After two years of war, three years of protesting an attempted judicial coup, and the challenging few years of the pandemic, the last thing this author has is patience. Perhaps that’s exactly why I found it so enjoyable to read this strange old story.
The most patient man in the world was sitting on a bench next to Dizengoff Center. No one was sitting on the bench beside him, not even pigeons. The perverts in the public toilets were making such loud, weird noises that you couldn’t ignore them. The most patient man in the world was holding a newspaper in his hand, pretending to read.
He wasn’t really reading, he was waiting for something. No one knew what.
A German tabloid offered ten thousand euros to anyone who found out what the man was waiting for, but no one did. In the exclusive interview he agreed to give to a CNN correspondent, the most patient man in the world said he was waiting for lots of things, but that wasn’t the place to list them. “So where is the place?” the persistent journalist asked, but the most patient man in the world didn’t answer, he just waited quietly for the next question. He waited and waited and waited, until finally they cut back to the studio.
People from all over the world made pilgrimages to ask what his secret was. Hyperactive brokers, hysterical students, artists desperate for their promised fifteen minutes of fame. The most patient man in the world didn’t know exactly what he was supposed to tell them. “Shave,” he always ended up saying, “shave with hot water. It’s very soothing.” And all the men would rush right off to their bathrooms and nick their faces in a thousand places. Women said he was a chauvinist. They said his macho answer automatically denied every woman her right to attain a state of calm. Women also found him very ugly. Laurie Anderson actually wrote a song about him. “A Very Patient, Ugly Chauvinist” was the name of the song. “His biological clock is taking its time” was the chorus.
The most patient man in the world fell asleep on the bench with his eyes half closed. In his dreams, meteors crashed into the ground with the faint sound of buses hitting their brakes, hideous volcanoes erupted with the sound of perverts flushing toilets, and the girl he’d loved for many years told her husband she was leaving him with the cooing of birds. Four meters away, two pigeons were trying to peck out each other’s eyes for no reason. They weren’t even fighting over food. “Shave,” the man said in his sleep. “Shave with hot water. It’s very soothing.”
