‘The Adventures of Boris K.’ was already published in Serbia, but I’ve decided upon the expanded Kindle edition to have the cosmopolitan protagonist live through cosmopolitan fate, to have him read and loved not only in the isolated space of the Balkans, but also among the aboriginal tribes whom he, often, breaks bread with on his travels.
Dorian D., the tenants’ association vice-chairman of a decrepit Balkan-based building, followed the societal standards blindly, believed in them and fought for them tirelessly. He was an example of a warrior against evil, having no other thoughts other than those of holy duties to God and the IRS.
When a shop of exotic foods opened up in the building across the street Dorian D. decided to look into it in the name of the municipality. The moment he ordered the necessary ingredients for a lamb chop a la the Kosovo Maiden*, the checkout counter lady said:
‘We sell exclusively the specialties of Barbados!’
‘@#$% Barbados!’ D. mumbled this.
The patriotic lady cussed in Barbadian and said:
‘You owe me money for the virgin oil you dunked down your bag!’
Dorian D. shivered and nearly wept. He turned around and ran off, blushing like a newlywed bride.
The same day he visited daddy repairman. He sunk into the chair and with zero fear of the unknown he told him of the unpleasant encounter.
‘I want a symbol tattooed on my forehead which will rid me of this bad reputation of mine!’
A few hours later je went out into the street with three zeros tattooed on his forehead, flaunting like a peacock. For Dorian D. had NEVER been in debt to anyone!
He entered his apartment, turned off the lights and went to bed. The ink, which just so happened to be of exotic origin, moved from his lower to his upper forehead, closer to the moor, decorating it with grotesque patterns.
The next morning, Dorian D. made his way to the mirror to admire his ink. Instead of the beloved zeros, three sixes appeared in his reflection, a deed of the hellish ink game of Barbados.
*the Kosovo Maiden— a Serbian national symbol, is the central figure in a Serbian epic poem by the same name, symbol of Serbian womanhood—wanders the battlefield “amongst bleeding heroes,” seeking her bethrothed, who had been killed. She is the legendary “first nurse of Serbia”.
https://leilasamarrai.wordpress.com/2017/04/13/a-poem-about-a-crocodile/
“A Poem of a Crocodile”
Satire is a defense of the intelligent from the primitivism of the dumb. “Crodocile” is a poem which could be part of elementary school textbooks. It has a merry Ionian scale rhythm, I kept hearing the piano while reading it, occasionally trying to imagine it accompanied by sounds of acoustic guitars and, as a throwback to my childhood, the voice of Branko Kockica. Also, the poem, especially in its final verses, can of course be – though this is optional, of course – a reference to, as it is now popular and not all too politically correct to say, the influx of refugees, or rather migrants, into Europe. But this is not the end of it: “Crocodile” is also a poem of protest, engaged literature, a reflection of the author’s social consciousness and her view of society and the system, both here and in other parts of the globe. Still, she has a specific deal with the Crocodile, and she herself, as the verse puts it, is a Crocophile, meaning she knows all about the Crocodiles and other newcomers to Belgrade and Serbia, perhaps more than she is willing to share. Whether the Nile delta, Guatemala or tiny Serbia will be the house of crocodiles, whales and other magnificent creatures who truly sleep with their eyes beyond all evil, we might learn in the continuation of the poem or in the poetic cycle with this central topic, for the author, despite her minimal experience with rhyme [Paryse, Londyne…] feels at home with this style and with her lucidness and verse-laden engagement, the recommendation presents itself, meaning that, speaking in sports’ terms, the A-team stays the same.
http://www.alma.rs/autori/lj-stojanovic.html
https://belegbg.wordpress.com/2014/06/16/leila-samarrai-votka/
In his tiny two-by-two hole in the wall, Boris K. sat with a dignified expression on his face and his legs out in a straddle. He wore two left slippers of diverse colour. As he casually turned to peer in the cracked mirror, he was greatly displeased by the sight of his slicked-back gray hair. He attempted to part it à la Sieg Heil, but could not really pull it off because – he wore a flower in his hair, you see.
At springtime, as the locks of his raven hair started blooming, he left all the women breathless (left-wing ones in particular, as they were especially partial to flowers).
“There is a certain symbolism to them,” they claimed.
