By Pieter Thomassen

Aunt Joep’s birthday party really takes off when Reverend Uncle Peer with his dark, bass voice starts a polonaise, waving its chain through auntie’s living room. Mien where is my party nose, Mien where is my nose, where is my party nose hiding? At the third turn, even the more reserved family members have been pulled from their chairs, and the whole party – I just spotted him in the draw, draw, draw, draw, draw-er! – flex their knees led by the black cassock.
      When the perspiring lot take refuge on seats to quell their thirst with pitchers of chilled sangria, Reverend Uncle removes his party hat.  Over the pointed index finger of his right hand which, together with his thumb, mimics a gun, his puckered lips blow away the equally imaginary gunpowder smoke.
      ‘Well, Axel,’ he thinks aloud, ‘our body is driven in all directions, but these urges are firstly sucked dry in sarcophagus of language, only to be subsequently interred into the mausoleums of morality. Just underneath the surface of it all, our senses continue with their resistance and gymnastic exercises, but sooner or later they become stiff and coagulate. Actually it’s only music and humour that survive the trenches of reason.’
      The Jesuit puts the party hat back on his head. Two halved orange parts rest at the bottom of the pitcher next to his chair. ‘Axel, do you know what the apex of the Wild West is?’ His nephew shrugs his shoulders. ‘A cunt with swinging doors… and?’ Axel, flabbergasted, stares at him. ‘And a double-barrelled prick.’

© Pieter Thomassen
© Translation Holland Park Press

Axel 23 – Axel 22 – Axel 21 – Axel 20 – Axel 19 – Axel 18 – Axel 17 – Axel 16 – Axel 15 – Axel 14 – Axel 13 – Axel 12 – Axel 11 – Axel 10 – Axel 9 – Axel 8 – Axel 7 – Axel 6 – Axel 5 – Axel 4 – Axel 3 – Axel 2 – Axel 1