When the music takes over, the music takes control

Epilogue : When it comes it 's so, so disappointing

2007-07-26T13:56:00.000-07:00

This week’s deadline was approaching fast, and I knew that I had to have an interview ready for this week’s magazine. Sadly, though, I had absolutely no idea who to interview, and worse, I hadn’t the foggiest idea of how to conduct an interview that would have to be done just to… well, just to fill up space.
Sure, there were loads of people the world over that I would immensely adore to hold under my inquisitive mind, but most of them seemed so out of reach… either because they were quite literally out this world, in more ways than one, or because other reasons conspired to keep them away from my quill.
Fact is, it was deadline day minus three days, and I lay awake at night, wiping the sweat from my brow. I tossed and turned in bed, and when my phone rang, I only wanted to smash it against the wall.
I picked it up, though, as much out of a sense of duty as out of a sense of curiosity, and saw that it was my editor calling me.

“Damn”, I thought, “She’s going to ask me about the deadline.”
“Sam”, she said, “about that deadline…”
“Yeah, about that, Maureen… I have this great lead to a story that’s going to pan out tomorrow… if that one doesn’t work, I have another angle into a story that’s just so amazing… I can’t even tell you about it’, I lied.
“You are such a liar, Sam. But look, even if you do have any of those crackers, I want you to backburner them. Boy, are you going to love me for this or what?”
“What, exactly, are you talking about?”, I questioned her.
She took her own sweet time to answer back, and I could hear her sucking on a cigarette for a long while, clearly savouring her time.
She drew her breath then said these two words : “Jon Snow.”
“Jon Snow, the writer?”, I retorted. “What about him?”
She laughed, maliciously, and said. “I’ve got him. After all these years, he finally agreed to do an interview. And I’m sending him your way.”
My jaws dropped to the floor. How I went from having no story to potentially having the greatest scoop of my career, I couldn’t imagine.
“Sam? Sam, are you there?”, Maureen’s voice asked.
“Yeah…”, I trilled, like a schoolboy.
“This is… Mo, this is going to be huge… if I get this right…”
“Oh yeah”, she said. “You do this right, and I see something that begins with a ‘P’ and ends with a ‘ulitzer’ for you”, she beamed.

Sam Wood : And so here we are, just the two of us, a log crackling merrily on the fireplace… My first question for you would have to be ‘Why’? Why now, after all these years, did you finally decide to give an interview, Mr. Snow?

Jon Snow : Call me Jon. Well, Sam… you don’t mind me calling you ‘Sam’, do you?

S.W. : Not at all.

J.S. : Thanks. I thought that the time was right, the time was now. I also wanted to make it clear that though reclusive I may be, I am not some misanthropic beast, as so many of your contemporaries chose to paint me.

S.W. : Ok, fair enough, but you’re telling me that this didn’t come from the fact that your most notorious novel – ‘One Nation’ – has recently been adapted to the theatre? And that some serious allegations have been made as to whether you really wrote the book?

J.S. : … (Strained silence. Gazes at the fireplace for a few minutes, gets up and pours us both a glass of brandy, each.)

J.S. : Well… the movie was ok, I guess. I always knew that it would be extremely hard to properly translate it, to make it as faithful to the book as possible. Did you know that every time they had a script they sent me one round, so I would say if I liked it or not? But in the end, sure, it was good enough. The casting may have been off in some places, but… yeah, it was entertaining. As to the rumours… I know where they came from… I know who spread them, and why.
Here… (Gets up again, fumbles in a drawer for a while, looking for something.)
Take a look at this.

S.W. : No… is this what I think it is?

J.S. : Oh yes, my original manuscript. And see those shelves over there? I wrote over a dozen bibles, detailing everything about the story, each and every character and scene was fleshed out even before I even started to write the story itself. Those lies that were put out… well, I attribute them to lesser writers; to those who dwelled in mediocrity from the outset. And they know damn well who they are.

S.W. : I’m not sure that your tirade just now proves anything at all, Jon. But I will confess to being completely and utterly amazed at what is surrounding me right now. All around me I see book upon book upon book… many are, as you have claimed, bibles for your books. But now… riddle me this : you are not, by any standards a proficuous writer… I mean, your entire work consists of the novels “One Nation”, “Future Perfect” and the many times adapted to the stage novella “When it comes it’s so, so disappointing”… and yes, I do know that both novels were international bestsellers, and your novella earned widespread accolade… but why was that, exactly? Why, when you clearly have so much talent?

J.S. : Well, you do know that I was accused of being a one trick pony after my first book came out, right? I was cheered by some, and jeered by many more. Had I not been steadfast in my purpose, I might’ve buckled under the terrible pressure those awful critics put me in. I would have quavered, I would have stopped dead on my tracks if only I paid attention to any of those bloody stupid jokes they made about me.

J.S. : (Laughs)

J.S. : But the joke, you see, was on them…

S.W. : How so?

J.S. : Truth is, I had already authored a book well before ‘One Nation’ even came out. It’s a little book called ‘How it ends’.

S.W. : Come now, you have got to be kidding me… you claim to have written the cult classic ‘How it ends’? Now, Jon, you know I have the utmost respect for you and for your work, but to make such a claim… it’s so unlikely a claim, that you’d have to have hard evidence to back this up.

J.S. : (Smiles enigmatically. Gets up once more, fumbles for a number of minutes in various drawers, then produces a sheaf of papers.)

J.S. : There. It’s all there.

I study the papers for a while. I find, among others, a numbers of hand written chapters, full of annotations, and a contract with a long gone publisher, agreeing to publish the book ‘How it ends’, clearly stating the fact that it had to be published under the pseudonym “Lloyd Llewellyn”. This changes everything, so I decide to change my strategy, too.

S.W. : Talk to me, Jon. Why the need for such secrecy? Surely you must know what that book means to so many people…

J.S. : Does it? I wonder. Well, now I’m sure people will have an opportunity to know what I really think about it, eh?

S.W. : Tell us, then.

J.S. : Sam, to tell you the truth, I haven’t thought about it in a long time. For me, it was like I wrote the damned thing lifetimes ago. It’s in the past, you know? But it was something that I felt I had to write.

S.W. : Where did that story come from? I ask this because it’s something so different from everything else you wrote… so why write that story?

J.S. : Basically, it came from all the unhappiness I sensed and saw every single out on the streets, you know what I mean? I saw all these disappointed people just drifting by, gripped by an invisible fear… the fear of loneliness. So one day, as I was going out of the subway, I see this woman, and let me tell you, I never saw someone as miserable as she was. I just hugger her then and there, gave her this heart-warming big hug, and call it what you will, but I felt her sadness too.

S.W. : What did you do next?

J.S. : Oh, I just wrote, and wrote. And I kept on writing. And in the end, I saw how much good it did me : it taught me how to write, what to write, and what not to write.

S.W. : So, was the end result to your liking? Did you do what you set out to do?

J.S. : Well, by no means I meant to open the hearts of minds of anybody who read that story, no. But you know, I was so young, so much younger then. It was written fifteen years ago, did you know that? But ultimately… heh. There was this song I really loved way back when, and the bloke who sang said something like ‘don’t get sentimental, it always ends up drivel’. And that story? That was me getting sentimental. And look how it ended up. But I digress…

S.W. : Oh wow… so, how did it get published? Is there a story to that as well?

J.S. : Yeah, there’s a story behind that. But let me tell you, it’s not a particularly droll one, nor is it meaningful. My ex-wife, Louise… back when we were dating, one day she was rummaging through my stuff… spring cleaning, you know? And she just finds some of the stuff I had written, and she started reading it. So one time I caught her in the act, and she said to me that it should be published. Now, I never wrote that story with the intention of ever publishing it, it was more of an exercise in style. But she had this friend who worked for a publisher, and that got the ball rolling… the rest is, as they say, history.

S.W. : Walk me through the story for a bit… it’s a memorable story, for me at least, and what intrigued me about it, and now doubly so, is that it’s a story with such a small cast… where did those characters come from? What archetypes did you use?

J.S. : Let’s stir these little grey cells, shall we? Well, Jon Snow was obviously me, right? I mean, he was the person I wanted to be, and his virtues were the ones I desired for myself. He was me, sure enough, up until his final choice. But then… I was also Sandor / William for a while… the kind of person he was, all that womanising… that was all me. But the drinking, no. That came from an old friend of mine, James, he used to drink himself stupid every single day for God knows how long. And those talks Jon has with him? Sure and they were talks I myself had with him years and years ago.

S.W. : I did not know that. I can see now how this novel can be yours, though it is highly distinct from what you later wrote. I base this assumption on the fact that you always had an uncanny knack for writing strong female characters. What can you tell me about Natalie and Marcia?

J.S. : (Silence for a while. Closes his eyes briefly, then opens them, misty eyed.)

J.S. : Ah, but do you know, even though I based Marcia on a true person, she was even called Marcia herself, I never actually met her? She was this girl I used to see every night in this club I used to go, and she used to do these amazing hair flips… I guess I was sort of in love with her for a while, and when I started to write, she just came to me as a natural for the story. Of course, she never even knew about this, and why should she? After all, I only used her physical traits, and none of the personality she might’ve had.

S.W. : And Natalie? Was she based on a real person too?

J.S. : No.. and yes. You see, she was based on a few different girls I knew. The fact that she was a nurse came from my cousin Sara, who was very close to me when I was a child. The fact that she uses braces and is named Natalie came from this girl who worked with me also called Natalie. But physically… yeah, that part came from my ex-girlfriend Sara… except she wasn’t blonde, no. That came from another girl I used to know when I was younger, Katina. So, out of that amalgam of people came Natalie… and what a joy she was to write, I tell you. Every single word she said… all those little lies… the way she moved me… it was sheer pleasure.

J.S. : But the thing is… I wrote that story in one of my lowest points. Life wasn’t that good for me, you know? Plus, I also had the basis of what would turn out to be ‘One Nation’ floating around my head for the longest time, and the fact that that particular story managed to get out first stung me a bit. In hindsight, I can see how much better for me it was that I did write it first. It was a true learning experience for me, that was.

S.W. : One thing that always intrigued me is the allusions you make to the year 2012… is there a particular reason for that?

J.S. : You mean you don’t know? You have no idea what it means?

S.W. : It was ten years ago, sure, and I can’t recall anything important having happened back then, so I’m kind of drawing a blank there. And if I am now, you can probably imagine how readers felt over fifteen years ago…

J.S. : I will shew some light into this. According to the Mayan belief system, December 21st 2012 was the date they predicted for the transition of the current Creation world into the next. They actually thought that the world was going to end in 2012.

S.W. : Right, you used the same ideas for ‘Future Perfect’.

J.S. : That’s right. But in this context, I used it as a metaphor for the cycle of relationships. Everything ends. That’s called Entropy. What I wanted to say was that the world ends every day in the tiniest ways for everyone one, until the day it finally ends for them personally. After all, the world does end for lots and lots of people every day, right?

S.W. : Point taken. Now… I number among those who feel that the story’s ending… well, the way it ended for all involved… it wasn’t very pretty, was it? There was so much mirth, so much unhappiness… from what you’ve told me, you wrote it because you felt the sadness that surrounded you. Isn’t writing a miserable story an antithesis to that?

J.S. : I wrote about life, Sam. And life is, more times than that, ugly and unfair. But I guess I see what you mean. After all, It didn’t end very well for Jon and Nat, did it? And as far as I recall I really wanted to people to know how it would end for them long before the story itself ended.

S.W. : Yeah, I got that. What can you tell me about Will’s ending? It’s not very clear how their story ends, is it?

J.S. : (Beams at me. Somewhere deep down I get the feeling that I’ve just taken the bait that was so cleverly laid out in front of me.)

J.S. : See that shelf over there? Go and get my copy of ‘Future Perfect’. Be careful, though, it’s a first printing, and it’s signed by the author.

I smile, knowingly. I get up, reach for the drawer, and take out a hardback edition of the book.

J.S. : Good. Now be so kind as to read the last two pages of chapter 27, please.

I read in silence. The cogs in my brain whirr, and I see something, a light of the end of the tunnel.

S.W. : How is this related to what we’ve been talking? Surely not…

J.S. : Understand, when I wrote ‘Future Perfect’? I never felt so good as I did when I was writing that book. The story itself came so seamlessly to me… all the pieces just fell into place, words flowed naturally. I felt… unbeatable. To quote Albert Camus, ‘Within the depths of Winter, finally I learned that within me there lay an invincible Summer’. I was so happy back then, that it showed… Ah, those were the best days of my life.

J.S. : (Looks back to the fireplace, as if looking back on a memory from the past.)

J.S. : You see, I wanted them to have a happier ending. But their song had already been sung, right? So they lived on in my mind, and when the time was right, they came back, and this time… this time… it was good.

S.W. : But their story, Jon… The real story. How does it end?

S.W. : Tell me how it ends.

J.S. : You already know how it will end.

"Now you’ve seen his face
And you know that there’s a place in the sun
For all that you’ve done
For you and your children
No longer shall you need
You always wanted to believe
Just ask and you’ll receive
Beyond your wildest dreams."

DeVotchka, How it ends

Chapter 30 : This is what you get when you mess with us...

2007-07-19T12:21:00.000-07:00

There were a couple of things that he needed to sort out. First, he went straight to the bathroom and stared long and hard at the mirror. “Ok”, he thought, “I need a shave”. He couldn’t quite remember when he had shaved last, but like as not it had been two, maybe three weeks ago.
So he drew a bit of hot water, and wet his face. He put some shaving cream, and started to hack away at his shaggy beard.
Ouch, ouch, ouch. That bloody hurt. The bottom half was done, the easy bit. Now came the complicated part. Woo-hoo, no more sideburns. No stupid goatee for him, neither.
Ah, decisions, decisions… should he shave his admittedly not-very-manly-maybe-even-a-bit-gay moustache, or should he leave it?
Shaven it is.
Bugger, this hurts like all get out. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ok, just this bit in the middle and then I’m done.
Oh fuck shit shit shit! No wonder Hitler never shaved that bit off, it was sheer medieval torture.

Ok, that’s done, let’s take a shower. That went on, thankfully, quite uneventfully. But he wondered why the hell he always scrubbed his left arm last…
Now, there was something else he wanted to do… but what was it? Ah, yes. He needed a dictionary.
C’mon, somewhere in the midst of all these books, he had to have a dictionary.
In fact, he did not.
He went out, got on the tube, and headed downtown. Loads of bookstores there, plus it’s kind of in the way to where he needed to go, too.
In one of the major bookstores he finally found a dictionary. Let’s see, ‘A’. He searched for the word he was after, and after a few seconds, found it.

avatar \AV-uh-tar\, noun:
1. The incarnation of a deity -- chiefly associated in Hinduism with the incarnations of Vishnu.
2. An embodiment, as of a quality, concept, philosophy, or tradition; an archetype.
3. A temporary manifestation or aspect of a continuing entity.

Good. So it was as he remembered it. And what that meant was that a story had to be told, it needed to unfold. Another song had to be sung, though he felt that between them all songs had yet to be sung, he yearned to sing a song to say goodbye.
His heart was set. This is what he was going to do. If no one wanted a happy ending for him, he would fashion one for himself.

She worked long, dull hours in one of those places that people go to when they want to make copies. In fact, her job was so dull it was mind numbing. But she quite liked it this way. Oh, she knew she could get a better job whenever she wanted to, after all that is the true purpose of getting an education, and all that. But there was something to this job that had its singular, unique charm. Where else would she see so many weirdos and barmy people? No, dull as it may be, she felt she wouldn’t trade this for any other job in the world.
Maybe later when she was older, someone else could be her when she’s gone.

Now, she only wanted something that was as easy going as she was. Besides, the routine, boring though it may be, kept her somewhat busy most of the time, and that kept her from thinking about everything else in her life.
Outside working hours… now, that was different. She usually just went home, fixed a TV dinner, watched a movie or read a book, then went to sleep… all the while trying her hardest not to think about him… about what she gave up on.
Weekends, she goes out, there’s a club where she likes to go. She goes on her own most of the times, then she goes home, and she cries, and she wants to die.
Today, though, it has been a good day so far. It’s raining outside, and she’s smiling. Sometimes it seems she’s only happy when it rains.
Another guy works with her, a fat and lazy moron called Gonçalo. She doesn’t like him very much, he’s got no real sense of other people’s personal space, and he has a very unique method of approaching his personal hygiene, i.e., none.
She had her back turned to the counter, and there was no music on. She said, “G., will you put something on?”.
A few seconds later, as the first familiar, melancholic chords of Radiohead’s ‘Let down’ evoked good memories deep inside her, she said, absent-mindedly flipping her hair, “Oh my god, it’s my favourite song!”.

Will said, “I know, Marcia.”

"The neon lights in the night tonight will say "everything will flow"
The stars that shine in the open sky will say "everything will flow"
The lovers kissed with an openness will say "everything will flow"
The cars parked in the hypermarket know "everything will flow" "

Suede, Everything will flow

Chapter 29 : Who will love me now?

2007-07-17T14:05:00.000-07:00

All stories, it is said, must have an ending. And for quite some time now I’ve been struggling with how this story ought to end.
But where does a story start? Where does it end? After all the words have been said? Can a story unfold even if there is no one to witness it?
But it is also said that every story has two sides to it... and that is where I disagree.
For, you see, I believe that a story has as many sides as it desires in order to be told.
Now, this particular story entails with it the fate of two people: so different, and yet so alike, bound by this one fate, this universal law that dictates how one chooses to live one’s life or not... the power of hope over the emptiness of despair, the might of love over the void of loneliness.

We view this story through the vantage point of a fly; wandering around, aimlessly, until it reaches a certain place.
This was some time ago, and we see a couple walking, close to each other.
There is that physical nearness, sure, but more than that, their hearts and minds drew closer.
There is also that tension, that so natural tension of a sexual nature between these two people, for they have not yet fallen into each other’s arms.
The end of this story begins at the very beginning.

It is a summer’s day; the sweat hangs to their bodies, sweet, sickly, tantalizing.
They feel tired, and retire under the shade of a nearby tree.
He lies down on the grass, and she lays her head on his legs.
No words need be said in this perfect moment.
The girl looks admiringly to him : how could this perfect stranger, this man who up to days ago had meant absolutely nothing to her, be so close to her? How had he gotten inside her heart so quickly?
Of course, it helped that he did look good, and sure, he also had a really nice body, but that alone wasn’t enough.
There was something else... there was a quality to this man, a certain kind of quietude and tranquillity that appealed to her.
She sensed... no, she knew, that this was a good man. A Good man, with a capital G.
He saw in him, much like everyone saw on Jean Baptiste Grenouille, the most perfect man in the world.
Surely, he must be perfect... how could he not be?
And that thought nagged at her.
For there is a curious thing to perfection, a dichotomy of sorts : perfection demands perfection.
And she was anything but perfect.
She was deeply terrified of him, but only in the best way possible. In her little mind, she afforded the luxury of dreams; and she dreamt of a perfect future for the both of them, a small but spacious house, and a sort of bohemian life that they would both adore... but why? Why does she do this? Why, when she knows the terrible price that must be paid for these dreams?
Ah, if he only knew everything about her... he’d be just one more to leave her, like they all did.

But he couldn’t care less.
Fact is, he was already so enamoured with her, that nothing else mattered.
All that mattered was the moment, and it was a perfect one. Well, or near enough as makes no difference.
Silence... that’s where they were... in silent slumber, gazing adoringly at each other.
They were united states of mind... together.
She sat beside him.
Her lips got closer to his.

“No”, he said. It would not be the first time.
“Ah...”, he felt for words, but they seemed out of his reach.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you want to?”, she asked.
“Oh yes... yes I do. So very much. More than anything. But... not yet. There are things you should know.”
“Oh, Will, I don’t care, just give in to this moment...”
“I’m not the man you think I am”, he said.
“Marcia... I haven’t done this in a long time... the reasons for which will be apparent soon enough. And... call me crazy, call me what you will, but in my heart of hearts? I want this to be magic.”

Time flies, and so does the fly. That story got told, for better or for worse; life moved on, choices were made.
It is said that true love will out, and when it does it cannot be held back.
Ah... but human nature is a beast... and an untamable one, at that.

Weeks had passed since they were together for the last time, and it seemed to Will that entire life spans had passed, not just mere weeks.
He knew why. It was her absence… that emptiness created by her not being close by, the void that her silence provokes… it hurt. It hurt him very, very much.
She would not return his calls, nor answer his messages.
A fitting punishment, he thought, after all he had put other people through. And people are fragile things, this much he knew by now.
It was still early in the day, not yet lunch time, and so he decided to go for a long, hard jog; the physical pain it would cause might help him get his bearings straight.
That’s what he needed, to not think about anything else, to not think about her, to not think how it could’ve been if he’d only lied.
But he had changed, hadn’t he? For so long he chose what was easy over what was right… now he can’t afford to choose anything else than what is right. The minute he starts choosing what is easy again… well, he knows where that particular road leads to.

His body ached, after a hour and a half of running. He wanted to go home, and shower, and lie in bed.
And please, please, please, let me not dream of her again.
He got home, and checked his mailbox. He took the wad of letters and assorted stuff, and went up the three flights of stairs to his house.
Goddamn keys, I should get this fixed, always the same shit. Do I have to kick this door in? Ah, that’s better.
Now, let’s see what we’ve got here. Telephone bill, just great. Power. Lovely. My hearing’s just fine, thank you. Ok, no, I do not need Viagra. What’s this?

It was a letter from Marcia.
He sat down, and carefully opened it.
He began to read :

“Dear William :

I have so much that I want to say to you, that I have no idea what to say, or where to start.
I want you to know that… there is a part of me that also loves you, that deeply loves you.
But as you had the courage to tell me all about yourself… well, I’m not so brave. I fear I must do this from a distance, fighting back the tears just as I write this.
I guess we always knew how this would end, right?

I’m not a very nice person, Will, really I’m not.
And why am I not a nice person? Because…huh. Even writing about this hurts me deep inside.
I don’t think that you’ll understand what I’m going to say. Or maybe you will, I don’t know.
But can you imagine that I thought that you were the most amazing guy that I’ve ever known?
Oh God…I just… I just saw in you something that I thought I’d never see again… something in me… you made me feel so good about myself.

I’m not making any sense, am I? You must think I’m completely crazy, right?
I must be… but I’m telling you now, Will, I want you to know things about me…
Please, please, stay with me just a little while longer.
Do you know… before you…those days before you came, had been so shallow, and frivolous, and empty.
I missed myself terribly. Can one miss oneself? I don’t know, but I missed so much who I was… I miss being in love… I miss saying ‘I love you’… I miss all the little things that I never thought I’d miss.

But look at this… all these lines that I wrote, all these words that I’ve wasted… this is me getting sentimental, and we know how it always end up.
No more lies. No more half-truths. This is me.

Will, I

He tore the letter in half. He couldn’t read it anymore.
In his heart, he knew it to be true. He knew what he had to do.

"What happens when you lose everything?
You just start again...
You start all over again!"

Maximo Park, Apply some pressure

Chapter 28 : Pretty girls make graves

2007-07-08T14:55:00.001-07:00

There are moments in this life that are absolutely unique, and chance plays such an important part in them, for it is up to chance, in a way, that we are ourselves in turn able to witness or even experience those moments.
Note about me :
Ever since I was very small that one of my greatest qualities is that I am very, very observant (Something, I am told, that comes from my astrological sign – Leo –. But I’d rather think it’s because I just like to see the way people interact with each other.), and that very same quality had imbued me with an uncanny power of deduction, regarding the motivations of others.
Bear with me now, all this has a purpose.