Boris K. was a seasoned communist, a ruin left behind by the transition, a redundant loser. Like many others, he looked back on the times when he subscribed to the Labourer newspaper with nostalgia. It used to be a matter of prestige.
Due to his former high-ranking positions as the coffee brewer and sentry for the Trade Union sessions, he retained the habit of sitting, sleeping and eating dressed in a gray business suit. On that cold evening he was waiting for the arrival of his landlady while reading “The Trial”. Remembering the times past and the chanting of the famous “Comrade Fidel, if you so said/we’d go live in a car shed,” Boris K. mused how, everything said and done, he was actually still living according to his beliefs. The very thought was heartwarming. Boris’ “car shed” belonged to none other than the very harpy, the very shrew who announced her intent to arrive at 6 AM on the dot. At that time, with the first rays of sun, she was to materialize in the flat. Boris felt hungry and mildly nauseous. Maybe it was the fear of the landlady, or perhaps an omen of the apocalypse. He felt confused. By the powers of the left wing, Boris K. was no coward!
He approached the old refrigerator, opened the handless door, and saw a drunken lady squeezed into a small glass cage. It was a bottle of vodka, the Russian standard with 40 percent of alcohol. The poster on the wall offered him support and encouragement, or at least so it appeared to Boris K. It seemed to be saying “Bottoms up, Boris! Long live the counterrevolution!”
“Alas… if only I could squeeze myself inside just like you,” Boris thought wistfully. He envisioned his landlady, the morning sun illuminating her like a halo, menacingly brandishing the electricity bill. He huddled against the wall, crying like a baby, his cheek resting against a poster. A thought pierced his aching head, which throbbed as if clenched within a hoop. “But I don’t drink.”
“Now or never,” he spoke out loud. After the first sip, it occurred to him that he should attempt to seduce his aging landlady. He was determined to fight to the bitter end.
“This is how Alexander the Great charged against the Persians with his sword!” he thought, detaching his tear-stained cheek from the poster. “Is the casino Alexander still open?” he asked the wall hopefully, his face beaming.
Feverishly, he contemplated the way to get out of debts. Even without a penny to his name, Boris K. decided to try his luck at the adjacent casino. He took a big gulp of vodka and stumbled. Toppling the chair, he knocked down the suit and the grey socks and grabbed for the closet. He let the bottle drop out of his hand after the second swig. Somewhere in the pile of jumbled clothing Boris spotted a formal suit à la Vienna. He looked at it from all sides. He looked both ways furtively, as if he were not alone in the room, so surprised he was at the appearance of a beautiful, shining suit in such a gloomy environment. He stroked the buttons gently with his fingertips. It was exactly what he needed. Boris K. looked up at the ceiling and muttered “Thanks!”
Delighted, he cast another glance toward the closet and noticed the secret barrier dividing it into two parts. He grabbed the handle and shook it tentatively, but it appeared to be locked. Boris K. stepped back and stood in the middle of the room. The bottle of vodka back in his hand, he raged at the locked compartment.
“You’re hiding some great treasure, I know it!” “
He heard something rattle in one of the suit pockets. His hands shook as he rifled through the pockets, but all he found there was some brass buttons.
“Pure gold,” he soothed himself.
Donning the suit, he decided to use the buttons as gambling tokens. Thrilled with his incredible discovery, Boris K. danced a few bars of the Viennese waltz in front of the cracked mirror, arranging his hair. Out of breath, he fell onto the sofa. He was transported back to the harsh reality by the picture of Fidel Castro winking – or so it seemed to Boris K – straight at him.
“Too much to drink,” Boris concluded. Pulling himself together he threw the cheap buttons into the corner of the room, took one glance at the electricity bill and burst into tears.
The old lady entered just as she promised – illuminated by the first rays of sun. On her dress, tailored back in the forties, she wore an embroidered swastika.
“The Brazilian tarantula. Such an elegant little animal,” she explained to the curious butcher’s wife in passing. She wore lace gloves, dirty fingernails showing through. Smoothing down her oily hair, she swiped a dainty finger over one of her eyebrows, tattooed according to the latest fashion. Following the unfortunately drawn arch, she cast an Ilse-Koch-like look to Boris K. A cynical smile spilled across her elderly, clenched lips.
