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As seen in the magazine Observica, 2021. Observica – Winter 2021 | Discover the Artist Media by biafarinart – issuu
Jovan – Helena; Preamble to Paris.
Midele March:
Helena’s best friend interrupted the play of her heavy, if not nervous flirtation with swearing.
Her friend told her in no uncertain terms, that she needed acceptance at the military base where she worked, urgently. To her, it sounded more possible to become a billionaire overnight, than to get that, as the only woman, working there.
Apparently one of the troops went to store a bottle of mouthwash under her pillow. It seemed as if it was a difficult, time-consuming operation, albeit “stealth”, in all probability. First, he and his helpers forced the window open, so that when the burglar bars were raised just enough, he could push a fishing rod through the space.
The small snapped-piece of fishing line that was still stuck in the metal mesh revealed the steps, quite clearly to any onlooker.
Its intricate timeliness made her feel quite sympathetic to the offenders.
She could still remembering her own plans as a child when she had tried to catch Father Christmas, right at the moment that he wanted to stuff the presents in the Christmas stocking at the foot of her bed or pack them on the mantelpiece. She however, did not use such thick fishing yarn, but had used super, fine, strong, silver, gut line and had strung it between her bed headboard and the legs of the bed. As she had stretched it instead of ordinary sewing thread, in the process, she had almost cut her father’s one leg open and could have left it badly injured.
She remembered that she had to work especially hard to feel guilty as she thought it was the result that one could expect, when people themselves wanted to lead children into a trap to believe in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer- she could not have been less worried about Father Christmas. She just wanted to know why Rudolf’s nose was red?
Later she would hear of South African Brakkenjan having his nose doing a red ping, if he was in love, and it had to serve as her ‘go to’ answer during children’s stories questions she posed to the adults.
About a few weeks before the incident with the mouthwash, the officer whom was in direct control of Helena’s department, foretold her he wanted to transfer her to one of the larger cities in the small country so she could stop hiding in ….. the sandy desert base called – ……- Base One. He named a miserable bigger city. ‘’.. maybe?’’ He also told her that she was as unpopular as a desert sandworm and apparently sexually as frozen as the mountain slope Anna Purna during a blizzard.
He spent about a month in the hospital. Helena stabbed him with her antique ballpoint pen’s tip in a rage and in the process hit his femoral vein. Had he not been older and wiser than Helena he might have found himself on the receiving end of a beautiful, far-reaching ‘full ceremonial military funeral’ without any questions asked. The military took care of their own.
Helena was called to testify before a military tribunal and had told them without hesitation that she had hoped to have committed something more seriously towards her chief officer; than just causing his leg bleed. She was still short of fuse and refused to apologize to him. She had it in for the whole panel and said she’s had, had enough of hearing about different, artistically innovative and or dirty and sticky expressions, around her all day, every day, about what women’s’ whatShallmecallits should actually look like or should be parameter wise, in size.
Did they not give, ANY THOUGHT; to the question if it caused hurt to her mind too, her psyche, her soul, under such circumstances, especially when a troop ran up one day and invited her for a furburger at the mesh? He lost three front teeth, in lieu of his invitation.
The constant fear of molestation or rape or something like that would be much worse, than for her to slaughter the pseudo enemies on the field right there in the moment? Her green blue eyes flashed and narrowed and her face became chalk white.
It did not stop there.
She told the men, they could be glad her grandfather was no longer alive, he would see them as:
‘’Petty – posing; as men of power and integrity” , but actually they were frumpled, empty bags who did not know how to be with a proper woman/ lady….. or how to treat one; even had they perhaps studied ‘Being a Woman 101’ as a course for the next, three years.
In closing, she mentioned that Grandpa would probably have invited them to a personal tête à tête in front of his balcony at his house’s bedroom window so he could pee on each of them.
That’s what her Grandpa apparently would have done with unworthy poopyholes; who call themselves real men, who were still called ‘air force officers’ amidst an unsolicited, schizophrenic type of attack, on a female fellow officer.
The officers were shocked by Helena’s outburst. One younger generation officer still wanted to open his pie-hole to tell her, she’s probably busy with that time of the month.
To this day, he could never understand how she knew before he could speak; what he wanted to say.
She immediately said in a calm voice before he could even speak …. “Refrigerators do not have a red time of the month sir, but seeing that you have such an active imagination that is so practical and just gave me a good idea as an excuse – it was hormones!!!! Sir. Sorry Sir!!! ”
Helena spent 3 weeks in her own type of detention. She was confined to her own staff quarters and got her first real promotion at the end of that month.
Her male contemporaries were certainly not all kind or benevolent to her. During her restriction she worked on an experiment which proved to her statistically after at least a month, that after 6 months, if she used a well devised plan of swear words, but in inconspicuous format, she would be able, to drive away most “swearing shrews” and tame or weaken most of them somehow.
Their repentance however, will take time.
She had already been warned again because she called them pseudo gentlemen instead of officers at her internal trial.
