It happened as I was leafing through a book that I had ordered the day before, while I was sitting in my car, waiting at a tram crossing.

I saw your name.

I registered it. I didn’t read it consciously, my eyes recognized the shape of your written first and last name, the familiar sequence of letters, as I was quickly leafing through the book. A name I had written on post cards and envelopes. A name I had searched for in phone books, a name which has been in every address book I’ve owned for the past 8 years, sometimes even without a current address, a name which had once meant almost everything to me, which still echoes emotions and memories.

In a split second, while I was sitting in my car, my eyes recognized the shape of your name. Up there on a page. Up there on a page in the black book I had ordered after it being mentioned in passing in a review in the last Sunday’s FAS.

In that split second I felt a strange kind of panic, and excitement and surprise and happiness for you, and the desire to tell youstraight away. To tell you that I found it, found you, found it and you without looking for it. I had been looking for, searching out and expecting this moment for ages, and now -just as I wasn’t doing any of this- I found it, I found you. Or rather: you did. You found me. You crept up from behind.

Instead of checking the index, I frantically leafed through the book again, wanting to check whether it was really your name, or whether my eyes had played a trick on me. However the tram had passed, the red light had gone off, people behind me were honking and I had to throw the book on the seat next to me and drive on. I was at a red light again just a few meters down the road, immediately checking the book again.

And indeed, there it was. Your name. In front of two short stories.

I put the book away and drove the short way home, feeling the urge to tell someone about my discovery immediately, to tell you, to make up a clever cryptic little card hinting at me discovering it, to do something, to read the stories. I wondered whether you'd think I was stalking you if I contacted you about this; I wondered whether your heart and mind and energy were in this book in the first place or whether this is just you again, playing against the rules of everyone and everything, purging things on paper or into a microphone, stuff you deem worthless, stuff others deem genious though, their praise being a source of great amusement for you. I remember meeting you on a train, on your way to performing at that strange hip little club in H, reading out the poetry you'd perform, things you had written that very morning. Something about a chap brushing his teeth until he had brushed to his bare bone. You're just too damn good at spontaneity.

At home, still sitting in my car, I read. Read the little biography in the back of the book, to be sure this was you, and not someone who just happens to have the same name. A few sparse details about you: The “author, artist and animator” was born in 1975 in hometown, move to H. in 1996, this at Uni, that at Uni that at Art Academy. Now this. Part of these projects and collaborations.

I then read the two stories, which are obscure, strange, odd without much sense, and probably best when read and performed. They are just what I would have expected, really, had I expected that any of your writings would go public first: I had thought it would be your drawings, films and animations what you’d get publicity for first, simply because from what I heard and read and found through google, that seemed to be what you were concentrating on lately. But you proved me wrong, like you so often did, most recently (well, 18 months ago) with guilt and feeling sorry for things that happened (and, more acutely, didn’t happen) between us years ago. (Keep feeling guilty for sex we never had, chap. I really don’t mind that at all.) You've always been good at doing things, thinking things, saying things, which were the complete contrary to what everyone else, to what I expected.

I’ve calmed down a bit now. It takes only little time to get used to a name on paper and this is not totally unexpected after all: Just that morning, I had been wondering about the project that had published the freshly ordered book, whether you were a part of it, had checked the groups website specifically for your name, to no avail.
I’m happy for you, really, I wonder about your opinion on it, I wonder whether it will appear more strange if I mention it the next time I see you (whenever that may be) than if I do so now in whatever way. I still feel the urge to tell you, to show you that I found you without looking, to acknowledge your little success, even though I know that you most likely don't give a shit about me knowing about your work, because you probably deem it and the entire project worthless and pretentious. But then: because I’d expect that from you, it might be just the other way around, and this *does* mean something to you. One never knows with you.

I’ll probably be wise and grown up and not do anything. I’ll keep on staying away. I’ll keep on silently observing and wondering, occasionally checking google (hoping no one who has a website with your name on it knows you and checks his referrer logs and tells you about that person searching for you in google), hoping all my knowing won’t creep out of me the next time I see you, like it did last time. I’ll keep on being happy for you, from afar.

And never tell you what it’s all been really like for me, all these years.

flinch
~alanis morisette~

What's it been over a decade?
It still smarts like it was four minutes ago
We only influenced each other totally
We only bruised each other even more so

What are you my blood? You touch me like you are my blood
What are you my dad? You affect me like you are my dad

How long can a girl be shackled to you
How long before my dignity is reclaimed
How long can a girl stay haunted by you
Soon I'll grow up and I won't even flinch at your name
Soon I'll grow up and I won't even flinch at your name

Where've you been? I heard you moved to my city
My brother saw you somewhere downtown
I'd be paralyzed if I ran into you
My tongue would seize up if we were to meet again

What are you my god? You touch me like you are my god
What are you my twin? You affect me like you are my twin

How long can a girl be tortured by you?
How long before my dignity is reclaimed
And how long can a girl be haunted by you
Soon I'll grow up and I won't even flinch at your name
Soon I'll grow up and I won't even flinch at your name

So here I am one room away from where I know you're standing
A well-intentioned man told me you just walked in
This man knows not of how this information has affected me
But he knows the colour of the car I just drove away in

What are you my kin? You touch me like you are my kin
What are you my air? You affect me like you are my air