MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 55
Spring is soon and in the air, not long away. There was a season, the spring after the
summer of love, that time of the sixties when music challenged the ways things are…
when hope was passionately alive, all seemed possible, and the future brilliantly light.
This was Monterey and Haight-Ashbury but it was also Prague, and the long season that
lasted until late August of 1968, and ended in armored invasion from Warsaw Pact
countries, tank columns crushing reforms and ending hopes, is still known as the Prague
Spring.
He came today to see her, it is Sunday, and on Friday she flies to Europe, Prague, Kiev,
back to Prague, and on to Moscow, and is away for almost three weeks. He came
wondering what he wanted before she goes, he has kissed her, held her, but no more
than this, he is looking for a partner, and is in no rush. When she comes back it will be
green spring, she said she would bring a kite from Prague.
And he says, as long as we are dating, I want exclusivity. She doesn’t understand, and
he explains, and she says, of course…I don’t know why you would say this. To Káca, this
seems obvious. And he says, because we talk about these things, I don’t want any
confusion. And she agrees, yes, we shall date only each other, while we date each other.
And this is where Káca lives, for now, Edgewater, where she takes pictures of sunrises
from her apartment window.
They had a good day together, they had a very good day…they will see each other once
more before she goes, then a period of quiet. He feel disquiets, but he always feel
disquiet. He feels calmness, peace, He is in communion with other times in his life when
he has paused and reflected.
In days to come, the final scenes of “Vanilla Sky”, a strange movie about loss, will run
and rerun through his head. The immediate connection is location, those final scenes of
the film were also on a rooftop. But more than that, much more than mere romance is a
tone of somberness, from that film to these moments in this cool night breeze. All will be
revealed, in another lifetime, when we both are cats.
He had asked Káca about Prague Spring. He had known all that she explained. It is
time to go downstairs and they wait for the elevator. She told him that she remembers
seeing the tanks roll in, and she was excited, a child of three. They ride the elevator
down to her apartment. Her mother told her it was not a good thing, these tanks.
He kisses her, the longest kiss, he feels no passion, not yet, but immense promise. It
was an exciting time, that spring so long ago, when the Czechoslovakian world was
poised to become so much more…he will see Káca again Wednesday, briefly, and then
she is away. She said she would bring a kite from Prague, when he had said he looked
forward to flying one. The wall was falling, so long ago, in that shimmering season of
promise, but something went terribly wrong, and the wall would stand twenty-one more
years.
The next day, they chat only briefly online. The day after that is complete silence. Káca
reappears the next day, the day of their date. She tells him that she has tried, but she is
not attracted to him. He asks if her attraction has grown, she says yes, but not enough.
She had heard from an old boyfriend, had fled to Columbus.
He thinks she is afraid. He thinks she is walking away for silly reasons. But she is
walking away, she is gone, and it is over.
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