Võõrad mälestused

If blackjack was life, living would be easy-breezy. Each hand lasts for a maximum of two minutes and whether you lose or win, you get to go again, as long as you have capital. The dealer is in front of you, smiling and saying “Place your bets, please!” and you just do it. You bet on your hand and see, where it takes you, a careless merry-go-round without bigger consequences. And if you put too much trust in your hand, hit, go bust and lose, oh well – it is just a game of cards and you can bet again. The dealer smiles and says with the exact same intonation and smile: “Place your bets, please!” and you do. What an easy life it would be, no compunction of conscience.

Pause. She stands up. A music starts to play, visuals, a ballroom aura appears. 

He eyed me for months. We got very close. He used to underline the words “one thing is for sure – we WILL meet each other again and again from now on”, every time we met. And we did. He told me things he never told anyone else and so did I. It was a feeling of mutual respect, of equal partners, although he was twenty years older than me. We would travel and talk for hours and then talk some more. And one time, he invited me to his place. I wasn’t sure… but it was magical and I was in love. 

I woke up the next morning with a serene feeling. I looked out the window and it was magnificent – a kind of a hazy, foggy morning, with the sun shining through the haze. He wasn’t there, he was already working in the next room, I heard him tapping away on the keyboard. I looked at myself and the bed. And there it was: a beautiful, long, curled blond hair, just where he had slept. Where “the magical events” had taken place. Please do mind my sarcasm. My hair by the way is dark brown and short. A punch in the face at first. I felt as if I’d been on a sexodrome. Okay… Never mind that. He has had other women besides me. Maybe he is a bit messy. I went into the bathroom to wash my face, but all I could find, was a towel with some mascara smeared on it. Is there a reasonable explanation? Yeah, maybe he is a cross-dresser with a marvellous blond wig. I could go for that… maybe. Yeah, maybe I could. I tidied up and went to the den. Nothing. “Ahemm,” I said. “Oh, hello-hello-hi-there”, he said. Yes. Very fucking formally. What was that? What was that? I backed away from the room and started gathering my things. Mind you – we were not drunk the night before and it took a lot of persuading to get me there. ‘Does not compute’ was swirling around in my head. Funny? I don’t think so. 

All of a sudden he started hushing me out of the door and then, on the last minute, he noticed. “Oh wait, fuck, I have to change the sheets.” Really? Now? Where were your eyes yesterday then, with the blond chick? But I was still blue-eyed and freshly in love. Really, really in love. Did I get pregnant from him? 

To be with someone and be on the fast track towards cuckoo-town or to stay sane and lonely, that is the question. 

By the card table, endless male clients rolling in:

In roulette the wheel can NEVER stop spinning and the dealer, that is me, can never stop smiling, not even for a nanosecond. It is a continuum. Even when it stops, because of the dealer’s mistake, your mistake, THEY fix it. You don’t fix it, you are not trustworthy, but there are people for that. THEY come in, fix your mistake for you and the game can go on. No casualties. No responsibility, no dirty works. You just smile and spin the wheel. “Good luck, players.” Afterwards you might get a little tap on the hand, but no worries, all is well. A perfect world. Easy-breezy, you don’t have to feel guilty. 

Sometimes I would wish to have this kind of life – only to look, not to participate. The eternal struggle of fearing and longing for death.