As a child, one of my neighbours was a Japanese man that had come here a few years after World War Two.
He had come here in order to leave behind the life he didn’t have after the war had taken all his family, to find some sort of inner peace that he couldn’t find anywhere else, and finally after having roamed half of the world, he settled here in Lisbon, and lived out the rest of his years alone.
He was known as a courteous but somewhat distant man, and that distance earned him, in the finest traditions of scorn and hear say, and in the minds of the very old and the very young, the distinct honour of being seen as some sort of bogey man, and his house something to be dreaded, his existence reduced to a threat parents made to their children.
“You’d better behave, or the crazy Chinaman will come and eat you”, they would say.
Uematsu, he was called. Mr Uematsu. And he was Japanese, not Chinese.
So one day, when I was younger, so much younger than today, for no reason that memory will still serve right, I decided to go inside his house.
Oh, it wasn’t that difficult; after all we lived on the same floor, and the back of our building was ample enough so that the surrounding buildings to the left and to the right of ours, made a small courtyard where I would play as a child.
And, out of habit, he always left his door unlocked.
I kept my ear glued to the door, waiting for him to go out to go shopping, or to go walk his enormous Rottweiler, named Daigoro, as docile as he was fat.
And he was very fat indeed, to this day I cannot fathom how the poor animal managed to just walk.

I came in by the backdoor, and lost myself in that small world that was his home : a tiny Shinto shrine in one corner, books upon books upon books (Haga Kure, Mishima, Musashi, Bushido, and so many, many others), that sweet fragrance that smelled like… I don’t know, even after all these years words still elude me, but it smelled like green, like trees, like freshness, like nature, like life!, and above all, I stood contemplating that beautiful, ancestral sword he had… my God, I fell in love with it the minute I saw it for the first time… and I so lost myself in quiet contemplation that I didn’t notice him coming back.
He asked me in the most perfect Portuguese if I liked the sword.
I jumped in alarm, mumbled a few apologies, tried to run away, quickly, desperately, but he was so much faster than me… and, when I was expecting maybe a clout on the ear, or worse, to be dragged home by an ear, e told me to sit down, took down the sword from the wall and placed it in my hands.
He left the room, went to the kitchen and fixed me some tea (What tea, what tea!), and when he got back he told me the sword’s story; how it had come to his family, and been in their possession for countless generations. As he had no family of his own left, he sought someone worthy of her.
We spent hours, days, weeks talking, and became the best of friends. The fact that I was an only child, coupled with me not being such a sociable child at that, plus the fact that my parents professional lives was quite an active one, meant that every moment we spent together was one to be cherished.
And he taught me so much… the stories he told me about the war chilled my very bones. He had survived Hiroshima by a matter of days, and after that, he told me, life had lost meaning.
‘Brutality is something that only the weak succumb to’, he said, ‘and I became weak… for a long, long time. There is no greater crime than taking another’s life, and every single day I get down on my knees and pray for forgiveness for all the atrocities I committed.’
He had been a soldier in the army, and he left with deep scars, at every possible level bruises that won’t heal.
And so in war, he found peace. In death, he learned the value of life. In ignorance, the doors of perception were cleansed for him, and everything appeared to him as it is : infinite.

He told me that once, while he roamed this world in search of knowledge, he met a very odd character, someone who to his dying day he could not clearly describe, for as the sun fell down on him, another aspect of this being was revealed to him.
He came first as a tall and tanned, long haired man, bleeding profusely from various wounds, and when he came closer to him to see if he needed help, the man had given place to another huge, fat, completely bald, with an oriental look to him, and sat down by the road eating a bunch of grapes.
‘Traveller’, the fat man said, ‘ I will teach you the secrets of the universe. They are neither many nor deep, but it will be in your hands and in your hands alone, what to do with this knowledge I will presently impart.’
‘Ask no questions. Say or question nothing. This may not be happening at all, but maybe this has already happened before, or may yet come to be. This is just your imagination. After all, reality is a state of mind.’
The fat man leaned further back, ate some more grapes, the said, ‘Patterns. Everything and everyone obeys to pre-determined patterns : continuous, perpetual, repetitive; a line. The line becomes a circle. Deduce those patterns, and eternity will bare her secrets for you.’
The sun shined with terrible intensity, and when he looked again, before him stood a woman, tall, dark skinned, of terrible beauty and many armed who said, ‘Understand, little insect. Everything in important, and nothing is important. But some things are more important than others, and others till are of so little importance that should they fail to be, or happen, our universe would not exist. It’s important that you always know where you are, because the right person, at the right time, in the right place, can indeed make a difference… and usher us into a new age, one of reason and of peace, even if by so doing we must fight the most heinous of wars.’
A cloud obscured the sun, and brought with it a few drops of rain. It was very hot, and that warm summer rain that fell felt refreshing on his tired body. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, to better appreciate that moment of tranquillity.
A small rainbow let itself be noted from between the trees, and the rain fell in cascades from the leaves.
‘It’s beautiful’, a voice said, and when he opened his eyes he saw before him a little boy; and this little boy became the long haired man once more, but devoid of wounds, and he appeared to be peace and quiet personified.
‘Along with sunsets, it’s what I most love, rain… to feel the scent of the wet earth, to feel all this life… you were right, Father.’
The man looked at him and dais, ‘All you heard is true, but not the truth, just a truth. The only truth is love. Love, and love all, for all of creation loves you in return. I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.’

He woke up the next day on the same road where all this has occurred, not knowing if he had had the strangest dream. But something deep inside told him that what had happened had been real, what he had witnessed he knew it to be true; though it may not have happened then, or there, or to him.
Now, all this I’ve just said still holds a purpose, believe me, and that purpose isn’t about telling all about Mr. Uematsu’s life, or how he died alone… it’s just to make you better understand that I am someone who really learns a great deal from the people I know, and I’ve always known a lot of people.
Networking, it’s called, and I do it really well. I have people skills, I guess.
I don’t want to sound too full of myself or arrogant, but I think I am someone who is very patient, charitable, kind… I know how to listen to other people, and I know what words to say, and when people are close to me, then I am exceptionally loyal, a true friend, and I will give all my love selflessly.
Which also means that, if I learn a lot from people, then I must make sure that use that knowledge wisely, be it in my personal or professional life.
Oh yeah, another good thing to know about me is that I did ballet until I was fifteen.
And what does this have to do with anything? Oh, not much… only that this means that I am quite nimble, light on my feet, silent… almost inaudible.
And this virtue of mine, furthered by serendipity, allows me to witness an unforgettable moment.
I tell you, you’ll never forget this one, because I’m going to take photos. And how great is it that I have one of those cameras that make no sound at all?

Click.
Click.
Click.
You didn’t even notice it. Bwa-ha-ha, I laugh, a tad on the evil side. Time to make myself noticed.
“So!”, I say with an innocent smile, while I looked at you, naked as the day you were born, lying on the bed.
“What’s this? Playing ‘pocket billiards’, are we?”
Love, I swear you’d have seen the look on your face, you’d die laughing.

Click.
Good for me, I’m fast.
“Am I not enough for you?”, I teased perniciously, savouring your confusion, to make you suffer a bit.
“No!”, you answered, embarrassed. “I mean, yes! Hum…”
“This is, er, this is not what it looks like…”
“Baby”, I said, taking great delight in the words that I was going to say next, “It seemed to me as if you were manually tuning some musical instrument that requires blowing… surely I’m not mistaken?”
“Er…no! Ah… that is, I was just, huh…”
I nodded my head this way and that lightly, took my index finger to my lips to shut you up, then said, “Honey… really… tsc, tsc… we’ve been together for how long now? Three years?”
“Sounds like you still have no idea of what I’m capable of… and you would betray me with so many? And all from the same family?”
It broke my heart to see you suffer so, but it would be just for a few seconds more.
“Hum. Same family?”, you asked doubtfully, a small bead of sweat forming on your forehead.
“Why, yes, silly! Mrs. Palmer and her five daughters!”
“Don’t tell me that you prefer them”, I said, taking off my coat, revealing my nurse’s uniform that was neither short, tight, revealing or made with vinyl, but that for some reason men always have that fantasy, “to this”, I continued, taking it off.
Sometimes I think that you’ll never know just how lucky you are.
That excitement that seemed to have disappeared so quickly when you saw me staring at you, seemed to be wanting to come back, a bit reluctantly at first, but soon your brain stopped being in charge of the situation, and taking advantage of this situation, I got on top of you before you could even react.
You came inside me real slow, but deep and hard… Then it was fast, me and you, like racing horses, so good, so wild, so intense…

We lay looking at the ceiling, your hand in mine.
“Is it me, or the cracks in the ceiling are almost four hundred, now?”, you asked.
“How should I know’”, I replied. “Why? Do you count them? Don’t answer, I’m only joking!”´
“so… how was your day?”, I asked, massaging my aching womb.
“Pfff… not bad. Normal, I guess.”
“Just like any other day, I suppose. There’s no great magic or science to what I do… I just spend my days taking orders from idiots, and ordering stuff for others… It’s all terribly dull, but they pay ok and on time, and no one bothers me much.”, you concluded.
And that was all you wanted, right, Jon? That was all you asked for.
After all that you had been through, having someone like me must be wonderful.
Just like having you in my life is.
“How about yours?”, you asked.
“Yeah, normal too. Surrounded by people either very ill or dying, and very old men that now and then like to feel my butt.”
“What?”, you said angrily.
I kissed you, then said, “Relax, love. I only said that to see how you’d react. I was just kidding with you! I see you still like me, though…”
“Like you? I love you, Natalie!” , you said, and it seemed to me that there was a certain hurt to your voice. Strange.
“And I love you, Jon Snow”, I smiled, and you smiled for me, too.

“Oh yeah!, I got to tell you something!”, I enthused. “Today I had to go to the ward where the people who have lung cancer are, I had to talk to one of the guys who’s going to be responsible for that internship I’m going to be doing, and I saw that one of the people there was this old friend of my mother’s.”
“Truth is, I never did like that guy much, since I was small it seems as if the guy wanted to touch me, and once when I was maybe fourteen, and because my mother insisted, I sat down on his lap, and the bastard either had a gun in his pocket, or he was very, very happy to see me, if you catch my drift… So, anything bad that comes his way is jus divine justice, as I see it.”
“I hadn’t heard anything about him these past few years, until one day I overheard my mother saying something to someone about his health. Actually, now that I think about it, she may have mentioned it before, but mothers, right? Who listens to them?”
“Anyway, so today I was just passing by, and as I was about to leave, the bastard notices me, and calls me. I tried to dodge him, but he’s sneaky as hell, that guy is… I know this is just evil, and I will burn in hell for this, but when I saw him I just burst into this huge grin, I could barely contain my laughter… not because I was exceptionally happy for seeing the guy suffer, but because he was hooked to one of those machines that help you breathe, and he sounded like Darth Vader breathing.”
I breathed Vader style for a few seconds, and you laughed so much… whether due to my poor imitation, or to the other’s misery, you laughed.
I would give anything so that you may laugh always, my love. Anything.
“Oh! Oh! And when he speaks, he sounds like Stephen Hawking!”
If at all possible, you laughed even more, and I laughed with you. When the laughter died, I got a bit more serious, and sadder, too.
“We must make the best of this weekend”; I said. “I’ll be leaving Monday, and I’ll only be back in three weeks.”
“I know…”, you said, with such sadness in your voice.
“I want you to stay so much… you’re still here, but already I miss you so.”

Oh, baby.
It will be over soon. This internship will be so good for me on a professional level… And it really is one of those once in a lifetime chances. I’m so glad you understand. It doesn’t make things any easier, but it helps.
And when I’m back, all of our dreams will start to come true… should my calculations prove correct, I’ll have a huge surprise for you when I get back.
“So do I, sweet little boy. So do I. But let’s not think about that right now, ok?”
“Tell me, do we have plans for tonight?”, I asked.
“Movies?”
“Sounds good”, I agreed. “But what?”
“Well, the new Peter Jackson is out, I’ve seen the trailer, and it looks so awesome that…”
I gave you my patented milk curdling look, one that contained the promise of absolutely no sex for the rest of your life.
“… or we could go and see that re-run of Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’, it’s in a theatre nearby, I know you like that one”, you managed to say.
That one won you the right foe another one later on, when we get back.
“Lovely”, I said. “Do you know what time it starts?”
“Nope”, you admitted, “but I’ll check on the net, just give me a minute or so.”
I went to the toilet to rinse my face, brush my teeth. When I got back, you tell me that we can go to the one that starts at nine thirty, which was great, because that meant we had time for a shower, and would have plenty of time to get dressed.
We left early enough so that we could still grab a bite to eat; the theatre was pretty close, so no worries there.

The movie was as good as I remembered, and I left the theatre feeling good. We still went for a quick drink, then we got home.
You went to the toilet, and after about twenty minutes I started to wonder if you were having fun all by yourself again.
You came out of the toilet so deep in thought, that I thought better about saying something witty.
“I was looking myself in the mirror”, you said. “I think I’m going to cut my hair.”

What?

“Oh, are you? You’re a real comedian, you are. Very funny, indeed. Or not.”
“Well, I don’t see anyone else smiling here, Nat.”, you said gravely-
“I think you’re crazy”, I answered. “If you do it… then I’ll shave mine off!”, I threatened.
You looked at me, your face full of doubts, and after a few seconds, you smiled shyly and said, “Don’t even dream about it.”
“Your hair is just so beautiful. It was made to be just the way it is, long, free, unfettered… It looks like pure platinum, molten, liquid and fluid on your head. Don’t even dream about it!”
I blushed, and said, “I’m glad we reached an agreement.”
You moved fast as a feline, a tiger running after his prey, and I didn’t even saw you coming at me.
You held me with one arm, kissed me, and quick as that we were in the bed again.
If before it had been quick and wild, this time was slow, slow but so perfectly in tune with our bodies, and so much more intense… I had never came so hard, and when you yourself came, a tear fell down your eye.
We turned to face each other, and we both said at the same time how we felt for one another.
You must have been so tired that you just fell asleep after that.
Jon… sometimes I’m so glad you didn’t actually know me before…
Before you, even before the other disaster, the other bastard that left me to crawl through the wreckage, I was… cold? Cruel? Mean? Insensitive? Selfish?
Human.
All too human.
And I pretended so much, so much. That I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t afraid. That I wasn’t unhappy. That I was loved. That I would never be betrayed.
I pretended that I was respected.
But it wasn’t true. Never true. Those were just the lies I told to myself every day.
And so I pretended throughout this life, through all these years.
And so much I pretended, that I ended up believing what I was told, and what I was living.
And because I believed… inevitably, I fell.

I fell.
But there you were to pick me up, and I never, ever told you how I was before, or thanked you for all that you did for me, that smallest of gestures, never made you see how much you mean to me.
I confess, in all honesty, that though it was more me than you who sought all this out, in the beginning I didn’t know if I wanted things to happen the way they did, I had my doubts, little boy, but I fell in love with something real.
Because you were so excited, and I let myself be carried by that wonderful and magical enthusiasm, that seemed to permeate your very being, and resonated from within… and so here we are, three years later.
And if one day I should lose you, may God forgive me, but I’ll kill myself.
Because I will never meet somebody like you ever again.
I look at you, as you lay sleeping next to me, and if you only knew how much I love seeing you sleep, Jon. You do something to me… something deep inside.

Because, and truth be told, you make me want to be a better person. There’s just something about you, my love. Something that gives me an endless strength, but at the same time makes so very shy, and kind.
You make me happy, happy for you, for myself, and you make me feel happy for being alive, alive just for love.
And that’s the thing, honey. You make me a whole woman. You, and only you, complete me.
And I know, my God, and I hope that you’re listening to me, that I complain a lot… there are times in my life when I can barely feel your presence in it, and so You and I sometimes don’t see eye to eye.
But for these moments, for these days and these nights you give me with him, for these deepest feelings, for him, for everything… I thank you, Lord. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Eventually, I fall asleep, naked, close to you, naked as well.

Sometime before dawn, I saw that you were up already.
“Luv”, I asked, “is everything alright?”
The smile you smiled for me seemed like the saddest smile in the world.
“Yeah. Everything’s ok. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
That’s good to hear. I smiled in satisfaction, leaned my head against the pillow, and beckoned you closer.
“Never leave me”, I begged, fear echoing in my words.
“Don’t be foolish”, you said.
I was so sleepy, and all I wanted was to sleep at your side. You sensed that I was sleepy, and closed my eyes with your fingers.
You kissed me tenderly on my face, and whispered in my ear, “Now sleep. And dream.”

And I dreamt, I dreamt that we were in the future, but not a too distant one… a few years from now? A few months? I have no idea, but not that distant, not really, and I saw myself lying in a bed, looking at you, but it couldn’t be me, I was so sick, so frail, so sad, too weak to tell you how much I loved you, and you were looking at me, fading away, slowly fading away…
Then the dream changed, or maybe it was still the same dream, but seen from another perspective, but I was up again, I was strong again, talking to you, but… where are you? You’re no t here… this dream seemed further ahead in time, and I was in a graveyard… talking… to you? Looking at your grave, and it was so, so cold, it was winter that g«had come, and I was there, knowing that you were dead no no no no no no noooooo…
I woke up.

And I was right next to you, and you were alive, so alive.
I kissed you so much, and just hugged you fiercely. “Hey”, you said tenderly, “Don’t you worry, I’m not going anywhere!”, you continued.
“I’ll still be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and forever.”
“You promise?”, I asked?
“Promise. Have I ever failed you on a promise?”
We got up soon after that, and pondered briefly about what we might do. You suggested that we go for a walk, and I agreed in a very good mood. “But it’s up to you to decide where we’re going”, you said, while we had a very late breakfast.
We spent the day in Sintra; the ancient mountain imposing and mysterious in the background.
Rain fell in tiny drops, dripping from trees. All around us echoed with life; butterflies flew lazily, birds sang merrily in the perches high above, cats looked sneakily at us from under the cars… glorious and radiant life!
We didn’t have lunch, we weren’t that hungry, and we agreed on eating something later.
“Around nine, nine thirty we should be at Jamie’s house, he’s having that happening of his.”
“Do we?”, I asked.
“We don’t, but I’d really like to go. I think it would do us some good to see those guys again.”
“Besides, Sandor will be there, and I’d like to talk to him. I worry about him…”
“Yeah, he’s changed a lot”, I said. “Sometimes I hardly recognize him at all.”
“Yes”, you agreed “And he changed for the better. He’s almost the way I knew, all those years ago.”

And it was true. I had met William the same time I met you, and I found him to be an arrogant and unbearable idiot.
But today… today he’s someone who does nothing wrong, polite, civilized, courteous.
And this I know to be, because you told me so, due in part to a talk you and him had once.
My good, good man… your heart is enormous, and I feel blessed to be a part of it.
“But tell you what, I promise we’ll not linger there for too long, ok? We’ll come back early, and spend what little time we have together whispering sweet nothings to each other. Sounds good?”
Of course it does, love. And my smile said it for me.

“Jamie”, you said, clearly happy to see it your friend, “long time no see!”
“Too long, my man, too long”, he answered, with a vigorous handshake. “Natalie”, he said, “Give us a kiss, then.”
“Sandor”, you asked, “Is he here already?”
“Yep”, he admitted, “And boy, is he been drinking a lot or what? Too bad he only drinks water. He just went to the toilet. Ah, speak of the devil, there he is.”
I left you guys to talk, and got something for me to drink. Vodka and lemon? And why not?
While I fixed it, the most disgusting guy in the world decides to make a pass at me.

“So, Will, how are things going for you?”, Jon asked.
“Ah, you know how it goes… one day at a time”, he replied, taking a sip from his water.
“Huh-huh. And Marcia? How are things between you guys?”, Jon asked, while he watched intently some guy trying to pick up on his girlfriend.
“I don’t know. We had this talk like two weeks ago, and I told her everything, I told hear all those things that I’ve done, so now she knows what kind of person I was”, Sandor explained.
He looked at Jon and said, “Are you even listening to what I’m saying?”. Jon took his eyes from the sad spectacle the other creature was providing, and answered, “Hmm?, Yes, of course. Sorry. I was just paying attention to that guy that’s with Natalie.”

And the worst part is, instead on just saying ‘no’, I led the guy on.
God knows why, but I let him go on and on, and now the guy won’t shut up, and don’t even ask me how or why, but we ended up talking about sex…

“It’s up to her now, I suppose”, Sandor said, again getting the feeling that he was being perfectly ignored.
“Have you listened to the trash this animal’s talking?”, Jon said, gripping his glass tightly.
“Doesn’t he remind you of anyone, Jon?”
“Who?”, Jon asked. He thought for a few seconds, then answered, “Oh. No, no. You were nothing like this.”
“But who is this guy anyway?”, Jon enquired.
“A friend of Jamie’s”, he admitted. “Goes by the name of Gonçalo, I believe.”

And then I said, “No, wait a minute, in any given sexual relationship, and if it should happen, oral sex is a matter of quid pro quo. And by this, let it be understood with all proper reservations, that what I mean is ‘I go down on you, you go down on me’.”
And the guy just laughed in my face! The nerve!
He smiled a cynical smile, sure of himself, and said, “No, my dear. Nuh-uh. Wrong. You got it all wrong.”, he said, drinking the rest of his beer in two long gulps.
“You see, the sine qua non condition for oral sex is, you go down on me, and I’ll maybe go down on you. If I feel like it.”
Oh boy. This will end in tears. Do I know you from anywhere, you filthy pig?
Fuck, but just being in the presence of this guy makes me feel dirty…

“Sandor, man, I’ll be right back, yeah?”, Jon said, making his way to Natalie.
“Jon”, Sandor said slowly, putting one hand on his friends shoulder, gently, but applying some pressure “The same way you did this for me, now I do it for you. Stay cool. That guy has no idea of what he’s doing, or saying. Just look at him, he’s completely drunk. When you’re like that it’s very, very hard to remember the meaning of words like integrity or honesty. Remember that. Remember me, and hoe I was. But do not forget yourself, Snow. He’s not worth it”; he advised.
Jon looked at Sandor, a fierce, fierce pride in his eyes, and replied, “No worries, Will.”

“Love”, you said, “Who’s your new friend?”, you asked jovially.
The idiot’s face contorted so much, that I would have sold my soul to be able to capture it in a picture for all to see.
As quickly as he appeared, he was gone; no doubt helped by your presence.
“My knight in shining armour”, I said, kissing you generously.
I sensed that you were somewhat mad, and I led you to Jaime’s kitchen, where we could have a bit more privacy. “That fucking weasel”, you said, your voice full of rage. “Who the hell does he think he is?”, you said, your voice low, hissing like a snake. You thumped your hand loudly against the wall, and if left a considerable dent.
“Well, I know who he is not”, I told you, “he’s not what you are, not even half of a third of the man you are. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s not the man I love.”
That managed to quiet you down a bit. I guess I never saw you this way, and I confess a part of me was a bit frightened.
It seems that even you sometimes feel the darkness…
We lingered in the kitchen for nearly an hour, drank a few more drinks, until we were interrupted by an inhuman sound, the sound of the world coming to an end.

