| kinder
egg
by Christian Schmidt-Rasmussen
Kinder Egg (Universal Language). Four people were seated around
a table. Two middleaged people in sensible clothing, a lady with
Bambi enbroidered on the left pocket of her blazer, a man with square
guilded glasses, and two adolescents in sensible clothing; she wearing
a thin beige turtleneck wool-sweater, he wearing a dark blue ditto,
and he'd just cut himselfon a french baguette."For christs sake"
he said, sucking his finger.The young girl laughed gleefully as
only sisters can. The middleaged people gave each others hands a
gentle squeese and smiled."It actually hurts if you didn't know"
the young man said. "I'm Sorry. It's just that it's not everyday
you cut yourself on a baguette" she said, and kissed him untill
he smiledagain. And then they started opening the Kinder Surprise
Egg they'd bought just before inside therestaurant. This was something
they used to do to have something to do in the meantime before the
food arrived. Inside the chocolate egg they found a ghost stuck
in a washing machine. They threw themselves around each others necks
and started to laugh. "Now we're got all of them" they said aswith
one voice. The girl's father and the boy's mother, because they
were the ones on the other sideof the table, laughed along with
the young people. "That must be the first time you've had them all,am
I wrong?" the girls father asked. "No, you're absolutely right,
the new ones are not arriving until tomorrow" the young girl said.
They opened the other egg, and collectively started to assemble
the camel with the monkey on its back, even though they already
had three of them back home in their small flat in the old mansion.
The food arrived. The older couple had married many years before.
Their former spouses had died some time ago in a freak accident
which occured in a bowling alley frequented by these two couples
a couple of times a year. The prpose being to eat first, to playbowling
next, and lastly, to drive home drunk. Once, around the small hours,
it resulted in the swopping of partners, which didn't cause any
trouble. Actually, the sexual gymnastics of both couples had received
a much needed saltwater injection after the incident. But then again
none of them tried to repeat it. As they told each other: "You can't
swim the same waters twice" whatever they meant by that. So in that
sense it seemed natural that the young boy and girl had gotten aquainted
at an even very young age. When they were babies everybody thought
they were sweet. When they grew older, the smiles grew wider, and
peopel were wispering about wether they were going steady then again,
they'd been doing that all the time. Many years later, a long time
after the meal on the cafˇ, the last of their parents died of hunger
in a nursery home for old people. Now the younger couple found themselves
alone in the world. The mansion they'd already had to themselves
for some years now and it felt a little empty. They'd tried to rent
it out to students as well as to friends of theirs who happened
to get divorced. But nobody really understood the thing about the
Kinder Surprise Eggs. Not that they regarded it as being foolishor
anything like that. All the people that had stayed with them, and
everyone they knew, one way oranothetr thought that this Kinder
Egg Surprise thing was smart. It was so much over the top,somehow
honest and skinless. They'd had the Kinder Surprise Eggssince their
first meeting as four-years olds. And that was visible. They hid
nothing. All was exposed. But now there was no one leftbut themselves
who could see the full picture; all that it meant for them. For
instance; They'd hadtheir first real intercourse at the age of twelve
on top of a selection of the Kinder Eggs, very carefully, so that
they wouldn't break. But most important of all was the way the Kinder
Egg Surprises had been arranged on shelves, cupboards, desks, in
pot plants, just about everywhere. The grown-ups had never discovered
this. Not really. But little by little they started to interpret
these tableaus. As they grew in scale, and the children grew with
them, they became a finely tuned instrument for communication. And
the mania assumed the character of vision: "If only they had all
of the Kinder Egg Surprises, what wouldn'tthey be able to say?"
The grown-ups supported them in their quest. Not with the indulgence
typical of adults, because they, too, was captured by the magic
of the Kinder Eggs. Insude the Kinder Eggs they'd found a common
language, a fixed center around which to turn. Not a secret code,
but a universal language. Therefore it's no wonder on that day in
the cafˇ when for the first time they realised that they had all
the elements for theri language, as soon as it had sunk in, they
left the restaurant without having their dinners. They even forgot
the camel with the monkey on its back ; something which, on any
other day, would have caused grave arguments. But not that day.
What happened that afternoon, evening and night back in the mansion,
until the next morning when their language was again incomplete?
(1998)
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