you cook a lot of fish
I met her when I was moving into my new place. I was carrying some boxes from the car in, and she showed up on the landing. Some people sparkle with electricity, not many. She was talking to my sister. I didn't know if she was friends with my sister or not, and said 'hello' in a perfunctory way.
Inside the apartment, she was very talkative, a real chatterbox. Wisecracks galore. It was hard to concentrate on unpacking my stuff, and I didn't quite know what to make of her. My sister had stuff to do, so she left. It was then I realized I had no idea who this person was. She stood there, arms crossed, tapping her foot. Didn't offer to help, but seemed keen to give suggestions, and not very helpful ones at that.
'C'mon, let me show you the neighborhood,' she said. She was charming and exasperating at the same time, so I figured, 'Well, why not?' She took me outside to where they were building an addition to the freeway. She showed me where to hop over the fence. On the other side, the trench was full of soft earth, and I landed in it up to my knees. Great.
She had already bounded to the top of the ridge, and beckoned me to hurry. 'Look!' she said. I clambered up the incline and we stood at the crest, looking down over the valley at the sunset. It was pretty majestic, golden rays slashing in diagonals across the green tilled fields far off. The mountains were purple in the distance. She told me some anecdote about the Holocaust, and I said, "How strange, my Dad was telling me about this morning on the phone." She looked at me with her weird green eyes and blew a bit of hair out of her face. Her expression was one of muld consternation, like, 'Duh!'
Who was this person?
She said, 'C'mon, let me show you something.' We climbed down the gravel piles, slipping and skidding down. We both laughed. Her hands waved wildly in the air and she didn't lose her balance. She was very quick, and I had to push to keep up with her. She pushed the door open on an apartment built on the side of a hill, so that we entered on the top floor at street level.
We went down the staircase, a strong smell of some sort of Middle Eastern food, heavy on spices and pepper rose up the staircase accompanied by a blast of heat from some kitchen further down. A couple of immigrants carried crates of fruit and vegetables up the stairs. They seemed to know her, and she waved at them as she trotted down the stairs. I marvelled at her tan legs and unkempt hair.
She quite boldly opened the door to one room and walked right in. I blinked to see the inside of the room, which had all the blinds drawn against the evening sun's glaze. Low squat furniture ran around the corner of the room, and a huge poster that read 'QURAN' had a picture of the Kabbah in Mecca. 'Hey Abdullah,' she said to the fellow sitting watching the TV on a divan. He was fat and old and smoked a hubble bubble with great asthmatic draws, coughing wet coughs as he exhaled some heinous scented smoke from his lungs. He grunted and nodded his head. She opened another door, and it led down a corridor.
Suddenly, we were in through the service door of an indoor mall. Several kids sat playing video games in a violent cacophony of noise while their mothers shopped at the fruit and veg market. Further down was a musical instruments shop where a bunch of people played ten different songs at once. 'Pretty neat, huh?' she said, smiling broadly, chewing gum. 'Oh yeah!' I said.
She took my hand unxpectedly and led me straight out the door. Once we got outside, she dropped my hand and starting walking down another side street. Where the hell were we going? She stopped in front of a big red varnished door with a brass knocker, kind of tacky, the entry to a small house under sycamore trees. Dusty breezes blew down here, and I craned my neck to see my apartment building way high up the hill. 'That's my room,' she said, pointing to a window on the left. The blinds were half open and I could see she had a ton of stuff in there, on the walls, everywhere.
She suddenly seemed a bit shy, and her eyes were very big. She opened the door and we walked in. Her chubby young sister sat lodged into a corner of the couch in the living room, with her feet tucked under her and a blanket draped over her. A big television was playing some weird nature documentary. Her mother sat a computer and turned around when we walked in. 'Lookit!' she said, and pointed to something on the screen in tiny letters. I instantly saw where her daughter got her somewhat hyperbolic manner from. Her daughter inclined to look at the screen and I watched in fascination as their eye's darted back and forth from line to line at lightning speed. They didn't say a word, just sort of nodded their heads vigorously and hummed 'ah-hum' in unison. They both had their hands on their hips. This girl snapped and cracked her gum.
A father figure entered the room and walked through, not acknowlegding anything or anyone, deep in absent thought, and walked right out the other door into his gloomy study. I looked over at her sister, and her sister was analyszing me, but immediately dropped her gaze and blushed furiously. I tried not to smile.
This girl and her mother launched into a rapid fire tirade back and forth, the content of which was completely strange and didn't make a lick of sense. It was like some code language engineers might speak standing up on a hydroelectric dam looking at blueprints.
The mother looked at me from head to toe, totally bold in her appraisal, nodded her head and pursed her lips. She said, 'You look like you like to cook a lot of fish!' she trumpeted. There was a silent pause, while I pondered that, and then they laughed so hard the girl doubled over, tears in her eyes and her mother damn near fell off the chair. Her younger sister seemed absolutely mortified. Her father shook his head in dismay in the other room.