We went to the living room, and saw that everyone was gathered around a corner, watching something intently with a mix of curiosity and terror.
When we got closer, we saw that it was the other cretin who was lying on the floor with his bulging stomach turned upwards, and who was clutching the family jewels, probably afraid that they might flee from him, snoring loudly, as if there was no tomorrow.
Even in that respect he resembled a pig. Jaime tried to plug his nose, but instead of the noise dying down, it just went away for a while, and brought along a few of his friends.
We saw it as our opportunity to say goodbye, and Sandor left with us.
Down on the street, we made our farewells. “Sandor, man, let me know how things pan out, yeah?”, you said, hugging heartily, and I don’t know why, but I felt jealous.
Maybe he even noticed it, because he replied coldly, turning slightly his eyes to mine, equally warm, and said, “Right, Snow. Natalie”, he said, with a curt nod.
I replied the same way, “Sandor.”

The trip back home was quick, there wasn’t much traffic, considering that it was a Saturday night, and what traffic there was, it was thankfully in the opposite direction.
The cabbie looked glum, and my considerable experience of riding cabs in this city tells me that he is so because Benfica lost this weekend.
Once home, we felt too tired to do anything else, looked at each other, looked longingly at our bed, and I think we were asleep before we even hit it.

It is truly alarming to think how fast Sunday just flew by. The hours seemed to be as seconds, and before we knew it, eleven o’clock had come.
I know I’ll only be away for three weeks, love, three long weeks, but I swear, each and every one of them will seem like an eternity.
You helped me finish all the packing that was left, and after you put them in the hallway with the rest of the luggage, you asked me, “Natalie? Why do you like me? What is it that you see in me?”
I was perplexed, and replied, “What do you mean?”
“Just like I said.” Where did that ice in your voice dome from, Jon?
“Why do you like me? What is it that you see in me?”

“Because I don’t know why. I can’t imagine the reason why. And what you see in me, I will never know.”
“Look at me”, you said. “it’s not that I’m ugly, but I’m sure as hell not the prettiest guy around. Just look at my body… I’m starting to look like the Michelin man…”
“I guess I’m ok in bed, sure, but I’m not a porn star, or anything… and look at the stuff I like…. It’s stupid, just stupid stuff. I like comics, and videogames, and the movies I like have to have lots of special effects… I can’t be bothered to watch a movie that requires a great deal of thinking… I feel old.”
“I’m just not interesting, I don’t have a fancy degree like you do… I’m a simple person, Natalie. Just another regular guy.”

“Now look at you”,
“You are beautiful. And when I tell you you’re beautiful, I say it I the same way I would say that a Klimt painting is beautiful. Unique. Amazing.”
“You are, all of you, a masterpiece, Nat. you have an amazing body. Ninety-nine percent of the feminine population would gladly kill their relatives, and cut their firstborn in half, as in some perverted song of Solomon, just to have a body like yours… and you hair, Nat, is one of nature’s true beauties.”
“You help save people, day in, day out, every single day, time and time again…”
“You had that something that has always eluded me, that fortitude of heart and mind, that will to triumph, to want to be more, more than this, to take a course and further your own knowledge.”
“You are, no doubt whatsoever, the most intelligent woman I’ve ever known, and I can’t even imagine how, but you still find the time to read as disparate as Shelley, Comte or Vonnegut.”
You stopped, suddenly, and began to cry, just like a child.
“Stop, Jon”, I said, “you’re scaring me with all this.”
“Natalie… when we’re together on the street”, you said, amid all those tears, “Everyone looks at you, and everyone looks at me, and their eyes tell me that I’m not worthy of you.”
“Stop it, Jon, please!”
“No, it’s the truth. You deserve someone who… who’s got like a model’s body, or an athlete’s… all muscles and abs. And he should be beautiful, beautiful and perfect, so that you can have perfect children together.”
“That’s what you deserve, not me. Someone much better than me.”

Oh Jon, but I had someone like that once!
Or don’t you remember anymore? Don’t you remember the state I was when he left me?
Don’t you remember the sorry state I was in, the rag I became after all that?
Is it possible that you don’t remember how you found me?
The words came out without me even thinking them, and they sounded as if spoken by somebody else, not me…
“Please, don’t say that it’s over…”

You stared at me, your face washed in tears, your face white as freshly fallen snow.
“Over?”, you asked, “But I love you, Natalie…”
“I just don’t know why you don’t like me…”
And It seemed to me then, that all your strength had ebbed from you. You fell down on my knees before me.
I kneeled in front of you, hugged you tight, and said,
“Because you are the first and last thing I think about every day, Jon Snow. You are all I long for, all I worship and adore. You are all I dream of being, and having.”
“Because you are the single greatest human being I’ve ever known. You have a heart of gold, and you give me all you have, and all you are.”
“Because you’re my best friend. The best lover I ever had. You are the one for me, my choice to live my life extended. The one who will father my children.”
“Because I love you, Jon, more than my very life. Because of all this that I just told you, and this is the smallest fraction of how I truly feel for you, and of what you mean to me.”
“Without you I’m nothing.”
“Natalie…”
“Shhh… not one more word.”
“Not one more word, Jon. Because I’m not letting you go. I will not lose you!”
“Natalie…”
“This conversation’s over, Jon.”, I said, smiling. I had taken control of the situation, and now nothing can take you away from me.
“This conversation is over”, I repeated. Then I said, “You will be the death of me, my love”.
I held you by your hands, and took you to bed.

For the first time in a long time, we made love; not sex, not fucking, but we made love, as perhaps we never done it before.
You were weak, spent, and so was I.
It was good, but somehow it felt more like a duty than anything else : for the first time since we’ve been together, I did not come.

Morning came, all too soon, and we left together bound to the Airport.
We left in silence, and in silence was our trip.
But we were always close to each other, always holding our hands.

It’s time to say goodbye, my love, but I’ll be back soon. I’ll be back.
“Jon… about last night…well, in three weeks time I’ll be back, ok? And then we’ll talk some more?”
You smiled, beaming with confidence, and said,
“In three weeks time there will be no more reasons for you to worry about anything. Everything will flow, you’ll see.”
I’m glad, my love.
“Will you wait for me?”, I asked.
“Forever”, you answered.
“I love you, Jon. Never forget that.”
“And I love you, Natalie.”

We kissed, we held each other, we laughed, we cried, and then we said goodbye.

"Now I'm trying to wake you up
To pull you from the liquid sky
Because if I don't we'll both end up
With just your songs to say goodbye..."

Placebo, Song to say goodbye

Chapter 27 : All these things that i've done

2007-07-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

“I dreamt that we were looking for each other, but we couldn’t see our faces, for small veils covered our eyes.
I called for you, and I wanted so much to hear your voice, my beloved, that I fell prey to despair because silence was my only answer.
Whole lives flashed before my eyes. Generations went by in a blink of an eye.
After I wandered for an eternity, the horizon brought white shores, where a siren’s voice beckoned for me; as if calling the ships to port.
I found you there, wrapped in a cloak of leafy green, arms wide open for me.”

“I held you by your hand, and in it I left a kiss, frozen by all the Winters that were, and could never be…
And we danced, through all nights, though the ages, to the end of all loves… We danced.
The stars paraded themselves before us, and surrendered to our infinite grace.
Wrapped in that starry blanket of nightfall, my Queen, we were poetry in motion.
Celestial pantheons stood in awe before our perfect union. It was written in the stars; our destinies forever entwined.
Then… a pull, as if my very life was being taken away from me… and I saw you fade, disappearing into nothingness, away from me, further and further away, until the distant horizon claimed you.”

“And I wept, my love, for it was as if my soul had been stolen from me.
I cried for lo those thousands of years, my muse, for light itself had fled from my life.
And I cried to the heavens, with such grief in my words.
With God’s own voice, I said :

There will never be one that will love you like I do; For loving you is like dying anew every single day, thinking only of the moment when reborn I would be with you again.”

“And I woke…
Inside me, nothing but the emptiest of feelings. Inside me, the will that had to become my Destiny made manifest, that one day, I would find your arms, even if I had to search for them my whole life.
Inside me, the will to show you heaven through my lips.
But above all, inexorably, inescapably, the will to make you mine until the end of time.”

I didn’t even know you, but I missed you so much… I hungered so for your voice… I yearned for your touch. For your lips.
And I didn’t even know your name, Marcia.

We had gone for a walk by the shore, and after lunch, we sat down on the rocks to watch the eternal struggle of the waves, breaking valiantly against the sea-torn fingers that stuck out from under the roiling waters, against the walls eroded by salt and age, one after the other.
We sat motionless, silent, and out of nowhere I started to tell you the dream I had with you, one year and a half ago.
Sure, I may have omitted certain parts, I didn’t want to leave you thinking that I was maybe some hopeless romantic, or even worse, that I had just escaped from a mental institution… but I told you enough so that you had a nice picture of it in the end.

You know, I remember so well the night I saw you for the first time…
As soon as I looked at you, I knew it would be a bad idea if I ever saw you again, and so for a whole year, or near enough as makes no difference, I didn’t so much as go out even once, for fear of seeing you again.
Stupid, I know, but it did it for me, and for you, and I’ll even own up to giving done it for secretly harbouring the thought that maybe one day there would be an ‘us’.
It’s curious, but when I saw you next, I felt that cold feeling inside, those butterflies in my stomach; something I hadn’t felt since I was maybe, fifteen, sixteen.
And if part of me felt awkward, even slightly bothered, another smiled a naïve and childlike smile; and dared to dream of something.

Where I found that courage, I will never know. But I went to you, said something that was very probably very stupid, and you laughed.
For long seconds, I confess, I feared that you were laughing at me, before finally I understood that you are laughing for me, just for me.
We talked all night long, and in the end you gave me your phone number, and I gave you mine.
It took a fortnight of gathering my nerve, just to call you, and when I ultimately did it, you sounded so mad at me…
You said that I had forgotten all about you, and for one second I lost my words.
You laughed again, that laughter that seems to come from the very core of your heart, and you told me that you were happy that I called.
We started going out, and throughout all these months I dare say we became the closest of friends, and now there aren’t that many people in this world that know me as well as you do.
You know things about me that only Jon ever knew, things so intrinsically mine that even Sophie never knew.
And soon I must tell you who I am.
Soon I must tell you the truth.

We walked in silence for some minutes, trudging slowly over wet sand, and wind bore with it a fragrance full of salt and melancholy, bearing songs from other time, other lives.
You felt a sudden chill, and closed your jacket. We sat down again, and we looked ate ach other, then to the sun that set even as we watched him, in tones of red, and orange, and closer to the horizon, in a deep purple, as the lengthening shadows mourned the coming night.
“Wow”, you said, years, hours, minutes later. “It’s beautiful.”
“And I don’t mean just the sunset. What you told me. Your dream. It’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s ever told me “, you said.
“But tell me”, you asked, squeezing my hand hard, “how is it possible that you can dream about someone you’d only seen just the once, and how can you have a dream like that, so beautiful, so amazing, so… I don’t know, so poetic? Is that the word? I don’t know.”, you continued.
“I don’t know how to describe it”, you said, “but at least to me, it looked like a collection of beautiful portraits, or… or… and I was in it!”, you enthused joyfully.
“Why me?”, you asked.

I don’t know, I can’t imagine, how long I sat thinking about your question.
I don’t have an answer to your question, little girl.
I am not, nor have ever been an oneiromancer, one to interpret what my dreams mean, and I had stopped caring about my dreams long ago.
You want me to tell you why I dreamt of you that night?
You want me to tell you that I could have only dreamed that dream if you were in it?
You want me to tell you that that night, in the midst of so many people, surrounded by that veritable wall of sound, I saw the richest sunset in your eyes, just as I see now?
That in the laughter that I didn’t hear, I heard a choir full of longing, and that I have never stopped thinking about you since?
I pulled up my legs, so that I could be a bit more comfortable, and you put your arm around mine, leaning your head to my shoulder.
In a moment of madness, I kiss you on your forehead.
You drew back, and stared at me perplexed.
“Where did that come from?”, you asked.
Great, I only manage to fuck things up. Nice going.
I got a bit disoriented, totally and utterly lost. I had forgotten how to deal with people.
I had forgotten my place, and who I am.
But, and against any and all expectations I might have had, I see you smile.
And with that smile that played upon your lips, you stared longingly at me, and then, as if in a movie, as in one of those romantic movies where everything always has a happy ending, your lips slowly got closer to mine.

“No”, I thought.
“No”, I told you.
“No?”, you asked, disbelief echoing in your voice.
“No”, I repeated. “Listen…”
I stopped for a few seconds, breathed deep, then said, “I like you, Marcia.”
“You do?”, you smiled.
“It’s good to know that”, you continued, still somewhat stunned, “but then why did—
“, you were saying, but I had to interrupt you.
“Because there are things you should know. Because you have to know what I did, and who I was, and what I am.”
“I don’t care about that, Will, You know that.”, you said.
“You should. Now, please, listen to me.”
Then and there, I wanted so bad to just go for something, a beer, a whiskey, anything…
I curse the day I ever made you that promise, Jon Snow.
And I am glad I made it.

“I suppose I’d better start at the beginning?”, I said, more than asked.
“Fair enough. I, huh… a long time ago I had this relationship with a girl, Sophie.”
“And I guess it was quite a long one, our thing, at least according to my patterns. Almost three years, it was.”
“And it was so good. Well, for a good long while, it was very, very good. But towards the end…”
I paused.
I got up, caught a pebble and threw it into the water.
I sat back down and said :
“I don’t know what happened to us, you see? One day everything was just perfect, we played with the idea of maybe getting married, having kids, you know the drill.
Those small lies we keep saying in a relationship to make it last, to keep us together, so that we’d never feel the bitter sting of loneliness ever again.”
“And truth is, however much we try to stretch things, one day you’ll stretch it just a bit too much, and it will break. So one day we started fighting, and that’s all we seemed able to do. Days would go by and we wouldn’t even kiss each other, or touch each other.”
“It’s likely we weren’t having sex together for months, when we broke up.”
“And I have no idea what happened to us, even after all this time”, I repeated.
“So one day she tells me she met somebody else, that she felt happier with him, all the usual stuff, blah blah blah.”
“And that was the end of our story.”
“Well, sort of, because you see, I was still madly in love with her.”

I hope to God that you didn’t catch the look in my eyes, Marcia. I had so much pain and anger in them, anger at all that had happened, at everything that I became… if you had seen my eyes, you would have thought me some kind of animal.
But that’s what I am, right?
A vulture.

“The mere thought that she was with some other guy left me sick. And trust me, this was not a frustrated macho thing, some stupid territory issue I might have. It was because I deeply loved her. I really did.”
“And one day I see them together.”
“My heart, already so battered and bruised, broke in to so many little pieces. And I did something so stupid.”
“What?”, you asked. “What did you do?”
“Understand. Or don’t. But I was severely depressed, and even worse, I was very drunk.”
“And when I saw them…. Well, had Jon not been there, it would have been so much worse.”
“What the hell did you do, Sandor?”, you asked.
I sighed a long sigh of grief. It was years ago, but It still feels like it was yesterday…

“I called her names. Ugly names. I said that she was a fucking whore. And then I tried to hit the poor guy she was with.”
“But that’s relatively nice, compared to what I did after that.”
I coughed violently and suddenly, and I closed my jacket too. Autumn was cold this year, too cold.
And we all know what comes after Autumn.
“Oh God”, you said. “I’m actually afraid to know. What could be possibly worse than that?”, you asked, impatience in your every word.
“Not much”, I added. “I just begged her to take me back. Or I might have said that she could come back to me, I don’t know. But I crawled, literally.”
“And what did she say?”, you asked.
“She said I was pathetic”, I admitted, with a shrug.
“Maybe she was right, too. And the worst thing in all this is, the guy she left me for? Jeez, he’s just so… so normal. He’s just like so many other guys you see out there, so unremarkable. Well, could be he was a real Rocco Siffredi.”
“Who?”, you asked. “Never mind”, I said. “The truth is I felt like shit. Like a germ. Worse than that. Less than nothing.”
“And for months on end, I came to hate the face that looked at me from the other side of the mirror. I literally spent entire months completely drunk, and to my great dismay, every time I went out, I always managed to see her. With a different guy.”
“The fucking slut”, you said indignantly.
“Nah, don’t be like that.”, I said. “I’m not trying to defend her, I’m just trying to say that after all that, I still managed to fall even farther.”

“I hated myself so much, that I knew deep down that no one could ever hate me as well as I did. And I felt so hurt, that I thought that that pain gave me the right to hurt other people.”
“So one night I meet this girl in a bar I used to go to, and by God, it was so easy to seduce her, and take her to bed. I thought, if it had been that easy, why not keep on doing it?”
“And so, for two years, two long and unending years, that was what I did. I became the shell, the shadow of who I was. I became an animal. And I liked to thought that I was truly a bird of prey, a silver eagle, my talons sharp.”
“But, heh, I got it all wrong. Sure, I was a bird, only a bird of the carrion kind.”
“And I hurt so many people… I saw them as so much chewing gum, to be chewed, then spit out.”

It speaks volumes for my courage the fact that I was telling you all this without even so much as looking at you.
And the minute I do look at you, I see you crying. One more you hurt, Casanova.
“Secretly, I think I wanted to kill myself, Marcia. Somewhere along the way I had lost all my will to live, and I was killing myself slowly. I never was brave enough, or stupid enough to do something like that, but I killed myself in other ways.
I felt scorn for myself… I had become so cold. An alcohol-fuelled iceberg that fancied himself a playboy, shallower than…”
I nodded sadly.
“The best thing is, no the worst, actually, is that I wasn’t like this before. I was someone so different. Not this.”
“I loved to read. I lived poetry. I would go to the movies, and to plays, I loved music so very much. I was always wandering around, constantly mazes at the true beauty of all that surrounds us.”
“One day I woke up, and I no longer was that person. That Sandor was dead. And he died because I chose, conscientiously, to let him die. I chose to be an awful person. And I lost all I had.”

“One day I hit rock bottom, and got so drunk to my job… an hour later I was on the street, they fired my sorry ass. I was working in a publishing house, and I kinda bullied the guys at work that day, and I very well told my boss that he could go fuck himself.”
“But I also did manage to drive what few friends I had away from me. Do you know, Snow is the only one I have left.”
“Out of a job, all my meagre savings were spent in no time, and boy, was it money well spent”, I said sarcastically.
“Soon after, so that I might survive, I had to sell for a fraction of their real price things that were precious to me; the books I promised I would keep forever, the books that I so loved and was so proud of. And believe me when I tell you that it is indeed a very cruel pain to hear some stranger making you a ridiculous offer for something you know is worth twenty tines over what you are offered, and especially that person makes it sound like she’s doing you a favour, that her time is of such great value that she can’t listen to your complaints… but in the end, you have to, you must accept what is being put on the table, because you direly need it.”
I got up once more, and spat into the sea.
“And when you thought I couldn’t do any worse…”

I would have given anything not to have seen that look you gave me, full of horror and revulsion.
“Why the hell should I bother to make an effort just to get laid with some girl, I thought one day.”
“Oh, I had a number of girls on my cell that I could call anytime; tele-fucks, I called them.”
“Only most of them, maybe even all of them were girls that I might had to apologize to, and you know, call me crazy, but I never thought that calling a girl and say “Hey, how are you doing? So sorry I never said anything, you know me, busy man, barely have time for myself, but I kind of fancy you, wanna fuck?” would be such a nice strategy.”
“I had an epiphany. A revelation, of sorts. ‘And God said, “Let there be light”. And there was light!’, Genesis, line three. And I saw the light : if I get me a girlfriend, why, that’s like sex without all the effort! Brilliant! How had I never thought about that? And you want to know what the best bit is? I didn’t even have to like her!”
“So I went and did it. I met a girl around ten in the evening, twenty minutes or so later we were kissing, before three A.M. I was doing her, and come next day, we were an item already.”

To this very day I cannot understand how you were able to hear me speak all that crap, and not once did you hit me, or threw up on me. You should have called every name in creation.
Because if I were you I would have done it. And I deserved it.
“Ah, Marcia… I was so mean to her… so mean…”
“I made her so many promises, and lied so much. So much. I made her fall in love with me. I made her love me.”, I sighed.
“So, happily for me, one day I go out and meet another girl. And something I wasn’t expecting happens.”
“I was getting ready to go to Playboy mode when my… consciousness, or whatever it’s called, made me feel guilty. An echo from the person I used to be once upon a time appeared from God knows where and opened up my eyes. I stood staring at this girl I had just met, without a single word to say to her.”
“I panicked. I faked a phone call, rushed out of the bar so I could pretend that I needed privacy, or maybe because I couldn’t hear anything, or some other stupid reason.”
“And I ran to my place.”
“I had the most awful night, like, ever, full of nightmares. When I woke up the next day, I knew what I had to do. Without any explanation given to the girl that I was going out with, I stopped talking to her. I didn’t return her calls, or her texts. I even had to change my phone number.”

“And I thought I would change. That I could change. But needless to say that after about three or four day, I returned to my old haunts. And that was my life up until two and a half years ago, give or take.”
“Important things happened to me back then.”
“One of them, and maybe the single worst thing I ever did, was calling that girl I used to go out with one day, and I asked her if she’d like to maybe to for a drink, or something. I ended up asking her if she would take me back. Understandable, she said that I go fuck myself.”
I don’t know why, but I laughed. A madman’s laughter, like some crazy soul dancing over that thin razor’s edge we call sanity, until I started to cry.
“The day after that, I met a friend of mine. Well, at least just this girl I used to know, and when I thought I knew how this night was going to end, she blows me away. Oh yeah, my crowning achievement that night was having the shit kicked out of me. I almost died.”

And I should have died, I thought. At least that way I would bring some comfort and justice to everyone I ever hurt.
Naturally, you were distant from me, though you were by my side.
What I didn’t understand, at least not then, was the tenderness in your eyes.

“I woke up on a bed on a hospital, you know? Something I never thought would happen to me. In the middle of people crying, and howling with pain, and that awful smell of sick or near dead people, I wanted to be reborn to life. I swore to myself that I would change, that I would be someone good again… oh well. The road to hell and good intentions, right?”
“I was barely out of the hospital when I picked up some girl, a Barbie doll that I met during my stay.”
It had gotten violently dark, night fell with all her force, and the cold started to seep.
I wanted so much for you to hold me, but I knew I had a very slim chance of that.
“I went out with her soon after that, and that night… well, I was also with Snow, and his night didn’t quite go according to plan, and he just freaked out with me. He dragged me away from where we were, by one of my ears, no less, and the next day he opened his heart for me.”
“I swear, it was as if Jesus Christ himself had descended just to talk to me. He told me so many things… things I knew, that I could not deny, that were there for all to see. I realized then how disgusting I had become. I saw all that I had lost during all this time, all that I had sacrificed. All that made me the person I once was, the person he so well knew, and that no longer was.”
“And after hearing his words, and after he left, I made a decision.”
“I decided to die.”

“The next day, I just left. I left all behind. I do admit I could have done things some other way, but there you go, that was the way things happened, and no good will come out of thinking otherwise.”
“For a year, a very long year I was away from everything. I stayed for a while in northern Africa, then in a convent, too. I forced myself to forget the meaning of a touch, of a kiss. I willed myself to forget what it felt like to hear laughter, or to see someone smile.”
“I taught myself, through silence, how to be good.”
“And I think I was successful; nowadays I’m able to look myself in the mirror again.”
“For a long, long time now, Marcia, I have not kissed anyone. I have not touched anyone. And I feel good because of that. I’m not saying that I’m perfect, nothing of the kind. I know I deserve some cosmic retribution for all these things that I’ve done. I firmly believe that there is a very special hell saved just for me.”
“But I dare say that I’m a nice person, now. Or at least I labour under that misapprehension.”
“This is my truth, little girl, and now that you know it, now that I’ve told you the worst I could ever tell you about me, I will tell you why I dreamt of you, that night when we first met.”
“I’m not afraid anymore, you see? I’m not afraid to say it. Do you want me to say it?”
“Tell me”, you asked, and your voice, Marcia, your voice! How it hurt to hear that voice that made me cry…
“Because I love you, Marcia. I have loved you from the first second I laid my eyes on you. And I tell you this without any reservations whatsoever. I tell you this because this is something I’ve carried with me for a long time.”
“I love you, Marcia.”

