Chapter 11

And this is it. 

Bang, bang!

It happens.

The thing, of course, is that you knew it: something in the way you felt today. You could feel it in your skin. Or somewhere deep inside. 

You knew something was going happen.

Like a vibration inside, just a second before waking up.

So, the minute it happens, later on your day, without a reason, you know that you knew that it would happen.

That’s what happens with the word happen. That you know it is going to happen at some point.

You spend your day running errands. Doing this, doing that other thing. You go and see Mrs Harrington, then the visit to the flower shop and the rain and Willy Cliffs and of course Ai and Sally Queen and back to the place you started. And the word happening is flipping around you all the time. As your day goes by, it fades and fades until it becomes just a shadow on the back of your mind. You can even get along and pretend it’s not there. And finally, the bottom line is that as soon as you woke up —remember?—, if you’ve really tried, you could’ve caught a sense of it. 

Happening is happening. 

You don’t notice. 

You can’t reduce it. 

But you can sense that something is not working and, somehow, you know that things are about to fall apart. 

It’s just a question of time. 

But it’s definitively there, waiting for time to crawl. 

Creeping up on the right moment. 

Now.

Bang, bang!

Outside it’s freezing and it’s raining and the night have already covered the world.

The feeling grows.

Maybe the rain, maybe the task completed. 

A glimpse, you think. 

A shadow. 

Sometimes, a scream. If we were in a crime novel. But it’s not just the cold or the rain or the dark. This is not fiction after all. There’s something else. Call it reality, call it whatever you want.

‘Bang bang’, oh, yes, you hear it now.

Like a hammer.

Suddenly you know it’s a noise. 

Yeah, that’s the shape of the happening word today.

You have no idea where it is coming or why.

But it’s happening.

You just hear another Bang bang! And again Bang bang! in the middle of the dark and there it comes once more.

So concentrated were you in the word and the feeling and the noise that now you are not really paying attention to the real happening.

You are looking outside, into the dark, fixing your eyes on the backyard and trying to understand what is the noise. Trying to figure it out. That’s not what’s happening, though.

And again the Bang bang! taking shape but all you can think about it’s that this is a shame, ‘cause the front yard used to be so lovely when Pat was around to take care of it. There was this green lawn and those charming garden dwarfs doing strange things like carrying a yellow wheelbarrow —for a moment I can hear Avner saying how stupidly disappointing is the wheelbarrow not being red or complaining about the absence of white chickens, which has something to do with one of his most beloved poems by William Carlos Williams— or pulling down their pants.

And bang! and bang! again.

Then a couple of flashing lights from a car reveals a silhouette and you spot him:  it’s Avner. You blink when his figure appears and then you see him again. Clear as crystal. Yes, that’s Avner. He is the one making all those noises. A hammer in his right hand. A pole with a sign ‘Sold out’.

He is standing right in front of you and he’s smiling with his left hand over his eyes trying to avoid the lights which are coming from across the street.

‘Sold out!’, he screams. 

And you realize there’s so much hope, so much future on his voice. 

But, as you suspected, this is the moment when things go wrong. So you start thinking ‘Where the hell are those flashlights coming?’ 

And you can feel it.

The happening.  

You see where the lights come from. A van parking right there, by the front yard, and for a moment —just the blink of an eye— you know it shouldn’t be there. 

But it is there. 

You can read the ‘Vans For Rent - London WH’ sign at the side. Then a red headed woman drops off the vehicle. She is tall and breezy and her name must be…

‘Helen!’, completes Avner, still with the bang-bang hammer in his right hand.

So this is Helen. 

So you won’t have to go to the station, after all.

Avner is here. 

Helen is here.

The word happening flips around, though, still ungrasped and free as a butterfly floating among the flowers of a meadow. Or I should say among all the junk and the carelessness that inhabits old Pat’s backyard. 

And still you force yourself to think everything’s in its place.

‘Cause supper’s ready.

Candles are burning. 

Boat house sold.

Avner’s last night in Northgate. 

Tomorrow they will be off.

So it’s time to slip away and let the couple be. 

It’s time to let the happening word go. Not your business anymore. Let it disappear.

Come on, time to beat it. Let’s make the most of the darkness and get inside your stupid house up in the tree, light your own lonely candles and choose a tape. Lonely nights #10, it says. Gosh, how many of these the guy who recorded the cassettes had? 

You feel sympathetic, though.

Press play and the walkman starts with Kid A’s How to disappear completely. 

You crash on the futon.

It’s been a lovely day indeed. 

But, as you dive into the lyrics and Thom Yorke’s familiar voice tread into your own dreams, you can also feel that something’s wrong. 

What’s happening, after all?

The song ends.

Why is Helen here? 

A new one begins. Donovan, Colours. Isn’t it ironic?

Why was she driving a rented van?

But you fall asleep, anyway. 

The van smears into your dreams along with the song and then a question ‘What is my colour then’?

What is my colour then? 

What is my? 

What is?

My?

By the time the echo comes to its end, you are already sleeping.

It’s been a long day, after all.

Yes, you deserve it.

Guess the music goes on and on.

As I dream.

© Enrique Armenteros Caballero, 2025

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