a story about desires

Immersed in papers and the bitterness of winter, Oskars sat at his aging timber desk.

He was trying to apply himself to the task of writing notes from an interview that afternoon. It was more of a character assessment than anything, of a shop owner who was in the process of an insurance claim from theft. Oskars was asked for assistance from the police department to verify if the claims were legitimate. This is the consequence of being in between investigations; and it’s hard not to find it an insult to his intelligence.

Oskars became a private detective to try to avoid working with trivial domestic problems. He desires something with substance; an investigation that is challenging and complex. Something that stimulates his mind, not tires it.

It is not always like this, there is something about mid winter that numbs the city of Riga. And it is this stillness of the city that depresses Oskars.

He takes a moment rest, and sits back in his chair to drink his strong black tea. On the wall there are neat lines of postcards, sent from his daughter Misala from her travels around the world. His daze turns to them. He already knows that there are exactly 33 postcards on his wall; 4 orderly rows with 8 cards in each; and 1 lonesome one starting a fresh row.

The somewhat presence of his daughter instantly fills him with warmth and smiles to himself. He knows she sends them to him not along as a reminder of her thinking of him, but as it was his dream once to travel the world. And it was his dream that in turn inspired her passion. Somehow it never happened for him, and he has found himself at the age of 53 trapped in the same city he was born in. Although he moved around in his 20’s throughout Lithuania, Poland and Estonia, and a selection of western Russia it seemed fitting to settle down in the city he knew as home. Oskars enjoys the comfort of familiarity.

Even though wanting to live in a familiar city, this still doesn’t stop him from still desiring to travel. And right now, sitting in his study with frozen toes and an uninspired mind, it is hard not to wish he was somewhere else. He always has wanted to see the tropics; he would travel through South East Asia and then down all the way to Indonesia. That has always been his ambition. And right now the idea of warmth was so tempting. He looks up to the wall and finds a postcard midway in the second row of a picturesque rainforest in Burma. It looks amazing, so foreign and unlike anywhere he has been. Misala has always ended her postcards with ‘wish you were here’. Partially as a reference to the Pink Floyd song, and partially as he knows she truly wishes it for him. And right now he wishes, to, that he could be there.

He sighs, and decides he is too weary and preoccupied to continue writing, and heads off to bed. Oskars settles in for the night with a hot water bottle and a detective John Rebus novel. As it is the closest thing, for now, he has to experiencing the thrill of an investigation.