“Now, I’m not going to ask you to take my word for all that I have claimed, or to give me any kind of chance, no.”
“A while ago you wanted to kiss me.”
“After all that you have heard, do you still want to? Think about that.”
“Now you know who I was, and what I was. Now you know how I feel for you, and only you can say if it means anything at all to you.”
“Think about this. It’s all I ask.”

"Distance
I'll keep my distance
These things I never seem to mean
So I leave the murder scene"

Editors, Distance

Chapter 26 : Days before you came

2007-06-29T14:16:00.000-07:00

“Poor little baby”, I said, playfully, “poor little Jon can’t even get up from bed!”
You were bed-ridden with a cold, taking a variety of meds the doctor prescribed; though I knew that in days you’d be up and about again, and our lives would go back to normal, seeing you in bed like this still hurt more than I cared to admit.
I was standing by your side, my arms folded protectively over my stomach, when, and with great exaggeration you said,
“Love… listen to me… these will be… the last words I will ever… ever say.”
“I want… I want you to have all… all my CD’s and DVD’s… and the photos, too, ok?”, for added effect, you coughed dramatically.
“Nah”, I answered jovially. “I’ll sell that stuff, and burn the photos… what I really want is the keys to the car and the fortune I know you’ve been amassing all along in secret”, I said, with a small laugh.
“Ah!”, you sighed audibly, “Oh horror upon horror! Be gone, o form of man! You wish to take all I have saved for us all along!”
“Have you no respect for a man’s pain that you have to come here and mock him?”, you asked.
“Pain?”, I asked, ”Bah, what do you know? If you were a woman you’d have reason enough to complain.”

You looked at me for a few seconds, some playfulness in your eyes, and said, “You know nothing. Now, shut up, and get ready”, you concluded.
I didn’t have any reaction, quick and agile as a tiger you jump on me, and roll, then get on top of me, your hands on my stomach.
“Oww”, I said, “be gentle, it still hurts a bit.”
“Yeah?”, you asked. “Why?”
I looked at you and I wondered how could someone be so daft, then I remembered : Men.
“Well, think hard, Einstein”, I said.
You either had no idea, or just couldn’t find the right words to say.
“Hmmm…”, you said.
“Ok”, you agreed.
“Really?”, you asked doubtfully, as if it was just an optical illusion.
“But… but just a few weeks ago… surely not…”, you mumbled, clearly out of your depths.
“Honey”, I said, “Maybe this will come as a shock to you, but you know, this is a cycle? And it means it repeats itself! Yay! And to my sorrow, yeah, it kinda comes in a monthly basis?”
Wow. I think I never saw you blush so much.
God only knows how you were able to retain your sanity after that episode all those months ago.
So I decide to change my strategy.

“But you know, it’s near the end now, and maybe I kinda miss having sex, so if you want to…”, I suggested, with a wink.
“Oh, yuck, no way!”, you said, “Nuh-uh, that’s gross!”
“Yeah? Is that right? I didn’t see you complain last month… or the month before that, come to think of it.”
“Yeah, well, I was Count Dracula then”, you said. “Mwahahaha!”, you attempted to laugh in my patented Donald Duck laughter, and failed gloriously.
“C’mere”, you said, pulling me to your side of the bed.
“Hey, hey, no touchy! I don’t want to get sick too, or take back with me all kinds of diseases to the hospital, ok?”, I said, maybe a bit brusquely.
“I just wanted a kiss from you”, you said tenderly.
Because of that, I covered you with kisses.
“Fuck, it’s true… this weekend I’ll be pulling double shifts at the hospital, so we’ll only see each other now on Monday, yeah?”, I said, checking the time.
“And in about ten minutes I should start getting ready to leave, babe.”
“Ok”, you said, “I love you, Natalie. Never forget that.”
“And I…”, I love you so much, Jon, so much. More than anything.
Then why can’t I say it? We’ve been together for almost a year, now, and I’ve never said it, though you say it every day, as if it was the easiest thing in the world, as if it came as easily as breathing to you.
“And I…”, I repeated.

“Natalie”, you said, “you don’t have to say it.”
“But if I don’t you’ll end up thinking that I don’t feel it, that I don’t love you.”
You got closer to me, held me in your arms, and whispered in my ear, “It’s because you don’t say it that I know for sure how you feel. It’s because you don’t say the words, but because you do so much more than that, that I know that you love me.”, you said, and in your eyes I saw an immense pride in me, in us, a look that told me that nothing would keep us apart.
So I went and got ready to go, and when the time came for us to say goodbye, I swear a piece of my heart broke in two.
Never leave me, Jon Snow. Never.
“Wait for me”, I asked.
“Until the last star fades into darkness”, you said.
We kissed for along while, but too soon our lips were parted.
“I’ll see you soon, love”

Monday arrived, and I got home feeling exhausted; there was no part of me that didn’t ache.
Weekends at the Hospital are always very nice, watching sixteen year old idiots coming in comatose from all they drank, or worse, o.d’ing from some shit they took.
I feel filthy, and I’m going to take a long, long shower.
I scrub myself real hard to wash away all the smells from the Hospital; the vomit and piss of drunks that seemed to permeate my very essence.
I got out, dried myself, and yeah, at least ‘the curse’ was over.
I decide to put some cream over my body, to help me relax.
I still feel smelly, so I put on a bit of perfume : a dab behind the ears, another on the wrists; then on my neck, and very slightly, on my breasts.
I wear a fresh pair of pyjamas, and when I get into bed next to you, I hold you, and think about how much I really love you, Jon.
And I love you. I love you.
I love you more than anything else in this world. More than my own life, even.
You’re the one for me, the one with whom I would spend my remaining days, and have kids, and then grandchildren.
You make me want things I never ever wanted before.
You make me dream about things I thought I could never have.
I love you, and tomorrow I will let you know.
Because, my love, I want you to know that I will always be here for you, and that all I ever wanted is you.

We wake up at the same time, and it was late, way past lunchtime.
We stayed in bed, in silence, looking at each other.
No words needed be said, in the purity of that moment.
I lay next to you, my beauty, and want you to feel close to me.
Take my hand to you, touch you softly, your fair and warm skin.
Wordless, I felt the hardness of your arousal, and your fingers, those fingers that know me so well, find my secret and wet sweetness, only for you, yes, yes, oh god, like that…
You cover me with you, over me, and under you. I pull you into me, and as one we lay entwined, for hours on end, silent words lingering in between.
After a while, we fall asleep in each other’s arms. If only you knew how much I wanted to scream that I love you…
Every time I came, the words ‘I love you’ fought to get out, but they didn’t; I feared I would shatter creation itself with the strength of my thoughts alone.

When we get up, we were quite famished, but the fact that it was near midnight left us few options.
“Stay in bed”, you said and kissed my lips as if for the first time. “I’ll fix us something to eat.”
“Be right back”, you said.
“You promise?”
You laughed, and said, “Yes, I promise. And this time there will be no silly business that’ll keep me from standing by my promises.”
”Well… I mean, maybe you might get food poisoning from what I’m gonna cook…”, you said, on your way to the kitchen.
And from the kitchen came noises that made me think that maybe a whole legion was cooking, instead of just one person.
“Babe?”, I asked, “Is everything ok?”
Your head appeared from the kitchen, I could see that your hair and face had flour all over, and said, “Just dandy!”.
“You want help?”, I insisted.
A sound like a thousand pans falling, followed by the sound of something breaking, made you come to me to give me a floury kiss, and say, “Trust me. I know what I’m doing!”, and with that you disappear into the kitchen again.

I decide to leave you to your own mysterious ways, turned on the TV, saw that there was nothing good on, and I turned on the Playstation 2. But what to play?
I know, a classic.
My old Final Fantasy VII got dusted off, and memories came by the hundreds.
So many hours playing this game… And that Sephiroth… Yummy, yum.
Yeah, I know he’s only a cartoon, but oh my god…
I load the game directly to a part where Shephiroth commits an act of terrible cruelty.
“Sephiroth… oh boy”, I sighed loudly.
“Yeah?”, you say, holding a tray in each hand. “You would prefer a cartoon over me?”, you asked, the words playing upon your lips.
“Oh you know, that amazing, huge long silver hair, and that enormous sword… oh yummy, what’s not to like?”, I asked, while I was looking at the trays. Whatever it was, it sure did smell good.
“Oh really? It’s all a matter of size, is it? Ok, sure, you keep him… I’ll keep Aerith all for myself.”
“What?”, I shouted, “No way! You’ll keep me, and that’s the end of that”, I boomed joyfully.
“So I give up on her, and you give up on him? That it?”, you asked.
“Quid pro quo, Clarice”, I replied.
You laughed.

You set the trays on the table, I jumped at you, my legs rolling around your waist, and kissed you.
“Hmmm… that’s good”, you said. “But let’s grab a bite to eat, yeah?”
“Ok”, I agreed. “So… what the hell is it?”
“Well… it’s sort of fusili by way of sun dried tomatoes, and Turkish olives. I added a dash of olive oil, and vinegar too”, you concluded.
“Wow”, I said. “Sounds delicious. But… how come you had flour all over you?”
“Oh, that. I don’t know, I guess I thought it just made me look more, er… cook-y?”
“Oh brother”, I replied. “So what do we drink? There’s some wine left, I think…”
“Nah, don’t worry. Water’s fine.”
“Hey, you want to see a movie while we eat?”, I asked.
“Hmmm…”, you thought for a while, “Yeah! And I know just the one”, you enthused.
“Try and see if you can find out what movie it is… it’s got this great song : ‘it’s the eye of the tiger / it’s the thrill of the fight’ “, you sang.
I thought for a few moments, then said, “Rocky IV? Nawww… you’re crazy! No way, pick another… or I will!”, I threatened gently.
“Oh no. No no no no no. But it’s a pretty easy mistake to make, you see? The songs from Rocky III and IV were made by Survivor. And ‘The eye of the tiger’ is from Rocky III, not IV. That was ‘Burning heart’ “, you said proudly.

The look I gave you made you draw back, and lose the idea of us watching ‘Rocky’.
You started to hum the ‘Imperial march’ from Star Wars, but without any sort of hope.
“Well”, I said, “I guess it’s up to me to pick a movie… and I pick…. Let’s see… Ah, yes.”
“ ‘Man on the moon’ “, I said, in triumph.
You mumbled something, but I knew you were no match for me.
“Have you seen it before?”, I asked.
“Not really, no… it’s just that I’m not really into Jim Carrey that much, and the last good Milos Forman movie I saw was ‘Amadeus’ “, you said, defeated.
But you liked it, I know, because by the time the movie was finished, your eyes were pretty wet.
“Love, what’s that?”, I asked, “Are you crying?”
“Hmmm? What? No…”, you answered hurriedly. “it’s just something, ah… something in my eye, that’s all.”
“Heh”, you laughed. “I know we didn’t actually do anything very tiring today, but what about if we just hit the sack?”, you asked, your mouth wide open in a yawn.
“Sure”, I agreed. “Go on ahead, I have to go to the toilet, then I’ll be right back with you, ok?”

I brushed my teeth, saw myself on the mirror, then combed my hair sitting on the bed by your side. You were lying naked; only seldom did you sleep with any clothes on.
I sank into your arms, stroked those very arms that enfolded me, passed a hand through your hair, and you said,
“I love you, Natalie.”
“And I…”
“And I will tell you a story”, you said.
“Is it another one about your famous ancestor?”, I asked.
“It is”, you admitted. “But listen closely”, you asked.

“This story takes place a few years after the other story I told you. My kin of old had returned to the village, and built it anew. In time, it was peopled enough, so that prosper was made self evident.”
“The townsfolk, though, said that he was a cursed man, and as such there was no prospect of him getting married again, though his lands were rich, and the bounties plentiful, happiness was denied him for ever.”
“In a nearby village, there lived a young girl of legendary beauty, who, at the ripe young age of fifteen was a widow four times over. It was said that she, too, was cursed, for the seal of her virginity would render the purest of loves into sin.”

You stopped telling the story.
You got up, went to the kitchen, and brought a pitcher of water, and glasses for both of us.
“Drink”, you said.
“My ancestor set out to meet her one day, and when they did meet, it was as two souls that were but one, and had been halved long ago, were finally reunited.
Soon they were one, and on the day he took her for the first time, all the leaves fell from the trees, though it was high summer.”
“At the dawn of their first day together, all seemed as if taken from a fairytale, where hope prevails over lies, and truths that lurk hidden in the dark make dreams be filled with joy.”
“Suddenly, there was a light, of terrible beauty.”, you said darkly.
You topped up your glass of water, then shook your head.
“All had changed. The sun that shone faded behind clouds. Flowers no longer blossomed, animals fell sick, and all the children died. The only thing to be harvested was sorrow.”
“Then, all the blindness was taken away from us; our eyes finally began to see, when she closed her eyes. The Tear maiden rose from her throne of winter, and left.”

You said nothing more for long minutes after that. You cried a little bit, then I held your hands.
“Then”, you said, “my kinsman went after her, and he cried her name for all men, and angels, and demons, and the very Gods of heathen times to hear.”
“He cried her name, and said ‘I love you’.”
She looked back, and said, “And I love you, Ned Snow.”

I let silence follow your words.
I didn’t know what to say.
I knew. I just didn’t know how.
You saw that I was crying. You turned off the lights, and we were lit only by the moon that loomed phosphorescent outside.
You dried my tears with your lips, held me with such passion and love, and right then and there, Jon, I loved you with the intensity of all the stars, and planets, and suns, and all living things in the universe.
I put my face next to yours, and we just looked at each other for a long time.
“Don’t you worry”, you said, while you stroked my hair with one hand.
“When you feel the time is right, you will say the words I know you feel”, and your other hand fondled my breasts slightly, and then one finger circled slowly my nipple.
I stifled a sigh, and kissed you.

Again, you looked at me, then you closed your eyes. You said, “Let’s sleep.”
“Yes”, I agreed.
“I love you, Natalie”, you said with your eyes closed, but you were smiling, because my hand was tracing your beautiful lips.

“And I love you, Jon Snow.”, I thought.

"She's too invested in the hours That Pass Her By
I'd Pay Attention If I Thought It Was Worth The Time
I tell her easy but Her Hands They Find A Way
Confusing Passion For The Laws he never gave
Fall Back On Reasons That We Know Won't Stand A Chance
Watching Our Shoulders Like A Memory From The Past
I tell her easy but Her Hands They Find A Way
Confusing Passion For The Laws he never gave."

Timbaland, Time

Chapter 25 : I'll fall with your knife

2007-06-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

“Will you let go of my ear?”, I asked. It was an innocent question, or so I thought.
“Please, Jon, that’s hurting like hell, that is!”
You ignored me, and for some thirty seconds more, you kept on pulling my ear, twisting it slightly.
By now, I had already lost all sense of feeling, and if it hurt, then I no longer felt it.
I did feel a certain shame out of being dragged halfway across town by my ear.
You stopped, pulling my ear nevertheless, and looked at me as if you were seeing me for the first time, cold, cold as winter in July and said, “You and me. Your place. Sleep. Tomorrow, we talk.”

We got in the cab, and were halfway to mine pretty soon.
The cabbie tried to make conversation, because football is always something good to talk about, but neither your temper nor my being roaring drunk helped much.
We got out of the taxi, and for no apparent reason you tip the cabbie.
And people call me crazy.
We walked the rest of the way, there was some repair work being done near the street where I lived that kept the taxi from getting us nearer.
We walked in silence, and when we got to my place, you asked for a blanket so you could sleep on the couch.
I went to my bedroom, found an old blanket, gave I to you; you lied down without a word, and were asleep soon after.

I confess, I did not spend much time wondering about what the hell all this was about, I was feeling tired, too.
And thirsty.
So I went to the kitchen, and in my fridge I found half a six-pack of beers, which is just a somewhat stupid way of saying three beers, now that I think about it.
I had one because I was thirsty, another for you (and here’s to you, Jon!), and the other because then I’d have nothing cluttering my admittedly very empty fridge, and above all, just because.
While I was drinking, I notice that the white in the kitchen, the light reflected on the the also very white walls, was strangely akin to that of the hospital that I so recently got out of.
I went to bed, beyond knackered, and I don’t even remember falling asleep.

‘I had made my way past the mountains that even now were to my back, and I was walking through green and desolate hills; these hills had the faces of long dead and forgotten deities.
The wind was howling, in the truest sense of the word, for the wind was a pack of wolves, an enormous pack of wolves that was running in and above me, whispering names and words in incomprehensible tongues, uttering the truths that might be within our grasp, if only we let go of our tethers.’

‘Suddenly I decided that the wind made by the frantic running of the wolves was too strong, and so I changed my course, heading nowhere, looking for something that I had meanwhile forgotten. I found myself in the city of Coimbra, in the train station, but though everything and everyone there were modern-day, the station itself seemed to have been built in the 17th century by some visionary genius who thought that heated pools peopled both by animals and, well, people was all the rage. I also saw that I had no money, and could not go back home.’
‘In the midst of all this disorientation, I saw that I was not in fact in Coimbra, but in Cascais, and I was in a garden right in the middle of the town, but wait, no I’m really in a garden in Lisbon, and there is a fair here, a most curious fair where the salesmen are dwarves that rode dogs as if they were horses, and oh, they were selling all those toys I had as a child, the ones I always wanted but could never have, and all my books, the ones that got burned when my house burned down, but I wasn’t there alone, there were some friends of mine there, a couple over there looked familiar… Is that Snow? Yes, but he’s older, now. And somewhat shallow, too, it seems to me. He’s with a girl that I never seen before, but that smile, that smile…
I’ll ask her what her name is, I decided.’

‘But suddenly my cell starts to ring, and it’s a very old model, one of those that you had to carry around in a case, and someone told me that I must go to Lisbon international airport immediately to cover live the breaking news : the first real Transformer was had been developed, and it was a Space Shuttle.
On my way to the airport, though, I decide to get a new suit, something pretty, and warm too; it was winter, and very cold.
As I make my way to a shopping centre, I see that the entrance is full of beggars selling big balls of wool.
I’m headed towards a door, where a beggar, who was so ragged and filthy even other beggars stayed away from her, and who was so old, and with such an irritating voice, sidles up to me so she could get in with me.
A blonde woman who was right behind us, who appeared to be obscenely rich, was telling her also blond and very tanned friend how she spent a fortune in a trifle; saying so with enormous pride.
Me and the beggar looked all around us, and saw all those dozens?hundreds? no, thousands of people who even if they whored themselves in a corner would not have money enough for a warm meal, and after hearing such a ridiculous conversation, we could only laugh.’

‘So the obnoxious beggar and I got into the mall, walking side by side, and she tried to make small talk with me; she wanted to know what I did, where I came from, where I lived… out of a question of courtesy, I gave her my name, just so she would stop talking to me.
I badly wanted her to go away, so I could go and buy my suit, but no, she wouldn’t go away.
I see Jon coming from somewhere, again with that girl with the great smile; she does a hair-flip; I have to know this girl’s name now, but I have to go get a newspaper first…’

‘I arrive in the newsagent, it was huge, cavern-like, and so people wouldn’t read stuff and then not pay for them, they chose to work under the dimmest of lights.
Suddenly I’m in the airport, hundreds of engineers scurrying around, running to and fro, as if they were ants, to ready the Transformer.
Now is the time, ladies and gentlemen, you will believe in the impossible, what we were about to see was beyond our ken.
It would all have been much more impressive, I suppose, if it didn’t all boil down to just a few hundred guys making a space shuttle out of legos.’

‘I was just about to leave this fiasco when I notice that there three guys there who were stark naked, huge, impossibly huge penises hanging heavily, and they wanted to sodomize me.
The mutant-dicks ran after me, and wanted so bad to catch me so they could then sell me to a bunch of gays that had their eyes on me : they wanted to make an eunuch out of me, to be cut at their own leisure, so I could be a part of their race of perfect and asexual beings.’

I wake up screaming, drenched in sweat.
I looked at where my alarm clock should be. It’s not like it wasn’t there, but he had gone away and brought a few friends along.
One of them was telling me that it was around three o’clock.
Three o’clock???
Damn, must have overslept.
Not that I had something useful to do anyway, but I figured I’d be up a hell of a lot sooner.
So I got up, and on my way to the kitchen, I felt the delicious aroma of… pizza? What the…?
I found you in the living room, clearing the chaos that was my dining table, so we could sit comfortably and eat.
I stared at you for a while, until you say, “There’s not much that you can do in the way of help. Go shower, man. You look almost as bad as I feel”, you said with some hints of cheerfulness in your voice.

The shower worked wonders on me, I made sure that the water ran for a few minutes so it would come out scalding hot, so I could wash away this feeling of filth in me.
The warmth of the water, coupled with the fact that I didn’t even leave the bathroom window open made me feel a bit woozy, and everything I drank last night seemed to want to come out… it’s always possible that who knows, maybe, just maybe I drank a bit too much.
I showered quick enough, though. I got dressed, got back to the dining room, and came up to you, where you were sitting at the table, a large bottle of water in the middle.
Nothing for me?
I sat down.

“Did you make this?”, I asked. Because if you did, then my friend, you are a true magician because I had little to no food at all at home.
“D’you think?”, you replied. “Nah, I ordered. You didn’t have anything at all to eat, except a few empty bottles of beer, which I don’t really recommend, so I decided that we both need something with a bit more… substance to line our stomachs”, you concluded.
“Right”, I agreed.
“And speaking of beer”, I said, “maybe I could go to the supermarket and get us something to drink”, I said, getting up.
But before I has halfway up, you put your hand on mine, and said, “No”.
No?
“No”, you repeated. “For you.”
And you said not for you, but for me. The good thing about being able to look back on something is that you can actually see how you behaved, and I was just so stupid back then…
“Well, just the one, it won’t –“, I was going to continue, but you didn’t let me.
“No”, you insisted again. “Sit. Eat. Drink water, if you’re thirsty. And listen to me. There is much we have to talk.”

I sat down.
Maybe with was everything at the same time, the stuff I drank last night, the hangover that came with it, that shower that cleansed me but left me weak, but suddenly I felt very, very hungry, and quick as that I had eaten two slices of sweet pizza, without nary a glance at them; and by their taste, they had tuna, bacon, and olives.
I drank water, but it was way too cold.
I never did like the stuff, and I told you so.
“One day you will”, you said enigmatically.

“Will, I have several important things I have to say to you. Some of them about me, about how I’m feeling, and how my life is right now, and others about you”, you said.
“Regarding what I want to tell you about me, I ask only that you listen to me, because I believe I know what your opinion is. Perhaps in times it would have been a different one, but there we go, nothing remains the same”, you continued, and then took a long, healthy sip of water.
“Now, regarding what I have to say about you, I confess I harbour no illusions whatsoever, I do admit.”
“It maybe that you even surprise me, and better yet, that you surprise yourself, and your heart and arms will open to me and heed these words I say, but…”
“But you don’t think so, is that it?”
“C’mon, speak up, stop being such a girl”, I said impatiently.

