Θεραπεία

Τις πρώτες μέρες αφού γυρίσαμε το μυαλό μου ήτανε ζελέ, και άρχισα να φοβάμαι μήπως χρειαζόμουνα μαγνητική, να δούμε μήπως σας τελειώνω, αλλά η κατάσταση άρχισε να καλυτερεύει όταν μπόρεσα την τέταρτη μέρα να το βγάλω σε κείμενο να ξεκαρδιστούμε με φίλους αγγλόφωνους. Το κείμενο είναι αγγλικό, και βαριέμαι να το μεταφράσω, οπότε το παραθέτω εδώ κάτω, στο τέλος, μετά από τις φωτογραφίες που πήραμε στον περίπατό μας εχθές. Ένας περίπατος που απέδειξε ότι το μυαλουδάκι μου δένει σιγά-σιγά πάλι, με την ειρήνη και τον καιρό, μακριά από τις μαλακίες που έζησα τρεις βδομάδες… Αισθάνομαι αρκετά καλύτερα.

Το σπιτάκι μας, πίσω από το Αββαείο.

Κακά λύκου. Ακόμα ζεστά...

With four sleeps in San Benedetto under my belt, still feel my mind is jell-o and wonder whether it is a medical condition requiring an MRI or just more days of peace. I am, however, feeling up-to-the-task of attempting a first draft of my new play, “A Civilization Gone With The Sewage Removal”:

Interior, Day, Ministry of Transport:

SERF: Excuse me, I have here a document from the Italian government stating that the Greek plates on my Cherokee were removed and retained by the Italian government in 2013, and it carries the International Stamp of The Hague, as required.

NICE SUPERVISOR: Seems in order but you also need an official translation from the Greek Ministry of Translations.

SERF: Even though it is only two and a half lines of text mentioning my Greek number plate and the word “ritirare” which means, like, retired?

NICE SUPERVISOR: I’m afraid so. Sorry about that. You need to go to the Ministry of Translations, in the tourist center of Athens, downtown.

SERF: Thank you so much.

Five days later, Interior Cherokee, Street in Athens, Morning

SERF: Fuck!

INSPECTOR: What?

SERF: They translated “ritirare” as “inspected”. They won’t accept the word.

Later that day, Interior, Ministry of Transport, Afternoon, around coffee time:

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: It does not say they removed the plates. We can’t accept it.

SERF: But you see, the word “ritirare”, it is ambivalent in translation and they chose the wrong word in Greek.

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: Then go back and tell them that.

SERF: You are sending me back to the Ministry of Translations, downtown?

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: It’s downtown! It’s not Thessaloniki (a town in Northern Greece).

SERF: Have you ever tried telling a Greek Ministry that they made a mistake?

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: Yes! And I won!

SERF: But the translation of that word cannot be exact… they will claim it is OK as is…

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: We cannot accept your document.

SERF: I’m sorry… I don’t know what to say… except… THIS is how you have turned this country into SHIT!!!

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: Blah-blah-blah (insert insults here)

SERF: Blah-blah-blah (insert insults here) 

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: Blah-blah-blah (insert insults here)

SERF: Blah-blah-blah (insert insults here)

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: Blah-blah-blah (insert insults here)

SERF: Blah-blah-blah (insert insults here)

Nice Supervisor appears out of nowhere as a machine lowers her from the ceiling:

NICE SUPERVISOR: You’re back. Did you get it translated?

SERF: Good afternoon! Yes! Of course! Here it is.

Nice Supervisor looks over the documents

NICE SUPERVISOR: Good. We can accept this. Let me register it for you.

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: No! It is not right! He has to take it back! Blah-blah-blah (insert insults here)

Nice Supervisor continues the registration and winks at Serf to not pay attention to the Nasty employee with goatee and silver rim glasses. 

NASTY EMPLOYEE WITH GOATTEE AND SILVER RIM GLASSES: Agitated, describes how a Ministry got a document of his mother’s wrong and he took it to them and had them correct it a few years back. 

NICE SUPERVISOR: There you go, you’re all set.

SERF: God bless you. Thank you! Health and happiness upon your House.

THE END

This will be the Broadway show. For Off-Broadway I’ll do the story from the actual Ministry of Translations and the Albanians outside the door who whisk you to shady offices that can do your translations faster and cheaper but the boss ain’t there just now so they leave you to wait but you sneak out and return to the Ministry 8 minutes after the doors closes but you flutter your eyelids at the gatekeeper and he lets you in…

And that was two of the days.

The days involving the Electricity Company and the Tax department will be a CBS miniseries to include lots of advertising time to cover the three and a half hours wait to be told to go back to the other office across town that send me there in the first place but now it was already closed for the day. This script will include the lines “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” and “To jump in front of a bus, or not to jump in front of a bus”.

I wannabe a writer one day, but for now I’m wrestling with “Documentary Editor”. For instance, one sequence that ended up on the cutting room floor, just for streamlining and clarity, was the bit where the nasty employee with goatee and silver rim glasses squealed to the nice supervisor that I had said they turned the country into SHIT, and she had no reaction, but a few minutes later she muttered that “yes, we have indeed turned the country into SHIT”… I thought if I had included that in the main story I would have opened another door confusing the reader and ultimately leaving the real tale untold without expanding into the premise of a people who know what they’ve done, yet continue doing it –much like another people who spent nine years and another one or two generations trying to erase a black man from the white house and destroyed their country in their attempt to achieve it…