Never Mind It

Never Mind It

by

Lise Lyng Falkenberg

*****

Copyright 2013 Lise Lyng Falkenberg

Smashwords edition

Smashwords edition, Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of contents

Part 1

An afternoon like all others

Peter Piper

The cutest and most beautiful girl in the world

Blame it on the typewriter

Rubbish

Part 2

He was an unhappy dwarf

Looking for equal minded

Melancholy baby

The loving model

Sonnet number 23

Part 3

Apples and pears are growing on trees

Miracles and more

Holes in the air

What you don't know

What the hell am I doing here?

Notes

Part 1

For every evil under the sun

There is a remedy or there is none

An afternoon like all others

Excuse me. Could you tell me the time? My dear?

I’m not allowed to talk to strangers who call me my dear.

I see.

Try again.

Excuse me?

Try again but without my dear.

Oh, I get it. Could you tell me the time?

My watch has stopped.

Dear me! Well, then…

But the little girl stayed put and glanced at the man. The man stayed put as well and looked at the girl. It was a small girl, about 4 ft. 9, chubby and with hardly any breasts yet. She must be at least eighteen years younger than the man. She had shoulder length dark-blonde hair parted in the middle, lots of freckles, a turned up nose and eyes that weren't quite alike and which looked at the man with a hard and a bit ironic look.

Anything else you want to know? she asked.

Me? No! No, of course not. Unless… The man laughed a short, dry laughter that made him sound very mature and weary of life. Unless you know what's the meaning of life?

The meaning of life. Let's see… I think the meaning of life is to eat cake, give and take in equal ratio and then gain cosmic consciousness.

You think?

Well, you can't be certain, can you? The girl smiled at the man and she had big front teeth and all in all her face was rather broad and her cheeks didn't get any smaller from smiling, Anything else?

No, dear me, certainly not!

Then how's about removing your huge feet from my toes so I can get on?

Not until then did the man realise that during their entire conversation he had been standing on her left foot and it must hurt awfully, but the girl hadn't done anything or said anything and the man was embarrassed and he blushed, but luckily the girl wasn't able to see it. Quickly he got off her foot, I'm sorry.

You excuse yourself too much.

I do?

Yes. But I don't have time to stand around and chat with you all day because now it's three o'clock and I'm late for my dance lessons.

Well, excuse me, I mean, err, but how do you know that it's three o'clock?

There's a clock hanging right over your head, man. Goodbye!

The man raised his eyes and saw the watch of the watchmaker's shop hanging right over his head and he got terribly embarrassed again and also a bit confused and he said goodbye to the girl, but she had already left and instead a fat old lady passed him and she said, What did you say? I don't hear very well.

I said goodbye.

You did? But we haven't even said hello, yet!

I didn't say goodbye to you.

What? I really don't hear that well. But when I was younger and the late Johansen was still alive, I could hear everything! Olga, Johansen said, Olga-polka, that was what Johansen always called me, bless his soul, Olga-polka, your hearing is even better than Fido's. Well, Fido was our dog, you know, such a sweet little poodle, all black and woolly and…but now he's with Johansen and I'm the only one left, we all get older, you know, but tell you what, I didn't like Fido being called Fido. I think he should have been called Spot or Blackie, but it was Johansen who decided on Fido, as he used to have a dog named Fido, and after all he was the man of the house and I was just a weak and helpless woman, that's how life is, or what do you think?

Hello. And goodbye.

What? You have to speak up. It's these modern hearing aids, they are no good and…

And the man backed away step by step so that the woman wouldn't notice that he was leaving and when he reached the corner of the street, he started to run and he didn't look back and he didn't stop until he was seven blocks away.

When the man was able to breathe again after the unexpected run, he dossed about the street and enjoyed the sharp air and the rays of the sun that were pale and without heat. Actually he was quite busy as he had to be in a house soon where he was to have a meeting, but right now it didn't seem important to him because it had been a while since he had been outside and he just couldn't get enough of all the hustle and bustle surrounding him. The man felt as if he had just been released from a long stay at a hospital. When you're in hospital, the world disappears, you see, and it feels like only your ward exists and maybe, if you are able to walk, the long corridor leading to the day room and the bathroom. Everything else, the city, the people, the everyday problems and even life, it doesn't exist. It's something that belongs in a dream or maybe in a former life. And when you're released, if you are one of the lucky ones who are released, it all engulfs you, the city, the people, the everyday problems and life, and you have to be everywhere and take part in everything, because it feels as if you were handed a new life and a clearer mind and this time you won't take life for granted but enjoy every second of it, because you owe it to life and to yourself.