“Very well”, you said, “but first I feel I must apologize for what I did to you yesterday. It was ill done on my part, and I humiliated you, and I hope that one day you may forgive me.”
“Fuck that”, I said. “Sticks and stones, man. Forget it.”
“Wait. All this has a plausible explanation. It does not condone the act, but it does explain why I was in such a foul mood. Do you remember last night at all?”, you asked.
“Yes”, I replied. “Through a haze, yeah, but sure, I remember.”, I said, eating another slice.
“But do you really remember?”, you insisted.
“Do you remember the person with who I was talking to?”, you asked, as if I was a five year old.
I do confess that I had to struggle a little bit…
“Remember… remember… I get these flashes… faces, voices, nothing very substantial you know? I guess I must have been pretty out of it… but I remember I was there with someone, right? And so were… you?”, I managed to say.

“So”, you said, “let’ see : yes, you were drunk, very drunk; yes, there was someone with you, and it was lousy company : an incredibly beautiful girl; and lastly”, you paused to catch your breath, then added, “yes, yes I was with your, all things considered, ex-nurse, Natalie.”
By now my head ached so bad that it was as if somebody was playing drums inside my head, and I had to put my hands to my temples so as to better assimilate what you just told me.
After a few seconds, I said, “the nurse. Yeah. Yeah. The shot. Fuck me, that was awful. Yeah, I do seem to recall.”
“So… what about it?”, I said, more than just a bit disoriented.
The promptness of your answer caught me off guard. You just said very calmly and thoughtfully the following words :
“I’ve fallen for her, William. Hard.”

In a state of shock, reeling by your confession, you add, “I don’t know what to do, man. It’s killing me, this is. Only she’s got a boyfriend, and they’re going to get married… and she’s just so gorgeous, she is, and she makes me laugh like no-one has made me laugh in the longest time, Will. And I’m so in love with her…”, you said, your eyes wet with the first of many tears to come.
“Man, there’s so many fish there in the sea…”, I said. “If you want a girl, leave it to me, we’ll go out sometime and I’ll hook you up. Or I could introduce you to this girl I met on the net, awww man, but she would go down a treat, if you catch what my meaning…”, I added, with a wink and a nudge.
But you looked at me with eyes that could curdle milk, so I stepped back.

“When was the last time you heard me say I was in love with someone, Sandor? Think hard.”
So I did. Really. Let’s see, it can’t have been that long…
Last year…
Surely not.
It’s so obvious. How the hell did I not think about this before?
You’ve been all alone for the past couple of years, mate.
“Since Sara”, I said.
“Yeah”, you admitted. “Since Sara.”
“And believe me when I tell you, please, please do believe me, there is no one on earth that knows his own feelings or his own self better than I do mine and myself, but if I tell you that I am deeply in love with Natalie… it’s because I really am.”, you finished.
We didn’t speak again for a few minutes after that, we finished eating in silence.
We drank a bit more water, and something told me that at least for now, we were done talking about you.

You get up from the table, and you go get another bottle of water from the kitchen; I insist once more on the idea of going to the supermarket, things would go down a treat if we had a brew to drink, but that look you gave me settled that.
I sat back on the sofa, zapped for a while; nothing good on the TV, no surprises there.
I was watching this video from a band whose name can not be uttered in any civilized tongue, when a strange noise coming from the kitchen woke me from semi-slumber.
So I got to the kitchen, and saw you emptying every single bottle that might even have the smallest trace of alcoholic contents in them, into the kitchen sink.
“What the fu–“, I started, but that killer look you so perfected these past hours killed the rest of the words I was going to say.
I stared impassively as the bottles were being emptied out, one by one.
After an enormity of time had elapsed, but who seemed to me as a few minutes only, such was my horror, you said, “You can go back to the living room. Yeah, I know this is your place, but I’m in charge today, ok? Sit down. I’ll be right along.”
And so I did. I went back, sat down, and waited for you to come.
You looked at me, pulled up a chair so you wouldn’t have to sit on the floor, and said nothing
Then you started to speak.

“Listen, Will. I’m going to tell you for good and all what you are to me”, you said, your voice tinged with sadness and fatigue.
“You are my best friend, the best I will ever, ever have. And you know, I think, that for someone like me… well, making friends just isn’t the easiest things in the world, in part due to that strange notion of friendship I have…”
“But more so than that, we are brothers; you are the brother I never had, and the love I feel for you – and mind what you’re going to say - , while being of a different kind, is as great and intense as that I felt for Sara.”
“I would do anything for you, man. And deep down I know you would do the same for me. Of all the things I have left in my life, I fear losing you most of all.”
“But you know that… we’ve known each other for such a long time now, been through so much together… but maybe even you never imagined what I’m about to tell you now.
“You are, or at least used to be everything I ever wanted to be.”
“In secret to myself, I looked at you, and saw the kind of person I longed to be.”
“Do you understand?”, you asked, without even giving me a chance to reply, because immediately after that, you say, “Because I’m going to ask you something, Sandor. And for the first time in along while, try to think before you speak.”
I nodded slightly in approval, maybe in a just a bit arrogant manner, as if giving you permission to address me.
“Will… what’s, when you think about it, important in your life? I mean, really important?”

I thought deep and heard about this, really I did.
I also thought if maybe I could organize everything that mattered to me in groups, then sub-groups, and making top fives of each of them.
Let’s see… what’s really important to me?
Easy.
Women. Women, in general, but if they’re pretty and/or hot, that’s always a plus.
DVD’s. CD’s. Oh, watches, my latest craze. I like very much eating at a fancy restaurant, sure. Boats and horses, too, go figure. I kinda developed a taste for that sort of stuff.
Oh yeah, clothes. I’m a sucker for a good pair of denims, and a new suit every now and then. All the latest fashion, I suppose.
Shoes, yes. After all, a man is measured by his shoes and watch, so they say.
Sneakers, Puma’s or Nike’s. Adidas’s too, but only sometimes.
What else?
Going to the football, and a concert every now and again, too.
Hmmm… going out, going on a binge, sure. And women, too, I think I still hadn’t said that.
Cars, though it’s been years since I last drove, but I’ve always fancied sports cars.
Mobile phones, that trick the devil played in all of us; a man’s worst enemy, especially when/if he’s drunk, but I love them. Ipods. Oooohhh… a plasma TV, that would rock so much…
The new Playstation, I think I want that even more than I want to get laid. Or maybe not, on second thought.
Comic books! A nice perfume. Calvin Klein underwear. An haircut that’s obscenely expensive but that looks amazing on me.
Jesus, I don’t know, there’s just so much stuff… But women, above all.

“So many different things, my friend”, I admitted.
“There’s so much stuff that it’s impossible for me to say what’s rally important to me…”
“Very well”, you said. “I will tell you a few things that matter which I’m absolutely, positively sure you didn’t think of, and I will tell you why they matter.”
“First off, you didn’t think about your family. Yeah, I know their mere presence renders you physically ill, and empty. But they do care about you, they do love you. Did you your grandma calls every day to ask me how you’ve been doing, to see if everything’s
all right with you? Asking me to watch over you?”
“Heh. By that look on your face I guess you didn’t.”
“You didn’t think about your health. Sandor, the body and mind you call your own, were given to you by God, and by no means I’m telling you how you should live your life, because ultimately it’s your decision alone.”
“But with all the shit you’ve been drinking, and man, not only will you drink anything, you seem to be drinking all the time these past months, and you drink in alarming quantities too; plus, all those girls that you’re fucking around, man, one of these days you’re bound to catch some disease, and before you know it you’ll be dying alone in a gutter, man.”
“And I know you don’t want that.”

I was going to say something, but it was as if something held my tongue captive, choking my words, and all that came out was a weird noise.
“Wait, don’t interrupt me. New question : who are your friends, Will ?”, you asked, your voice like a whip.
“Well”, I answered, nonplussed. “There are two or three guys at work, and then there’s those guys we always see when we go out at night… and you, right?”, I asked, with a certain doubt; sudden and disturbing.
You stared at me, clapped your hands, and it is truly amazing how the sound of your hands clapping sounded surreally sarcastic.
Then you said, “Wow. I am proud, no really I am, to be a part of that most noble and egregious company that includes such legendary paragons of virtue such as Gregor, the guy who pisses himself should he drink more than TWO whole beers. Or that prick Andrew, who goes around with a very small bag of flour inside, so people think it’s coke.”
“Awww, c’mon, the guy’s—“
“Shut up. And listen to me.”, the whip in your voice said.

“And finally, for however little this may matter to you nowadays, I really don’t know anymore…”
You sighed, long and deep, and for an instant you seemed on the verge of a breakdown.
“You never thought of me, did you? Me, who just told you how damn important you are to me.”
“But I didn’t say everything, now, did I? Oh no, not by a longshot. I’m going to tell you how well I know you.”
“You don’t hav—“, but the whip was in your eyes, now, and I couldn’t bear to finish that sentence.
“I know who you are. And I know what you are. I know you better than anyone does. I might even chance to say that I know you better than you do yourself. And you are not this. You are not this joke of a person I see before me. And I know that this is what you chose to be; again, it was by your choice alone. But the great thing is, you don’t have to keep on being like this, Sandor.”, you said, your voice full of worry.
“Do you remember when me and Sara broke up? How while I spent long hours commiserating, and wallowing in my own sadness, without ever thinking that maybe she was having as hard a time as I was, you went to her, and helped her find her way?
I remember, you told me something about her having found God in an elephant, or some such nonsense…”
“But Sandor, in the darkness that her life had become, in part by my own doing, you were the candle flame that flickered her back to life.”
“And when I think how you yourself were back then… things had fallen apart between you and Sophie a bit before we broke up, and that pain was showing already, but you were so much stronger than I ever was…”
“That’s the real Sandor to me.”

“And soon after that, when in the midst of my weakness, I fell down on my knees and begged her to take me back, just to hear her, and deservedly so, say that I should go fuck myself, who was it that helped me, Sandor?”
“Who lifted me from that abyss to which I fell, when I was broken in millions of tiny pieces, after, and to top things off, my parents both died?”
“You did, Sandor.”
“You were – and have been – so much to me… you’ve have always been by my side, you protected me from all the attacks I suffered, gave me all your support…”
“So now, let me do something for you in return”, you asked.

“You were such an amazing person, Will. You were really great to be with. And you must be that person once more. We’re not fifteen years old anymore, mate. I’ve seen you become just a disappointed person clinging on to bottles. No more. You must show everyone your quality again.”
“But you’ve hurt so many people already… do you know, once upon a time I felt that it was the best thing that could happen to you, and in a way I condoned that behaviour, you having an endless string of relationships that would last the week, because I thought it would maybe make you feel better about yourself, maybe it would lift your spirit in that post-Sophie phase… but that’s just the thing, it was just a phase, and it had to pass. It shouldn’t have become a way of living. You should have met someone, fallen in love, and lived happily ever after.”
“But no… you became something you are not. Who you never were.”
“I know…”, I answered dimly.

“I miss so much, so very much, just liking someone”, I said, in an even lower tone., bowing my head so you don’t see my tears.
“I feel so alone.”
On bended knee before me, with tears in your eyes, you lifted my head, and said,
“I know, Will. I know. But she’s not coming back. Sophie’s lest you along time ago. She made her choices, you made yours, and things happened, for better or for worse, because they had to happen.”
“And she is very happy now, believe me. And you aren’t, right?”, you asked me, holding my hands that shook incessantly.
“Sandor… you’re slowly killing your self… you can’t feel anything at all… you have no heart, and you drown yourself in booze just to make the says seem more bearable. Did you know that those guys you hang out with make fun of you? They call you “Predator”, they—“
This time it was me who interrupted, and said, “Is that how they see me? Like a Bloodhound?”; I asked, indignantly.
You took some seconds to answer me, but finally you said, your eyes full of melancholy,
“Oh, Sandor. Like a Bloodhound? No.”
“Like a vulture”, you said.

“You have me, my friend. And I beg you, listen for just a while more.”
“In the name of our friendship, the friendship we hold true since children, by the names that we left behind while young men, and by those we chose for ourselves later, taken from the books that so enthralled us. I beg you, for the innocence of those times, the times when we forged our bonds, and made our words, and Winter is coming, man, for you and for me.”
“For all that, I ask you to listen to what I say : you hold in your hands the power to choose what your life is going to be like from now on. On one hand, yeah, you can continue living this life that I hope you can leave behind, but you are fated to die alone, and I will not be around to see you fall even farther, I promise you that. My heart could not bear such pain.”

“On the other hand, though… leave all this behind you. Go away. Discover the world, and maybe you’ll find yourself again. You may even come to find God, who knows, stranger things have surely happened.”
“Ask yourself, ‘How far would you be to be someone else’?. Take a long, hard look at what your life has been these past few years, and you will find the answer.”
“How far would you go to be who you were again? You may travel ‘round this world, and still you may never know.”
“You may gaze upon the most beautiful of flowerings that truth will always be elusive to you.”
“But”, you said, putting your hand in my heart, “I know what lies inside. I know what used to be here, and will be again.”
“And when you know, then the Sandor so many loved and admired once will be truly back.”

“So promise me, swear to me, that you’ll not drink ever again. And whenever you feel that particular temptation, think, no, know that only water truly quenches thirst.”
“And promise me, over our friendship, that you’ll only be with a woman again when you feel real love for someone.”
“Can you do that?”, you asked, as if the world’s survival hinged on my very answer.
You said, “Think about this I’ve said. I will not see you again, not before you change. Trust me, you have not lost me, nor my friendship, but you must learn again what sacrifice means.”

You shook my hands, then hugged me tenderly.
We both dried our tears, and said “I’ll see you around.”
“Someday, for sure”, you said. “When water is your favourite thing to drink.”
And with this you left my house, your words echoing in my head, that seemed to be aching since the dawn times.
I could really go for a beer now. Halfway to the fridge, I stop and think about all that had happened, and when finally I did manage to get to the fridge, I found just a bottle of water.
I picked it up, looked at it, then took a few sips.
It’s not that bad, I thought.

“Hello”, I said to the bottle, “I’m Sandor.”

"I don't have to sell my soul
he's already in me..
I don't need to sell my soul
he's already in me...
I wanna be adored."

Stone Roses, I wanna be adored

Chapter 24 : I bet you look good on the dancefloor

2007-06-25T16:05:00.001-07:00

Promises are always complicated and tricksy things.
It’s a double-edged sword, and you can never tell which one is the sharpest.
We all make promises to someone, sooner or later, and like as not, we will end up failing them.
The worst bit isn’t the fact that we keep on making promises, not really; it’s the kind of promises we make that make a difference.
We promise we will love someone forever, when in our heart of hearts we know that what we say is but a half-truth, at best.
We promise we’ll never leave them, we promise we’ll always be there, and time and time again we say that if things don’t work out, well, we can still be friends.
Small words, small lies, that hurt: they hurt a little bit at a time, today not so much, tomorrow just a little bit more, until the day words end up killing us, and they tell us it’s over.

And I made you a promise, Jon, and I kept it.
I did what you asked of me, and I think I am a changed man.
This year I spent away from all this was very good for me, you know?
Away from all, away from the same places, the same people, the same situations…
All those words, ideas and different arguments made me lose sight of who and what I used to be.
And today I think I’m ready once again.
I think I managed to become someone normal once more.
But there is still a great test waiting for me, and perhaps it’s better sooner than later.
If I do it later, I might lose my resolve.

I went to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror. I’m getting older, I didn’t use to have these lines in my face, or whatever you call these wrinkle thingies near my eyes.
And when I smile, more lines appear.
There are also a few more white hairs than I seemed to remember, or maybe I never noticed them.
And white hairs in my stubble, too. Curious.
I decided a shave was in order, and cut myself a number of times.
Something tells me this razor has seen better days.
I brush my teeth, maybe with excessive force, because when I spit, some blood comes out.
I shower quickly, and I’m good as new.

I get dressed, and the cold outside makes it so I wear something very warm.
No perfume tonight, I think.
I’m hungry : I go to the kitchen to see of there’s something in the fridge, but I only find scraps of Chinese I had a week ago.
I smell it, and I’m barely able to keep from throwing up.
I see what cash I have, and see I’ve got enough to eat something somewhere.
It’s still a bit early (21:40) when I leave, and on my way to the subway I decide where I’ going to eat.
It’s not a long journey, but it’s a dull one, and after a long absence, though much still seems familiar to me, there are also things I no longer recognize.

On my way to the restaurant, quite a few faces that I regarded as familiar cross my way, and I look at them, doubtfully, to try and see if I knew them from some other place.
They, too, look at me, but no word is said, no greeting given, just the cold courtesy of looking the other way when we reached the conclusion that maybe we just mistook each other for someone else.
I thought briefly about that, and wondered if those familiar strangers were people to whom I once mattered, or the other way around.
I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t even notice when I got to the restaurant, my feet having moved out of their own accord, slaves to other past memories.
I got in, and sat down. The waiter said hello enthusiastically, long time no see, where had I been all this time.
I said I had moved abroad.
How well he understood me, he guaranteed, for he also had done it in his youth, but like the prodigal son, we always come back.
I returned feeling like I was the son of nothing, a boundless void, the nothing that could be the whole.
I asked for a steak, over-easy, please. And some salad.
He asked me if I’d like to have the usual to drink, and I wondered how a stranger knew what I usually drank.
“Water”, I said.
“Still water”, I added dryly.

The water came before the meal did, I drank a bit, and like a child, I played with it for a while in my mouth, sloshing it this way and that.
Soon after, the meal came, and I attacked it promptly.
God, but I was hungry.
It felt like I hadn’t eaten in decades.
The steak was a bit more on the rare side than I would have liked, the salad just perfect.
I drowned the potato chips in the sauce that came with the meat.
Too soon I had finished eating, I asked for the bill, paid, and left.
The food had left me stuffed, but satisfied.
I would have gone to bed gladly, it was past midnight.
But, all things considered, it was still early, and was assailed by a desire to wander for a bit.
I went to the nearest ATM, withdrew some cash, just in case.
I walked, and I walked, and I walked a bit more.
Ok, I thought, this one’s new. And so’s this. How quickly things change.
And this one, I am positively, absolutely sure was here a year ago, but looked different, had a different name, and played a different kind of music.
This I know for sure because it was here that my life began to change.

I wandered a bit more, without aim, without soul, occasionally interrupted by a handshake that asked how I was, or a couple of kisses on my face from people who guaranteed they had missed me so.
Some guy who I think I had never seen before hugged me bear-like, and asked how things had been in Russia.
Russia?
Ok…

Well, time to get the hell out of here. There’s nothing here that attracts me still, I confess, and I can no longer see what this place had that attracted me so in the first place.
I was leaving when I get a text message from you.
You were in a bar where we used to go, once upon a time, and before I text you back, I thought long and hard on what I would do.
I sent you a message telling you I’d go and meet you.
It didn’t take me long to get there, maybe less than ten minutes.
Once more, I was so lost in my private reveries that I didn’t even notice getting there.
The bouncer is a guy with very long hair, huge earrings, and a very fine moustache that earned him the nickname of ‘Athos’, the musketeer from Alexandre Dumas’s books.
He looked at me, eyes half-closed, and said, “As I live and breathe”, he patted me on the shoulder, I shook his hand, and got in.

I find you in the upper room of the bar drinking a beer.
You had your back to me, so you didn’t see me coming.
“Boo”, I said, putting my hands on your back, and you turned white as a ghost.
You stared at me for a few seconds, as if to make sure that it was really me.
You laughed a laughter that I so dearly missed, and we hugged for long moments.

You wanted me to tell you everything, but I asked you if we could have that talk another time, please.
You agreed, ordered another beer for you, and asked me what I was going to have..
“Water. Still. Very cold, please”
You smiled, and I knew why.

“Hey, do you remember that time you were in the hospital”, you asked.
“Of course”, I replied. How could I forget.
“Well, I don’t know if you’ll remember that nurse that was there too? The one we even met in a bar some night?”, you asked, and by the excitement and emotion in your words, I start to see something.
“Of course I remember! Hah, nice way of bringing me down to earth, she had”, I said, smiling, and we both giggled like little children.
“Don’t tell me… You and her?”
I didn’t even need to finish the sentence, I already knew the answer.
“Well…”, you said. “Yeah. Yeah. Mind you, it was very complicated, even now… but it’s good. Real good, you know?”
I looked at you, and by God, I hope you didn’t notice the sorrow and the jealousy my eyes betrayed.
“I know”, I lied.

“And, huh, where is she?”, I asked candidly.
“But let me tell you, I’m not drinking anymore shots she comes up with…”, and we laughed once more.
“Nah, she’s working night shift”, you said.
“But it is her day off tomorrow, we could always hook up. What do you say?”
Before I could answer, you say, “Who knows, you might get lucky and find some girl here to keep you company. I see your charms remain intact.”
I measured your words.
What the hell kind of words to say, especially when you consider what happened over a year ago?
You don’t believe in me, is that it?
I’m disappointed in you my friend. You should know better.
But… wait.
Because this comes from you… particularly you…
I’ve got it.
“Heh”, I finally answered, “you know, the last of the famous international playboys has become the last of the famous international misanthropes.”
You smiled, with such pride in your face, and hugged me again.
“You remind me of someone I once knew. One of the best people I ever knew, bar none.”
I blushed, and said, “I’m back, Jon. But it’s still very hard. I hope I can count on you to help me. Sometimes I still feel weak, and falling seems such an easy thing to do…”
We stood in silence for a while, and after that we started talking about what had happened around here in the past year or so.
We talked about books and movies, and the music I no longer seemed to recognize.
But this one I do! ‘There is a light that never goes out’ is a classic.
“This one always hits the spot, mate”, you said, and we celebrated pain and misery as sung by Stephen Patrick Morrissey.
Good old times, I thought to myself.
After the song ended, you told me all about you and Natalie, and after that we started to talk about sadder things.
“3-1”, I said.
“At home, no less”, you added.
We drowned that sorrow, you with another beer, me with some more water.

I confess that I was getting somewhat sleepy, and so I asked if you were staying, or if you wanted to go.
You looked at your watch, saw what time it was (3:30), and suggested that we stayed until four, and then we’d go.
I agreed, and before we knew four had already come and gone, but not by much.
As we were going down the stairs that lead to the front door and exit, you took me by the arm, motioned for me to stop, and turned me to the dance floor.
“Now tell me the truth”, you said, “and look all around you.”
“Of all the girls that are her, is there any that attracts you?”
“It is a test”, I said.
“It is a test”, you repeated.

So I thought for a while, then said, “Any that I fancy?”, I wondered aloud.
“Sure, plenty of them. Maybe even all of them.”, I confirmed.
“But I got the question inside the question, Jon. And the answer is : no. There is no one here with whom I’d like to get involved.”
By now nothing could hide the joy you felt inside, and the fierce pride you felt.
“Welcome back, man. Welcome back.”
Before we leave, I had to make a pit-stop in the toilet. All that water I drank was bursting to get out.
I had to wait a number of minutes in line, but finally, finally… ah, what a relief.
I got out of the toilet, had to dodge about three thousand people, my fault, coming through, sorry, no, it really was MY fault, and so on and so forth.
I fought my way up the stairs, and saw you by the exit.
Just as we were leaving, I took one final glance at the people there, and my eyes are suddenly fixed on a girl I see in the floor below, and some part in me I never noticed I had (or at least I hadn’t recalled it for the longest time), beat fiercely, then stopped.
I imagine it all didn’t take more than five seconds, but as I saw everything in slow motion, it seemed as if it went on for hours.
In good ‘Matrix’ fashion, you know, those bits where the action slows down and the camera pans around, you put your hand in your head and do something with your hair that made me swallow, and my heart beat again.
Your voice woke me from this slumber, Jon, when you asked me if everything was ok with me.
“Yes”, I lied again, and we left.
We both got a cab, and since we were going in opposite directions, we got different cabs too.
We said goodbye, with one final hug, then you told me to give you a ring soon.
I said ok, and asked if you’d be alright.
You smiled the smile of the truly happy and replied, “I will. Will you?”
“Of course”, I lied one more time.
I got in the taxi, and wondered what the fuck was wrong with me.
It can’t have been the girl. No, never. Nothing of the sort.
I’m through with that, no more of those stories for me.
The cabbie asked where to, and I mumbled something.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her hand moving through her hair.

