Overstaying by Ariane Koch and Damion Searls

Author:Ariane Koch and Damion Searls
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Published: 2024-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

I feel so stormy sometimes, and whenever we drift apart the visitor holds onto me across the ravine between our beds. The veins in his hands like mountain streams, his light-brown eyes framed by lashes, his hair like a halo around his head.

I have control over him, but no longer have any idea how to exert it against him.

Sometimes I worry that he’s chafing me raw with his solicitude. I try to assign him the most impossible tasks, but he brilliantly masters them all. He used to be a howling wolf one wanted to muzzle before one’s eardrums shattered, and now he won’t stop going around with the friendliest smile, practically a grin, on his face. He takes delight in woodworms, in tractors driving by, in balloons going up. Just like that the visitor has become a blithe spirit, happy to spend hours busy doing the most boring things, which he can then cross off his list with a bright shining highlighter—and bright shining eyes. The visitor exudes peace and relaxation; every day he rejects anew this world that’s falling apart. He uses the sharpest axes, saws, and knives and is never in danger of hurting himself. The visitor’s new optimism vis-à-vis life is like a screeching power saw in my ears. His intact moral state like a thorn in my eye. The visitor is exemplary, but I don’t need any exemplars, I need a cleaning man or lady for my house and home, especially my house, since I don’t exactly have a home.

The visitor also tries to capture the pink sunsets and mountain panorama with his cellphone camera.

While he goes around filling all and sundry with joy, the deepest imaginable abysses sprout up inside me. I never intended for the visitor, a lost soul I took in out of the goodness of my heart, to slip out of his sadness. I say Sit!, but the visitor acts like he doesn’t hear me. His original owner clearly neglected to enroll him in and graduate him from dog obedience school. If the visitor ever stops satisfying me with his brushfingers, things might get uncomfortable.

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