three and half hours of hell, now exhumed.

you know what i'm talking about: when we have a long trip to do by bus, train or plane, the only decent alternative to a good company is... no company at all. a good book or a good music player are better to make us lose the track of time. however, we are not always that lucky - and sometimes, we are cornered by a bad company. it happened to me in that god damned sunday afternoon, when i was by the train station to catch the train that would take back from my little village to lisbon. i had a grand plan: spending those three and a half hours reading a nice book, but that plan was thorougly whacked by m..

and before the story goes on, allow me to digress a little for m.'s sake, for he must be introduced to you. m. is an unique character of my village - which itself is a wretched nest of "unique characters". m. was one of my classmates during the primary school years, and he remained as a classmate until the seventh grade (secondary school). then he decided to reapply himself for that year, while i naturally moved forward. we had a friendly relationship when we were kids, as i had with all the village's kids - so we played hide-and-seek, we stole fruit from the neighbours' yards, and stuff like that. we have never been buddies, but we've never waged war between ourselves either. of course, puberty changes a lot of things, and the teenage years are bound to create chaos. anyway. the best way to introduce you m. is by showing you how me and him were (and are) fighting the war of life in opposite sides. it happened when i was sixteen. i was in the local pub with m. and c. (c. is definitely the greatest asshole born in that village in the last 25 years), and eventually the conversation moved to a peculiar subject: girls. of course, i shut myself up at that point - i don't discuss my love affairs in public, and never ever talk about them with guys. mind you, this rule applies to me and to me alone - never to them. and then it all became rather interesting, when m. (who was seventeen) and c. (who was fifteen) started a frantic debate over their (imaginary) sexual feats. they chewed this for a while, until all of a sudden they remembered i was still there. and c. asked me the following from point-blank range:

by the way, john, you fucked s. already, didn't you? (s. was my girlfriend then, we were together for some months)

i was caught off guard and thought about a reply, but m. - my dear m. - gave me no time to fire back, by answering for me:

what a stupid question, c., of course he fucked her already! and they resumed the debate. i remained silent.

and now we resume the train trip i would do years after. after this not-so-brief introduction of m., is easy for you to understand that the idea of spending three hours in a smoke-free train with him was not exactly... thrilling. all right, we were no sixteen anymore, but still. you know how it is: we meet someone we know - even if remotely - at a train station and unless we're going to catch different trains, there is no escape. m.'s company would be inevitable. sigh. se sat near each other and started chewing the fat about our village, talking about the weather and stuff like that. for then minutes. then i reached my bagpack and took my book out, opened it and tried to make my intentions clear: i want to read, so shut the fuck up. i have a problem though: i'm a polite person. and a polite person like myself is subtle, and not openly rude. the thing is, idiots and subtlety simply do not match. and m., as a good idiot, didn't even allow me to reach the end the first paragraph, interrupting my moment with this glorious question:

hey, john, what about babes?

of course, after this point that first paragraph remained unread. for his question was not driven by curiosity about my emotional life: he was just breaking the ice to brag about himself, and for the next three hours i had to endure the description of his sexual conquests. ora rather, of his sexual bullshit (always subtle, hum?). indian girls, he said, are very good when it comes to the bed department. he tells me the story of that indian who has given him a blowjob (in dreams). then the chinese. crazy girls, the chinese, they do everything, he assures. but the black girls, he says, the black girls are pure fire. i sighed loudly: only one hour has passed. time to strike back: but m., i really thought you had a girlfriend. well, of course. of course he does. she lives far away though. i have no idea how they met. i don't think he does either. but she's his girlfriend, all right. of course she is. and he fucks her, oh yes he fucks her. when they get to see each other, that is. one and a half hour gone. back to the glories of old. murphy was right: five minutes can last one mine or one hour, depending of which side of the toilet's door you are. and of the company you have to endure for three long hours.

have not spoken with m. for quite some time, by the way. have met him in the village some months ago, but we just said hello to each other. i don't know if his far-away girlfriend is still with him. as i don't know if he keeps is astonishing record of indian, african and chinese girls. i just hope i find him on a train somewhere to find out.

originally written and published in my other blog, now translated.