I said checking the items online for prices and availability, as terrible as it all is, I don’t really think we should write the old Garfields off quite yet.

Vespertine

I must confess I expected more from your wife, I said. I visited her blog but there was nothing outrageous at all. If you don’t consider basic anal sex outrageous.

What blog? – asked Richard.

The one you told us all about the other day, I said. The one called Princess.

It’s not her blog, said Richard.

You said it was, I said.

Do you really expect me to give away the erotic blog of my wife to all and sundry? – asked Richard.

No, of course, not, I said.

Her real blog is called Vespertine, he said.

Don’t you mind Joan doing this? – I asked.

We’re non-monogamous, he said.

Vespertine turned out to be password protected and membership only paid blog. Even more, it turned out that the membership was by invitation only.

I tried to gain the access to this blog for months. I became obsessed with this blog. I dreamt about entering this blog. In my dreams this blog became an Aladdin’s cave of wonders. I carefully tried to discuss this blog with my friends but no one seemed to know what I was talking about. In the end I called Joan and she invited me for a cup of tea.

Richard told me that you both are non-monogamous, I said.

Yes, she said.

What does that mean?

Well, she said, if you want me to narrow it down for you it basically means open marriage.

Where’s Richard, by the way? – I asked looking around.

He is in Japan, she said. On a business trip.

Correct me if I’m wrong, I said, but does open marriage mean that you can sleep around with whomever you choose?

More or less, yes, she said, but we have ground rules.

Like what? – I asked.

We don’t do it with the people we know, she said. For example.

Vespertine, I said. Could you invite me to join your blog?

I don’t think I know what you’re talking about, she said.

I want to join your blog, I said slightly panting.

No, she said. Listen, I like you very much but the blog is off-limits. It’s out of the question.

How much do you like me? – I asked.

Enough, she said, to make an exception to the ground rules.

When we were finished I asked her about the password again.

No, she said.

Why? – I asked.

Because I have no blog, she said.

Listen, I said, if you don’t tell me I’ll blog in my blog about your exception to the ground rules.

What about your wife? – she asked.

I think that at this stage of our marriage we’re pretty much non-monogamous too, I said.

All right, she said. The password is Vespertine, with the capital V. The same as the name of the blog.

The first thing I did when I returned home I typed ‘Vespertine’ into the password slot of her blog. I was shivering with impatience.

Hey, said my wife from the kitchen. Joan Trestle’s calling. She wants to speak to you. For some reason she told me that she missed you.

Tell her I’m busy, I said entering Vespertine.

She says she loves you, said my wife.

She must be drunk, I said.

She says that she is in love with you, said my wife. What? – she said into the receiver. She said you two slept together, she said. Today. She said that you had lit her fire.

No, we didn’t, I said. She must have mistaken me for someone else. Oh, look, I said. Everybody’s here. Matty, Nick, Pete, Lauren. Everybody. Even Josh is here. Even Sarah. Everyone is a member of this bloody blog but me.

What blog? – asked my wife entering our living room in her red apron and with a wooden spoon in her other hand.

Vespertine, I said. The erotic blog of Joan Trestle.

Is it interesting? – asked my wife coming closer.

Even Doug is here, I said. Even Jeremy.

Ron Jeremy? – asked my wife. She put the phone down on the sideboard.

No, I said. Our Jeremy.

May I have a look? – asked my wife.

Here, I said. Look. This is her blog. See? Here’s everyone. Ben, Tom, Nina.

My wife looked at the screen. She slowly sat down on the couch next to me.

Oh, she said reading the blog. Oh, this is gross. Oh, my. Oh, goodness. She is mad. This woman is absolutely raving mad.

Where are you reading? – I asked.

Here, she pointed.

This is serious stuff, isn’t it? – I said.

Oh, said my wife. This is bloody unbelievable. Could you, please, watch the cock for me for a minute? – she asked without turning away from the screen.

What? – I asked.

Slowly she held out her spoon in my general direction.

The coq au vin. On the hob. It may boil over. I’ll be right back.

Sure, I said taking the wooden spoon from her.

And lay the table for dinner, will you? – said my wife when I was leaving the living room. With candles. The regular ones and the aromatic ones too, in the background. All right? Sandalwood and ylang-ylang. And open the wine, would you?