I’m asleep before I hit the bed.
I woke up trying to remember a dream, that wonderful dream I was having, where I felt so good, so alive… but the images, the sounds, the feelings, the memories where fleeting, fading to never return.
I sat down in the bed for some ten minutes or so, and out of nowhere, the dream comes to me.
Oh Jesus.
I did NOT dream this.
“Well, I said to myself, “that’s it. I can’t go back to that place.”

And so time went by, slowly at first, a bit painfully, but it went by.
A month, and then four more, another long two, and to guarantee that there could be no surprises, another four were in order, I decided.
It was hard, yeah, I admit. But finally I learned that greatest of virtues, Patience.
And after almost a year of barely going out of my house, and seeing the smallest amount possible of people, I decide to go out.

"No, man, sorry... not tonight, I can't", you told me when I called you.
"But go anyway, go and have fun. There's that club we always used to go, yeah? Just go, ok?", you concluded.
Ok, I can do this.
I can do this.

I got to the bar, tried to look cool, asked for a very cold water, looked around, and you were nowhere to be seen.
"Woo-hoo", I thought to myself.
I knew you wouldn't be here.
I can't even begin to describe how relieved I felt at that.
Even the water tasted better.
So i stayed until closing time, and you never showed up.
Just because of that I opted to come back again next week.

Life was good, I had a new job, one that didn't slowly kill me, and had moved to a new place.
Fact is, I was so busy that only after a few months was I able to return there.
One more, I ordered my favourite drink in the whole wide world, a bottle of spring water, just to celebrate the fact that you weren't there.
I drank it quickly enough, I was very, very thirsty, an unquenchable thirst, and I asked for another.
No water ever tasted this good.
I said hello to some people I met on my way down to the bathroom.
Oh god.
Ah, sweet relief...
I came out flashing a huge grin, and as i was making my way back to where I was I saw you.
That grin of joy turned into a grin of desperation, and I found myself just standing and staring at you.
You noticed, and smiled at me.
Argh.
What do I do what do I do what do I do?
I looked the other way, pretended you were looking at someone else, made my way up the stairs, and up to the upper floor bar.
I need another water. In fact I need... No. Water it is.
I promised you, Jon. Among other things, I promised you that much.

"I am an adult", I thought, "And I can deal with this."
"After all, how many people have I been with in the past?", I asked myself.
A tiny voice I hadn't heard for ages speaks from the my very depths, and says, "Yes, but how many like this one? Ask yourself when was the last time you thought non-stop about someone for more than a year", the Angel on my shoulder said.
The Devil on my other shoulder said, "She's just one more, why get sentimental?"
"I did NOT think about her every day", I said.
"Right", the Angel said, "the other two times were because you were worried about Snow".
"And by the way", the Angel asked slyly, "How many times did you masturbate thinking about her?"
"I never!", the Devil and I answered.
"Touché", concluded the Angel, disappearing with the Devil.

What to do, I thought.
Suddenly I knew.
I went down the stairs, and made my way to you.
I paused for a few seconds to gather my resolve, and looked at you.
"Right", I decided, "It's now."

"I'm so sorry", I said.
"Only... you sometimes do that great thing with your hair, you know, just like you did right now? And that drives me crazy... and I don't even know your name", I said.
You looked at me, and you smiled like an angel fallen from grace. You said, "Marcia. My name is Marcia."
For some reason you laughed, and I laughed with you.

And your name is Marcia.

"From the back of the room I saw her there
I said she wants to be alone, and I shouldn't dare
but then she noticed me glance at her
I had no choice but to dance with her."

She Wants Revenge, Out of control

Chapter 23 : Heaven knows i'm miserable now

2007-06-23T14:14:00.001-07:00

Sandor smiled.
And it wasn’t just any smile, it was one full of mischief and malice.
The kind if smile that always makes me worry about this guy, but I suppose, one that is justified when you consider the goddess in his arms.
Before I even got to where he was inside the club, one of those of the very fashion and very full of beautiful people kind, the girl let go of his lips for a few moments and joined a group of similar girls.

“Where did you find the Barbie?”, I asked, shaking your hand vigorously.
“Can you imagine”, you said, nursing a Gin Tonic, “I was just here on my own, you know, doing nothing, and she comes up to me? The rest, my friend, as they say is history”, you concluded, with a wink.
“Right”, I thought.
“And what is the poor creature’s name?”
I confess that I was surprised by your reaction. You seemed genuinely puzzled.
“Name?”, you asked. “What is this thing you speak of, ‘name’?”, you replied with a smile worthy of a shark.
“But if you want her number… that, I can tell you!”
I know it’s not funny at all, but we laughed.
I ordered a vodka with raspberry juice. It’s a bit gay, yes, but I like it.

“Look, I’m going to the toilet, yeah? Got some urgent business to take care of in the office.”, you said.
I nodded slightly in approval, and let the dull, hypnotic music flow through my body.
“Man”, you said as you returned, “Look behind me, by that pillar on the left, and see if you can’t find someone familiar.”
“No, man, the other left”, you insisted, patting my head.

So I looked, and looked, and looked. Nope, definitely nobody familiar.
Suddenly eyes fix into mine, a face smiles , and a voice says, “Snow”.
Holy shit, it’s the nurse and she’s coming over!
“Oh oh, look’s like you’re in for a treat”, you said. “You, ah, you have fun, I still have some more unfinished business to take care of”, you said, holding your stomach, your face in visible pain.

“Snow!”, the voice said again, the voice that came from the face that kissed mine twice, and left breathless.
“Isn’t this a coincidence! So, what are you doing here?”
Oh God, that green dress. Oh me oh my.
“Hum..”
“Er…”, I answered.
“Wait, don’t tell me! I’ve got it! Not only do you have a cat, but you’re out of work, too. Am I right?”, you laughed.
“Yeah. But… What?”, I answered without any sort of conviction in my voice.
“Yes, because since you don’t have money to get food for your cat, you obviously cut out your tongue and fed it to him!”, you continued.
You put one hand in my shoulder and laughed a bit more.
And so did I.

“No, I’m, huh, with my friend, you know the one from the hospital?, we’re just here for a drink.”
“What friend? That guy who thought he was God’s gift to women?”
“Yes. William, that’s the one.”, I admitted.
We laughed again, and by now Will was on his way, looking visibly relieved.
“Ms. Nurse!”, he yelled, “Are you here to give that massage you promised me?”
You looked at him, smiled, and said, “No, that was my colleague, the one you so kindly called ‘a dog’. The poor girl, she’s still waiting for you.”
“Tell you what, fair’s fair, I’ll buy you a shot, ok?”
Oh man, the way you smiled when you said that foretold doom..

“A shot?”, William asked, “And why not?”
“See now, this is a very special shot, you know… and you have to drink it in a very special way too”, you said, innocently.
“I wonder if you are man enough to drink it…”, you pursued, with the most naïve voice you could muster.
Oh, you are very good. You know just what buttons to push.
I am in the presence of a master.
“Hell yeah, I am!”, he roared. “I’ll drink as many you’d like me to”, he finished, beaming with pride.
“Great”, you answered, your eyes twinkling.

You called the bartender, and asked for the ingredients.
A shot of Bailey’s, and a slice of lemon, just that.
“Stud”, you said, “I want you to drink the shot, and leave it inside your mouth. Then you squeeze the lemon’s juice, mix it all, and then drink it.”
“Can you do that?”, you purred.
“Done”, William said, smiling.

You drank the shot as per requested, squeezed the juice in, and mixed it all.
Then you swallowed.
The final expression in your face was priceless, and something I’ll always remember.
I’ve never before seen someone go from arrogance to humility so quickly.
The lemon juice soured the milk in the Bailey’s, and when you swallowed, it was as if you were swallowing poison.
“The fuck is this?”, he asked, demanding an answer.
You smiled that devilish smile again, and answered softly, “Just a little something I like to call ‘The blowjob revenge’.”
While he stared at you in disbelief, you pulled me aside, and off we were.

“That was evil”, I said.
“It was”, you said, “But he deserved it.”
“He deserved it”, I agreed.
I found myself laughing once more.
Damn, this girls makes me laugh, like no one ever did before.
And that is good.

“Snow, Snow…”, you said.
“And what would your first name be?”, you asked.
“Er… name?”, I said, a bit embarrassed.
“Yes!”, you answered enthusiastically.
“You know, one of those word-type things people usually call us by? Hey ca even have just the one letter, if you’re so inclined, or maybe dozens of them if you have crazy parents?”
“Oh yeah! And there are those who, much like yourself, like to be called by their last name. Or even by a title, or degree.”
“Are you one of those? Is it just ‘Snow’? Or ‘Lord Snow’?”, you said, my desperation rising.
“My name…”, I repeated.
“Yes?”, you asked.
“ My name… is… argh. Er… Hum…”
“Wow! And here I thought that ‘Humhumer’ was bizarre!”
“You truly are full of surprises, Snow. Or should I call you ‘Argherhum’?”
“Jon”, I answered, my voice barely audible.
“My name’s Jon.”, I admitted.
“See?”, you said, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Again you put your hand on my shoulder, For sure you must have felt me tremble.

“I’m Natalie, Jon Snow.”
“I take great delight in finally making you acquaintance.”

"Natalie... that's a beautiful name , that is."

"Please", you said, "if only you knew my last name... you would die laughing , I'd wager."

"No i wouldn't", I said promptly.
"I promise."
"Cross your heart and hope to die?", you said.
"Stick a needle in my thigh", I added.
"Ok, then. Get ready."

You put your lips on my ear, sending shivers down my spine, and whispered a single word.
After I was done shivering, i got the urge to laugh.
Don't do it don't do it don't do it.
All I could think of was how awful it would be if I laughed during a wake.
Think of something else, think of something else, think of something else.

"Natalie... Wide.", I said.
"Hmm-hmm", you confirmed.
"That, huh, that reminds me of, humm..."
Before I could even finish my sentence, your hand was slapping my face.
I didn't even see your hand moving, and it sounded like thunder during Judgement Day.

"I'm sorry", you said.
"No", I immediately answered, all the laughter I had inside suddenly gone.
"No, I deserved that."
"Slap me again. Hit me two more time. Hit me as many times as you want to. I deserve it. And I don't even know why I did that."
"No, actually, I do. I wanted to laugh so bad, and I just said the first thing that came to my head. Maybe next time I'll learn to think before I speak, right?"

"So, I fucked up already tonight, and I'd better go, ok?", I said.
"No, don't worry, You don't have to go. I probably just didn't react the right way. Besides, you can keep me company until my boyfriend gets here."

Boyfriend?
“Boyfriend”, I asked.
“Oh yes”, you said, “and soon something more”, you added, and looked at your left hand, where you had a shiny and impressive and above all shiny ring that was waving me goodbye.
Of course, I only noticed it just now.
Maybe, I thought, it could be just for show.
Did I mention how shiny it was?

I took a cursory glance around the bar and saw Will drunk as hell, sitting on a sofa, and that, I thought, was my opportunity.
“Look, I, huh, I’d really better get going. William over there”, I pointed, “is very nearly dead drunk, and I fear if no-one takes him home, he will actually die for real.”, I said hurriedly.
“Your friend. Right”, you said doubtfully.
“But he seemed to be in such good company”, you said, gesturing with your eyes to where he had been with the Barbie girl.
“Yeah, well, but he’s not”, I said, some anger in my voice.
But never at you. Anger at me, just me.
“And now, I’d really better be going”, I said.

You looked at me, and for a fraction of a second I thought I had seen sadness in your eyes.
“Ok”, you said.
“Suit yourself. But at least keep my mobile number. If you ever need someone to talk to, or if you want to hear a friendly word, you know what to do.”, you concluded, coldly.

I wrote down your number and said, “As soon as I get out of this place I’ll give you a ring. I don’t have network coverage here, and I don’t know my own number. Got a new one, see?”
“You promise?”
“I promise”
“I hope that promise yields better results than the last promise you made me, Jon Snow. I guess I’ll see you around”, you said with one last laugh.

I strode furiously up to the bar, where Will was ordering his God-knows-how-many drink of the night.
“Let’s go”, I said.
“What? But we just got here, let’s have some more fun.”, Will replied.
I didn’t repeat my request.
I pulled him by an ear, and we got out of the bar.
A small comfort at least, knowing that I will not be the only one who’s going to have a miserable night tonight.

"Set me aflame and cast me free
away you wretched world of tethers
through the endless night and day
i have never wanted more."

VNV Nation, Solitude

Chapter 22 : Summer dying fast

2007-06-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Summer is dying, you told me so long ago.
And it had been a hot, long summer. We could feel it in our very bones the waning of summer, and the coming fall, one that promised to be short, so tragically short.
We were lying in bed listening to the wind outside, a wind that howled with the voice of a thousand melancholic wolves.
The branches of the trees beat lightly on the windowpanes, and the leaves wept savagely.
Ghost-like noises prowled the streets, as if mighty armies were clashing in a storm of swords, dragons dancing under the great silver eye.

“Even the man who is pure in heart
and speaks in prayer by night
may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms
and the winter moon is bright”

You laughed your most evil laugh, one that would have been so much more impressive had you not used Donald Duck’s Voice.
We laughed, and kissed. Then we fell asleep, our bodies entwined like veins.
Outside, the first winds of winter blew.

Days later, we were playing our little seduction games, and you just didn’t want to give in.
You played with me, teased this, suggested that, but when I came closer, you always drew back.
Nothing I said seemed to work, and however sweet my words were, they were simply not enough.
“You must beg me”, you said, playfully, your voice full of pernicious desire.
“Beg?”, I laughed.
“Beg, little one?”, I repeated. “I do not beg. I take.”
You laughed with a laughter that took hold of your whole body.
“I will tell you a story”, I said.

“My oldest known ancestor took an active part on the conquest of this country. One day, and after he was awarded lands and title by the King, an enormous wolf invaded his lands, and devoured the village whole, his family included.”
“Because he had been away on a hunt, he avoided the carnage. But on his way home, he saw the sun setting in a bloody hue, and the giant shadow of a wolf covered the mountains.”, I said, sneaking up to you.
“When he got to the village, he beheld the massacre : everyone he had sworn to defend, the villagers, men, women, children and elderly alike; none escaped alive.”
“Their bare bones were their earthy legacy.”

“He unsheathed his great sword from his back, and entered his home. Nothing could have prepared him for what he knew had happened.”, another srep, and I am closer to you.

“Aaaaaa-ooooooo”, I howled, and you jumped with dread.

“The wolf beckoned for him. A single wolf, howling his challenge for all creation to hear.”
“He fought the tears away, got out of the slaughterhouse his home had become, sword in hand and went to meet his nemesis.”
“When he finally did see the wolf, he saw that he was grotesquely huge from his banquet. In fact, the wolf could barely move at all.”
“So he thought, this is going to be easy.” He thought, “Soon I will weep for the departed.”

“Snake-like, he slithered up to the wolf”, I whispered.

“When he was halfway to the wolf, though, he opened his eyes, two enormous circles that seemed as suns by the pale moonlight, and right away the wolf assumed a battle stance.”
I got down on all fours to better illustrate.
“The mighty howling of that great beast would have been enough to make a coward out of the greatest hero, but my kinsman’s cause was a just one, and he did not falter.”

“Little lamb”, the wolf howled in a guttural voice, borne from the very depths of hell, “Do not think that I have eaten too much”, he said, licking his bloody snout.
“There’s always room for a small morsel”, and, just as he was done talking, attacked, an attack so swift and fierce that his small adversary lost his shield wielding arm.”
“In shock, my kin of old was blinded by rage, that bloodlust seen in battlefields, and attacked the wolf with all his might.”

I paused for a few seconds for dramatic effect.

“And then”, you asked, curious as a cat.
“To no avail. For every blow he landed on the beast, he got three in return. Soon after he lay limbless on the floor.”
“The great wolf looked down at him, his eyes hungry.”, just as I am looking at you, and said, “Little lamb, soon your life will ebb. Though you are a brave little lamb, and you deserve to be a wolf.”, he said, as he swallowed him in one go.

“Soon this tale reached the court, and all cried for his death; he was a veteran of hundreds of battles, a hero so some, a God to many.”
“And this would have been the end of the story.

I paused again for a few moments.
I let silence creep in, until it became unbearable, and forced you to speak.
“Go on”, you asked, anxiety in your voice.
“It is of note, little girl, that some months later my kinsman did appear in court, before the King, shrouded in a great wolf’s skin, his winter pelt.”
“He was a changed man. His eyes, like molten gold. His teeth sharper, longer, like fangs. His face had acquired a… a lupine look.”
“For you see, he had been reborn inside the great wolf’s womb, and came back to this world as snow. And that is where our name comes from, and why we say our words.”
“You see, I am of the blood of the wolf, and the blood of the wolf, does not ask, it takes.”
“Little lamb”, I said, a wolfish smile playing on my lips.

I didn’t even see you coming, but you jumped at me, wolf-like, and pinned me to the floor.
“Liar”, you said. “That story is such bullshit!”
You kissed me for long, long seconds, it was as if you sought to suck the air out of my lungs.
“Maybe”, I said, with an enigmatic smile.
I rolled over you, and you looked at me from the floor.

“Summer is dying”, you said.
“Yes”, I agreed. “And you know what that means.”
It wasn’t a question.
But when was that? Yesterday?
So long ago. Years ago.

Now, as then, as in the last time I was with you, I kneel before a tree, and I pray.
I pray for me and for you.
Made-up prayers, directed not to one God, but to all, to He who is many, to the God in nature, in the nature of the world, and in the nature of people.
I pray to the full moon rising, and to the God in the tree.

It’s not very cold now, or maybe I just don’t feel it anymore.
I pull up my jacket’s hood to shelter me from the falling snow, and turn my back to the tree.
The wind sings in the trees, and carries a melody that is so well known to my ears.
All around me the cypress trees whisper those words that we both know of old, my love.

“Winter is coming”, they sing.

"What does it take to turn you on,
now he has gone?
now you're over 21?
now your animal's gone?
Animal, he was animal, an animal."

Suede, Animal Nitrate

Chapter 21 : Tribulations

2007-06-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

I was lying in my bed, reading.
I had reached that point where words started to lose meaning, and the words mingled with each other freely.
It’s not that it was that late, it was only a bit past one in the morning.
Decisions, decisions.
Should I read just a bit more, or should I go to sleep?
Before I can decide, my cell rings. I don’t even have to look to know who it is.
The modern miracle of assigning a ring tone to a contact, I suppose.

“Hi”, I said, tenderly.
“No, I was still awake…”
“Are you alright?
“You’re crying, aren’t you? What happened?”
“Oh little girl…”
“Oh little girl…”
“Where are you?”
“Where?”
“Ok, just hold on, give me a few minutes. I’ll be there as soon as I can”
“Yes, I’m coming to meet you.”
“Hold tight.”
I got out of bed, looked myself in the mirror (just a bit crumpled, but what the hell), smelled myself (deodorant’s always a plus), got dressed, left home and caught a cab.

When I got there, I looked for you but couldn’t find you.
Bugger bugger bugger, I thought. Has she left?
No.
In a corner, and in tears : there you were.
I came nearer, sat in front of you, and you looked at me through eyes that welled with tears.
For a minute there, it almost looked like you didn’t know me at all, but then you held me, and got just a bit calmer.
A girl came by and asked us what we wanted to drink. A coke, no ice, for me.
“And for the lady?”, she asked.
“The lady will have absolutely nothing”, I answered before you had a chance to say something, “In fact, the only thing she’s going to have is a bottle of sparkling water, if you please.”
“And by the way, what has she had to drink?”, I asked, out of curiosity.
“Sir… it’s not like I keep tabs on what everyone drinks around here, but I guess not much. Maybe just seven or eight shots of vodka.”, she concluded, looking at me as if I were a cockroach. “And a few more beers.”

Shots? Shots.
Right.

“Please”, I said, “There is something that I just don’t understand, just call me crazy…”, I continued.
This girl’s attitude was getting on my nerves.
“But if you saw that this person was obviously in no way fit to drink, then why the hell did you keep on serving?”
“But, as I say, just call me crazy.”
She looked at me, out her hands on her hips, inched her head towards mine with an insolent smile, and said, “Hey, people pay for what they ask, and we serve them. They don’t like the way they’re treated? Tough, them’ the breaks. Go somewhere else.”, she said, turning her back on me.

I didn’t even bother waiting for that coke, I just took a hold of you and we left.
You could barely stand, so you leaned on me for support.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?”, I asked.
You looked at me, and I imagine you must have seen quite a few ‘me’s’.
Then you answered, “The bastard, man, the fucking bastard. You don’t know… you don’t even… motherfucking bastard. That… that.. that… thing. Tip of my tongue. Begins with an ‘S’. Rhymes with ‘pucker’, ‘s in the tip of my tongue”
“Fucker?”, I provided-
“Yes. Yes! Yes, that’s it, fucker. But not you. No no. Never you. You know that, right? Tell me you do…”
“I know”, I smiled.
“That dog, man… that fucking dog of a motherfucker… I was getting home from work. I was so tired. So tired. And there the guy was fucking some slut in my bed.”
”Motherfucking men. You lot are absolutely worthless. You make me sick.”
“We suck”, I agreed.
“I don’t like us very much, myself.”
You held me fast in your arms, and cried even more.
I felt you had no strength left, so I took you to a nearby bench so we could sit down.

“Relax”, I said, “Now I’m here.”
“You’re here”, you repeated, drunken desire in your eyes.
Your lips drew near to mine.
“I’m here…”, I said again, “… but not for this, ok?”
I left you in the bench, hailed a cab, and as soon as he got near, I got you in.
“I’m gonna take you home, ok? But you’ll have to tell me your address so I can tell the cabbie, ok?”
You mumbled your address, and I repeated it to the taxi driver.
I closed the door to the cab, and you leaned your head in my shoulders, while you drifted off to blissful sleep, mumbling incoherent words about something.
I thought I heard you saying something about some kind of “instruction”, but I didn’t quite get it.

I closed my eyes too, and before I knew it the driver was announcing our imminent arrival.
I paid the fare, and helped out of the car. Slowly, real slowly.
You were knackered, so much so that you couldn’t even tell me where exactly did you live.
I bit my lips, and searched your purse for a clue.
Between various sets of keys (why?), multiple wallets in all shapes and sizes, pills, assorted feminine things, and further creatures that live in that small ecosystem that is a woman’s purse, I managed to find a card with your address.

Groovy, fifth floor with no elevator. And the light goes out like, every ten seconds or so.
We were almost at your door when I notice a trickle of blood in your legs.
Did we bump into something? Could it be that you had cut yourself in the cab’s door? Or in one of the steps?
Or…
Ah.
Ok.
Oh God.

