the re-birth of alfredo deKruiff

001. the table top clock rang at 7.30 sharp. this smallish man raised his head in fermented torpor and the ceiling looked orange or green or maybe purple. he shoved the covers away, rotated on his hips and hit the dog's nose with his heel. this blogger can tell you, it promised to be another horrible damp day. stumbling on nothing on his way to the kitchen, deKruiff streched in five different directions in a show of contortionist extravanza. the dog followed, stretched behind him, and collapsed in a corner for a second nap. beyond the rooftops, the early sky looked argentinian blue, one lone string of cumulonimbuses spanning up north over the tree canopies. a sphere of several hundred starlings startled this yet sleepy man, the incongruous black swarm flying toward the kitchen's window, then knotting an impossible 90 degrees up and warping out of sight above the house. this put a sure smile of wonder in his grumpy face, while the odour of brewing coffee swiffed around the house screaming at Monday morning. well, tuesday. at 7.33 the cellular phone blooped with an incoming text. sedaka was the first. 'happy birthday you. do you feel older already?'. how weasaly, or really, how wombaty! at 7.36, when this storyteller was pouring himself some coffee in a pink-green mug, the phone rang. amis this time: 'i'm just walking to the office. well, just getting in. just going up the stairs right now. anyway, merry christmas - ha ha i mean, happy- birthday-talk-to-you-later-bye-bye'. all too fast for that coffee that had still to run in your deKruiff's veins. when he was going up his own flight of stairs with the orange-blue mug in his hand, the phone rang a second time. your blogger – of course – cursed and continued up, ignoring the yelping device. your truly prepared himself a bath with cypress salts and then bathed, shaved, brushed his teeth and drank the black coffee all more or less at the same time, although not necessarily in this order. Lighting a cigarrette outside the front door, your writer was 31 years old for the first time in his life.