The Aviator

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I used to tell her: wear a hat when it’s cold, otherwise you’ll get frostbite on your ears. Have a look, I would say, at how many pedestrians these days don’t have ears. She would agree – yes, yes, she’d say, I should – but she didn’t wear one. She would laugh at the joke and go around without a hat anyway. That little picture surfaced in my memory just now, though I haven’t the faintest idea whom it concerns.

Or perhaps a scandalous scene had come to mind, an outrageous and grueling one. It is unclear where it played out. The shame is that the interaction began well (one might even say good-naturedly) and then one word led to another and everyone quarreled. The main thing is that we were the ones who were surprised later: what was that for, why?

Someone noticed that funeral banquets are often like that: people talk for an hour and a half or so about what a good person the deceased was. And then someone in attendance remembers that, actually, the deceased was not perfect. And here, as if on command, lots of people begin speaking out and adding on, so, little by little, they come to the conclusion that the deceased was basically a first-rate heel.

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