Which one? – I asked.

The one you brought from France for our anniversary, she said. Oh, my, she said, look at that. Oh my. And run the bath, OK? For later.

Sure, I said.

On my way to the kitchen I picked up the phone handset. I brought it to my ear.

Troyes, I heard. Troyes! Talk to me, Troyes!

Wrong number, I said and switched the phone off.

Nietzsche blogs

Do you know Elysium? – asked Josh.

You mean the tantra massage parlour in Mayfair? – I asked.

No, he said. The blog. Where all those famous people from the past blog about current affairs. Aristotle, Nietzsche, Elvis Presley …

Nietzsche blogs? – I said.

Well, not in person, obviously, said Josh, but yes, he does, through the psychic.

This is your blog, said Sebastian grimly.

It’s not mine, said Josh.

It’s yours, said Sebastian. Who’re you trying to fool?

No, said Josh, it’s not.

Do you seriously think you can fool me like that? – asked Sebastian. Look, he said, we’ve been together for how long now? Sixteen years? Every morning you bitch about politics. For hours.

I don’t bitch, said Josh, I discuss. I try to discuss it with you. And if you don’t like it …

I know all your opinions, said Sebastian, I know all your exact wording, all your specific turns of phrase. I know it well enough to spot it anywhere. I know it all by heart. And I bloody know that after you unload all those layers of political garbage on me you, in the afternoon, in your best spirits retire to your study and then, shortly after that, I can find all those very same words and phrases used on me in the morning – tried out on me in the morning – I can find them all posted to your blog as if spoken by some famous politician or philosopher, or writer, or whomever your mad fancy chooses to channel what you call your ‘ideas’. I know you well enough to recognise you, my dear, even if you think you’re talking like Alexander the Great.

… If you don’t like it, said Josh, why don’t you tell me? You could have told me long ago and I’d have only been too happy to oblige you and to release you from this oppressive bond.

Do you really think Nietzsche would support Ed Miliband? – said Sebastian. Seriously?

I don’t know about Nietzsche, I said opening my laptop, but I think that Kierkegaard actually …

If he were alive now he would do just that, said Josh. Do you think he would support your bloody toffs?

No sane person would support your raving lunatics, said Sebastian.

Aristotle would, said Josh.

In your dreams, said Sebastian.

Elvis Presley would, said Josh.

In your dreams, said Sebastian.

God, I said.

What? – asked Sebastian.

I pointed at the screen.

Here, I said. Look.

What? – asked Sebastian.

This is the blog, I said. Here is this discussion about Nietzsche and Ed Miliband and who would support whom. It has almost a thousand comments. Oh, no, more than a thousand. Look. It has a thousand comments a day. Three thousand two hundred and sixty two in three days.

Goodness gracious, said Sebastian.

Oh, yes, said Josh. And a sidebar banner is now five hundred pounds a month.

Trolls in the family

My father is a troll, said Doug Desmond gloomily.

My wife is a troll, said Richard Trestle.

My daughter is a troll, said Sarah Desmond.

What? – I said. Are you guys all blogging?

Well, yes, said Sarah, once in a while. Not regularly, but from time to time, yes, I do blog. I do. Once a month on average, I’d say, or even less. When I have a minute. Which is not always the case. Sometimes I don’t open my computer for months.

Occasionally, said Doug. Occasionally I blog too. Once in three months on average, I’d say. I just, you know … Share some, well … opinions, I guess.

My blog is all but dysfunctional, said Richard. I do it once a year, maybe twice. Hardly more.

Good to know, I said cagily. Good to know.

I blog sometimes for my younger one, said Doug. She’s almost four now so she can’t do it properly yet. She can post a picture or a comment, of course, but sometimes she just needs assistance, you know. She wants to be a top blogger though. So I help her.

What does she sell? – asked Sarah.

Well, said Doug, experience, primarily, for the time being. But what she really wants, eventually, is to, probably, run weekly webinars for three-year-olds on the basics of audience building. Or, maybe, a motivational website. But the problem is, my father … Well, I think sometimes … I can’t say it, I guess, but sometimes I think … I think, he hates me. God, it sounds delusional, doesn’t it? But I think he does. I think he holds quite a grudge against me ever since we named our daughter Lutetia Victoria. He wanted us to name her after my mother but we just wanted something different. We didn’t want to name her Rose. I mean, I love my mother and all but … Long story short, he started trolling her blog. Not mine, hers.

