ENJOY OF SHORT STORIES AND QUOTES
PERSPECTIVE
Annemarie got off her bike in front of the door of the communal area where you could park your bike.
One of the fellow apartment residents appeared around the corner and took her key to open the door.
Great, she thought to herself, I don’t have to look for my keys.
In the meantime, she said hello to the fellow resident, who opened the door and walked inside.
She’s wearing a nice coat, she thought, but before she could give a compliment, her fellow resident shouted, ‘Look at how many bicycles have been added.’
Annemarie walked to the area where there seemed to be a lot of bicycles.
“I don’t have a permanent place,” said her fellow resident, “and therefore always have to put my bike in a different place, not that I mind.’
It sounded like “regular places” weren’t supposed to be your place.
How strange Annemarie thought to herself, I am not familiar with that perspective at all, that there are no fixed places.
Annemarie shrugged her shoulders and said to the fellow resident: ‘I always put my bicycle back in the same place. You’re wearing a nice coat.’
The words; You’re wearing a nice coat, it wasn’t heard.
The sentences that there were: ‘no fixed places and that she was not happy with it’ were repeated again.
Get out, Annemarie thought to herself, this is not going to be a good conversation. Annemarie wished the fellow resident a nice day, who replied that she was going to see an old girl next door who was ill.
Annemarie continued to muse.
What did the fellow resident actually mean by there being no permanent places?
Did she mean that it was her experience that you have no right to a permanent place, anywhere, and especially that you shouldn’t have to worry about it?
Did she mean that it is normal that you are not entitled to a permanent place, anywhere and that you should not worry about it?
The universe is big enough for everyone to have a permanent place, was Annemarie’s experience. Both perspectives were strange to Annemarie. Perspectives, Annemarie thought as she walked, were about looking at all sides and linking your own experience to it.
Hope and a Chameleon
Lying on a lounger under an umbrella, she turned over on her stomach.
A gecko appeared in front of her on a rock close to her. He stopped and looked straight at her.
She looked at him understandingly.
“You know,” she said to him, that you have a beautiful complexion, and there was a note of wonder in her voice.
“A chameleon,” she continued, putting on “her soft storytelling voice,” as if she were going to tell a story to small children.
The gecko still stood motionless on a rock, hypnotized by her voice. She laid her head on the lounge and began her story.
“When Pandora’s box was opened, thousands of demons came out.”
“Hidden from the demons, a tiny light came out at the end. Named “Hope”.
“Like a chameleon, her eyes could move individually, searching for those who needed hope.”
“Those who need hope need hope in different shades of color, just like a chameleon.”
And those who hope find the thickness of a chameleon’s skin. Pretty on the outside but thick enough to contain the hope inside.”
“To make sure no one can take it away with ugly words.”
“To make sure no one can steal it with looks of ugly feelings.”
“And to the demons who want some hope, the chameleon will not stand out with its protective color, hidden in its natural environment.”
“A chameleon is by day and a gecko by night, for hope is by day and by night.”
She looked up to see the rock littered with geckos all enraptured by her voice. She rested her head and fell asleep.
One by one, the geckos left the rock, satisfied with their role in the form of hope.
QUOTES
