I am sitting in a formal park in Central America with Original Anne and there is a white stone terrace up above us attached to the main house. It stretches from one end to the other. And I am describing to her that the sound is from a coqui, a little frog that makes a sound like “co-koo” but clipped, like the alarm from an iPhone.
“I know that,” she emphasizes as we walk through the park.
We continue up the steps to the terrace. And the first level is wide and laid with turf instead of concrete so we settle down in one corner by one of the stone pots that decorates the balustrade.
She lays out a picnic salad of greens with a red barbecue dressing and each of us has a cardboard plate. And she points out, in the bowl, almost disguised by the sauce is the frog.
“See,” she says, as I mix the greens around to find the frog.
It is very small but then I see its hind legs and a general frog shape outlined in the sauce. With my spoon I am about to aim some of the sauce at her when she takes her own spoon and slops some on my leg.
“Hey,” I cry out, “You got some on my pants!”
I scrape the sauce off my white shorts on to my thigh, before spooning it onto my plate.
I’m back home in a dark medieval two room flat on the ground floor. It has small lead windows and it is already late at night. On the phone we are talking about getting married when I hear a screech.
I look outside and see a black car, square like one of those gangster cars from the thirties or forties. In the back of the car a lady is sat straight and from her profile and her long dark hair I recognize her as Janet. She has a large shard of glass in her hands, it glints along the broken edge. She is shrieking and threatening to stab herself with it, holding it up in front of her, ready to arc it down to her stomach.
I rush outside but by now the car is jackknifed across the road. The back stretches into the opposite lane and the driver has gotten out of the car.
“Get in the car!” he yells.
The driver side door is wide open. A car coming in the opposite direction will crash into it and spin the car around.
“No!” I reply.
“Then Original Anne should get in,” he shouts.
Not that either.
I have got to get to her before he does.
I run up the narrow lane to her place, the jackknifed car at my back. And I run up the steps to a new white walled flat. I knock on the wall of the front hallway for there is no front door. Then I step into a bare furniture less front room.
It’s a studio flat, though it has a couple of rooms off to the right. But it is also windowless, or dark, I cannot tell which, as I have not been there before. The only light comes from the front entrance.
I continue knocking on the wall before I fully enter the grey light room but the door to one room is closed. Maybe she is there but there is no sound.
She might not even be in the flat.
Photo from PxHere
