I Wonder Why….

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?

Why women can’t put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Why toasters always have a setting so high that could burn the toast to a horrible crisp which no decent human being would eat?

Why there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

Why you don’t ever see the headline: “Psychic Wins Lottery”?

Why “abbreviated” is such a long word?

Why Doctors call what they do “practice”?

Why you have to click on “Start” to stop ‘Windows’?

Why lemon juice is made with artificial flavor, while dishwashing liquid is made with real lemons?

Why there isn’t mouse flavoured cat food?

Who tastes dog food when it has a “new & improved” flavor?

Why people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don’t point to their bum when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why your Obstetrician or Gynaecologist leaves the room when you get undressed – if they are going to look up there anyway?

Why Goofy stands erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They’re both dogs!

Why Noah didn’t swat those two mosquitoes?

Why they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

Why sheep don’t shrink when it rains?

Why they are called apartments when they are all stuck together?

If con is the opposite of pro, is congress the opposite of progress?

Why they call the airport “a terminal” if flying is supposedly so safe?

Who the first first person was to look at a cow and say, “I think I’ll squeeze these pink dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?”

Who the first person was that said, “See that chicken there, I’m gonna eat the next thing that comes outta it’s bum?”

Why the professor on Gilligan’s Island can make a radio out of coconut, but can’t he fix a hole in a boat?

If people evolved from apes, why are there still apes?

What do you call male ballerinas?

If blind people can see their dreams? Do they dream??

That if Wile E. Coyote from the Road Runner had enough money to buy all that ACME crap, why didn’t he just buy dinner?

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Why the “Alphabet Song” and “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” have the same tune?

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Why do they call it an asteroid when it’s outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it’s on the outside of your ass?

Why it is when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

How come we put a man on the moon before realising it would be a good idea to put wheels on suitcases?

Why brain cells come and brain cells go, but fat cells are forever?

How important someone has to be before they can be ‘assassinated’ rather than just plain ‘murdered’?

How come “phonetically” is spelt with a “ph”?

Why a round pizza gets delivered in a square box?

Why people pay to go up in tall buildings, and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?

When you get to heaven / paradise / nirvana, are you stuck wearing whatever you were buried or cremated in forever?

Why people say they “slept like a baby”, when babies normally wake up every two hours?

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?

How do blind people know when they are done wiping?

What would the speed of lightning be if it didn’t zigzag?

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but has to check when you say the paint is wet?

Why is it that our children can’t read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?

Why doesn’t glue stick to the bottle?

Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection?

Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?

It was just Another Night…(Short Story)

Hazy charcoal silhouettes painted the view from my tiny balcony as I gazed deep into nothingness. It was just any other night; cold, dark and silent. It was way past bedtime; just about time the nocturnal bingers considered returning home. I have been standing here, struggling, for a long time. Days whizzed past like lights on a speeding metro; I could only gaze and watch them flow: hazy, opaque and in trammel. Nights were a burden that I could not avoid. I feel old, really old and this is going to be a long bitter night.

I miss the time when Vienna made me feel young. It was like those impish high-school days when hope and smile never seem leave an arms distance. Long barefoot walks in the Stadtpark, the lazy swirl of Riesenrad, those unceasing discussions on art and music at the café Demel near Hofburg place or just being lost in the silence of a moonlit Danube.

How can I not miss them?
How do I let it go, the feeling of being alive, the feeling of being in love? It made me feel young; she ensured I stayed that way all along.

The hot end of Marlboro made me jump as it traded my dream with the dark canvas of night, devoid of color and life. I fiddled my pockets for another one. Was it the fifth? The ashtray suggests it is ninth; I have to give up smoking; do I really need to… and I lit it.

It has been more than two years since I met Eva and I am drawn to her every time with the same passion as I felt the first time I saw her at the gallery. Like a painting etched in dull canvas she was a stark contrast to the white plastered walls of the gallery. My eyes could not savor enough of her tawny hair curled to unruly perfection. She was clad in blue denim and a white tee and was intensely gazing at one my wares on the wall. She was an artist, a student; embroidered in red was the symbol ] a [ resting unambiguously on her sleeve, a  logo of akademie der bildenden künste, a prestigious fine arts academy in Vienna,  and then she turned. Her dark brown eyes, sparking through the clear glasses caught me off guard; she smiled; I shivered.

