Fernando
Aha. Well then. November 30th 2007. Benjamin Nakizo, as he likes to be called on these occasions sits in his shop on South Clerk Street. Surrounded by chickpeas, apple tea and Turkish delight he cradles his digital radio and allows jazz fm to sooth his woes. Occasionally he serves customers. Recently he appeared to break the heart of one young man who asked if he still stocked those olives that "reminded him of his youth". Nakizo replied that he no longer did and could swear he heard the tinkle of heart fragments as the man got his answer.Benjamin wishes he had so few problems as that gentleman. Two things are keeping him in the beautiful national capital he has come to inhabit. One is his ambition of pursuing a military career at the same time as a civilian one. The second is his relationship with a pretty young girl from the colonies.
Both are proving a lot tougher than he ever expected. This is placing great strain on his morale and appears to have led to a state of semi-depression, which has manifested itself in a bizarre condition that causes him to forget everything. Keys, berets, coats, jumpers, tickets, phones, graduation certificates and yet more keys. Benjamin believes that his brain is consuming so much energy in avoiding the mental static of stress and worry that some basic functions are being forgotten.
Cont...
posted by Benjamin Nakizo @ 12:28 pm
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Benjamin’s thoughts are broken by the pressing need to wrap up a selection of Turkish delight and convince a sceptical cab driver to take this special package to a restaurant on St Mary's St. Opposite the Travel Lodge. Benjamin has never before paid for some Turkish delight to take a cab ride.
After work Mr Nakizo goes round to help an old friend move into his new flat. He arrives late and misses all the hard work - but arrives just in time for the pizza and beer that was promised in exchange. Benjamin likes these people; the vast majority of the neuroscience department is here. They are from all over the world and are immensely intelligent. They sit around and talk in excited tones about their most recent thoughts on the movement of neurons or better ways to map neural pathways. They tell Benjamin with some degree of authority that it will be only fifty years before they have replicated a working human brain - and as the drink flows their conversations switch to the philosophical implications of their work. For some such high brow discussion, of which Nakizo only understands about a tenth, would be pretty boring. But their passion and enthusiasm is so contagious it becomes addictive. Nakizo hasn't seen such hope in people’s eyes since his sixth form days. How did these people, who are several years older then Benjamin, preserve such a belief in their own ability to change the world? And why did Benjamin lose his?
Benjamin's days at the Turkish shop are almost over now. New management has finally done the sums that Benjamin has been doing since day one, and realised that they aren’t making any money. Job cuts are the order of the day and Nakizo won't miss the mind numbing ten hour shifts one little bit. Although he won't get through his reading as fast any more.
In two weeks time Nakizo will once again be without paid employment. He is thinking of coming home a lot sooner than he otherwise might and is hoping that the new year brings with it new opportunity. Next year sees the year of the rat begin, and Benjamin as a child of the rat, thinks it could prove decisive.
But for now he has things to do, pessimistic reflections won't get him anywhere.
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