This is the most perverse thing I’ve ever heard, said Sarah.

It is, said Doug. It is perverse. He knows that I don’t really blog and that it doesn’t make any sense to troll me so he started trolling her instead. How about that? He is mad at me, I guess, but he tries to sabotage her blog. I think he is generally opposed to her ideas about her future … Or our ideas … He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t understand it. He is seventy five, you know. And he mocks her. Online. In the comments. He mocks her. He calls himself sweetgrand1940 and thinks that no one would know that it’s him but I had him all nicely worked out. And I asked him – why on Earth would you do such thing? Mock your own granddaughter online? I know that it’s you. No one else would ever do such things. And he said – I don’t. I just post my opinions, that’s all. What’s wrong with that? She must learn, he said. Or you, he said, for that matter. He thinks, he got me. Old bloody pervert.

What does he post? – asked Richard.

He posts something absolutely inappropriate for a blog called Eensy Weensy, said Doug.

Like what? – asked Sarah.

Like a link to a YouTube Sex Pistols video.

This is gross, said Sarah.

Or something like ‘You’re in for a huge disappointment, my dear. Let’s look how your pretentious parents will teach you not to overreach’, said Doug. Something along these lines.

This is gross, said Sarah.

My wife, said Richard, she decided, apparently, that I was having an affair. That I was texting someone. Like all those politicians, you know, who send their naked pics to their constituents. I think, she hacked my computer. Which wasn’t all that difficult, I reckon, considering that my password is her name pretty much everywhere. And all she discovered was that I blogged, as far as I can see. I guess, she decided to stick it to me just to justify her jealousy somehow, not to waste it just like that. She discovered my blog and she started trolling me …

She didn’t know? – asked Sarah.

Eh, well, said Richard. You know, even in the family … You need some private space. I mean, your own place, totally … Do you know what I mean?

No, said Sarah. I think I don’t. It kind of justifies her jealousy, doesn’t it? I don’t have any secrets from Doug and I don’t expect him to have any secrets from me. Do you have any secrets from me, sweetie? – she asked Doug.

Not that I’m aware of, said Doug.

Well, said Richard, then, I guess, this one was a secret even from me.

Was it erotic? – asked Sarah.

To some extent it was, said Richard. It was about cars, mostly. And some politics. There was no frivolity however, if this is what you mean. I just linked some content from around the net and discussed it with some people, that’s all. And she started trolling me. For the most part, she tried to provoke me into some sort of infidelity. She made herself quite a revealing avatar, not quite x-rated, you know, but pretty suggestive, I’d say. I didn’t know that she was capable of such looks, to tell you the truth. She even started her own blog and this was erotic, to put it mildly. Not obscene, I grant her that, but provocative in the extreme.

Like what? – asked Sarah.

Like blogging about her sexual fantasies, said Richard, under the name of Princess.

How do you know all that? – asked Sarah.

I hacked her computer, said Richard. It was all there.

My daughter, said Sarah. She looked at Doug. Our daughter, she said. She started trolling me because, I guess, she thinks that we are pretentious little snobs.

How old is she now? – asked Richard.

She is fifteen, said Sarah. And she apparently thinks that she is the most progressive, the most enlightened, the most open-minded and participating member of society for miles and miles around. At least a lot more than I am with my blogging about cakes and such. About muffins. She trolls my posts about muffins, no less. Because I support Nick Clegg, I understand. She maliciously shares bogus recipes on my cooking blog just to scare off my followers. Can you imagine that? And she doesn’t even bother to hide it. She posts her sick comments from her smartphone right at the dinner table. And she was so outraged when I caught her doing that! I invaded her privacy, no less! Right at the dinner table, between the soup and the mutton leg she posts offensive comments on my blog and she is outraged! And I said, you either stop it right now and right here, my dear, or I whack your blog, or Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever you have these days with such material you’ll beg me to write about muffins. You don’t know what I am capable of, I said.

