ALOE VERA
ALOE VERA
We spread moisturising cream for a dry skin
on the dead man’s face and his niece knelt in front of the coffin praying thus:
on the dead man’s face and his niece knelt in front of the coffin praying thus:
Come on, Aloe Vera,
make my uncle’s cheeks rosy, and you almond oil, tickle him round the lips, I know that will wake him up from even the deepest dream,a neighbour threw in that Aloe Vera does miracles and is it not obvious from the look of her skin like a baby’s, she said, and she’s already pushing fifty.
We all turned to her and forgot that the mask should be left for 7 minutes on a live person’s face,
and on a dead person’s – three, his niece’s prayer ended, the mask broke, we buried the taxi driver
without his face, but refreshed from the inside.
make my uncle’s cheeks rosy, and you almond oil, tickle him round the lips, I know that will wake him up from even the deepest dream,a neighbour threw in that Aloe Vera does miracles and is it not obvious from the look of her skin like a baby’s, she said, and she’s already pushing fifty.
We all turned to her and forgot that the mask should be left for 7 minutes on a live person’s face,
and on a dead person’s – three, his niece’s prayer ended, the mask broke, we buried the taxi driver
without his face, but refreshed from the inside.
On the way back, a cloaked woman appeared in front of us with a tray full of red apples. There are as many truths as there are apples, she said, here,
help yourselves, isn’t it true, newly-weds, that survival in this world depends solely on those in love for the first time on an embankment brimming with unrecycled romance?
help yourselves, isn’t it true, newly-weds, that survival in this world depends solely on those in love for the first time on an embankment brimming with unrecycled romance?
She must be mad,thought he, and the bride started yelling at the top of her voice:
‘You see? And you have let go my hand a thousand times!’ and she unmarried the hairdo to get which
she had spent her whole life under the hair-drier, so that to her the funeral they were returning from smelled of an ozone hole. The dead man put his hand in his pocket and never removed it again in Einstein’s world.
Was it a funeral or a wedding, Aloe Vera?
Who married whom? Who buried whom?
‘You see? And you have let go my hand a thousand times!’ and she unmarried the hairdo to get which
she had spent her whole life under the hair-drier, so that to her the funeral they were returning from smelled of an ozone hole. The dead man put his hand in his pocket and never removed it again in Einstein’s world.
Was it a funeral or a wedding, Aloe Vera?
Who married whom? Who buried whom?
© 2003, Lidija Dimkovska