I laid you down in the sofa in your dining room, and went to your room to look for some pyjamas.
I got back, and undressed you.
Oh, nice choice for underwear, I’ve always had a soft spot for the PowerPuff Girls.
Too bad that they were acquiring a reddish tint.
Oh fuck, what do I do now? A cursory glance left me reeling.
What do I do? I felt so lost that I had absolutely no idea what to do.
Ok, that’s it, take a deep breath.
I know what to do.

So to the pyjamas I added some new underwear, one that said in the front “Kiss me”, and in the back, “Here”.
I filled a kettle with water, and got a sponge and a couple of towels so I could wash you and then get you dried.
I suppose there is an easier way to do all this, but if there is, then I just can’t see it.
And of all the scenarios I had running through my mind, this was the least complicated. There was only one thing missing.

But where would I find it?
I went to the bathroom, a perfectly acceptable place to search, but it was no good.
Ah-ha, bedroom.
But if they’re there, I can’t find them.
Think think think think.
Eureka!
The purse! Of course, the purse!
I grabbed the purse and I drew closer to you.
I took the bloody horror that was between your legs, (the smell, God, the smell. How do you handle this?), wiped you with the sponge and a towel, and dried you with the other.
A small river of blood was still flowing, though.

It’s now or never, I thought.
So I got the… whatever you call this thing, and as I was about to put it on you, I was assailed with doubt.

A) Where do I put this?
B) In her panties?
C) Or in, you know, the…place?
D) And what the hell are these things on the side for?

So I decided for a healthy compromise between choices A and B.
I pulled up her panties, beaming with a certain pride of a job well done.
Well, kind of.
It seemed to be slightly askew.
I patted it a bit to see if it got better, after a few seconds, it seemed normal.
Well, according to my definition of normal, of course.

I put on the rest of the pyjamas on you, and stared at you, sleeping, without being aware of this giant leap for Men.
You truly are beautiful, and you deserve to hear it every single day.
I held your white hands, warm still, and thought “What if…”, but that was a road best left alone.
I carried you in my arms to your bed, laid you in it, and covered you with the duvet. It was a cold night.
I kissed you lightly on your forehead, turned out the light, and got out of the room.

I cleaned up all the mess that remained, and then had a drink of water.
I sat down on the sofa, so tired.
Just for five minutes, I thought to myself, then I’ll be on my way.
I also wondered if it would have been easier or not had I used a tampon, but that is something that only quantum physics can explain.
And what the hell were those wing things on the side for, anyway?
I fell asleep.

I woke up with you sitting in front of me, looking at me.
We said nothing for a number of minutes.
Then you said, “Thank you.”
“Wait.”, you said, “Let me talk. Let me say everything I have to say.”
“Thank you. I mean it. For everything you did for me yesterday.”
“For coming to me. For putting up with my drunken shit. For bringing me home. For taking care of me.”
You smiled.
“Even my… intimate issue. You did it all the wrong way around, but you kept it from being worse.”
You smiled even more, and I blushed.
I imagine that I would be envy of many award-winning tomatoes.

“I didn’t… ah, I didn’t…”, I stuttered. “I didn’t touch…”
“You touched what you had to touch, silly. You did what you had to do, and I’m grateful for that.”
You came a bit closer and kissed me on my cheek.

“And now I must also apologise”, you said, and this time it was you who blushed.
“I’m so ashamed of myself… I’m sorry for everything I said… I know I dais stuff that was mean and cruel. But that doesn’t make them any less true.”
“I’m sorry I put you through all this. But in a way, it was good; it was good that it was you, and not somebody else.”
”I guess I might have suggested something last night, and I apologize for that. Had it been someone else, then…”, you paused, wiping a single perfect tear.
“I’m glad it was you.”

If it is at all possible, I blushed even redder, bright bright red.
You held me, and I fell in your arms for what seemed like long hours.
You told me all that had happened, how it hadn’t been the first time, how he always promised that it would be the last time.
You confessed you now feared having to face life all by yourself, and I assured you that you’d never see the end of the road while you travelled with me.
I would always be there for you.
We said many things to each other, and after a few hours, we even managed to laugh.

I looked at you, you were watching the TV, and smiling at something funny.
There was so much that I still wanted to say to you.
But that’s what time’s for, and time, as the song says, is on our side.

"If you begin to fall
Please have some more
You could stay at my place if you want to
I'll sleep on the floor..."

Tiamat, Teonanacatl

Chapter 20 : Hold me

2007-06-21T16:53:00.001-07:00

I haven't been able to sleep more than two/three hours a night for the past few weeks.
I either get to bed, immediately fall asleep and wake a few hours later, or i spend eternities counting the cracks in the ceiling.
Four hundred and thirty six, as of yesterday.
One day i'm going to wake up with a piece of ceiling in my mouth.

I don't know if this is due to lack of sleep, or malnourishment, but this guy's voice, in a kind of monotone monologue, and when i say "monotone" read rather dull and with one single tone, really pisses me off.
The guy just won't shut up.
But by the end of the session he prescribes me some meds to take : Diazepam, Fluoxetin, Lorenin. The usual suspects.

I get home well before seven, fix some tea to wash down the pills, some crackers just because, and i sit in front of the tv, watching a commercial that claims that five minutes a day for two weeks doing the exercise they show will give me abs like Schwarzenegger.
I thought of another sort of exercise that would yield me far better and pleasurable results, but that involves something that as of late happens to other guys : women.

I rubbed an eye, and for a few seconds i swear that the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland was looking straight at me.
Only... hold on, wait a minute... what's that you're saying? Did i see Santa Claus? And the clown? You mean they had agreed to go together by train to the circus?
And they are all terribly drunk? Drinking what??
I felt someone pulling me, and there was Alice, a wide smile, small teeth covered with metal, giving me a bottle of something to drink.
It was a bottle of a kind of juice i had not seen since i was six, and under the bottle cap, yes! i found the Spider-Man sticker i never got as a child.

I woke up.
Fuck, what a weird dream.
I sat back in the bed, sleepy, but the smell of something being cooked woke me a bit more. I was surprised at how hungry i was.
I rolled myself in one of the sheets, went to the kitchen and there you were, stark naked, making breakfast.
"Hello, love!", you said, "Let me finish cooking these eggs, then i'll give you a kiss, ok?"
"Huh... hi?", i added sneakily. How would i tell the poor girl that evidently she had gotten the wrong floor? But there's something so familiar about her, i just can't put my finger quite in it...
The promised kiss came, and that was enough to turn me on.
She went back to the kitchen, made breakfast for us (an egg, two sausages, and a glass of skimmed milk), but before you even finished it, mine was long gone, such was my hunger.
You sat i the table, next to me, and drank some more milk. You ask me if i had slept well.
It took me a while to answer, i was sorting out what to say.
Finally i said, "I suppose. But listen, there is something i must tell you."
When i was just about to say that you were in the wrong place, you opened up your mouth, revealing horrible, sharp teeth that would make any jurassic predator proud.
Then you smiled a smile that enormous white creatures that dwell in the oceans would smile, the kind of creatures that when you see their fin coming our way, we know it's already too late, and said:
"But you told me you loved me!"

I woke up.
What the hell? I'm either very sweaty or... No, relax, get a grip. It's just sweat, and a shower will take care of that.
A nice, long and hot shower later, and i will be good as new.
What crazy dreams, these. It's gotta be the pills, i'll never take them again.
I wash my head with a wild fury, as if my very hair was to blame for all this weird shit.
As a rule, i wash my teeth as i am showering, and while i was doing so i notice a loose tooth.
So first thing after i shower, i gotta go to the dentist to get this fixed.

I finish washing my teeth, rinse them with water and a blue liquid that stings like hell, and out of morbid curiosity, i touch the tooth.
It wiggles a bit, but nothing to fuss about.
But i continue touching the tooth, and it wiggles a bit more.
So by now it's more than just a bit loose.
Ok, i thought, maybe one last poke before i leave and hit the dentist.
This is the last one, i can stop anytime i want to.

I remembered the movie "The Fly", where in the mutation phase, the guy's body started to fall apart.
I cancelled that last poke, got dressed, and got out.
It was still early, and as such still a bit cold outside.
This is to say that maybe i should have worn something a bit warmer, but because i am too damn proud to go back, i endured the morning chill.
I went to the newstand, checked what the sports papers had to say. Weekend results, mostly.
I grabbed something to eat in a nearby caffé (because dreaming of food makes you hungry), and i ordered from a waitress i had never seen before, a piece of toast and some coffee.
Now, where had i seen this girl before?

Minutes later, the waitress brought my order, the toast and coffee, and i immediately set to.
Damn, i've seen that face before...
She brought me the bill soon afterwards, and smiled the most beautiful smile i had ever seen, her mouth shiny with metallic braces.
I tried to smile in return, and when i open my mouth, my dangling tooth falls right in the middle of us.

I woke up.
And this time, i slapped myself silly and pinched myself a number of times.
Right, everything seems to be in their right place, no tooth is loose.
It doesn't smell like food, therefore no-one is cooking.
Ok, back to normal.
I got up to eat some real breakfast, some kind of corn flakes or the other.
Crunch crunch, delicious crunch.
I went back to bed, i figured i should catch up on my reading.
So much to read, and i had no idea where to start.
There was much to choose from, but in the end i narrowed it down to three choices : 'Talon of the Silver Hawk', by Raymond E. Feist; 'A game of thrones', by George R.R. Martin, or 'Through the looking glass', by Lewis Carroll.
All books i had read many times before, of course.

So i studied the covers in great detail, and when i thought my decision had been made, Alice started to talk to me from the cover of 'Through the looking glass'.
"Pick me", said Alice.
"For only i will be ever loyal and true. You know that, my sweet prince."
"I love you", she concluded.

I woke up.
Goddamn, this joke isn't funny anymore.
How do i know that this time it's for real?
I smelled myself.
Sheesh, if i'm not awake, then i'm probably dead.
So i took the nth shower of the day, showered under the hottest water; no dream could cause so much physical pain.
I got out, dried myself, and i was feeling good.
My stomach rumbled with hunger. So breakfast it is.
In the kitchen i felt a familiar odour, that i immediately recognized as that of my perfume.
Did i use it yesterday? Maybe.
I sat down, had some orange juice and a cheese and ham toast.
Ah, molten cheese and salty ham dancing in my mouth... I closed my eyes for a few seconds to savour this small slice of heaven.

"Daddy!", a girl's voice cried from behind me.
"Daddy!", she repeated, and came up to me.
I looked at her not knowing who she was, knowing who she could be.
"Hold me", you asked.
"Come here", i said, "Where is your, er..., where is your mother?"
You looked at me, the daughter i never had, with so, so much sorrow in your little eyes and answered,
"Oh daddy, don't be silly."
"You know very well that mommy died shortly after i was born."
You kissed my face, a kiss that i so longed for, a kiss i have always wanted, a kiss i missed so much...
"I know, i know", i said, crying in your arms.
"But now you're here, right next to me, father. And i will never leave you. Whenever you need me, i will always be here."
"I know", i repeated.

We held each other for long hours, until all tears had disappeared.
"I know what i have to do now", i said.
"Yes, you do.", you agreed.
"I should very much like if you didn't forget me, father."
"Never", i promised.
"When you wake, i will be but the ghost of a memory, a splinter of a dream from which we never should have woken up from, but to which we can't belong to, father."

You came to me, held me in your little arms, and i swear, when your hand touched my heart, it beat with the pulse of all life in creation.
You kissed me, and said, "I love you."
"Now : wake."

I woke up.

"And then, fighting to stay asleep, wishing that it would go on forever, sure that once the dream was over, it would never come back... you woke up."

Neil Gaiman, Sandman

Chapter 19 : Why does it always rain on me?

2007-06-21T10:50:00.001-07:00

Well, truth is i owed you. I was in your debt. But you know that, right?
Maybe you don't.
But a few years ago, you came through for me, and you were there when no one else was.
I was so weak, so defeated, back then, and when you saw me on the floor, when you saw me hit rock bottom, i don't know it it was pity or any other reason that drove you, but when you gave me your hand i felt awakened to life again.

And that is why i do this for you, this thing that i so very much hate doing, this huge sacrifice : I went to visit you at the hospital.
You know me. I don't go to hospitals. Since my childhood that i avoid going to those places; who knows what they might think of me and commit me to the nuthouse.
Still, only after two days of telling myself that i could do it, i was able to go.

And, of course, it took me ages and ages to find the room you were in.
I passed by a place where i swear they were burning human beings, then i passed by another place full of women, some of which looked very relieved, most just looked like they could murder people, cradling little children in their arms... Ah, now i see why.
I knew then that i had wandered too far, and i decided to ask directions from a very nice - in all sorts of ways - nurse that was coming my way, and she assured me it was my lucky day because she herself was heading to the very place i was looking for.
I swear, i was getting dizzy with the smell of chloroform and other such substances, that i didn't even notice when we got to your room.

"William", i called, with great enthusiasm.
Then i took a better look at you and all that enthusiasm faded away quickly.
"Wow. Look at you. You're all... you're all beat up, man. What the hell happened to you? You got hit by a train?", i asked.
"Or did you make fun of Thor again?"
Thor is an absurdly gigantic, barrel-chested Skinhead, who looked like he was chiselled from stone.
He also had the effect of immediately lowering the IQ of anywhere he was.

"Oh man,", you said, with a small laugh.
"You can't even imagine... That was some day, that was. First, i pulled a Richard Ashcroft, and didn't bother to get out of anyone's way on the street, so i ended up getting bumped into quite a bit.",
"Then i mistook someone i know for some other guy, and i won't even tell you how that went. Let's see... ah, i forgot to feed the bird for a few days... died. Oh yeah, and a pigeon managed to see a bullseye in my forehead."
"What else? I met with this girl i know, she's such a terrible bore, but a good lay. Anyway, i thought that i had her, and we were on our way to her car, so yeah, i thought the least i would get was maybe a blowjob."
"And?", i asked.
"Argh...", you replied, shrugging.
"She just left me standing there and drove away."
"Ah-ha", i said, "Let me guess : you got so mad at everything, and particularly at yourself that you just kicked the hell out of you, right?", i asked, sarcasm heavy on my voice.
"Nah", you replied, "That was the three guys that mugged me. Yeah, i was a bit pissed off, and at first there was just the one guy."
"Oh-ho!", i thought, "A punching bag. But after i landed some on him, the other two took me from behind, however bad that sounds..."
"One of them had a knife, and was about to stick into me, only i rolled and managed to dodge it, so i only got a glancing cut. Enough to leave with a nice, manly scar.", you concluded.

Oh, this is so... so tipically you. You never learn do you? Let's see.
"What now?", i asked. "Did you manage to learn something from this?"
You were silent for a while. Then you said, "Yeah. Yeah, i think i did."
"You see, all this? It gives me a new perspective on life. And i do know how i have been living ny life, like every day could be my last here. And now...", you paused, and reflected for a few moments more.
"It's not like i'm just going to start doing everything the other way around, or starting to live my life like every day is a new day. I know myself too well to know i won't be able to do that."
"But there is so much that is going to have to change. I don't know, man... for instance, that thing of calling girls by numbers instead of their names? Over."
"I got to come clean, man. I'm not sure if i've been that good a person these past few years, and i see this as another chance that is being given to me. And i don't know if i deserve this."
"So many people day every single day... I don't know. I just don't. You know?"

I know. I know.
Humm...
Actually, no, i don't, i don't.

"Listen, my friend,", i said, "Would that things were as linear as you ot them. I always followed that school of thought that states that we make our own fate. So i don't know about a 'second chance'. I've never been there. But what counts is that you're here, and questions such as 'what if?' just can't be allowed to come into the equation."
"If it brings you any measure of comfort to think that indeed you are being given a bew opportunity, then by all means, do."
"But don't you ever doubt that you deserve it, because..."
"Wait!", you interrupted.
"This is all very nice and pretty, and my heart does weep, but i am in pain here, so let me call the nurse, ok?"
You pressed a button, and a minute or so later the same nurse that had le me here comes in.
"Oh boy!", you whooped. "This one must be new here, the one i had before was such a dog", you said, in a hush.

The nurse, (who is really really really good looking, and who has so much beautiful metal in her mouth), asked what ailed you, checked your clinical record, and stood waiting for an answer.
Obviously, you had to go and say something utterly moronic, a thinly veiled suggestion of something in the way of a maasage, maybe, who knows?
She just looked at you playfully, and laughed as you were some senile senior citizen.
From now on, and trust me, you are not getting away with it, i will henceforth call you "Brilliant Turtle", the old pervert from the Dragon Ball cartoon.
She then said, "How cute."
"Mister... William? Is that really your name?", she laughed.
"Call me Sandor.", you said.
"Sandor? Sandor, Sandor... like the referee?", she asked.

Hot damn. Pretty, very hot, with a mouth full of metal , and she knows football trivia?
Argh... the woman i've always been looking for is right beside me, and i'm invisible and silent to her.

"Oh, will you look at that?", she said. "Visiting hours are over."
She turned to me and said, " You'd better say goodbye to your friend, looks like he needs his beauty sleep. Who knows, maybe some pills will help.", she suggested.
"What do you think, Mister...?"
She left the question hanging in the air, and for many umconfortable seconds, i didn't say anything.
"Hum... hum... er...", i mumbled.
"Wow, that is such a nice name, Humhumer is. I bet your parents must be real proud of you."
"But the thing is... i don't really speak Klingon. Haven't you got a, i don't know, more normal name?"

"Snow", i whispered.
"Snow", i repeated.

"Tender is the day
The demons go away
Lord, I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind."

Blur, Tender

Chapter 18 : The sound of her wings

2007-06-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

Lying by your side, I look at you, watch your chest going up and then down as you breathe, lost in the most just of sleeps.
A flicker of a smile flashes through your lips, and you laugh, almost imperceptibly, but a laughter that warms my soul anyway.

I look at you again, and i think about all we've gone through.
There are terrible, terrible things that I must say to you.
I am trying to write down what I want to say, but the words they will not come.
I am trying to speak, but my words will not be heard.
I just try to be, but sometimes it just seems that there is nothing left inside me.
I try, and everything I do makes everything else even worse than it is.
I feel myself falling, invisible, slipping through your hands.

Outside the rain falls, but you don't hear me, and I miss you so, though you are right here by my side.
And I feel so alone, and cold... I can't even will myself to cry.
I'm afraid, and i feel that I'm drifting away irrevocably.
This collection of lines nears its end, and I have written those words that would not come, but if I spoke then nothing has been said.
I'm looking for something deep inside me, but I can't find anything and so I fall...

You are sleeping so soundly... if I never told you how much I enjoy just watching you sleep, I am sorry, though I know it's too late for that.
You know I always tried my best, don't you? I hope you do.
Because, yes, I've always been someone a bit complicated, but with steadfastness and patience you were able to forgive my shortcomings.
But what I am about do is beyond forgiveness, I suppose.

I rise and I open up a window. It's not cold, but I feel my naked body shiver. You turn in bed, and snuggle a little more in the duvet.
The rain falls softly on my face, light as a lover's touch, warm as the rain of mid September can bee, relaxing as the song of a bird at dawn.
And what I have to say to you, those words flash through my mind once again, and not for the first time i question myself when did I lose my sanity, so I can do what I am going to do.
Madness, I thought once again, as the rain began to fall with more intensity, drops falling fat and heavy over the roofs, making leaves fall, threatening to flood this very room.

In the bathroom I found a towel to dry myself, and saw my own reflection in the mirror. The face that stared at me, familiar as always, reminded me that of a stranger, a real monster.
My god, I thought, how can I do this to you?
I got back in bed, snuck up to you, and felt oddly aroused. I stuck a nail in my sex until it bled to drive the arousal away. I traced a finger softly over your hair, long locks of gold during the day, turned silver when they drink the moonlight.
The hand continues to move, slightly tracing the shapes of your body, and rests in your legs, those legs that so many times ran after me, and many more times still enfolded around me.

You tremble with my touch, and you wake.
"Luv", you say, sleepy, your hair covering one of your perfect little breasts, "Is everything alright?"
I looked at you, fighting back the tears, and with saddest smile in the world I said ,"Yeah. Everything's ok. Don't you worry about a thing."
You smiled back at me, leaned your head against the pillow, and beckoned me closer.
"Never leave me", you begged.
"Don't be foolish", I said, closing your eyes with my fingers.
I kissed your face and whispered in your ear, "Now sleep. And dream.

"Haven't had a dream in a long time."

The Smiths, Please, please, please let me get what I want.

Chapter 17 : Of birds and real people

2007-06-20T17:09:00.000-07:00

The video for The Verve's 'Bittersweet symphony" is, basically, the lead singer walking on the street, and what's so peculiar about it is that as he walks the guy just bumps into anyone and everyone not clever enough to move out of his way.
So today, just before i left home, i decide to adopt a Richard Ashcroft posture.
Tremble, puny mortals.

To enhance this decision, I chose not to comb my hair, and dress all in black.
I even managed to get a black leather jacket.
So i went out, determined.
I walked exactly seventeen seconds before i bumped into someone.
We're sorry, we are.
Next time look where you're going.
Hah!

Three minutes into this, I confess that all this bumping around was getting kind of infuriating.
Besides, one of the guys that did not move out of the way, was very big and he glared at me menacingly.
I chose another strategy.
Because I am a gentleman and kind to boot, i will not bump into ladies (unless they're really hot) or children (unless they're rally annoying).
I will bump into old people only.
And that's only if they don't have a walking stick.
Trust me, a stick in the head hurts quite a bit.

I was walking for about half an hour when I was passing by a diner, and inside I see a friend of mine.
He was sitting all by himself, eating something, and I saw him from behind. But I'd recognize that guy anywhere in the world.
I came near him, saw that he was eating a steak with french fries, patted him on the back, took a fry, and said, "Hey, man!"

Horror.
A face I had never seen before stared at me, sporting a moustache that would befit a walrus; and, trembling with indignation, started to throw verbal abuse my way.
I confess I didn't understand a single word he said; I mumbled a few words of apology, and got out fast as I could.

Argh.
Now that was embarrassing.
Hello, what's this? My cell's ringing? Who can it be now?
Berenice? Suddenly my day got a whole of a lot better.

"Hiya! How are you?"
"Same shit, different day."
"Yeah. Right. Dinner?"
"Up to me? Right!"
"You want what? Red wine? Madness, I tell you."
I know what you want.
"Ok, sounds like a plan. I'll meet you there."
"Yeah, it's as good an hour as any other. See you, then."

Oh my God. Berenice.
In a fit of generosity, I decided to let go of the bumping into other people business.
Finally, something good happens today.
And if I play my hand well, something even better later on.

I got back home to change, black was definitely out.
I wore something very casual : jeans, white t-shirt, sneakers.
I keep the jacket on anyway.
Oh hell, what was that perfume that drove her nuts?
'Angel', that's the one. I put on a liberal amount of perfume.
You're so going down, baby.

Music, I thought, I need to hear some music.
So I turn on my computer, selected a play list, and turned on random play.
As I listen to the first chords of the song, I have a really stupid thought.

"Bigmouth, ladada-dada, Bigmouth, ladada-da... Bigmouth strikes again..."

Hmmm... Bigmouth... Bigmouth reminds me of someone very big... big mouth... mouths... That's it, yeah, I was thinking about the ox from a cartoon I used to see when I was younger, "Ox tales"!
Now, how did the music go?
Oh yeah...
"Something something or the other in dutch that I never understood... BUSH BUSH!"
It's stupid, I know, but that's what a line or two will do to you.

