DREAM FRAGMENTATION IN
NUMBERS.
On a wall
someone has painted I,
then a red heart, and
beyond that MY BROTHOU.
The artist invites
passengers to paint their own messages.
So with a brush and yellow
paint I write on the wall I LOVE CHICKEN SOUP.
Excellent, the artist
comments and he adds,you should go to Africa to avoid you will die as a stupid white male.
Are you Rosie
Winterspoon, I ask him. The name popped just in my head.
No, I am Debora
Lakecarer, is his answer.
Okay, thanks Debbie.
Give Rose a kiss from me.
So in the park I kiss a
rose and starts bleeding.
463 my blood cells
tell me, count to 463 and then you will be in Africa.
I am in a country where
people speak Douala.
MUSANGO is the name
of my favorite fish in Douala and means peace.
Once I made a painting of
the fish Musango for Adamandia Kapsalis in the USA.
She proposed a fish
project.
I am standing before a big
building painted in yellow and a cripple beggar at the door invites
me in.
How many rooms has the
building, I ask him?
Nyie Nted Mewon La.
That’s not Douala, I
comment (how do I know this?!)
No I speak Ewondo
and that means 463,
Of course, everything
makes sense that way.
I enter the block and
travel from room to room, all rooms are painted in yellow. There are
hardly any windows, so it is quite dark. The paint replaces in a way
the light.
I see all kinds of people
in different situations: families, men alone, women alone, children
alone, sick people, dying people even from what looks like starvation
or illness or both.
I start getting scared and
claustrophobic and want to find my way out again but the more doors I
open, the more rooms I encounter with even worse situations than the
ones I already witnessed.
I start crying in silence.
Tears drop on the earth.
In the next room I meet a
woman. She is long and tall, wears a great multi colored dress but to
my shock she has an extremely tiny head, as if was shrinken on her
body.
What do you want? she asks
me gently.
I have lost my way and
want to leave this place.
Oh no problem, but first
you have to drink some ti or mao with me and my
husband.
I shall not offend the
laws of hospitality, so I accept. I know that ti is tea and Mao means
palm wine.
Her husband greets me. He
is a small man but with enormous hands and a very pointed face,
almost like a fox. He has an awful nose that ends in a huge knob.
We drink together. Can I
ask you an annoying question my new African friends ask me.
Of course.
You are so ugly, you have
a mutilated and deformed body. Did you have an accident or were you
born this way?
I am perplex, my body is
normal but not according to their point of view.
I am born like this.
Oh poor man, you should
consult a witch doctor here or otherwise seek help from a plastic
surgeon.
I prefer a local marabou.
They smile in
comprehension.
Now how do I get out?
Oh, you know the answer
already, they tell me.
Of course, stupid me, I
count to 463 and am back and awake in Brussels.
Guido Vermeulen
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