Honestly: the end of 2021 was just a seam. It started to bubble in mid-November, but towards Christmas I was crying again at the doctor. Every few years all the sludge from my past comes up, and I then have to sit in it for a few months before I can continue. This time I had absolutely no interest in it. Whenever I have to tell my life story for a referral, doctors, nurse practitioners and therapists sit hysterically for twenty minutes, circling words and drawing timelines. Then they read through everything – while I stare down at my knees – and then usually say, “Yeah.”
Every now and then I talk to my neighbor in the street. During one of our chats, he told me that he bets all his money on cryonics. For those who don’t know: that is the controversial procedure in which you freeze your body, so that it can be brought back to life in the future. I asked him why on earth he would want to spend any longer on earth.
“I have already been brought into the world without consultation,” he said, “the least I can get in return is that I die whenever I want to.” Fair enough. He asked me if I wasn’t curious about the future too. I laugh. The idea alone: waking up in the distant future with all that baggage, all that knowledge, experience, emotion, and then get used to a new world?
I understand the desire for control, by the way. Or at least: the desire that your wishes are somewhat respected. Can’t this be later? you want to be able to ask, and that your request is then honored. I know a woman who made a commitment to herself at the age of thirty to enter therapy for at least three years, as a sort of evaluation meeting. That sounded chic.
Just before Christmas I watched the movie Air Conditioner, the debut film of the Fradique (pseudonym of Mário Bastos). The film follows Matacedo, a handyman who has to fix his cranky boss’ air conditioner in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Problem: All the air conditioners in the city have given up. Like comets, they even fall from the sky. In broad daylight they crash into the streets of the capital. People die, from the bloody impact or from the heat. Eventually, Matacedo and the maid Zezinha end up with Mino, an electrician who is convinced that the appliances are full of precious memories.
According to Fradique, Matacedo symbolizes the many jacks-of-all-trades in Luanda, often ex-soldiers who fought in the Civil War and now do odd jobs for the new middle class for meager wages. In today’s world there is no room for their memories, their unrealized dreams. They dissolve in circulated city air, without any acknowledgment. The falling air conditioners – heavy with their experiences – demand brutal attention for this.
I could of course take a lesson from it, but it is the disrespect that I hate so much. You move forward so hard and suddenly you’re lying on the floor with a bucket of shit over you and then you also have to drive yourself to the doctor. That could be friendlier.
Simone Atangana Bekono is a poet and writer and replaces Frits Abrahams during his holiday.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 5, 2022
Honestly: the end of 2021 was just a seam. It started to bubble in mid-November, but towards Christmas I was crying again at the doctor. Every few years all the sludge from my past comes up, and I then have to sit in it for a few months before I can continue. This time I had absolutely no interest in it. Whenever I have to tell my life story for a referral, doctors, nurse practitioners and therapists sit hysterically for twenty minutes, circling words and drawing timelines. Then they read through everything – while I stare down at my knees – and then usually say, “Yeah.”
Every now and then I talk to my neighbor in the street. During one of our chats, he told me that he bets all his money on cryonics. For those who don’t know: that is the controversial procedure in which you freeze your body, so that it can be brought back to life in the future. I asked him why on earth he would want to spend any longer on earth.
“I have already been brought into the world without consultation,” he said, “the least I can get in return is that I die whenever I want to.” Fair enough. He asked me if I wasn’t curious about the future too. I laugh. The idea alone: waking up in the distant future with all that baggage, all that knowledge, experience, emotion, and then get used to a new world?
I understand the desire for control, by the way. Or at least: the desire that your wishes are somewhat respected. Can’t this be later? you want to be able to ask, and that your request is then honored. I know a woman who made a commitment to herself at the age of thirty to enter therapy for at least three years, as a sort of evaluation meeting. That sounded chic.
Just before Christmas I watched the movie Air Conditioner, the debut film of the Fradique (pseudonym of Mário Bastos). The film follows Matacedo, a handyman who has to fix his cranky boss’ air conditioner in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Problem: All the air conditioners in the city have given up. Like comets, they even fall from the sky. In broad daylight they crash into the streets of the capital. People die, from the bloody impact or from the heat. Eventually, Matacedo and the maid Zezinha end up with Mino, an electrician who is convinced that the appliances are full of precious memories.
According to Fradique, Matacedo symbolizes the many jacks-of-all-trades in Luanda, often ex-soldiers who fought in the Civil War and now do odd jobs for the new middle class for meager wages. In today’s world there is no room for their memories, their unrealized dreams. They dissolve in circulated city air, without any acknowledgment. The falling air conditioners – heavy with their experiences – demand brutal attention for this.
I could of course take a lesson from it, but it is the disrespect that I hate so much. You move forward so hard and suddenly you’re lying on the floor with a bucket of shit over you and then you also have to drive yourself to the doctor. That could be friendlier.
