Questions and Lamps ( On Topic "Normality") by EMANUEL STOICA

Fragment of the volume of short prose Windows to the Unreal, Publishing House "Clusium", 2008 , English version by Ana Cociş

The conversations with my favourite spider , Albert, are most of the times impossible to digest...

Taking advantage of my absentmindedness while Iwas pouring a glass of wine, Albert struck home. I was in fact expecting such an attitude from him... I was ready , this why I offered him this oportunity. It was a sort of complicity wich I could sense he , too, acknowledged. He mad me angry again. He started with a question that seemed futile to a certain extent.

"What do you feel? What do you feel when you drink wine or water, what do you feel when you are happy, what do you feel when you are sad ? There is no proof that , when someone speacks about the red colour , they perceive the same colour as the next person. Maybe we are connected only by verbal conventions wich lead us to think that we see the same things . Thus, we strenghten our belief that we are witnessing phenomena wich , in fact, we never understand. Everybody has the chance to ask themselves such questions, at a certain moment", Albert added somewhat shyly.

I was raging. I had to pay him in his own coin. So, i told him about a fascinating performance given by some chess-addicted fellows. I used to watch them for evenings in a row competing in the most complex and powerful mind-game, some of them lingering till late at night in the park, where an inspired architect had designed some concrete tables with inlaid chess board. I admired them for the courage to take the chance of losing under the eyes of connoiseurs and opponents. Victory was also possible. Do your move and cross the line, I challenged him. What a big mistake!

"I have to confess a honest belief", Albert replied. " Many times someone who can make the shadow fall in a certain way under the street-lights is more powerful than all the politicians in the world. The passers-by are touched by the state of mind awakened by his idea.

" Every time someone passes under a street-light, they feel what the one who put it there wanted them to feel. More or less. Always to a certain extent".

I felt as if Iwas about to blow. I think he knew what wass to come. I grabbed a broom , dumped him on a shovel, and tryed to be as non violent as possible while throwing him out.

Personaly , I have nothing against spiders, I explained. I even find them cute. You have to understand , if only this time, that it cannot be otherwise. You've crossed the line, I rebuked him, almost yelling. I slammed the door. He didn't object. He knew the line almost by heart. I didn't ask, but I suspect he had a lot of fun every time this happened...

Since then, I have acquired another obsession. I tell everybody unrestrainledly that we'd better be careful when we pass by the street-lamps at night. Perhaps the doctor wanted to protect me. I told him, too, that he must be careful. He is a brave man. Although he offered me this impeccably clean white Spartan room, he and the rest of the hotel staff walk by the street-lamp without taking any measures. I saw them one night , trough the bars wich Albert found ugly and useless.

Albert is a real friend. He still visits me, despite the fact that I have thrown him out few times. I think I'd better ask the doctor whether I have an emotional problem. I consider myself a rather well-behaved person , so there is no other way I can explain these fits of rudeness.