“Cash on the table,” she pulled out a stopwatch from her undershirt, “in 60… 59… 58…” As she counted down, it appeared, the last seconds of Boris K’s short life, the age spots on her cheeks broke through the layers of golden foundation and bright lipstick on her cheekbones.
“Do sit down, old Fräulein,” stammered Boris K, pointing to the sofa as full of holes as a Swiss cheese and stinking of cigarettes. The old woman threw him a contemptuous look. Boris K. realized his mistake. “Meine Frau,.. I… I… Frau, bitte,” he stammered, hypnotized by the embroidered swastika flanked by a flashy heart-shaped medallion. Finally, he murmured “Just let me run to the casino. I forgot my wallet next to the roulette here.”
“The casino, you say?” The old woman swiped the corners of her widely open mouth using a forefinger and a thumb.
“I swear by… this poster on the wall, Fräulein Suzy!”
She studied him like one would an insect and, with a sudden twist, cast a look filled with loathing at the poster of Fidel Castro. Stalin was her true love, but it was a fact she carefully concealed.
“Too bad he is an infidel,” she said as the light pushed its way through the dirty windows, illuminating her head like a halo. Her voice rang with the austerity typical of elderly women of reckless youth, who remembered their days of decadence just a touch too wistfully. Once easy, now a puritan, she had changed the dirty skin of her body and threw it on the altar of martyrdom, akin to a snake.
Boris K. repented his actions. He felt like taking off his nonexistent à la Vienna hat.
The old woman turned, eyes bulging, and approached him at a menacing pace. With the stance of an SS officer, her long nose touching the chest Boris K, Frau sniffed him, noticed the empty a bottle of vodka and contemptuously waved her hand. Settling into the sofa, she closed her eyes in the manner of a yogi. It lasted a whole of fifteen minutes, with Boris K. perspiring, dabbing the sweat from his brow and occasionally massaging her feet, until she cried
“Genug! Stop!” Her wide open eyes startled Boris K and he immediately stood to attention. “At ease!” Boris K. threw the left shoe off his right foot, hips swaying. “I forgive you, just as my Fritz would have done,” she murmured wistfully, remembering her old love – a high ranking SS officer, carried off by the maelstrom of war. Boris K. burst into tears of happiness. “But, under ein condition! ,” she roared in a thunderous voice. Boris K. was all ears. “I will write off your debt if you can squeeze yourself into this bottle.” The Frau pointed at the vodka bottle. “Verständlich? Understand?” the implacable Frau screeched.
Boris K. glanced at the bottle, then at his soft, pink hand (he was an artist, and it is well known that they do absolutely nothing under the sun). He wanted to protest, to say that one could not treat the oppressed classes so. Squeezing people into bottles like that? Not even Mengele would have thought of that, he thought – but said nothing. Somehow he managed to bend his back; he crumpled, growing smaller, lowering his proud fists, his skillful fingers curled and his head hung low. Thus his entire body distorted.
Boris K. kept diminishing before the terrible powers of the frau, finally growing small enough to squeeze his tiny hand into the vodka bottle, followed by his shoulder, chest and spine – the latter proved easy enough to squeeze into the bottle – and finally his feet, which by that point had completely refused to obey him. Thus Boris K. successfully completed his task under the Frau’s contended smile. Only Boris’ two large, terrified eyes remained visible.
The giant frau stood up, took the vodka bottle and headed for the locked compartment – the strictly guarded secret of all secrets. For years she was suspected of hiding, if not jewelry, then at least Fritz’s letters there. She reached into her pocket for the gilded key and opened the plywood compartment. Frau looked with pride upon the arranged bottles of numerous manufacturers – English and French, but mostly German. One bottle contained Sir Gawain, her former tenant, the second Herr Hans, and the third, Jean-Paul. From the fourth, the Obergruppenführer Fritz (the former supreme commander of the Waffen-SS) smiled at his lover, the Frau, who blew him a tender kiss. Each of the bottles contained a tenant hopefully peering through the stained glass of his prison, every one of them grateful to his landlady for being so very generous as to write off his debt.