So the man walked on and enjoyed life and the noise and the cold and he was surprised when he saw his breath in front of him and when he felt the cold surgery knives of air in his lungs and on his hands and he became quite happy and thought of the little girl who thought that the meaning of life is to eat cake. The man was inclined to agree with her. Cake. Cake and chocolate. That would make any person just a little bit happy.

And the man felt a huge need for cake and chocolate, but there wasn't a bakery in sight or a candy store and that's just so typical that there isn't one around when you need one. So the man just went on and he was a bit annoyed because he wouldn't get cake and actually he didn't have the time to think of all these cakes because he had this meeting and he really had to pull himself together. The man became very determined and turned into a street that ought to be a shortcut to the house where he had the meeting, and right there on the pavement just in front of him was a vending machine where you could buy cake and chocolate.

The man stood for several minutes and just looked at the vending machine and tried to understand his luck, then he started to examine what was behind the small panes of glass in the machine. There were cream tarts and Danish and Bounty (the taste of Paradise) and then the most divine piece of chocolate with nuts and cherries on top. And the man decided that that piece, that was his. He started to rummage feverishly through his pockets in order to locate a coin, but no matter which pocket he looked in, he only had bills, bills and more bills. The man was just about to give up when - deep down in his right jeans pocket – he felt something round and cool and well-known. Carefully the man tried to seize the round object, because there was a hole in that pocket and if the round thing slipped out of that hole, the man would have to take off both his boot and sock in order to get it and the man didn't feel like doing that at all as it was a very cold day. So the man was very careful and with two long, nice, well-groomed fingers he got hold of the round thing and pulled it out of the pocket and to his great happiness it was indeed a coin and exactly such a coin that he could use for the vending machine.

Carefully the man put the coin into the vending machine and he grabbed the handle on the pane behind which he could see the piece of chocolate with nuts and cherries and he pulled and…nothing happened. The man pulled the handle once more, he pulled and pulled, but the pane stayed put and the chocolate stayed put as well. For a moment the man considered what to do next, then he pushed the button that ought to return his coin in case anything went wrong, but the coin wasn't returned and the man thought it very strange and then he tried to look into the slit where he had deposited his coin. The man was almost certain that he could see the coin right there at the back of the slit and he started hitting the vending machine, because the coin had to be stuck and if he hit hard enough it would probably get loose.

But no matter how hard the man hit, nothing happened. The man was getting very impatient and he was dying to get that piece of chocolate, so he decided to do something that normally he wouldn't have done. From his back pocket he got out a steel comb and he didn't think twice, but pressed the steel comb inside the slit, hoping that it would loosen the coin. But it didn't. So the man pulled at the steel comb to get it out of the slit again, but it was stuck and it looked very conspicuous, the way it stuck out from the slit.

The man was getting desperate now and he could feel the panic and the anger rise, because this wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all that he would lose the chocolate and the coin and the steel comb as well. So the man started hitting the machine even harder and he pushed and pulled it so hard that it threatened to come loose of the bolts that kept it in place against the wall and to fall upon the man and crush him underneath its contents of Danish and chocolate and cream puffs and it would probably have done so, if the man hadn’t felt a firm grip on his shoulder and heard a flat, drawling voice say, And what d'you think you're doing, pal?

Erm…I…ehh…

The man turned around and looked into the eyes of a fat, balding man in an apron. He had small, blinking eyes and a cigar stump in the corner of his mouth.

No, you don't do anything, do you? the apron-clad man said. You're just giving my vending machine it's daily trashing, aren't you?

No, I…

Yeah, you're as innocent as a new-born baby, you all are, aren't you?

I…erh…

And the man saw how behind the apron-clad speaker people started to gather, first a few, then some more until it was quite a crowd. And from that crowd a couple of gorillas emerged, huge men with huge arms, and they said, What's up, Onslow?

Well, him! He's one of them vandalisers!

You want us to call the pigs, Onslow?

Nah, we'll handle it ourselves.

And Onslow smiled and the gorillas smiled and they started to roll up their sleeves and the man looked around and he felt the mortal fear shake his body so he made a quick decision and pushed aside Onslow and started to run, run through the crowd that tried to hold on to him back and pointed their fingers at him and yelled vandal and scum at him, but the man pulled away from them and he ran and he didn't know where to run.

The voices and the noise died down, but the man kept on running until the surgical knives of air threatened to cut up his lungs. Then he stopped and heaved for air and he started walking, slowly, pretending that everything was okay in order not to look suspicious and he thought about why his life had a tendency to develop into something that resembled the nightmare of a madman and then he thought about the chocolate.

