Picture "TURN ME ON"

Turn Me On

There is such a psychological game: what famous person would you like to meet and what would you like to ask him.

because I didn’t feel like coming up with anything, because I was just thinking about how we sit down in a cafe with that famous person, immediately intelligent thoughts evaporate and only the inconvenience remains that I brighten up his time, because I am so stupid and uninteresting.

Unless it was Jesus, because he is forgiving, he wouldn’t get angry, he would sit patiently. And what would I ask? Was it very sad to die because of people’s stupidity, and then be resurrected into an equally hopeless world?

But why ask that, when I know the answers myself. It’s too predictable, when there is such a one-sided bright, inhuman hero.

And what if I asked to meet Pontius Pilate? He is a person, painfully human! But how long would she tolerate my shallow conversation – after all, from there, beyond death, all our topics become funny, all sorrows, fears, and desires – just dust in the wind.

When I read Jurga Ivanauskaitė’s “The Year of Lilies of the Valley”, I was thirty. And she was already about forty. I really wanted to see, hear, understand what she was like. But when we met at some event, I didn’t dare even to say hello.

And now I would dare. After all, I am much older than her – almost ten years older! I would really like to invite Jurga for coffee. Write down what a miracle it would be – to bring her life back to her for at least an hour: we would sit in her favorite cafe, you know, I would treat her, because she imagines money, because there is no need for money there. And maybe she wouldn’t even listen to me, but she would still look out the window, what her Vilnius is like now, what people, what trees, what sky. I would invite her in the summer, when the city is at its most beautiful, and take her to Gediminas Hill, it's easier to climb from there when it's time to return.

I'm older than her now.

I'm older than wonderful people: Leonidas Donskis, Camus, Mozart, Van Gogh, and Shakespeare.

And if I could invite them for coffee, I wouldn't ask anything - I would just thank them for living.

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