BLACK AND WHITE

The brown spot in the middle of the white block below is where I live. What makes the brown spot is the blinds. All solid wood and custom made. When I moved in and said, 'I need my house in the woods', the neighbours were all looking with suspicion. It helps that I come from Romania where everyone is crazy, so I'm allowed to be crazy. The neighbours all went for the black and white aesthetics. People are so civilized in Denmark. No trace of gypsyhood or some other dubious ethnicity is welcome. The interior must be white and black in a Danish home - more often than not anyhow - or some white and some black, or some black lines framing some personally taken black and white photography. The black and white is an individual expression. If you have books, it's better that they are in the basement, or else they ruin the black and white fashion. Black plastic is popular too. Mainly because it can be mistaken for wood. 'Only rich asholes can afford real wood,' some Danes conjecture, 'or the gypsies who have no sense of culture and color.' 'Look at that circus,' the Danes go, when spotting shades of black approaching some occult manifestation when red and purple is also in the vicinity. Most of my neighbours in my block sport white, flimsy ribbon-like shredding over their windows. I've started noticing all this from the distance especially since I've started walking the dog. It's amazing how much culture you get to see while another creature is taking a pee. I can see how my brown concoction for the big windows rather ruins the uniformity of the Danish landscape. I feel guilty for bringing my house in the woods in an apartment, and in such a clandestine way. I can feel how the black and white individuality and sign of good taste envelops me, and when my neighbour across from my apartment flings her door open just as I turn the key into my keyhole, I realize fully how mistaken I am about my ways. An army of children come out of her place and with her door swung wide open a sea of black and white lines is about to swallow me. But the dog saves me: Ah, the sweet sound of redemption. 'Giddy, giddy, doggy, doggy. Such lovely black and white wolfie.' Yes. I knew I could get it right. Yes. 23 years in Denmark have not gone in vain. Thank you thank you. I now know everything. Thank you black and white culture. How very exciting to be here.