I woke up from a dream with a start. “Wait a moment, wait a moment, my mind cried, the dream isn’t finished, I want to know what happened next!”
I squeezed my eyes shut in the hope that I will fall asleep again and the dream would return. But I did not succeed. It had been such a wonderful adventure, I dreamt that I had a gun in my hand and I was going to catch a terrorist, and I thought about all the glory that would be mine after I shoot him! I also thought my God I could be the new “La Femme Nikita” because I am blonde too!…
Of course I had never ever held a gun in my hand, the only weapon I handled when I was very young was a slingshot. And my little stones hit so far away from the targets, that other children whispered among themselves that I should be removed from all competitions. So I gave up a sharp shooting career and this was one of the many things I never brought to its end for lack of ambition and persistence.
I remember another project of mine which remained unfinished when I was nine or ten years old. I sat in my room with Linda, a school friend whose father was a housepainter.
“What do you say we paint your room silver? she asked, I would bring a pot with silver paint and brushes and we could start right away!”
Said and done. In 10 minutes she was back with the silver paint, two brushes and soon we started to paint the nearest wall to the door. Paint was splashed all over the parquet floor, over ourselves, and everywhere else one can imagine. The original pale pink color disappeared here and there to be replaced with something that looked alarmingly much like dirty gray. Linda and I soon got bored with our activity and decided to leave it all and play a game of dominoes.
Until we heard my mother’s loud scream after she had entered the room and saw the disaster. After her followed my father both in complete shock It took a while until they recovered and catching her breath my mother said:.
“I am going to bring some rags and we’ll start to clean up immediately!” .
“No way, said my father, her room will remain just as it is, she should learn that a job started should be finished , I’ll get those two girls a ladder and let them finish the job!”
We did not finish the job, but my room remained bi-colored for a long time, until my father decided that I may have learned my lesson!
I left more jobs unfinished in the course of my life than I care to remember.
There is one job I’ve been working at hard for the last 40 years, and that’s James Joyce” Ulysses”. I suppose I’ll die before I finish reading this book. And there is one special job which remained unfinished which is not mine but my friend’s. Ilana.. We had been very close many years ago before we lost touch somehow. One day I read an obituary about the death of her husband.. She had complained to me about her marriage here and there, but her husband was dead and I owed her a visit of condolence.
I found her at home looking as bad as one could expect.
“I am so sorry!’ I said to her.
“Yes, me too! You don’t know how sorry I am! I had just made the perfect plan how to kill the bastard when he went and died on me!
But as always, he deprived me of this pleasure too! It’s simply an unfinished job!.. I am sure you don’t know that he cheated on me from day one!”
“Well, at least you won’t go to jail!” I comforted her, not at all the kind of comfort I intended to extend when I came to call on her. .
There were many jobs I did not finish in my life and one day when I die with all those unfinished things on my conscience God may say to me:
“Go back down and finish the Ulysses at least!”
And thus I may have found the secret of everlasting life!
Lucca