e&tg 28

[rone]

I got angry.  "Do you see this?"  I pointed at my didjeridoo.  "This is a reminder of who i really am.  That girl who “beat me up” today?  That was me, lustrums past.  And at one point, i decided i'd walk away from it while i was still alive, still whole.  I took up a neighbor's proposition to busk, me on my didjeridoo, him on his djembe.  The first night, we split our money and there was a star left over.  He wanted to keep it, since it was his idea to play music in the streets.  I did not agree.  Our disagreement escalated and i broke his arm.  Over a damned copper coin."  I clenched my right hand.  "It was not an accident.  I very deliberately sought out to cripple his means of subsistence.  I could have broken his drum, but my thought then was to make him unable to work and to harm him.  It was an act of malice."  I opened my hand and let it fall on the bar.  "I am a malicious and violent man.  If i could not change then, when i was young, why should i change now?  How could i change now?"

Gialarçi looked at me sadly.  She put her hand in mine and said, "Mwaele, you already have changed.  Stop looking at who you used to be, at who you think you are, and look at what you're doing now, what you have now."

I pulled my hand back.  "I'm doing nothing but drinking beer i can't afford, abusing the good will of a friend, and feeling sorry for myself because i can't work anymore.  What do i have now?  Nothing."

She pressed her lips together, said a word and waved her hand at me.  Suddenly, light exploded before my eyes.  I reared back reflexively and fell off my stool.  "What the hell, Giali!" i yelled.  "I can't see!"

"Oh, i knew that."  I could hear her sneering.  "It seems to me that if you don't want to see, you might as well not bother seeing at all."

I stumbled as i got up and tried to find my seat.  After what seemed like minutes, i laid my hand on it, but it was pulled away.  Then something hit me in the back of the knees and i hit the floor again.  I felt someone kneel on my chest and i heard her voice in my ear.  "Now look what you've done," she whispered, "you've gone and made me lose my temper in my own beerhouse, in front of all my customers.  I do hope you haven't cost me any more business, Mwaele dear."