THE ETERNAL QUESTION

 

 

We meet at Byron bay. She had a wry crooked grin hard to interpret. But I could tell she had already decided on having an affair. Who with was a secondary consideration. It was really just a matter of staying upright for twenty minutes. We walked down from the beach hotel and along the foreshore towards the lighthouse.

' It said in your profile that you are Finland's greatest living poet. Mmm. but Sven's not a Finnish name. '

"My mother was Norwegian. "

'Then why aren't you Norway's greatest living poet? '

"Because that is my friend Parvo. That's his turf, and everyone knows it. "

'It said you were six foot three. Hmm. And you are 35. Hmm.'

We had reached the pier, its pillars seemed to be made of seaweed and the gulls swung low.

I pointed to them...misdirection the best ploy here.

"There is a Finnish expression...aveano,Averay, aveniet, grendomen, which roughly translates as the sound made by loose, slightly compressed snow falling off the wing of a crane flying over the fiords of my country. "

'Finland doesn't have fiords', she carped.

We stopped to look out at dolphin island. 'So how old are you? '

This wasn't going well.

" See this pier?", I said. "It's seen generations of turtles lay their eggs here to toddle off to the warmer waters. When I was a boy you could walk across the bay and that island was a hillock. That's how old I am."

We strolled a little further. That's dealt with that one I thought and also showed her I might indeed be Finland's greatest living poet. We ventured out onto the pier. Her eyes I noticed were blue. Ice blue. Mein got. 'So...how old are you? '

"See these Sands", I said, "when I was a boy they were great rocks, thrown around by the giants of Asgard like so many dice. How long it's taken to wear this rocks to sand, that's how old I am."

She smiled that crooked smile. We walked towards the lighthouse and paused to breathe the offshore wind. Buzz like a nang.

'So....'..it hung like an icicle on the Dutchman's beard...'How old are you? '

"When Shiva churned the milk of the unmanifest, and brought forth his mirror self, the shakti of the seen and unseen, and the dynamo of creation was set in motion, and aeon after aeon was witness to their lovemaking as he split himself into seven billion souls warring and whoring with one other until Krishna himself forgot the thrill of the hunt and was lost to himself, unknowing, his true form covered by oceans of time and hidden in flesh, that's the time I was born. From that time until this, standing before you now, that's how old I am."

I looked at her, searching for a sign that she understood not to go there any more, and that if she did, I would reveal my true and terrible form, and , like Arjuna, she would need a neural reboot.

But she just tilted her head slightly to better drive it home...

'So..... how old are you?'

"Forty three", I sighed, resigned. She brushed some windswept hair away from her face...and looked at me with those icy icy eyes....'oh - that old?' 

 (From 'My Year As Sven' )