Ian • Shir Haik

Ian did not like his name. He preferred his middle name but I don’t remember it.
On summer evening in 1991, I had one more beer with Ian. I already knew he was from a small town near Belfast, Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, Falklands War, bloody Falkland war. 

I was in a small hostel on a trip to damp Tiberius. I met some tourists early that week (they said they came here to see where Jesus walked on water). It was just Ian and I two days later. We set each August evening in a different pub. He taught me to drink beer.

The beers, the heat, the humidity and all those days together in a row with Ian, I really started wanting him. I constantly imagined our house in the green and rainy widths of Ireland. The stormy North Sea on the far side of the house. On good weather days, you can see it from the porch. The splendid Welsh accent that our boys will have. Their big, rectangular, gray schoolbag and their dirty white knee socks. They will breed a vulture in the backyard storage or feed the rabbits and the mice running around our barn. Two lovely wild boys with a golden heart and a solvent smile, short brown prickly hair, like their father, on their little circled heads above their satchels, throwing stones at the sheep blocking the path and sticking out their tongues at the skirted girls on the way. I had already imagined what dreams they’ll dream in their sleep. I had already pictured Ian and me.

But Ian just kept on telling me more and more about the Falklands bloody war from nine years ago. Even on our last evening. I don’t remember what he said his middle name was. I think he didn’t remember nothing since 1982.