What about you? – asked Richard.

They all turned to me.

Me? – I said. I don’t even have a blog.

All right, said Sarah. All right.

Minnie

Listen, said Jeremy, I don’t know how to tell you, but …

What? – I said.

This is wrong, he said.

What’s wrong? – I said.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, he said.

What? – I said. What? What do you mean?

You, he said, you wrote about my wife in your blog.

What are you talking about? – I said. When?

Last week, he said.

No, I didn’t, I said.

Yes, you did, he said.

No, I didn’t, I said.

You wrote about the woman you saw in your dream.

Oh, I said. Come on. The woman I saw in my dream was a six feet tall Swedish blonde.

Jeremy gave me a look.

All right, he said. You described that woman as a six feet tall Swedish blonde. I do such things in my own blog all the time when I write about someone I know. I change the appearance. And the name. When I write about you, for example, I call you Winston and I describe you as a short, bald, fat filmmaker.

You write about me? – I said.

Why, yes, of course, he said. Everyone writes about everyone else. You write about me, I write about you.

No, I don’t, I said. I’ve never written about you in my entire life.

Come on, he said. That post two weeks ago about a retired graphomaniac accountant, that was about me.

No, it wasn’t, I said.

Yes, It was, he said.

You are out of your freaking mind, I said.

There is nothing wrong about that, he said. We all do that. I don’t mind, really. As I said: we all write about people we know. Who else should we write about? You write about me, I write about you.

I don’t write about you, I said.

It doesn’t matter if you do it or not, said Jeremy, but my wife, it’s different. I mean, she’s … You know, I wouldn’t blog about your wife.

Why wouldn’t you blog about my wife? – I asked.

Because I don’t fancy her! – said Jeremy. As simple as that! Look, he said. This is not the most wonderful time of my life, to put it mildly. All those problems … My job … I’ve lost my job … It wasn’t easy for us. I mean, it wasn’t easy for her in the first place … To adapt. She is used to some specific way of life, to some protection in her life. She is an artist, for God’s sake. She needs some, you know, comfort to create her art. And I am out of my freaking mind, to tell you the truth, I totally am. I haven’t been out of our house in months. I just sit on the couch and wait for God knows what. And play Call of Duty all the day long. There are no jobs in investment banking now, none at all. Less than zero, I’d say. I tried for years, for crying out loud! A friend of mine, we had been fired together, he suggested to open a click farm, to sell mailing lists … I don’t know. And she is … she is vulnerable now. This much I can tell. She is pretty much near her snapping point. Not quite, but … And this is what … this is the problem. She may not look like a hot babe, you know, but she is hot. She is hot like hell. Trust me. And she knows that. She always had this interaction with men, you know … when they all know that she’s hot, and she knows that they know. Do you think, she’s hot?

God, I said. Stop it.

Do you?

Oh, God, I said. I don’t know. I never thought of your wife in such terms.

Come on, he said. Tell me. She is hot, isn’t she?

She may be hot, I said, but it’s certainly none of my business.

You see? – he said. This is why I’d like to ask you to do me a favour, all right? Just once. I’ve never asked you to do me a favour, have I?

What? – I said.

Could you, please, stop thinking about her? – he said.

I am not thinking about her, I said.

We are friends, he said. I can’t imagine you leaving your family and living with my wife.

Neither can I, I said.

I hate to imagine that, said Jeremy. Think about someone else, he said.

I will, I said.

She has enough male friends for me to worry about, he said. More than enough. All those artsy types I don’t know the first thing about. She is always somewhere discussing her art with some bloody sponger … Sometimes I think she can leave me any moment.

No, I said, she can’t and she won’t. It may seem strange to an independent observer, but she loves you. You may be a retired graphomaniac accountant at heart but she loves you all the same. This is one of the greatest mysteries of my life, actually: how is it possible that a girl like Minnie could love someone like you so much for so many years?

You see, he said. This is what I am talking about. Stop thinking about her, mate. Just stop, will you?

