Through the Keyhole of Time

Through The Keyhole of Time The houses were made of old timber, like a Russian village on the endless steppe - maybe I had Dr Zhivago on my mind. But where was Lara? I was in Russia once thought it sinister, roads without light and black limousines gliding slowly by. Lived in a house that had rough planks for floors and no indoor loo, luckily it was summer that year. At a café, the woman who ran it looked as a woman I loved, and never lost my longing for. I visited the place, there were accordion music and much gayety, but the woman I loved looked at me with dislike when prancing around with her two lovers who were junior officers in the red army and went to the gym every day lifting dumbbells; impotent rage, thought of assassinating them. She, the woman I loved, had not aged I was now forty years older than her. When the music stopped she dismissed her lovers I asked her why she had left, she said it was because I was boring and had no sense of fun. When the music began, to prove her wrong, I danced to show her how much fun I was capable of, but I fell on the floor and for once people laughed. Knew I had failed her and could not understand what more I could do to make her love me. But I had been blind, outside a woman smiled, a warm African smile, it took me forty years before I met her again and mourn the lost years without her.