The night was getting colder; I can feel the numbness of my fingers as I held on to the glass of scotch. I watched some teens singing in the street…, something in German which I could not pick. One of them looked at me standing like a ghost on the first floor balcony and lifted his hand in a friendly salute and I returned the gesture unconsciously. My hand twitched on the glass as I woke them from their icy stupor as I watched them waddle away into the night. Why do all good things come to an end..?

Eva was twenty four when I first met her and I was lugging myself into my forties and waltzing around Europe trying to sell my wares. I have a studio in Weiden in Vienna given to me by an old friend who would rent it to me for a canvas a year. He would not take money from me and I would not want to rent free, so that was our middle path. It was big enough for me to double up as a working studio and a cozy residence. I enjoyed its loneliness, its silence, but that was before she came into my life.

In the beginning we discussed art, she loved talking and I loved watching her talk. It was perfect. Later her conversations were more discursive and would wander all around. Impressionism, Fauvism, existentialism and then suddenly we would be talking of Bavarian beers. We were indefatigable in talking and days never seemed enough hours to finish a discussion. There was a certain pleasure in accepting defeat to her cogent reasoning. We would walk the first district watching tourists and their awed expressions or just go to the hills in the north for a quieter Sundays. We did nothing special in particular, but whatever we did together felt special. We were not defined by love, love defined us; it made life look simpler, easier and worth the effort to drag it through the chores of existence. A sense of good feeling prevailed. I wanted to grow with her, as Dag once said, firmer, simpler, quieter, warmer.

The silence of the night was eerie; it made my thoughts sound louder…as if coming out of an unruly megaphone. I walked in to my studio and dribbled to a mounted canvas; it stared at me blank, devoid of life. I want to draw to distract, to stop my head screaming to do something, I have no clue what but wait for the sun to raise and wash away the darkness. I started to wash the canvas with paint but the brush seems to have a mind of its own and why is it so heavy?

It was last summer when Eve moved into the studio. It was always too big for me, and way too lonely. She hardly changed anything in the studio, except a closet changing it ownership, but everything seemed different. Like a freshly painted canvas coming alive after the last swash of paint. The candles, were a nice touch, so was her presence. I needed no reason to smile other than watch her cuddle in my arms. Everything was suddenly warm even those cold Austrian winters and wines gave life a new meaning.

The colors were growing darker than I want them to be on the canvas, I was painting without a reason, without an outcome. The darkness was receding in the background and the warm light of the sun tried to wrap the distant skies. It is beautiful. But I hated it. It made me irritable, made me angry. I was helpless and it made me clinch deep inside.

We should have been married. It would have made her happy. I think so. She never mentioned it, we never talked about it. It was unnecessary. But it seems so right…today, when I see her draped in wires, trying to hold on to a life that would never be the same

She loved to cycle and spring made it ever more pleasant thing to do. Vienna was a cyclists dream. It was designed for the enthusiast. She made the morning breakfast and left a note that she will be back in time for the evening plans. I slept as she left the flat.

She never kept her promise and I have not slept ever since.

A call from the hospital went unanswered as I kept my phone on silent mode, lest it should disturb my precious tranquility. Late evening I answered the door to the call of an officer who came to tell that she met an accident and is at the hospital. I was disturbed by his imperturbable calmness of manner, but not worried; the cops told me she fell of her cycle… how bad can that be?

They did not mention that she hurt her head and will never recover from her induced coma and she never did. It’s been eight years since I read her note on the table, I see her every day with the hope that she will return home. An occasional twitch sends a spasm of hope but it passes away as spasms always do…ever so quickly.

I have to say my final good bye one morning, and let her sleep. Wires can only keep you alive but they do not bless you with life. All wires have to stop one day and tomorrow morning…is it today. They are going to stop those wires from fueling a life that has long gone away and another which will never be the same again. I wish this was an endless night.