Kafka and Campari (cont’d) Christoffer Felix Wahlberg
T
hey say love is blind. But obviously “they” never moved in together. You woke up one day and found yourself in a bright curtainless studio apartment. The sun was reflecting off of a secondhand Ikea table with two black plastic chairs folded underneath. You looked around, counted the cardboard boxes and caught your reflection in the black, dead screen of my aunt’s old TV. You were sitting on a mattress on the floor wondering how quickly things had changed. Next to you there was a person you barely knew. You lifted the sheet and observed the hills of naked flesh and noticed a hairy erection winking enthusiastically at you from somewhere behind his lint filled belly button. You felt a mix of love and confusion and wondered who this person was and where he came from. Love isn’t blind. Love is a microscope and the longer you are in a relationship, the closer you look.
Twelve years ago we moved in together and, while I still slept, you unpacked your microscope, assembled it and placed the poor snoring boy under its gigantic lens. I could never keep up. My own microscope was a pitiful thing. The kind you give a seven-year-old child for Christmas, packed in a Styrofoam silhouette and barely more powerful than a magnifying glass. But you, your mother made sure you came better equipped. And with each year that passed, you used a stronger lens. Click, zoom x 1, he can never sleep. Click, zoom x 2, he needs new clothes. Click, zoom x 3, he should start exercising more. Click, zoom x 4, why doesn’t he pay his bills on time? Click, zoom x 5, he should talk to his friends more often.
21.
