Aleksander Beciri, an Albanian residing in The Netherlands, is a civil engineer dedicated to circular building and environmental protection. In addition to his engineering pursuits, he is an accomplished author and translator. Fluent in Albanian, Dutch, Greek, English, Italian, and, more recently, French, he has actively participated in numerous multilingual translation projects. One notable translation accomplishment is his rendition of ‘Aan de Rand van de Wereld: Michel Houellebecq’ (‘On the Verge of the World: Michel Houellebecq’) from Dutch to Albanian in 2015. Furthermore, Beciri has left his literary mark with the poetry collection ‘Faje Njeriu’ (‘Human Flaws’), which was published in 2008 by Skanderbeg Books. In 2021, Galway Academic Press proudly presented his book titled ‘The Bastard.’ Several short stories from ‘The Bastard,’ including ‘Transformed,’ ‘What’s Over There? ‘, ‘The Old Shoes’, ‘One and a Half Meter Distance – Sex’, ‘Suus the Cat and Maurice de Haan’, and ‘Grumpy Old Man’, have already found a place on The Galway Review. Aleksander Beciri’s diverse linguistic proficiency and literary contributions showcase his commitment to bridging cultures and enriching the literary landscape.

M.M.M. (Mikey, Mimi & Mini)

By Aleksander Beciri

His muscled body and shaved bald-headed appearance, covered in tattoos, the scars on his face and neck, the way he walked, talked, and looked at people, were pretty intimidating to us all. Not a rational reason, but still. The gentleman he actually once was from the inside-out, and probably still is somewhere, had disappeared under the impenetrable armor he had carefully built around his core. Thank god there was this little lady half of his size, whose mama had called her Mini. She was his own wife who was not to be messed with, and she was definitely not afraid of him. On the contrary, she was absolutely in charge of the couple, and he wouldn’t even dare to think of not answering the phone any fifteen minutes she called checking upon him.

They had met each other on the dating site Tinder and, after swiping profiles and pictures back and forth, finally found love on the first click. Since then, they became inseparable. Anyway, that’s another story.

Once he told me this story of his childhood, how growing up he was part of a gang. When they once, by accident, robbed an animal asylum mistaking it for a jewelry store, and unfortunately, there was nothing found for takeaway, these little Golden Retrievers, who had cut herself loose, followed him and one of his gangster friends. They will never know why the dog behaved the way he did; in order to catching them away or because he immediately caught the Stockholm syndrome at first sight? A serene of a police car standing in the way ruined their plans. He felt forced to take the puppy into his arms, and they both ran and ran until there was no place left to go. The whole gang got arrested except Mikey, only thirteen at the time, who together with the dog managed to escape.

Mimi, that’s how he named the Golden Retriever, found a home, and Mikey finally found a true friend. Even though at the early beginning of their friendship, they both had to overcome certain hurdles. He had decided to dump the creature because the little one was interfering with the speed of his business (whatever the business of a thirteen-year-old youngster might have been at the time). A couple of times he tried, but he couldn’t get committed to the final act. So he left her inside his sleeping room, the door locked. The little one, though, had no desire whatsoever to spend the whole day alone in that tiny, boring, stupid, claustrophobic space; she jumped out of the window, and he couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw her waiting for him outside the coffee shop he used to frequent at the very center of Amsterdam. Anyway, from that moment on, they grew up together as equal partners in crime. Everywhere he went, she was there too.

Years passed by, but Mimi grew up faster and faster, until faster she died. When she passed away, Mikey had reached twenty-four, and he still remembers every single detail of her death. How they went to the vet to put her to sleep in two phases; first by administering her the calming injection and then the one that made her heart stop. The man became all over again a boy, and by distinguishing an atypical tear coming out of the dog’s eye, the man who had never cried before started weeping like a baby. The veterinarian tried to tell him that the liquid stuff coming out of Mimi’s eye was not a tear but just a humid substance and that was very common in such occasions. But no: there was no consolation whatsoever that could calm Mikey down.

Miserable as he could get, he organized a nice funeral, held a few silent speeches promising both her and himself that after the darkness he went through as a young man, he was going to change his lifestyle. Finally, somehow he discovered the light at the end of the tunnel and became the decent man he is today. The ashes of Mimi were carefully kept somewhere safe, and he decided to do the unthinkable; when he himself would die, his ashes and hers mixed together would be spread somewhere; together in this life, together in the other one hereafter. It was not really because he suddenly became an activist or an animal friend, but because she was she, with her style and personality, and the most important thing, she was the only living thing in this world who had never betrayed him. One could hate or admire Mikey, but nobody could ignore his core qualities; loyalty was definitely one of them, why not the most defining feature of his very existence.

I got a bit lost in his story, not knowing which part was true and which was filled with fake memories when his wife just appeared from nowhere, abruptly interrupting us.

-Love of my life! – he repeated the same phrase as yesterday, or the one of the day before, the same one actually he used daily the last two and a half years. It was a recorded phrase stuck in his head to be automatically played any time she called or in case her silhouette occurred from nowhere.

-Why don’t you pick up the phone? – she was really pissed off.

-Meaning? – he answered, not knowing how to deal with her fury.

-I have been calling the last half an hour every five minutes. -I am so sorry, love, but I was telling him (he meant me) the story of the Golden Retriever, you know it already. – he answered meanwhile I nodded and felt guilty for borrowing him from her, I just found his story fascinating.

-And that is a good reason for not picking up the phone? – she was serious, deadly serious.

-My Mini, my love, what I have forgotten to mention to you is that I have promised to Mimi that when I will die and eventually one day you will die too, we both are going to get cremated, her ashes, yours and mine all mixed in one urn, together in eternity. – he got emotional, and I never knew he had such a soft side.

-Do whatever you want with your ashes, but is there a hair on your bald head really thinking I am going to mix my ashes with the ones of that stupid dog? Hell No!! Silent and broken-hearted the man stood up, made a few disoriented movements back and forth; without saying goodbye he left towards an unknown destination.

Half an hour later he turns; a tall beautiful rounded vase carefully held in his hand, decorated by shining stars and cosmic dust made the panorama complete. The heaven’s gate looked closer than ever before. The initials M.M.M standing for Mikey Mimi Mini were gorgeously engraved. Without thinking twice Mikey violently threw the empty urn, and the rest was done by gravity. The vase broke into thousands of tiny pieces, just like his bygone hope. It was not meant to be. A future chair sitting next to the God Mikey was supposed to resemble (at least according to the meaning of his name) seemed further than ever before; smashing the urn didn’t make his triple journey to paradise any easier. He had to search for another path.