It was so annoying that he didn't have anymore coins now that he wanted that piece of chocolate so badly. But what if he went to the bank? If he hurried to the bank and had a bill changed into coins, then he could just go back to the vending machine and get that piece of chocolate and it would take him a while to get from here to the bank and back again, so when he came back, the crowd would have probably disappeared and no one would recognise him and they would probably have removed the steel comb too and fixed the machine and then he could get the chocolate without any further ado. But did he have the time to go to the bank? He looked at his wrist. That didn't make him any wiser. But if he hurried, really hurried, he could probably make it and be on time at the house where he had a meeting before anyone thought of calling to check that he had actually turned up. And he really needed that piece of chocolate!

The man walked through the park to the bank. Not that the park was a particularly pretty sight this time of year, where the trees were leafless and the snow was gathered in small dirty heaps on the paths and the ducks huddled together in the small houses that had been put up for them. But the park was peaceful. Peaceful and quiet with no people to point their fingers or yell nasty words at him.

The man felt like taking the path along the frozen lake because it was funny trying to see if the lake was frozen solid and to watch the geese skating around out there on their flat feet, but the man didn't because you read so many things in the papers about muggings and thugs hiding in the shrubbery by the lake. Instead the man took the path that went past the public lavatories.

The public lavatories were situated in a dirty-grey building with windows so thick that you couldn't smash the panes and with two brown doors that were always broken and which bore a sign each. The door to the left had a sign showing a stylised body with overhanging eaves from hips to knees and that meant ladies and the other sign showed a stylised body without eaves and that meant gents. The man found it stupid to put these stylised pictures on the doors, because who said that people were able to understand them? Maybe it was fairly easy to understand that the body with eaves was a woman and the body without was a man, although it was quite absurd as most women didn't wear eaves anymore and some men actually did. But apart from that, the signs didn't say anything about what took place behind the doors. As far as the man was concerned it could just as well be brothels or escort bureaus or slave trade offices, that would be more logical as you'd think you'd step inside to get a man or a woman as it were men or women that were advertised on the doors, not toilets. The man found it silly although he was aware that these signs weren't as silly as signs you could find in other countries. Would you believe it, in some countries there weren't toilets or men or women on the doors, but men and ladies' shoes! That's totally insane! The man had been to such a country and it had been very unpleasant, because he thought it was a shoe shop and he had wanted to buy his old mother a new pair of shoes. But now the man was wiser and he knew what signs with men and ladies' shoes meant and he also knew what signs with stylised bodies with or without eaves meant, but he still found them silly and he thought the signs ought to show toilets and urinals instead.

Next to the public lavatories in the park there stood a skinny woman with a bundle in her arms. When she spotted the man, she smiled broadly and ran to him and yelled, I need to pee! Please, hold Ayoe Belle for me?

And the man said, Ayoe what? and the woman said, I'm wetting my pants! and threw the bundle in the arms of the man and hurried behind the door with the sign with the stylised body with eaves.

The man stood there with the bundle and didn't know what to do. The bundle was very small and it was soft and warm and moved a bit. It must be alive. It must contain an Ayoe Belle, wasn't that what the woman had called it? The man didn't know what an Ayoe Belle was, he certainly didn't hope that it would bite, but he was quite curious too, so he loosened the bundle a bit to get a glimpse of the first Ayoe Belle in his life.

Ayoe Belle was baby. A tiny, a bit dark-skinned baby, who was sleeping and grunting and moving its tiny body. And the man grew all soft inside, soft and solemn, because he had never held a baby before, not even when his younger siblings were born, and his chest swelled with the strangest feelings and he looked down on the tiny Ayoe Belle and thought about the young life that was about to begin and he thought about his own life that seemed to have no beginning or end, no heads or tails or anything else for that matter and if he had had a tiny Ayoe Belle in his life, then at least he'd have had a reason to live and the woman behind the door with the stylised body with eaves must be very happy. And he thought about the woman and thought that she seemed a bit familiar and so did the way she had said that she was wetting her pants, because her voice reminded him of a voice that he had heard years ago, but it hadn't belonged to this woman, because this woman was way too skinny and worn to look at and her face…the man hadn't even really seen her face because it was fairly dark and difficult to see anything in the first place.

And the man stood peacefully on the path outside the public lavatories with the tiny Ayoe Belle bundle in his arms and he was very careful and made small calming noises so that the little one wouldn't wake up. Then the door with the sign with the body without eaves swung open and you could hear heavy footsteps and then in front of the man a giant with arms as big as country bread and eyes as flashing as fireworks appeared, What the hell are you doing with my daughter!!!

Your...erm…

Don't gimme that! I know what you're up to!

You do, oh dear!

You was about to kidnap her! Ugh, such a pervert!