But I can’t now. He left and very soon I found out that I can’t stop thinking about Minnie. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t. I forgot my six feet tall Swedish blonde fantasy. I think about Minnie all the time now. She is a very well tanned, small, clever woman with speckled nose and a head of chestnut hair cut gamine style, and with brown, bright, slightly provocative eyes. She always dresses in some formless expensive clothes as if to protect her delicate beauty from the less discerning eye. But underneath these clothes she must be amazing. I can imagine her in her lingerie. I can imagine her … My, is she hot.

my science of sleep

Why shouldn’t we go to a dancing party? – asked me a friend.

And we went. The dancing party was at the hotel called Mediterranean, one of those immensely posh expensive establishments you can find in the South of France, on the left side of the coast, but this one was in London. It was raining outside and it was dark. I remember I tried to enter the hotel through the polished granite wall, Harry Potter style, but failed. The doorman watched my repeated attempts without any surprise or disapproval and then opened a big door for me.

The dance floor was full of people and almost all of them danced aggressively. I brushed my teeth with a red toothbrush I brought with me in the pocket of my dinner jacket and went to a loo to wash my mouth. The loo was designated strangely: there were no clear signs of sexes, but several pretty vague descriptions on the doors. I found a room with two half-naked overweight men in it changing into party costumes and washed my mouth at the big old sink partially piled high with old clothes.

Then I found my friend on the dance floor. There were some girls but the best of them were preoccupied with old rich men. Others danced some less restrained variant of pogo. I suggested we go. My friend agreed.

On the street I found out that I forgot my white cabbie cap. I returned to the hotel and went to the reception. The vast reception was empty, but surrounded by a dozen of waiters seeking advice. A young man appeared, who listened to me patiently but then accused me of not paying for my French fries. I said I never ordered any French fries in the first place.  He said that I didn’t pay for my bear either. He insisted that I ordered a polar bear to be brought to the dance floor and that the polar bear was brought all the way from Sweden. Here I woke up, in the middle of the night.

Two days later I received a frantic call from my bank. We made an appointment. It turned out that a company called SleepSinc billed my credit card to the tune of sixty thousand pounds for some obscure service. I called the company right from my bank and they said that to bring a polar bear from Sweden to the hotel was quite a feat and that they charged me a minimum fee considering that I was a valuable prospective client. The clerk at the bank told me that he knew this company, that they had an excellent dating agency, that he could date literally every woman he ever wanted to date in his entire life through this agency and with hundred per cent success guarantee, and that if I didn’t pay my overdraft back in time the monthly interest on this one would be about two thousand pound per month and it would have broken my credit limit in six weeks.

I went home and immediately went back to sleep. In my sleep I went to Cupertino where the position of Steve Jobs was still available. I agreed to take this position. The first thing I did as the Apple CEO, I asked my secretary to wire me couple of millions of dollars for immediate expenses. I followed through on the transaction and woke up no sooner than I saw the money on my account.

It was half past five in the afternoon. I opened my laptop and checked my account. There they were, all the money from Cupertino. I was saved from insolvency. I couldn’t believe my luck. I pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t sleeping anymore.

What are you doing? – whispered my wife. Are you mad?

What? – I said jumping in my seat. What?

Shush! – said some people around me.

Wipe your mouth, whispered my wife, you are dribbling.

Oh, God, I said.

I wiped my mouth and looked at the stage. There she was, the great Anna Netrebko, ready to launch into her immortal Addio, del passato.

I closed my eyes.

Why shouldn’t we try this dating agency? – I asked my friend.

Aliens

Have you seen aliens? – asked our daughter. She is five and she read a book about aliens at school.

Your granddaddy saw aliens, said my wife.

Which one? – asked our daughter.

The one you don’t know, said my wife. The one who died long ago. My father.

Oh, I said.

What? – said my wife defensively. He did. At least, this is what he told me.

I just didn’t know that, I said.

What did he tell you? – asked our daughter.

My wife gave me a look.

He told me, she said cautiously, that he went for a walk in the woods. And then, after a couple of hours he came to a clearing in the woods. And there he met an alien. The alien was very tall and he – or she, or it, I don’t know – was glowing from top to toe. And my father had a contact, he could communicate somehow … What? What are you laughing at? What?

I’m not laughing, I said.

Stop it! – said our daughter. Don’t laugh! Mummy doesn’t like it when you laugh at her!

I don’t, I said. See? I don’t.

You grin.