She looked up every possible swear word and or insult in her dictionaries and what it meant. She had found about 60 plus different ways how to passively – aggressively tell someone to …/#$@%7 .. without ever breaking military code of conduct. She held verbal workouts in her room every day.
Because she barely showed her face somewhere, everyone thought she was actually withering away, probably being miserable, and it gave most of the men a real good feeling.
After the 2nd month of her official verbal training sessions, 12 of the biggest bullies had applied to leave the military permanently and or had applied to be transferred to any place to serve other than within earshot of the mouth of Officer Helena P. v. H. every day.
She had managed to develop a thick skin psychologically, but her remarks had hit their nerve points and reached their goal and had been well thought out. The soldiers basically got back what they themselves so richly-dished out, only in a much more sophisticated, planned way.
The chief officer of her division called her to his office one day. He told her he wished to speak to her in a decent manner and had asked her to sit down and talk to him as a human being; not as an officer.
“I called you here so I can tell you, you and King Kong have the same problem. You both have problems getting accepted by the community.“
Helena had been silent. She had waited for this.
“Community, your people Sir?”
She quietly took out her academic record from the Academic Institute and put it across the desk and slowly pushed it over for him, to see.
She had beaten the officer named Jovan Izakov with point (.23)% in the competition for the Nicola Tesla scholarship award. She was on her way to study in the romantic French city of Bordeux.
They had 100% and 99.77% respectively. Jovan Izakov hated Helena with a barely concealed hatred. She had violated him for life and above and beyond that she was promoted and was on her way to France.
Helena felt sorry for the giant of a man in her heart. He was extremely handsome.
A brilliant man, but who acted as one with a heart of stone. A nuclear engineer, architect who already had two doctorates behind his name and his own foundation. She took out her rulebook.
“According to rule no. 6312a in respect of questionable test results…
” It says according to rule no. 6312a in respect of the rules on tests where there is a discrepancy about a pass or fail there is a specific mathematical exception that I would like to draw your attention to. According to it, any point that exceeds the .5% threshold of a percentage is supposed to be counted as a full mark especially if it can affect the outcome of an officer’s promotion or possible promotion. Here is a .23% in question with me and the officer who is listed as second in place for the Tesla bursary. “
Of course, it was supposed to be used for those who marginally fail something and not marginally succeeded, but it was not so refined in statement or documented. (the sentence would cost the air force a great deal of money).
Jovan’s mouth was suddenly cork dry. The Air Force surrendered after a protracted battle with Helena after she had refused to accept the scholarship if it was not earned fairly according to the accepted military, written rules.
The head of the base had been besides himself the day she was leaving.
The head of the multinational task force was an Englishman.
‘’I will not forget this – first you almost kill a senior officer, get promoted for it, screw with the minds of the lower lives on this base and then maneuver yourself out of harms way by …. ing off to Paris, using our own rules. Now I also loose my best officer! This is my base and not a &% # !! Wall Street playground for insider trading.”
He was even more furious when he saw the pity in her eyes for him. She got out of his office and started running when he started taking off his Webber belt like one who wanted to give someone a spanking.
So furious, was he, that Jovan Izakov had to intervene.
Late in the afternoon, Jovan was on a plane en route to the main city with Helena.
He was there when she apologized to the men at the base the previous afternoon. The one young troop gave his fishing rod to her as a departure gift. She kept apologizing and asking him to never try to solve a case in the same wisdom with which a mess was created in the first place, as she had done.
The young troop, originally from Iceland, and she became lifelong friends.
He wrote to her one day that a new South African had arrived at the base. He was high in his praise of the man and said he had a bit of a temper and said the man expressed his frustration so nicely after all. He apparently only used natural words like ‘thunder’ and ‘lightning’ to swear.
The young man wrote to her, what a good and natural idea it was that people used natural words; when they were frustrated.
She just thought to herself that she knows more swear words in more languages than most people. She has her own dictionary built into her head. She was glad she had not visited more planets . . .
Jovan sat in line on the way to the airport and looked at her and said ‘you know in my culture when saving someone’s life it means/ you are forever responsible for them, for the rest of you natural life?’
‘‘Happy me, it most likely does not reach as far as ‘protecting’ the person who had used violence on you and and THEN saved you from that same violence. These are kinds of cosmic garden rules would you not also say so?’’
Jovan just shrugged in his mind. He was looking forward to the challenge in France when he heard her cheekily talking to him. He was going to win and he was going to #$@% her up, he thought to himself. He was going to win the Tesla prize. How, he did not know and he did not care how dirty he was going to have to play, but he was going to win. He wanted to break her. The woman with the wind-blowing her hair into a huge golden red halo, who was normally as quiet as a mouse, stepped in front of him.
He thought to himself: women should be obedient and at home, they do not belong in the air force. ”What was up with that anyway? ”
Helena had heard his thoughts and before she could stay with her newfound sobriety she told him:
“You rebellious “eshek” (ass), we will see how far you get with that, go!”
Jovan almost overturned the vehicle.
“You heard my thoughts !?”
