Vivian

Peter L. Curtis

One night in a small hotel in Flanders, exhausted after a long day of bike riding,  I turned on the TV and began surfing channels. It was an act of desperation.

After a long day on a bike I was in a catatonic state. I had time on my hands that is until I could justify to myself crawling into bed and passing out. I was too tired to read my e-book and I didn’t want to look at the phone which I’d seen enough of that day thanks very much after getting lost and having to constantly check google maps. 

Flemish TV looked pretty much like the same kind of rubbish as everywhere else: game shows (everyone laughing), soaps, ‘reality’ TV and blitz advertising. 

Then it happened: on one channel, I saw a black and white photo on the screen – and it caught my attention immediately. It was a great photo – of homeless poor blacks somewhere in a big city in America. It was obviously taken some time in the past, late 1950’s/1960’s? was my guess.

Then came more black and white photos, equally as incredible. More scenes from an America from decades ago.

There I was, exhausted after a long bike ride, sitting in a hotel room surfing the TV and then suddenly found myself glued to the screen and wide awake. 

Who took these photos?

I was about to find out. And her story was as incredible as her photos….

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Death of a Shopkeeper

Peter L. Curtis

muslim-shopkeeper

It was in March, 2016 on a flight from Bangkok to Amsterdam, that I heard about the suicide bombing of the Brussels airport – called ‘Zaventem’.  

News of the attack had appeared on the international media a day before, but at the time I was travelling on local buses in the east of Thailand.

For the last three weeks, I’d been travelling in what were then remote areas of Asia –  north east Cambodia and the west of Vietnam. For most of that time I had been staying in small family run hotels which had no wifi. I’d been disconnected from the real world – like a hermit – and hadn’t missed it.

On the flight to Amsterdam, as chance would have it, I found myself sitting next to a Belgian man, who along with thousands of other Belgian tourists elsewhere in the world, had had his flight to Zaventem cancelled and was forced to change his flight. He was lucky enough to have gotten a seat on the flight to Amsterdam; from there it was a train trip of a few hours to Brussels.  

We made small talk and that’s how I found out about the terrorist attack at Zaventem.

At least 30 people had died and a hundred injured, he told me.    

I knew then what was waiting for me on arriving back in Europe and it wasn’t exactly something to look forward to….. Read more →

Taking Chances

Peter L. Curtis

They told me they came from a distant land

Where nothing was the same and everything was different.

Beautiful. Spectacular.

The people there spoke a strange language and lived a way of life as if they were on another planet or in another time of history.

The terrain was wild, with mountains and lakes.

 

I wanted to go there but they told me:  

‘Whatever you do, don’t go on your own, when you go come with us’

But they never went home.

They loved their country but only at a distance.

It was a place in their minds.

Something created from reminiscences.  

 

I got impatient. 

One day I left, all my wordly belongings on my back.

They stood there and watched me as I went.

I told them that I couldn’t live anymore in the country of my birth

I was suffocating I said. Bored. I needed to depart.

 

They looked at me in silence.  

‘You will regret this!’ they said.

Regret?

Of living in a place I knew too well.

Regret ……

Taking chances?

Casuality

Vortex of Madness

The Goldberg Variations

Peter L. Curtis

It was my mother who introduced me to Glenn Gould.

At the time, she was in a high care home for the elderly. Every afternoon, she sat in her large comfortable chair and listened to a classical music station on her small portable CD player/radio whilst reading a book.

Listening to classical music was a long standing habit with her. It began long ago, after her days of playing the piano and organ came to an end with the birth of my brother and sister. Motherhood however never turned out to be a destiny she was comfortable with and it was then that she began studying part time for a degree in accountancy. From notes and bars to facts and figures.   

As the first born and the only child who shared her life when she was playing the piano every day and the organ at the church on Sundays, I was exposed at an early age to classical music.

During my teens and early 20’s, when I was in rebellion against my parents and blasting my ears out with rock music, there were nevertheless times when I listened to classical music and opera.

So there we were, further down the road of life, mother and son, she in a high care institution and me dual citizen on one of my temporary stays in Australia.  

After turning down the music, she began talking about the famous Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould.

Did I know who Glenn Gould was?

Yeah, I knew, I said off handedly.

No one who was interested in classical music could have not have heard of Glenn Gould. Three decades after his death, he still commanded an international cult following who regarded him as a kind of God. He was above all famous for his playing of Bach’s keyboard works – which is precisely why I had never bothered listening to him. Bach’s keyboard works bored me to tears. Too mechanical, like an old clock.

I wondered why all of a sudden she seemed so interested in him.

It transpired that she had followed a programme on the radio about the famous pianist and fallen in love with him.

Irrespective of my distaste for Bach’s keyboard works, Dorothy’s enthusiasm for Glenn Gould was not to be lightly dismissed. In the past, she had recommended soloists, orchestras and conductors, which I had taken an immediate liking to.

So one night I went fishing on You Tube, put on my headphones and listened to Gould playing of Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’ whilst working on a translation.

Then I stopped work….….

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King Steven, Defender of The Faith

Peter L. Curtis

Stephen.

I kept on running into him, never knowing who he was.  I crossed borders, changed countries, and there he was again: the ubiquitous Stephen.

Statues of Stephen: with a sword or a holy cross. His image on bank notes; parks, schools and streets named after him. 

Then one day, quite by chance, I discovered who this Stephen was and why he was held in such obvious esteem………

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