Eskişehir, Türkiye
Saturday 23 March 2024
In his solitary bed in his solitary room Tom wakes to the sound of singing from the radio station SWR 3 (ess vay r drei) from the radio alarm beside his head.
Pink Floyd, “Hey You“, from the soundtrack of The Wall:
“Hey you, out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old
Can you feel me?
Hey you, standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles
Can you feel me?
Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light
Don’t give in without a fight
Hey you, out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with your ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?
Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I’m coming home
But it was only fantasy
The wall was too high
As you can see
No matter how he tried
He could not break free
And the worms ate into his brain
Hey you, out there on the road
Always doing what you’re told
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall
Breaking bottles in the hall
Can you help me?
Hey you, don’t tell me there’s no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall
Tom lies in bed, listening to the lyrics, affected by the tune’s sombre message.
The song ends, he swings his feet down to the floor, grabs his bathrobe from the hook on the door and pads barefoot from his bedroom.
“I am going to need a vacation after this vacation.“, the weary husband sighs.
Towering beefy Tom Wright enters their bathroom, heading for the basin above which a mirror hangs, beside which a razor awaits.
He removes his heavy hot, red-and-blue striped bathrobe.
Ungirdled and skyclad, Tom considers his frame for a moment in all its fallen glory.
“If my body is a temple then clearly the place is in dire need of reparations!“
He smiles at his own self-deprecation.
Tom looks out into the hallway and not seeing his wife calls out to her.
“Dorrit, I’m in the shower.“
Gravely he opens the shower curtains, steps over the slight plstform that separates the shower from the bathroom floor.
As he regulates the water temperature, a song is remembered from one of his countrymen comedians, fellow Canadian, Lorne Green.
Above: Canadian comedian Lorne Elliott
“The smallest thing that’s known to Man is a subatomic particle measured scientifically under lab conditions to be ten centimeters taken to the minus thirteenth power.
But though this thing is very small, it’s really not that small at all, compared to the line that is ever so fine, that separates the hot from the cold on the handle of my shower.
But even if you manage to adjust it just exactly like you like it, there are still one hundred thousand different combinations, different permutations, things which can and maybe will go wrong.
Like when I’m in the shower with the woman that I love, and just at the moment of extreme excitation, some guy in the apartment below turns his dishwasher on.
And the water comes out cold. And my woman goes, “Eek!” and steps on the soap, nearly breaks her neck. As it was she only suffered from some minor scrapes and bruises, because just as she was falling she made a desperate grab for the nearest thing around her so that no fatal harm would occur.
Which was fortunate for her, but unfortunate for me, ’cause the thing she made a grab for happened to be something near and dear to both of us, tho’ to be fair, she wasn’t thinking how extremely dear it was to me as how conveniently near it was to her.
But it’s an interesting biologic, metabolic, fundamental, scientific, not to say a physiological fact
That when subjected to the stimulus of sub-zero H2O, the male private areas have the tendency to rapidly contract.
So this is what they did, and that is why she missed them, made a grab behind them, what it was she finally caught
Was the handle of my shower which she twisted as she fell, past the smallest thing that’s known to man and suddenly the water came out …Hot
And I went, “Eek!” and I fainted unconscious and my woman got me outta there and two weeks later, my poor private areas finally got the courage to emerge, tho’ even now they haven’t yet regained their normal size and weight and span
In fact for a while there they had successfully broken all previous world records for the smallest thing that’s known to Man.”
As Tom lathers his body, he asks himself ruefully:
“Why has my wife never showered with me?“
Suddenly, Dorrit storms into the bathroom and turns on the sink faucet.
“Why can’t you wait until I finish my shower?“, Tom grumbles.
“We don’t have all day to waste.”, Dorrit shouts back.
“It’s only three and a half hours from Kirchwil to Martigny.
We can’t check into our hotel before 2 p.m.
It is only 8 o’clock now.”, Tom explains, readjusting, once again, the shower temperature.
“You’ve been in there long enough.”
“Yes, an entire minute.”
“Just hurry up.
