It took me a long time to choose them. I did it diligently, even obsessively towards the end. I really wanted to get my hands on good ones, not random ones. I did it with such care that normal people don’t use, they don’t waste so much time under the boredom of daytime lamps by one shelf of non-excusive goods. I choose black rather than green ones, as large as possible, fleshy, pinkish and swollen, in the shape of a fat thumb. I took the largest container, so we would not run out halfway through the evening. As if they were more important, it happened on an insignificant roadside, in a medium-sized Maxima store, during rush hour. Finally, after a long queue at a self-service checkout, my olives crumbled into sweet-smelling shreds before I could pack my bundle, and before I could even start dreaming of a hearty dinner in the fresh air. They splashed noisily under everybody’s feet, chaotically sliding around. The hall employees gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look of sympathy, as if it was not them, but me, who was going to take a broom and dance the waltz on the slippery tiles instead of a donut break.
I rushed empty-handed to my family, waiting in the car. I still managed to tell them about my wild adventure, but at the first turn towards home – I forgot about it all. Forgetfulness is always betrayed by deep, calm breathing and seeing what is overhead, on the ceiling or in the sky. That is what I find the most interesting about this story.
The ease of forgetting. It is a phenomenon, I think, when you refuse to transfer something what was, to what is. You don’t eat the crumbs of the past tense out of an empty breadbox that reeks of sour mould, you feed on the fresh and sweet present ripening in your eyes. You leave the carriage of unnecessary things to the past finite tense, and flush the key to it down the drain. You only take a small bag the size of a deep pocket with you.
I meant to write about it the same day, but I desperately forgot. Irreversibly, it seems. In truth, my efforts to remember what I wanted to tell were fruitless for a few weeks. In that time, I had experienced many new and colourful events, which I did not record, I did not store, nor preserve the sacredness of them in the least. I left them where I found them. To no avail. I learn to live in the grace of forgetting. Now, I just barely remembered my most precious uneaten olives and scraps of the past, just to share them with you. To set free the message and forget about it again, forever.