'C'mon' said the girl, following her mother into the kitchen, 'You look skinny, let's eat!'
So that's what my anima is, I thought, it's her.
Inside the apartment, she was very talkative, a real chatterbox. Wisecracks galore. It was hard to concentrate on unpacking my stuff, and I didn't quite know what to make of her. My sister had stuff to do, so she left. It was then I realized I had no idea who this person was. She stood there, arms crossed, tapping her foot. Didn't offer to help, but seemed keen to give suggestions, and not very helpful ones at that.
'C'mon, let me show you the neighborhood,' she said. She was charming and exasperating at the same time, so I figured, 'Well, why not?' She took me outside to where they were building an addition to the freeway. She showed me where to hop over the fence. On the other side, the trench was full of soft earth, and I landed in it up to my knees. Great.
She had already bounded to the top of the ridge, and beckoned me to hurry. 'Look!' she said. I clambered up the incline and we stood at the crest, looking down over the valley at the sunset. It was pretty majestic, golden rays slashing in diagonals across the green tilled fields far off. The mountains were purple in the distance. She told me some anecdote about the Holocaust, and I said, "How strange, my Dad was telling me about this morning on the phone." She looked at me with her weird green eyes and blew a bit of hair out of her face. Her expression was one of muld consternation, like, 'Duh!'
Who was this person?
She said, 'C'mon, let me show you something.' We climbed down the gravel piles, slipping and skidding down. We both laughed. Her hands waved wildly in the air and she didn't lose her balance. She was very quick, and I had to push to keep up with her. She pushed the door open on an apartment built on the side of a hill, so that we entered on the top floor at street level.
We went down the staircase, a strong smell of some sort of Middle Eastern food, heavy on spices and pepper rose up the staircase accompanied by a blast of heat from some kitchen further down. A couple of immigrants carried crates of fruit and vegetables up the stairs. They seemed to know her, and she waved at them as she trotted down the stairs. I marvelled at her tan legs and unkempt hair.
She quite boldly opened the door to one room and walked right in. I blinked to see the inside of the room, which had all the blinds drawn against the evening sun's glaze. Low squat furniture ran around the corner of the room, and a huge poster that read 'QURAN' had a picture of the Kabbah in Mecca. 'Hey Abdullah,' she said to the fellow sitting watching the TV on a divan. He was fat and old and smoked a hubble bubble with great asthmatic draws, coughing wet coughs as he exhaled some heinous scented smoke from his lungs. He grunted and nodded his head. She opened another door, and it led down a corridor.
Suddenly, we were in through the service door of an indoor mall. Several kids sat playing video games in a violent cacophony of noise while their mothers shopped at the fruit and veg market. Further down was a musical instruments shop where a bunch of people played ten different songs at once. 'Pretty neat, huh?' she said, smiling broadly, chewing gum. 'Oh yeah!' I said.
She took my hand unxpectedly and led me straight out the door. Once we got outside, she dropped my hand and starting walking down another side street. Where the hell were we going? She stopped in front of a big red varnished door with a brass knocker, kind of tacky, the entry to a small house under sycamore trees. Dusty breezes blew down here, and I craned my neck to see my apartment building way high up the hill. 'That's my room,' she said, pointing to a window on the left. The blinds were half open and I could see she had a ton of stuff in there, on the walls, everywhere.
She suddenly seemed a bit shy, and her eyes were very big. She opened the door and we walked in. Her chubby young sister sat lodged into a corner of the couch in the living room, with her feet tucked under her and a blanket draped over her. A big television was playing some weird nature documentary. Her mother sat a computer and turned around when we walked in. 'Lookit!' she said, and pointed to something on the screen in tiny letters. I instantly saw where her daughter got her somewhat hyperbolic manner from. Her daughter inclined to look at the screen and I watched in fascination as their eye's darted back and forth from line to line at lightning speed. They didn't say a word, just sort of nodded their heads vigorously and hummed 'ah-hum' in unison. They both had their hands on their hips. This girl snapped and cracked her gum.
A father figure entered the room and walked through, not acknowlegding anything or anyone, deep in absent thought, and walked right out the other door into his gloomy study. I looked over at her sister, and her sister was analyszing me, but immediately dropped her gaze and blushed furiously. I tried not to smile.
This girl and her mother launched into a rapid fire tirade back and forth, the content of which was completely strange and didn't make a lick of sense. It was like some code language engineers might speak standing up on a hydroelectric dam looking at blueprints.
The mother looked at me from head to toe, totally bold in her appraisal, nodded her head and pursed her lips. She said, 'You look like you like to cook a lot of fish!' she trumpeted. There was a silent pause, while I pondered that, and then they laughed so hard the girl doubled over, tears in her eyes and her mother damn near fell off the chair. Her younger sister seemed absolutely mortified. Her father shook his head in dismay in the other room.
'C'mon' said the girl, following her mother into the kitchen, 'You look skinny, let's eat!'
So that's what my anima is, I thought, it's her.