I want to wash my face and put on my make-up.“
In the jukebox of his mind, Barbara Streisand begins to sing:
“I’ve got a minute
Just a little minute
I have only got a minute
Just a minute
I have only got a minute
That is all the time I have
To sing this tiny little minute waltz
It isn’t easy but I’ll try it then
I’ve got to say goodbye
But first I’ll take a minute
And put in it
Every note that you may know
That ‘less I sing a little minute waltz
And hope I can sing with no faults
I know it’s difficult
I’ll give it every last breath that I’ve got within my body
Hope that my performance won’t be very shoddy
Singing every moment won’t do wonders for my throat
I probably will end up hoarse
Of course, I will. I’ve got it down a wager
That I made, I will, I want
I know it’s not the money but the
Satisfaction that I get from winning money
On this silly kind of bet
Though this kind of solo wasn’t his intention
Chopin isn’t here to make an intervention
So with your permission
And no intermission
I will sing each note
That that composer wrote
As you can hear my trilling
Isn’t very thrilling
Above: Polish composer Frédéric Chopin (1810 – 1849)
But no one can say
I wasn’t very willing
To attempt a thing that’s not been done
And just for fun to sing the minute waltz
As I sing the seconds fly
All too soon the minute waltzes by
And now I ask you where am I
Halfway through the tune and I’m falling far behind
I have less than thirty seconds
Less than thirty seconds
Less than thirty
Less than half a minute
I have less than thirty seconds
I have less than half a minute
To complete this little minute waltz
But every note that’s in the score I buy
The sands of time I know are pouring at me
With my bet and honour with the money
Down to some big store and there to buy a honey
And a trophy for myself
To put upon the shelf
To show the world I’ve won
Oh, the second hand is rushing round the dial
And though I’d like to end this torture with a smile
And lest someone knows how to stop the clock
You’re gonna see me cry
Before I say goodbye
To complete the song
But I’m afraid my little lungs will burst before too long
If only I can last this day
I won’t have failed to sing a little minute waltz.“
Tom wonders for the millionth time about women’s obsession with make-up.
Women’s vanity.
He thinks to himself:
“I don’t think she does all this preening for me.
I really don’t care if her hair is long or short, her lips painted or not, her clothes tight-fitting or loose.
And all that effort and expense!
Eyeliner and eyeshadow, lipstick and lip gloss, eyelash curlers and extensions.
And does the dress match the shoes?
Does This go with That?
Despite every trick of the cosmetics industry…
Despite all the women’s magazines that define a woman’s world…
Women age.
Why is this such a terrible thing?
Certainly, a fit woman is more desirable than a fat woman, but curves become fleshy, skin turns pallid and slack, sultry tones turn shrill, laughter lapses into nagging…
Physical change is inevitable.
Regardless of the attempts to delay it.
But why do emotions evolve?
Why can’t at least these endure?“
“Come on!“, Dorrit stamps her foot impatiently.
Tom grabs the bath towel she holds in her hand and wraps it around his waist as he slips out of the shower.
She does not even glance at him, so he pretends to equally ignore her.
Still wet from the shower, Tom lets the towel fall to the floor and hastily dons his bathrobe again.
Shrinkage does not need exposure or ridicule.
Tom marches down the hallway, passing the guestroom on his left and her bedroom on the right.
Past the front door on the left, living room to the right.
Tom walks to the dining room table to glance outside the large window, down the main street of the village of Kirchwil.
As usual, the street remains quiet and empty in the bright morning sun.
Simon and Garfunkel on the jukebox of Tom’s mind:
“In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps his eye on us all
And he used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall
Lord, I recall my little town
Coming home after school
Flying my bike past the gates of the factories
My mom doing the laundry
Hanging out shirts in the dirty breeze
And after it rains there’s a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It’s not that the colors aren’t there
It’s just imagination they lack
Everything’s the same back in my little town
My little town, my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
In my little town
I never meant nothing, I was just my father’s son, hmm-hmm
Saving my money
Dreamin’ of glory
Twitching like a finger on a trigger of a gun
Really nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town“
In the distance, the peak of Säntis beckons….
Above: Mount Säntis, Switzerland
(To be continued)