No, I don’t.

Stop it!

And then, said my wife defiantly, my father just collapsed on the spot and when he came to there was no alien around and it was raining.

All right, I said.

You don’t believe it, do you? – asked my wife.

I don’t know, I said. Why didn’t you tell me that before?

I took mercy on your skeptical little mind, said my wife.

Have you seen aliens, mummy? – asked our daughter.

My wife looked at me.

Yes, I did, she said bravely.

What? – I said.

Yes, I did, she said with total abandon. I saw aliens. Why are you looking at me like that? I saw aliens. What can I do if I did? I saw them.

All right, I said. All right.

I saw them when I was fifteen, said my wife. It was on summer holidays. We went to a disco with my friends. And when we came back there was a huge UFO hanging above our summer cottage. At least twice as big as the house. Just the usual flying saucer, she said, you know, like those in Plan Nine or Mars Attacks. With tiny bright windows along the rim, all that. And we all were frightened to death. We thought they wanted to take my parents, to abduct them. Girls started screaming and we all ran away. And I came back home very late at night. I told my parents about the flying saucer but they were so mad at me, they didn’t listen to me at all. They were just absolutely mad. And I was grounded afterwards, like, for the rest of the holidays.

Daddy, stop it! – said our daughter. Stop laughing! Mummy saw aliens! Why do you laugh?

I laugh, I said, because I saw them too.

What?! – said my wife. You saw aliens?

Yes, I said. Yes, I did.

Why didn’t you tell me?

I don’t know, I said. It was long ago. I was visiting my friend in Rome.

Which one? – asked my wife.

You don’t know him, I said vaguely. Or, better to say, you do, but not personally. He’s a major pop star now. We don’t really see each other anymore. But back then he was just a friend. He lived there with his girlfriend. They had a tiny flat on the top floor, right in the middle of the city, not far from the Spanish Steps. They had a dormer window and you could climb out of this window onto the roof. There was a wooden deck on the roof and some flower boxes. They grew flowers and tomatoes. And there was the view. Unbelievable. Breathtaking. I brought some pastries and we had some tea out there on the roof. It was sunset, it was June, I think. We drank tea and listened to the last Brian Eno and we were discussing some Christian dogmatics because we were both very much into it at the time. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Gregory of Nazianzus, Maximus the Confessor, such things. We were talking about celestial hierarchy, about orders of angels, about, you, know, the Primary Force, free will, the clinamen …

About what?

My wife was looking at me as if I had just confessed to her that she lived all these years not with me but with my twin.

The clinamen. And as we were talking I saw a bright light right above St Pete or, maybe, even closer to us. Bright, a bit pinkish and absolutely unmoving. There were stars already in the sky but they were far less bright and much smaller and there were planes flying here and there but they were also much smaller and they were moving. This light was just there and there was nothing about it, no wobble or vibration, or any mechanical parts visible … I mean, if it were a helicopter … It wasn’t that far away. About a mile, I guess, or even less, right across the river. Not very high up either, about a quarter of a mile, I’d say, maybe a bit more. What’s this? – I asked my friend. Aliens, he said very matter-of-factly, without any surprise, without even looking much at this light. He just glanced, I think, over his shoulder. Oh, I said. Oh, yes, said his girlfriend pouring us some tea, they come sometimes. Do they? – I said. How often? Have you seen them before? Many times, said the girl as if we were talking about some of her more gregarious relatives. They come, said my friend, to distract us from something important. You see, he said, we were talking about divine things and they appeared and distracted us and I, to tell you the truth, don’t even remember now what we were talking about, not really. Because, I said, they are … Right, he said, they are. Presently the light turned bright red and it started blinking. I know what they want, said my friend. What? – I asked. They want Brian Eno, he said. Here I realised that the music stopped a minute ago. My friend climbed down and put the record on again and as he came back up to the roof the light disappeared. Just like that. Told you, he said.

Did you talk about all those things afterwards? – asked my wife. About Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite? Close your mouth, she said to our daughter, and eat you porridge if you don’t want to be late to school and if you want Ms Stephanie to shake your hand.

No, I don’t think so, I said. If memory serves … I think, I left soon.

And who precisely is that friend of yours? – asked my wife.