Recently I run into this old colleague of mine. He was one of those active, always fully charged sort of fellow. It has been a few years since we last met and when we sat for tea I could see all was not well on his front. Though he tried to smile act like his old self, he failed. He didn’t wait for me to ask any “What’s wrong?” sort of question before he started to spill the beans, so to say.
His story was that he labored for many years to save money to buy the car of his dreams. He says he practically starved himself to save a couple of hundred grand and a little more. At the time he started really saving a couple of hundred grand was enough to get you a modest second hand car. However, now that he has reached those six digits, the prices of cars have gone up three or fold! What really got on his nerves was that all those years he had to give up all those recreational activities he so much enjoyed.
Life isn’t that fair as to do you justice by allowing your plans to see the light of day. Had it been so how so much different this world would have been! And fare less interesting too. But then many times the question is, “are our ‘plans’ really what we say they are?”
Imagine this storyline.
“After I buy a car I’ll replace the sofa in the living room.”
Well, actually is was supposed to be a living room; but it’s now a sort of junk yard with all the mess in front of a forty-six inch flat screen TV. Kind of funny, isn’t it? After all not too many people come to visit!
“That’s breaking news.”
“What’s ‘breaking’ about it?”
“This is the first time I heard you plan anything. Anyway, about the car thing of yours, how do you plan to do that?”
“You mean how do I get the money?”
“Did anyone tell you sometimes you could be the smartest person town? Just kidding.”
“I have been seeing dreams for a few weeks now.”
“And what were those dreams about? Or sorry, who were the ladies in those dreams?”
“They weren’t about ladies! I saw myself winning the twenty million birr lottery!”
“And you plan to buy the car and everything with it?”
“Bingo!”
Look, people who could make plans based on dreams, must be ‘optimism’ itself in flesh and blood. Believe me there are people who do exactly that.
A long time ago I knew this guy who always was seeing the same dream! Can you imagine that! The dream was about his eating boiled cabbage! It was like he had some ‘something terabyte’ hard disk somewhere in that head of his. The best part of the story is he had the same interpretation. After all they are replays of the same dreams. “I’m going to get a lot of money.” He never did; and the dreams never stopped.
“After I get that promotion, I’ll rent a three bedroom apartment.” The guy has concluded the ‘promotion thing’ was a done deal!
“Why three-bedroom? Isn’t a two-bedroom one enough for you!”
“My girlfriend wants it to be three-bedroom.”
“Oh; and when do you think that promotion will come?
“Five months maximum.”
Thirteen months later.
“You said you’ll rent a three-bedroom apartment. Don’t tell me you’re still in your old home.”
“Yes, I am.”
“What happened to that promotion thing?”
He ignores the question. “By the way, last week I run into that old classmate of ours…” It’d be very inconsiderate of you to push him any further.
I’ll tell you about the girlfriend. She dumped him. Yes, that’s what she did. (Isn’t that what most do when you fail to keep your side of ‘the contract?’?) Well, he brought it on himself. You know, when it he told her about the ‘promotion’ had he employed the help of words like, “If…” “Maybe…” “When…” there’d have been no need of all that anti-acid solution by the bedside. The guy told her as if it was the final decision of some supreme court or a body that powerful.
A few years back a friend translates a small book of a hundred ten or so pages. He really sweated over it. And as it was his first work his enthusiasm knew no bounds. With the manuscript ready for the printers one day he and two of us who have been riding the rough train of publishing for years were chatting over coffee. Then he asked the question that has been bugging him.
“How much do you think I’ll get from the sales?”
We couldn’t help smiling. As novices a couple of decades back we rowed the same boat.
“How much do you expect to get?”
“About a hundred fifty,”
What! It looked as if four world soccer cups have passed since we smiled. Why were shaken to the marrow?” Because he was not joking! He really meant a hundred fifty thousand. But though it is the last thing anyone wants to do we’ve to tell him the truth.
“Look, it’s not bad that you think you’ll get that much. But, that’s very rare in publishing in this country.”
Painful! Yes, you can say that. But we didn’t even drop the real bombshell. I’ll tell you what that would be. Let alone making so much money on such a slim book he might even lose every cent of the printing expenses. While he was thinking of a hundred and fifty thousand profit, he might lose eighty thousand of the ninety something thousand he paid the printers! It’s that bad.
The interesting part is that he has already planned how to spend the hundred fifty. He had small plot of land in his name and he planned to finish the groundwork and the first floor of his planned two-story house. You have to give him the thumbs up for that.
At last we told him what the real picture looked like. (It is not as many think it is!) For a few minutes it was total silence. He was deep thought and we waited the next reactions vocal or otherwise, to come from him. When it came it was such a beautiful reaction his smiles blossomed into the most boisterous laughter you could think of. And then he said, “What was I thinking when I made those plans!”
It so happens in the publishing industry, with almost every other writer thinking of himself as some Hemingway, many have ended up heartbroken when reality hit with full force.
But some have it better. They don’t have to plan, to dream to spend sleepless nights with Alice in Wonderland dreams. It just comes to them; they don’t even ask for it!
Ephrem Endale Contributer
The Ethiopian Herald June 6/2021