‘‘But I thought you knew, you are the chief officer of this project …. then……… I read, I read them and then I hear them or sometimes vice versa.”
He stopped the car in front of the airport.
“You have to tell me everything.”
She got out of the car and took her suitcases out of the trunk.
“And you have the cheek to leave on such a large operation, without going through your information sheet extensively.”
”You did not read, otherwise you would have known !!!!!!!”
“You’re not King Kong and I’m not the blonde bimbo. This is not your diary or secretary who is on call or standby every moment of the day. It’s my psyche and brain. Get your official back end out of the way and let’s try to look like poster officers who belong to a posh camp and not like two bloody wild cats that will fight until the last paper drops in Paris.”
Jovan stretched out and glared from far above the lithe, young Diana like – tall, female officer. The six-footer plusser had a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
He thought of the gate. He was going to win the prize and her.
She saw the gate in the finest detail rolling past on her inner spiritual screen.
She suddenly raised her chin and told him; “I’m a virgin, not just another virgin, or JUST, a virgin until further notice. And I dare you: just try to break me in like a “cheap thrill” mare and I will ship your guts and “balls” to the coyotes in Australia after the UN camp, I will ship them there…
…. and while we are at it – FUCK YOUR GATE – !!!”
She turned and walked away.
Jovan felt a wave of heat wash over his cheeks. He was going to take what he wanted to take.
He was “dumbfounded”. His plan was going to require refinement. She HAD made his mind sound like that of a dirty, overstimulated, hormonal 15 year old. He suddenly heard his father and mother’s voices in his head. She gave him the crepes.
Helena stormed out of the building. ”You flipping ”crepe” yourself, you will also get your brains in a pack on the way to Aussieland. Away with you!! The crepe meter above your head is FAR IN THE RED!!!! Leave me, my brain, – mind, soul and body alone – sjoeEEe.”
She waved him away with the rough words, her hands held together.
Jovan never realized it but it was there, halfway through the doors of the airport in the country, in the international travel section, that he fell in love, with cherry cheeked Helena.
Helena just “clicked” with her tongue and blushed even more than before and walked to the counters then. She could not believe that “.23%” could lead to so many problems, it and men’s sexuality that apparently control and dominated any form of “common sense” in men.
Had she seen his soft bright eyes resting on her she might have changed her mind about him. It was the eyes of ownership. She became the gate, the gate of Jovan Isakov’s dreams.
Her swearing cured him of the gate in an instant, but not of his ambitions; which had opened up at his parents ‘s servicemen’s rusted gate.
TITLE: CONFIDENTIAL FILE
1. Helena swapped seats, against protocol, and sat a few rows in front of Jovan in the plane. She had her little Bible in hand. Trying to make sense between the different kinds of wisdom. praying forgiveness for her outburst. Immature at 22, still doing it without any spiritual guidance in addition to the Holy Spirit’s attempt to discern how to manage her spiritual gifts in a masculine and fiercely competitive life professionally. She had decided to apologize to him on a later occasion.
2. Jovan slowly pulled out the file. He carefully began to read Helena’s history. He stayed with her background, but 90% was redacted. His frown grew as he continued to read. He looked upset and paged forward where after he could read the piece about the paranormal test for section… .. She is the first who had the question right during all the years they had published the test questions:
‘’Subject was asked what do, you ‘see’ or experience; when you read the name of this old movie? ”
Tarzan And The Apes
Subject’s answer:
Subliminal message:
Sepa = Spy
Eth = ET
DNA = DNA
Nazrat = Nazareth
Word ‘comes by hearing’ (phonetics)
“Spy ET Dna Nazreth”
Tarzan = an ET spy with DNA from Nazareth?
Or a Spy FROM Nazareth with ET DNA?
Answer correct !!!
Then I also see, roses and crosses holographically?
Unknown quantity ???
3. Jovan did not have much chance to finish reading the spectacle. Just when he had started reading on the last sentence, he suddenly felt a prick in his neck, he felt his consciousness slowly disappear, with the flying alarm screaming in his ears, they were on their way to the ground. The pilots were dead in the cockpit.
4. Helena’s saving grace was that she was not in the seat next to him. One man and she wrestled for the exit’s door where he wanted to jump out with his parachute, she tied him up there.
5. They finally crash landed in a field on a thin tarmac road with wheels only halfway out, both destroyed.
But they were alive, standing outside a small shed. The competition for the Tesla prize started long before they had landed anywhere near Paris, France.
6. The blow of the landing broke the parachutist’s neck as he was at the door pinned in position.
Late at night in a small village somewhere on the way to France, Jovan gave the little green book back to her.
“You dropped it, during the wrestling.”
John 10: 7 Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.”
By the light of the fire he gave her the Bible opened at the scripture.
“Helena, I’ll try not to be the wolf.” They both looked at each other soberly in the gloomy atmosphere. Other passengers and injured in the field around them, were trying to be as comfortable as possible.
Bible in hand she said to him ” So You say, I don’t believe you, we shall see.”
Copyrighted: Sharmaine T. Pretorius 2001.