Imaginarium, Igor Morski 1960
I, Franz Kafka, He who is versatile with light sentences, as well as everyday lexicon, have in regards to finishing all of my novels found a way out by writing this Code of Law, through Kafkaesque De Sade- von Masoch Code- KDSVMC statutes which have a final, totalitarian order, with a well-rounded meaning and significance which can serve as solace to Kafkaesque characters, suggesting to them and providing them with the materials to conduct independent research as a hobby which will cut their dark days in half and preoccupy their sinful thoughts.
As I read these lines written in a neutral eerie tone and engraved by means of bloody knife into history,
2. I, Franz Kafka, oppose die Autorität, the Scourge and Saint Attila, by flogging myself. I do not need the Scourge – I will carry out my own justice.
THE KAFKIAN LEVITICUS (THE BOOK OF THE KAFKAESQUE LAW)
This Code was discovered by a washed up actor Simon Culpeper, who was working at a quarry. He found it right next to a bloody dagger.[1]
FOR IT IS WRITTEN:
Respect thy Father and thy Mother by having them whip you.
QUIT YER BITCHIN’ FOR HERE COMES WHIP TWITCHIN’!
SLANDER/LIBEL:
[1] A subtle refference to Serbian protests to the 2017 Election results.
The minister of culture and minority rights Cris Is Evayzhun was walking along the Phenomenonpublic boulevard with parliament member Iana Goatson (of GOAT – Government Approved Thou-shall-nots, as well as CleronationalVoxPIOUpuli ), his wife, and he plucked away from the rich history of Germany.
As the minister was shifting from one Nazi topic to the next, from the Big bang onward, out of the darkness crept Boris K. and with a swift “SiegHeil!” he tripped the minister who lay prostrate on the golden pavements of Phemonenonpublic.
“The minister is down!”
“They killed the minister!”
A trudge of steps ensued. A mass of people stood around the minister Cris Is Evayzhun,
“Help! An urgent republic matter! Dial 333-222. Assassination!”
Xavier, a gypsy youth, who begged for money in the graveyard shift, pulled a moist towelette from his bag with a swift motion and applied it to the spot on the minister’s leg which was sore.
Boris K. took a photo of this touching scene with his Motorola. The minister’s wife was thrilled.
“If I had a son like this, I would dress him up in the style of Albert, prince consort of Windsor”, she thought and much to her husband’s dismay she loudly blurted out:
“I want a son like this.”
Xavier responded:
“Ah, if only I had a mother like you.”
Boris K. remembered and told a touching story of the love one father had towards his son – one of the many tales he picked up somewhere during his life – as the foreign minister tried choking him.
The story went on for hours, until the Emergency vehicle came with a stretcher and took away the minister who was howling in pain and cursing the very name of Boris K.
A month later, coming back from the WIG Heil general tryouts, the minister and the minister’s adviser for the rights of minority Boris K. looked at a Gipsy woman sitting in front of the firecracker store and some cheap Chinese pyrotechnics.
“This Republic is going to pieces. An open market to any and all crap”, minister Cris is Evayzhun mumbled, looking at the Gipsy woman in a manner – was there any other, really? – not unlike that of a Nazi. “Nobody can control the quality of the merchandise (and people) which flows into our beloved Phenomenonpublic. While somewhere up there in Germany Berlin is on fire, I see everything around here!”
“Calm down and extend your palm”, the Gypsy woman smiled to the minister who was dreaming that he had his own panzer divisions in the Kriegsmarine. “In your past life you were a crazed SS commander”, the Gypsy woman started. “Now you are just a bozo whom an adopted child will make feel happy”.
The minister waved his head in disbelief. How can she know all this? He didn’t even giver her his palm.
The Gypsy woman continues palm-reading as if she were in a trance.
“We have to move to the front door ahead of a dangerous gang”, she spoke with a cracked voice. A few moment later there were gunshots. Boris K. and the Gypsy woman and the minister went into the front door, until the street situation calmed.
Six months later, the minister, his wife and their son – little Xavier – were walking along the boulevard.
Boris took the money from Iana Goatson, since she hired him to trick the minister. The Gypsy woman, Xavier’s mom was disguised as a fortune teller, got an apartment in the name of her remaining ten kids. Boris K. soon paid the fellows who were reenacting a mobster showdown, he purchased a luxury three room apartment for about a year and continued nailing the role of Hitler.
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