(Originally posted on MySpace)
I met a writer once
His name was Belcampo, most of you won't have heard of him. I don't think much of his work has been translated. He's dead now, lived to a ripe old age too. I met him when I was 18 and he was well over 80. He mainly wrote stories of a genre that's hard to describe. They deal with the impossible or the very unlikely, but written in such a way that it all appears normal. Some of them could be described as what-if stories. If I have to compare him to someone you would know about, I'd say he was the Dutch Roald Dahl.

He was my favourite writer at the time (in fact he still is), and I did a school assignment about his work. I wrote to tell him that, and he kindly sent me a book so I could read it (it wasn't for sale anywhere), I paid him of course, and sent him a copy of the assignment when it was finished. He then sent me a very friendly letter complimenting me on my work. I was over the moon.

Then when I was in his city for something unrelated, I found myself on his doorstep. I was too timid to ring the doorbell. But luckily his wife came home and found me there and I explained why I was loitering on her doorstep. She immediately invited me in, saying 'Herman will be pleased to hear he has a visitor!'
And he was. He had been cutting out pictures of paintings and pasting them in a scrapbook. His eyes lit up when I told him who I was.
We had a lively conversation that lasted all afternoon and most of the evening. He was a very fast and original thinker, always seeing sides of an issue that no one else would even think of. He was witty and funny, too. And he treated me like an equal.

I was invited to stay for dinner, and helped with cooking. I can honestly say I have fried tofu in Belcampo's kitchen. None of you will find this impressing, except for a small selection of Dutch people.
I can't remember the conversation itself but I remember that afternoon as one of the most special in my life so far. It felt like a historical moment, a very long one.