No, I… and the man tried to give the bundle to the giant, but he wouldn't take it. He just stood there, cursing and swearing. But then the door with the sign with the body with eaves slammed and the woman returned and said, What's up?

It's that perverted swine there, he tried to make off with Ayoe Belle!

No, he didn't! I gave her to him.

You what?

Yeah. You took forever and I was almost wetting myself and…

"But how the hell could you give her to him?"

The woman smiled a bit when she said, He looked so innocent! and the giant looked from the woman to the man and back to the woman again and then he started laughing, very noisily and Ayoe Belle woke up and made some noises too and the woman took her from the man and she was almost laughing as well and the giant said, I'm gonna give you three kisses on Tuesday for this! and then the woman finally broke down and laughed and the giant and the woman looked so happy that the man felt in the way and he started walking towards the exit of the park and he couldn't stop, not even when the woman and the giant shouted that he should and that they wanted to thank him.

When the man was outside the park, he stood for a moment, gathering himself together. He always felt weird when he saw somebody being happy. It was so weird. Would you believe it, there were actually people who were happy! Happiness. It was a strange word. And a strange feeling. A real cheat feeling. Because you never knew when it was there. You only knew when it was gone. The man had tried that many times in his life. Finding out that he had been happy when happiness was gone. In fact he had been a tiny bit happy when he stood with that bundle in his arms. It had given him a feeling of, well, dignity and holiness and... But the bundle was gone and that was that. The man just hoped that the woman and the giant knew how happy they were now instead of realising it when it was too late. The man got quite sad, but then he remembered the chocolate in the vending machine and chocolate always makes you at least a little bit happy, so he hurried down the street and into the bank.

There were many people in the bank. There always was just before closing time. The man contemplated if he had the time to get his money changed and get back to the vending machine before his meeting, as it could be rather difficult with all these people, but now he had got this far and the chocolate was just waiting for him, so he wouldn't give up now! The man went to stand in the queue that looked shortest, but of course it wasn't and it moved much slower than the other queues. It also seemed to be a very odd queue because the people in the other queues glanced at it and especially at the man and some of the people whispered to each other and the kids pointed at him and no one went to stand behind him. The man pretended not to notice. He just couldn't take any more unpleasantness today. He just wanted to stand here and think about the chocolate.

Finally the man reached the counter and he said, I would like to... and the bank clerk looked up and saw the man and then she started screaming and pushed a button that set off the alarms and four strong bank clerks jumped the man and twisted his arm behind his back and it hurt awfully and they tore his sunglasses off and his balaclava as well and they yelled that he couldn't flee now because they had seen his face, you wretched bank robber!

And the man said that he wasn't a bank robber, but the bank clerks wouldn't listen to him and just you wait, the police will be here soon, and the man said that he hadn't done anything and he just wanted this note changed into coins and they said, yeah, sure, such a bastard, why else would you be dressed like this, and the man said, please let me explain, and they wouldn't, but he kept on talking so they couldn't avoid hearing him and in the end they listened and the man explained why he had to wear sunglasses and a balaclava and the bank clerks looked at him in disbelief and the customers in the bank who had been standing with staring eyes and suppressed, tingling breath started giggling and calling the man a bum and a weakling. And the man swore that he was telling the truth and the bank clerks weren't so sure of themselves anymore, because the man hadn't actually done anything and the customers said, let the poor fool go, and the bank clerks loosened their grip as he didn't seem particularly dangerous and maybe you ought to feel sorry for him and they said, go on then, scram before the police get here, and they said, don't show yourself here anymore, and the customers laughed and the bank clerks had a hard time trying not to laugh as well and they all agreed that the man had to be an idiot and a fool and maybe a drunkard too who'd had a bit too much to drink.

And the man hurried out into the street and he found that life was difficult and unfair because he'd forgot to get his note changed so now he wouldn't get the chocolate after all and he looked at his arm and it was probably frightfully late so he hurried to put on his balaclava and sunglasses and then he hurried to the house where he had a meeting.

The man rang the doorbell at the house where he had a meeting and then he stood for a while and coughed and whistled and waited to be let in: And finally, finally the door was opened and a woman showed herself in the door opening saying, Oh my, goodness. What is this? and the man said, It's me! and the woman said, Well, everybody can say that without lying! and the man quickly removed his sunglasses and said, It's me, Peter!

Peter Piper

So the name of the man was Peter. A lot of people are called Peter. In 1954 it was the 5th most popular boys’ name and thirty years later, in 1984, it was still popular, holding position number 23, so it's safe to say that a lot of people wanted their sons to be named Peter. Now this Peter wasn't just any old Peter. He was Peter Hafting. Not Peter Holmes or Peter Smith or Peter Brown or any other