As I was putting together a computer from second hand parts, I found the old hard drive hadn't been erased.
This included the previous owners emails.
I felt conflicted about reading them.
But this passed quickly.
To my delight I discovered a correspondence between two people dating back to 1999.
They were truthful, touching and a little funny.
I became addicted and felt compelled to share it. Unedited.
Currently the uploading is on holidays. But Bored Olives will return 22nd April 2012. In the meantime you can read all the emails at http://boredolivesarchives.blogspot.com and subscribe to the next chapter at boredolives.com in the new year.
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@hotmail.com >
Sent: Friday August 2nd, 1999 2:01 AM
Subject: RE RE RE RE I’m actually feel a little guilty
Dom did I just read ‘love dom’ at the end of your last email…? I know I shouldn’t point it out…but I can’t help myself…it makes me wonder if I’ll write ‘love stacey’ at the end of this email…I guess you’ll just have to wait and see…
Yes, I am certain that I came into your bookstore a year ago…and I reckon you served me…I have the vaguest memory…actually when we first met at Crisps’ party back in April, I did have a strong feeling that we’d met before…you did seem familiar…you did seem strangely comfortable too…I know I was probably a little cool…but part of me was just trying to work out why I strangely felt there was already a connection between us…
… maybe I’m just trying to justify that I was simply attracted to you…a guy with glasses gets me every time…
Anyway…for the moment, I’m going to believe we met in the bookstore…I’m going to imagine that you served me…I’m going to imagine that I wanted to read something meaningful and you guided me toward Franz Kafka…I’m going to imagine that you picked up his collected works (volume one) and told me that this could change my life…
I’m going to imagine taking the book off you and our fingers touching briefly over the spine…
I going to imagine, paying for it and walking out the shop, glancing one final time over my shoulder at you…
I’m going to imagine seeing you at the counter…perched on a stool…reading something surprising…something like CS Lewis…
I’m going to imagine that you looked up just as I was leaving…
I’m going to imagine you smiled and I knew that we would meet again…
I’m going to imagine that when I returned home I read Metamorphosis in one sitting and cried for hours…
I’m going to imagine that I put the book back in my book shelf and seeing a cockroach scuttle across the floor…and for the first time in my life I considered giving such an gross creature a name…
I’m going to imagine I then spoke to the cockroach as it hunted for crumbs…”Be safe, Gregor,” I imagine I said, “Avoid the fruit, avoid the family, avoid the world and know that you are safe here with me.”
Anyway there it is…my imagination on the page…I wonder what it says about me…
And what are you doing tonight? Can you sneak by in the wee small hours? I know that’s so much to ask…
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Thursday August 1st, 1999 18:21 PM
Subject: RE RE RE I’m actually feel a little guilty
Yeah, I was working in the bookstore a year ago. I started working there just after I moved out of home. My father teed it up. He knew the owner from on-campus business and I guess he used his status as an Arts Academic to get me a gig.
(Because Arts Academics truly rule the world, don’t you know – that’s why we still have musicals)
Sorry not quite sure why I’m telling you this – but yes I was working there a year ago. But I don’t think I served you. I am certain I would have remembered and I am certain we would have started this dance then.
Imagine that!? If we’d have begun one year ago where would we be now? Where will we be in a year?
Man, I rambling – had too much coffee today. Also I’m typing without glasses and making too many errors. I’m getting so sick of pressing that back space key.
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@hotmail.com >
Sent: Thursday August 1st, 1999 13:34PM
Subject: RE RE I’m actually feel a little guilty
And now I don’t feel guilty at all...what’s wrong with me…it was so good to see you today…
god sex is good for guilt…
it’s funny isn’t it…we’re being dishonest in every way…but honest to each other…it’s like we’ve crossed the line and once it’s crossed we can do whatever we want…
So with this in mind - do you want to go out and kill a homeless person?
Hey I was also thinking…I reckon I went to your bookstore a year ago...
I’m certain of it...
Were you working there a year ago? I think you served me (as you do now – wink-wink)
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Tuesday July 30th, 1999 23:43 PM
Subject: RE bad
I miss you too, my big fat old slut.
What are you doing tomorrow? I’m working.
Boring day.
I‘ll be thinking of you as try to sell fellow students copies of Bronte or Cervantes.
That will help me survive.
Indeed I will take a paper plate from the University refectory and put it on my head; upside down.
I will spray paint my Nick Cave T-Shirt silver and sponge-stain it to look like armour.
I will then foster a sword from one of the wooden pickets that hold up the picture of Eron Broadhurst for Union President that have sprout from the earth with great fervour over the last week.
Then, by placing two ergonomic chairs from the back of the bookstore together and placing a some tourist tattle rug that my Day Manager insists on calling a piece of authentic Peruvian art over the top, I will crudely manufacture my nag, my Rocinante to carry me on my chivalrous adventures.
Once kitted out I will then attack those windmill leviathans on the Basketball courts and truly offer help to those that never want it.
I will be your Don Quixote, dear Dulcinea del Toboso. I will ride my nag into your romantic, horny palace. I will prove my worth by changing the world.
Or so I’ll ponder as a bash keys on the cash register, selling myriad copies of Dickens for Dummies while keeping my bone idle eye on the clock.
Madly
Dom
PS I’m not actually mad, by the way. It’s just - with you coming into my life - everything else has been made unbearable as comparison.
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