CANADA

I remember one time
with Juanjo

We were in his
office,
plans and shit
laid all over the table,
the lemon trees in the orchard
peaking in through the
window

The secretary had
just brought me a coffee,
one of several.

The large tall
thick mustachioed
multi-millionaire
property developer
had been blathering
on about his kids
(must have been in Spanish),
how
he was sending them
to this school for knobs
somewhere
in the dark depths
of Canada

This place of learning
was truly fab,
apparently.
The crown prince
of Spain had been there,
and plenty of other toffs

I sipped my coffee
sneaked a look at my watch

Oh yeah
this was the place
to send his offspring.
There, they would mingle
with the wealthy and powerful,
they would be dipped in
a sort of
quasi-British public school
tradition
that would imbue them
with all the qualities
needed to get on in the
world,
and of course
their  English
would be
faultless

I vaguely nodded
to show how impressed I was...
this was a high-paying class
I was well motivated

Not only that,
not only that
but should anything happen
in Europe
they would have somewhere to go,
a refuge.
I woke from my doze,
what the hell had he said?
What did he think was going
to happen in Europe?
A revolution? An earthquake?
An Islamic fundamentalist insurrection?
An invasion by a nameless
horde of demonic beings
from another dimension?

For goodness sake
who,
who in their right mind
would start thinking of such
contingencies?
Who would ever, ever
go there?

I had visions of Maria
Juan and the other one
whose name I can't remember
scurrying onto a luxury jet,
flames, explosions and
machine gunfire in the distance.
They stop briefly
on the steps up to the plane
to gaze one last
time upon the wretched
continent of Europe;
burning
and blazing,
exploding and imploding,
its death cries
whipping the tormented air,
a cauldron of
chaos and conflagration

Would they?
Would they as their jet
shot off into the horizon,
shot off for Canada and safety,
remember the people they had
left behind?
Would they for example
remember
their and their dad's
personal English teacher
who had enlightened
their in my opinion
not so fascinating lives
with his wit charm
and didactic skills?

I probably,
in response to his preposterous reasoning,
mustered
a vague consolatory
smile
and most probably
almost certainly
took another sip
of my coffee