Humorous Artist

by Božidar Radošević

(translation: Keko Prijatelj)

Humorous Artist is a certain kool woman whom we find one spring-autumn evening amidst the lights of the metropolis, while she shines with longing for those same lights. The spontaneous noon outing that day turned into an all-day rejoicing with friends, whom she was encountering as they emerged from their dusk-lit houses to greet the lighting of the metropolitan lights. Together they walked the pink-shaded streets and drank red wine in the gardens warmed by smiling lips and eyes. Everyone was happy while thinking how they’re having such a nice time, how this day is a top-notch experience and how it’s nicest to disappear in such an experience with thousands of other experiencers. One can do that only in a metropolis: so many colours, contents and persons when melded in leisure, nowhere but in the majestic metropolis. Humorous Artist expresses gratitude to herself in her head for the opportunity to taste, of all places in the world, the multitude in the administrative authority of the developing differences – the metropolis. As night nears, the lights slowly go out. She stays with a couple of friends, and thinks how convenient it would be to grab something for a snack. They stand on one of the side streets and look around. They go to sit at an eatery: there she finds nothing appetising. That owner pours olive oil onto everything excessively. Then they go to the fruit kiosk which is closing its wing: the fruits seem rotten, and the light of the naked bulb illuminates them ugly. Then one of the friends invites her to his place to eat; there are two boho cats in the apartment and Humorous Artist is slightly disgusted to eat the food served, so she courtly nibbles on pistachio and sips some yogurt. She’s left alone, ie she goes home excusing herself, hoping that on the way to, she will catch a few more eateries working for which she knows are offering the warm and the fresh even at the end of working hours. In the first one, however, she is denied a warm meal when an argument ensues, in which she requests a particular place by the window, to sit there; in the second though, she estimates that the fish she ordered can’t really be that fresh, so when they can’t find lemon to sprinkle on it, she leaves, having stolen a handful of peanuts to deceive the already swollen, muffled hunger. At the last eatery, she refuses a meal out of principle because on the wall across from the table she sat at, they hold a picture of a certain king whom she holds to be a criminal. Poor Artist is crawling home as her stomach gurgles and tongue delves in her teeth in search of peanut skins. She comes home, serves herself a light dinner of what’s found in the fridge: Barbadian prosciutto, Madagascan cheese garnished with Andalusian pepper and Somali dates in milk of the Pakistani goat. Shortly after dinner, Artist became thirsty: the food she consumed was quite salty. Since she doesn’t drink tap water, she distressingly probes the mini bar: all the purchased water is gone, and not a single spare bottle can be seen amongst a surfeit of wine, brandy, liqueur, whiskey and sorbet. Artist is distressed, and goes back out to the city centre in search of a shop that sells water: her mouth is dry, her palate is burning, and eyes shine like the eyes of an eagle plummeting to grab its prey.