Simone Atangana Bekono is a poet and writer and replaces Frits Abrahams during his holiday.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 5, 2022
Honestly: the end of 2021 was just a seam. It started to bubble in mid-November, but towards Christmas I was crying again at the doctor. Every few years all the sludge from my past comes up, and I then have to sit in it for a few months before I can continue. This time I had absolutely no interest in it. Whenever I have to tell my life story for a referral, doctors, nurse practitioners and therapists sit hysterically for twenty minutes, circling words and drawing timelines. Then they read through everything – while I stare down at my knees – and then usually say, “Yeah.”
Every now and then I talk to my neighbor in the street. During one of our chats, he told me that he bets all his money on cryonics. For those who don’t know: that is the controversial procedure in which you freeze your body, so that it can be brought back to life in the future. I asked him why on earth he would want to spend any longer on earth.
“I have already been brought into the world without consultation,” he said, “the least I can get in return is that I die whenever I want to.” Fair enough. He asked me if I wasn’t curious about the future too. I laugh. The idea alone: waking up in the distant future with all that baggage, all that knowledge, experience, emotion, and then get used to a new world?
I understand the desire for control, by the way. Or at least: the desire that your wishes are somewhat respected. Can’t this be later? you want to be able to ask, and that your request is then honored. I know a woman who made a commitment to herself at the age of thirty to enter therapy for at least three years, as a sort of evaluation meeting. That sounded chic.
Just before Christmas I watched the movie Air Conditioner, the debut film of the Fradique (pseudonym of Mário Bastos). The film follows Matacedo, a handyman who has to fix his cranky boss’ air conditioner in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Problem: All the air conditioners in the city have given up. Like comets, they even fall from the sky. In broad daylight they crash into the streets of the capital. People die, from the bloody impact or from the heat. Eventually, Matacedo and the maid Zezinha end up with Mino, an electrician who is convinced that the appliances are full of precious memories.
According to Fradique, Matacedo symbolizes the many jacks-of-all-trades in Luanda, often ex-soldiers who fought in the Civil War and now do odd jobs for the new middle class for meager wages. In today’s world there is no room for their memories, their unrealized dreams. They dissolve in circulated city air, without any acknowledgment. The falling air conditioners – heavy with their experiences – demand brutal attention for this.
I could of course take a lesson from it, but it is the disrespect that I hate so much. You move forward so hard and suddenly you’re lying on the floor with a bucket of shit over you and then you also have to drive yourself to the doctor. That could be friendlier.
Simone Atangana Bekono is a poet and writer and replaces Frits Abrahams during his holiday.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 5, 2022
Honestly: the end of 2021 was just a seam. It started to bubble in mid-November, but towards Christmas I was crying again at the doctor. Every few years all the sludge from my past comes up, and I then have to sit in it for a few months before I can continue. This time I had absolutely no interest in it. Whenever I have to tell my life story for a referral, doctors, nurse practitioners and therapists sit hysterically for twenty minutes, circling words and drawing timelines. Then they read through everything – while I stare down at my knees – and then usually say, “Yeah.”
Every now and then I talk to my neighbor in the street. During one of our chats, he told me that he bets all his money on cryonics. For those who don’t know: that is the controversial procedure in which you freeze your body, so that it can be brought back to life in the future. I asked him why on earth he would want to spend any longer on earth.
“I have already been brought into the world without consultation,” he said, “the least I can get in return is that I die whenever I want to.” Fair enough. He asked me if I wasn’t curious about the future too. I laugh. The idea alone: waking up in the distant future with all that baggage, all that knowledge, experience, emotion, and then get used to a new world?
I understand the desire for control, by the way. Or at least: the desire that your wishes are somewhat respected. Can’t this be later? you want to be able to ask, and that your request is then honored. I know a woman who made a commitment to herself at the age of thirty to enter therapy for at least three years, as a sort of evaluation meeting. That sounded chic.
Just before Christmas I watched the movie Air Conditioner, the debut film of the Fradique (pseudonym of Mário Bastos). The film follows Matacedo, a handyman who has to fix his cranky boss’ air conditioner in Luanda, the capital of Angola. Problem: All the air conditioners in the city have given up. Like comets, they even fall from the sky. In broad daylight they crash into the streets of the capital. People die, from the bloody impact or from the heat. Eventually, Matacedo and the maid Zezinha end up with Mino, an electrician who is convinced that the appliances are full of precious memories.
According to Fradique, Matacedo symbolizes the many jacks-of-all-trades in Luanda, often ex-soldiers who fought in the Civil War and now do odd jobs for the new middle class for meager wages. In today’s world there is no room for their memories, their unrealized dreams. They dissolve in circulated city air, without any acknowledgment. The falling air conditioners – heavy with their experiences – demand brutal attention for this.
I could of course take a lesson from it, but it is the disrespect that I hate so much. You move forward so hard and suddenly you’re lying on the floor with a bucket of shit over you and then you also have to drive yourself to the doctor. That could be friendlier.
Simone Atangana Bekono is a poet and writer and replaces Frits Abrahams during his holiday.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 5, 2022