Now where the fuck is this girl?
Is it possible that she never even heard of the concept of punctuality?
Not even a phone call, or a text message saying she'd be late.
Granted, I could have done that, but baby, the interest is all yours...
For the past ten minutes, the guy behind me has been coughing. I swear, the bastard will cough up a lung.
Right, that's it. If the fucker coughs again, I'm gonna smash is fucking face in.

"Hi", you said, "Sorry I'm late. Have you been here long?"
"Nah, just got here myself", I lied.
"Give us a kiss, then. Hmm... you smell good. Angel? You know how I love that smell on you."

One.

"Berenice, Berenice. Long time, no see. So, what have you been up to?"
"Please, no-one calls me Berenice! Diana, my name is Diana, and you should know that by now... Berenice makes me feel so old and Brazilian."
"There's not much to tell, really", you said, a glass of red wine on its way to your redder lips.
"I lived in Moscow for a while, but now I'm back."
"Moscow", I asked.
"What's in Moscow? Nothing, that's what it is. You're crazy and you need a psychiatrist.
"Sorry?
"Nothing, forget it. So, seriously, what did you go there for?"
"Well... do you remember that guy I was dating, Michael?"
I sneered, "Argh. Yes. That idiot boyfriend of yours."
"Ex-boyfriend", you replied. "Anyway, and to cut a long story short, he went there, and I decided to go with him, returned without him. He stayed there with some Svetlana or the other."
"Well, let us drink to that! That prick never deserved you, and you know that, you said so yourself that he didn't treat you the way you deserved", I continued.
"No", you admitted. "Not like you. Never like you. But then you are different... unique, I might say."

Two.

After dinner, and after a few more drinks, we walked for a while, without saying anything. Truth be told, there was not much left to say. We both knew where this was headed to, and why mince words?
Still, it's a strange thing indeed when friends have nothing left to say to each other.
But now is not a time for words, it's a time for action.
When we got to your car, and before we get in, I held you, kissed you, and pressed your body against mine.
I felt your nipples stiffen with my touch.

Three.
That, my friends, is check-mate in just three moves.
You may try, but you will never succeed.

Suddenly I hear you laughing.
"It was so easy to seduce you", you said.
"So easy", you repeated.
"All it took was a word here, another there... a suggestion of vulnerability... what happened to you? You didn't use to be like this.", you said, getting in the car.

I just stood.
You laughed a bit more, turned on the ignition, and drove away.
Oh wow, the perfect ending for the perfect day.
What else can possibly go wrong?

"Mate", a voice said, "you got some change?"

"If you want something, don't ask for nothing.
If you want nothing, don't ask for something!"

Arcade Fire, Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)

Chapter 16 : The weeping song

2007-06-20T16:33:00.000-07:00

20/12/2o12

"I should have come here before. Can you believe it, but i didn't even go to your funeral? I know, i know, it was stupid of me. But i just couldn't."
"You know? I just stayed home looking at the mirror, and it was as if everything i ever learned in my life suddenly and misteriously had disappeared."
"It took me two hours to tie a bloody knot in my tie, and then i almost ended up choking myself. I was on my way out when i noticed i was wearing a white shirt, a black tie, my pajamas trousers, and those old red All Stars you so liked."
"I fell to the floor, my love. It took me two days to get up. And then another three to go out again."
"Then i disappeared."

"I know it's something that always confused you a great deal. Yous aid it so yourself, so many times that i really shouldn't complain for not having that many friends, or people who cared for me, when i would just disappear from their lives without even the smallest notice, or explanation given."

"I'm cold. My hands, my feet are cold. And so is my heart."
"It's funny, it' snowing here in Lisbon... I guess it snows for the first time in decades. But it makes everything so much more beautiful. It looks like a bride's veil covers all of existence. Everything is pure. Everything is certain."

The cold, or the snow, i don't know, turned my tears into small stalactites. Or stalagmites, i never knew the difference.
"It's such a shame they didn't bury you next to the trees. I know you loved them so much. And they held such signifcance for us. Remember? Heh. Our first time was against a tree, in Sintra... i was seething with desire. I wanted you so much, and when i felt you inside me for the first time, i howled so loud i swear i must have woken up half the village."

"But it's pretty, your grave. I like the small angel. It reminds me of you, and that perfume you had that drove me wild. It´s pretty. And i see they respected your last wish. They engraved the words by which you always lived your life."

"Winter is coming", you said, so very long ago.
"And you didn't mean the coming season, but the cruel, hard times that were on our way... and the winter of our lives came so, fast, beloved."

"They say that in love, as in war, all is fair, and their designs are all too cruel for they exclude such concepts as "right or "wrong". And so we fought such an uphill battle, against the harshest obstacles for the longest time. It was a war, my love, and we both fell prey to it."
"Once, we were soldiers, you and i. And none of us deserved this. We should have gone beyond the veil hand in hand. We should have shuffled off this mortal coil together."
"Death has made you a King of winter."
"Wait for me, please. Soon we'll be together again."

I have no idea why, but i saluted your grave. Surely i was at my wits end.
"At ease, soldier. At ease.", i said.

I turned my back on the graveyard by moonlight, looked up at the sky, and stopped for a few moments, letting the snow fall on my face."
I put the headphones on my ears, turned on the mp3 player, and music started playing.
The most appropriate song ever, i thought.

"It's the end of the world as we know it!"

R.E.M., It's the end of the world as we know it

Chapter 15 : When love and death embrace

2007-06-20T13:01:00.000-07:00

If memory serves me right, we didn't know each other for that long when I said something that I thought was incredibly witty, and turned out to be quite rude.
You slapped me, and by God, I did deserve it.
By then I was hopelessly in love with you, and the seeds of the love that I would feel for you were already in bloom.

A strange thing, love. It makes us long so much for the touch of another, that even a slap in the face will make us feel terribly blessed.
And it felt so good being in love with you... when, months later, you told me that you felt the same for me, you made me the happiest guy in the world, Natalie.

Natalie.
Ah... if I were to say that I had an ideal woman in my mind, it would have to be you...
A bit shorter than me, a slender, languid, petite body... Your face, your beautiful face, always smiling, full of freckles that I so adored, and a mouth full of metal that gave you the sexiest smile in the world : small strings of silver over perfect, white teeth.
I spent hours, days, years kissing that mouth, those lips, just wondering what madness had possessed you to want me.

I recall the day when finally we became as one.
We were talking, and i was complaining about my life, saying with great exaggeration that nobody would ever want me because I was old, and ugly, and fat.
You looked at me, eyes full of tenderness, piercing my very soul, and you held my hands.
You said, "I read today something in the subway. It's a phrase from an old Chinese philosopher, Lao Tze, I believe."
"Time goes by, but I wait for you".
I didn't answer because you didn't give me the chance to; you pressed your lips against mine and kissed me with the fury and passion of a Valkyrie.

Natalie, if you only knew how you made me happy...
I look back, and even days we had that were less good were infinitely better than any day I spent without you.
Those were the best days of my life.

The first months of a relationship are always, and it is indeed a strange dichotomy, the best and most complicated.
Because, and however you look at it, there are always so many fears and doubts... and so many words are said, so many promises are made.
It's a time of adaptation, of commitment, of getting to know one another, and of giving so much of ourselves to the other.
And it is during that time that, and though we may love each other, that we really learn to respect what we think as individuals, even if we think nothing alike..

Still... one year into this relationship was bliss for us... so we decided to celebrate.
I imagine that we could have gone maybe to a fancy restaurant, but we chose to stay in.
I guess we said that there would be no presents, but I couldn't resist and got you a green scarf that brought out the green in your eyes, and you got me a perfume you made me promise I would wear only for you.
The meal was something simple and satisfying, and for you I even made that supreme sacrifice : eating salmon.
The white wine was just at the right kind of cold, and we drank with pleasure.
Then I asked you if you were happy.

A bit stunned, you asked, "What do you mean? Happy with what?"
"I dunno.", I replied. "With me? With us?"
"I dunno...", I repeated, "I just thought that..."
"What did you think, Jon? Are you trying to tell me that... that we're through, is that it?"
"I don't know what I'm trying to say. I really don't. I really don't. But is that what you want?"
"No!", you cried, and the first tears began to fall from your eyes.
"Why would I want that? I love you..."

One year, that went by quick as a fraction of a heartbeat, and still it seemed as long as a thousand lifetimes, and for the first time you told me you loved me.
"You are someone very deep, Natalie.", I said, and by then I was crouching on the floor, my head between my legs.
I stared at you, and continued, "There is so much that you keep for yourself, and sometimes I need you tell me certain things. Sometimes I need you to help me."
"And I know that what we have is truly special", I said.
"Truth is, I don't want us to stick together just because we got used to each other, or because we are too afraid to say whatever we have to say, or out of pity."
"Jon... you are the single most important person in my life. You have to know that. And I have no idea what I'd do if... I love you.", you said.
"And I love you, Natalie."

And I love you, Natalie.
There is not much left that I can still give you, because I always gave you my all. All that I had, and all that I was, was for you.
Take these words. Embrace these memories.
Maybe, if I say them loud enough, the wind will carry them far away, and turn them into something so much more than mere words, something more than sounds or the mere junction of letters.
In the farthest reaches of space, through the ages, through untold milennia, the legacy of these words, as invisible as a solar storm and inaudible as a tree falling in the woods when there is no one around to hear will be celebrated by the hosts of the heavens, sung as a song by a siren that calls all ships to port, told as a story to rock the children to sleep, and dream of that soft look your eyes had once.

Ah, memory, such a cruel thing...
I remember our last day, my love.
You were so weak, all strength had failed you, I know.
You were weak, and your hope was weaker. The calls were stronger, and the pain you felt brought echoes to your pain.
And I know that i was the one who killed you.
It was me who stole from you the will to live, Natalie, when i left you.
In truth, you didn't die, you just have up on life.
I always knew I would end up hurting you, and disappointing you, my love.
In all honesty, I thought that if i left your life, I would save you from all this pain, that you would be so much happier.
But I killed you.
Your little heart just couldn't bear the pain I made you feel.

I look at you, in your bed, and you smile when you see me.
It hurts seeing you like this. It hurts so much.
You should be up, jumping, singing, kissing me... and I should have never left your side. Never.
But it's way too late, isn't it? And now I look at you, a skeleton of a person, a lifeless shell.
Just a shadow of what you were meant to be.

I look at you, in your bed, in that wedding bed where love and death so tenderly kiss each other, and are finally united...

You look at me from your bed, and for one second it was as if the person you were was back.
You're too tired to speak, to struggle.
Without me noticing, my hands are in yours, bones against flesh, death against life.

You look at me from your bed, in such peace and tranquillity that went beyond words.
You know your fate and you are not afraid to embrace it, because the worst that could ever happen has already happened.

You look at me from your bed, just like Iphigenia on the altar, like Jesus on the cross.
The salt in my tears mingles with the salt in yours.
Through eyes that can barely see, you look at me, squeeze my hand tight, stronger than you or I thought possible, and say, "I love you."
"And I love you, Natalie.", I said, and gave you one final graven kiss, as I saw life going out from your eyes.

And I love you, Natalie.

"I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Vishnu, The Bhagavad-Gitta.

Chapter 14 : Kingdom

2007-06-19T18:16:00.000-07:00

"Have you written anything lately?", she asked.
We met by chance on the street, around one in the morning.
I didn't go out on Friday, didn't feel like it, but today I felt like going for a walk, to think, to chill a bit.
"Not lately, no", I admitted. "The last thing I tried to write was a short but serious attempt at autobiographical fiction. I tried to create analogies between what I wrote and songs I liked, but sometimes I just struggled. I didn't write much, and gave up soon afterwards."
"Didn't you have like two hundred and something pages of a book written? Whatever happened to those?", she asked.

"Ah", I sighed, "Two hundred and something pages of drivel, that's what it was. No good came out of it. It did teach me what not to write, though."
"That's good. You know as well as I do that any lesson learned is a positive thing. But what drove you to write something autobiographical?", she enquired.
I thought for a few moments, then answered, "Absolution. Exorcism, maybe. I had to take some things out of me. Too many demons. It was everything I didn't say since...", I stopped, suddenly sick in my heart.
"Since me.", you said. "Good for you. It's always good for us to say what we feel, though not always we express it or show how we feel."

Some days I just don't understand people. Why the hell are they looking at me?
A stupid thought goes through my mind : do I have anything in my face?
A quick glance in a window denies that possibility.

"Let’s drink something", I said. "There's a place around the corner that has great teas. Ok?"
We walked for a few minute more, and when we got there, we could only get a place in one of the back rooms.
This place is something magical, timeless, wonderful.
What with me having been there quite a few times, I already knew what I wanted, and I called for one of the waiters.
"I'm going to have a Japanese cherry tea. You?", I asked.
The waiter stared at me as if he was somehow lost, somewhat disoriented.
For a minute there, I thought I had spoken in another language.
"Nothing for me", you replied.

Right beside us, a couple was playing pool, and the guy was so good at it, that he almost beheaded a priceless statue of Hindi goddess Kali, when a stray ball flew halfway through the room.
"I had a dream with you a while ago, " you said. "In my dream, you were a mighty warrior, ever seeking for the ultimate enlightenment, seeking perfection."
"By contrast, I was someone very frail, but supremely wise, and held the key to the door that leads you to the cradle of sapience."
"You found me by a tree, near an abandoned temple, deep in thought, and prayer."
"You were wearing a magnificent battle armour, and a beautiful and deadly sword that was called 'Winter'. You unsheathed it, and asked me, 'Who is the master of the use of the sword?' "

A few feet away from me lay a stone. I commanded you to call it names.
"No", you said, "for the stone will never reply."
"Then attack it", I suggested. "Use your sword."
"I will not", you stubbornly said, "For even if eventually I may damage the stone, the blade will be ruined long before that, and should I attack with my bare hands or feet, I would only succeed in hurting myself."
"Who is the master of the use of the sword?", you repeated

A small bird flew by, and perched atop of me.
In the midst of birdsong, finally I opened my eyes.
"Pay attention, noble warrior. Heed me, and heed me well. Who is the master of the use of the sword, you ask."
"And the answer is : he who is like a stone."
"Without ever unsheathing his sword, he shows that he is truly invincible."

I was speechless for a few seconds. Numb, incapable of any reaction. Then I said, smiling slightly, "I liked that story. I would like to write it down, one day. And I know, don't ask me why, that when I write, I'll write about this moment."

The couple playing pool said something that I couldn't catch, but I knew that it was about me.
The girl looked at me and laughed.
Yes, I'm pretty, I know that.
I considered throwing her a kiss, but perhaps it was wise that i didn't.
"Look, I'm gonna get the check, and then we go?", I asked.
"Suit yourself", you said.

The waiter came with the check, and I took out my wallet. I searched my pockets to see what change I had, and asked, "You wouldn't happen to have two euros with you, would you? Only I forgot to get some more cash..."

"Sir", the waiter said, "you must forgive me but... are you feeling alright? It's just that for the past hour or so, you've been having talking to someone who isn't here... You are alone here, sir. You are all alone."

"And then I looked up at the sky and saw the sun
and the way that gravity pulls on everyone..."

Embrace, Gravity

Chapter 13 : The Scorpion

2007-06-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

It was Barbara who told me this story first.
I met her through a common friend, and hit it off quickly, and soon became good friends.
I really like her, though sometimes she frightens me; someone who can drink me under the table can't be quite normal.
But maybe that is why I like her so much, because maybe I'm not normal too.

I get the feeling that if i have to describe another situation where I'm having a few beers in a bar with someone, that you'll get the impression that I'm an unrepentant drunkard, when that is simply not true.
Anyway, we were sitting in a bar, just talking, when she tells me the following parable:

"A scorpion was waiting by the bank of a river that was too deep and whose currents were too strong for him to cross unaided. He notices that a turtle is going to cross the river, and so he calls out: 'My friend the turtle! My friend! Will you not take me to the other side of the river with you?", the scorpion asked.

"No", said the turtle immediately.
"You're a scorpion, and if I let you come near me, you will sting me, and then I shall die."
"My friend!", the scorpion said, "Never! Never!", he said honestly.
"Do you know, I'm not like other scorpions, no! I am a civilized scorpion, I would never do such a thing!"

"I don't know...", the turtle replied doubtfully.
"My friend the turtle, consider but this : If by happenstance I were to sting you while you ferry me to the other side, you would die; and seeing as I am not a very good swimmer, why, I fear I should perish too. What gain I? Not a thing!"
"Very well", the turtle said, "climb atop my shell, and I will take you to the other side."

About halfway across, as sure as lightning will strike twice, the scorpion stings the turtle in her head.
With his last breath, the turtle wailed and asked the scorpion, "Why? Why did you do that? I was so young still, and had all this potential ahead of me... I had a whole world to discover, a whole life ahead. What waste our lives become because of your action..."
"Why?", she asked again, "Now we both shall die."

"Son, I'm a scorpion", the scorpion said, without any pride or sadness, or regret.
"This is my nature, and I can't escape it."

As she told me this story, so now do I tell it to you.
And I want you to think about it, little girl.
When you get home, think, and think about what I am going to ask you now.
"Who am I in this story?"
"The turtle? The Scorpion? Or something else entirely?"
"I'm not expecting you to know the answer. I myself took a long time to find it out."
"But think about it."

Days later she met with me and said, "I know who you are, in that story. You are the turtle, because you trust way too much in other people. You let them get too near, and they always end up hurting you."
I smiled softly, and said, "You're close. But that is not the answer. Keep thinking, little angel."

Years went by, and fate made us meet again.
After some hard and cruel truths I had to face, she finally told me, "I don't know how I didn't see it right away. You are the scorpion. There is nothing inside you but poison. You kill. You destroy.
You are without feeling. But you are neither good nor bad. You just are who you are."
"That is your nature, and you can never escape it. You said so yourself."

My hand touched her face, tenderly, and she drew my hand away as if it were the most abominable thing in the world.
"Your touch makes me sick", you told me.
"You're still close, sweet angel. But you strayed a bit. That way you won't get there", I said.

You came to me once, in those small hours of the night, long after you had died.
"It's so obvious what you are. But I was too young to understand it, you see?"
You put your lips close to my ear, and whispered the answer; ghost words echoing in the darkness.
In the quiet of the night, I smiled that secret smile that I used only for you.
Long had my body betrayed me, and my sight had fled longer still.
I couldn't see you, but I saw you clear as day.
"You guessed it", I said.

"The clouds are coming in
like a barrier of sin
the colour of the sky
spells the end for you and I."

Mesh, Not prepared

Chapter 12 : Two more years

2007-06-19T09:41:00.000-07:00

19/12/2012

I admit it, I was nervous.
We hadn't seen each other for a few years now.
I guess it's just like everything else in life, and relationships too, I suppose, whether they are between lovers or between friends, they too, have and end.

It's funny, I look all around me and I see how much everything has changed, has evolved, altered.
But I also know that none of that matters, not anymore.
Everything is different, but sometimes the more things change, the more they remain the same.

Case in point, it's still too cold here. Cold like hell, if hell were to freeze over.
In one of my legendary decisions, I opted to go out wearing only a t-shirt, and a leather jacket.
Brilliant, I know.

I was last here over six years ago... and almost as long as that since we last met. I was nervous.
I was also looking at the bitter English sea when I hear a familiar voice, "Nice place you picked for us to meet."
"I know", I replied. "How are you?"
"I'm doing good, not so bad. You?"
"I don't know. Pretty much the same."
"Huh. You wanna go somewhere else? I don't know, call me crazy, but maybe somewhere warmer and sheltered?"
"Yeah," I said, "let's go to a pub, or something."
"But please, no alcohol for me, ok?"
"Why'", he asked, "You've been drinking already", he said, as a matter of fact, rubbing one hand against the other in a vain attempt to warm his freezing hands.
"Don't tell me you're drunk..."
"Argh, no, but these days it doesn't take much to leave me a bit... happy."
"It takes a whisky drink, it takes a vodka drink, it takes a cider drink, it takes a lager drink", I said, half-expecting to see if he understood my line.
A few seconds later, and after some quick brainstorming, he answered, "Right, And I bet you get knocked down, but you get up again, ain't nobody ever gonna keep you down?"
"Touché. You know me too well."

With this we entered a pub, sat, and just stared at each other for long minutes.
A huge guy came up to us and asked us what we wanted to drink.
"I'll have a pint of Guiness. You?"
"I'll, ah, I'll have a tea, please.", I said.
"Tea?", the giant questioned, "What do you think this is? Bloody Starbuck's we are not."
Seconds later, and because I failed to provide him with an answer, he grudgingly said "I'll see what I can do... faggot."
I didn't even let it bother me. I know what is coming.
Oh how sweet shall my revenge be.

Minutes later he came back with a pint and something that I would dearly like to call "tea".
Jesus. I drink it anyway, because by then nothing else mattered.
"I am going to make you a question", I said, "and it's likely that I may have asked it before, but you know how it is, my memory's not too good these days, and all those scientific miracles and breakthroughs promised by comics and science-fiction are just that -- fiction."
"Consider this, "I said, drinking a bit more from that vile greased tea.
"If you knew, today, if you knew at this very moment, right here and right now, that in two years time, you'd meet the one that you've always dream about, the one you always wanted, and she would be yours, just yours, forever, and you would know happiness the likes of which you have never imagined."
"But there's a catch", I said.
"In these two years that separate you from supreme happiness, you'd have to live a life of integrity, of honesty, of virtue. You'd have to prove that you were worthy of her."
"To make things even more interesting, whatever the choice you take... you could always end up with her"
"So... what would you do? What is right? Or what is easy?"

He studied my face for a great while, drank a bit more from his beer, looked in various directions, looked again at me, and answered.

"You had already asked that same question years ago, yes. And now, as then I will not give you an answer."
He continued, "Because it's irrelevant, isn't it? It doesn't fucking matter. It never did. It's just a variation on the theme of the riddle not being the sphinx, but the sphinx being the true riddle."
"Because we've already had those two years, you and I, two years, and many more besides them. And, in a way, we were happy, I suppose, each of us in his own way. We lived our lives the way we had to live them, and things mostly happened because they had to happen."
"Two years? No one would wait two years, just as every one of us would gladly suffer an eternity of waiting for such happiness. But what really matters, deep down, is the moment."
"And what we have, and where we're going.

"It's up to us to make our own destiny, pre-ordained though it may seem. Just like the path that leads us to paradise, or the road to hell, we travel them because of our won choices. And that is what they are : ours, and no-one else's."
"But all our choices have consequences and repercussions... and those consequences bind us; they are the ties that bind, whether they are moral, ethical or personal."
"Two years? You ask me if I would wait two years to be happy? You may as well ask me if my enemy's enemy is my friend, or my enemy too."
"It doesn't fucking matter", he concluded.

I smiled, for the first time in over a decade, a very special smile that I reserve only for the choicest occasions.
Anyone who's seen it, and it can't have been that many people, likens this manic grin to that of the cat that appears in Lewis Carroll's book "Alice in Wonderland".
Admittedly, I wear it only when I'm really pissed off, but there have been occasions - a few- , when I'm overflowing with such joy, that Cheshire becomes me.

"Damn", I said, "it is good to see you again, and even better talking to you. I missed you, and I missed your words. I missed you more than I would care to admit."
"So did I, my friend, so did I."
You said, "I won't give you any more shit because of what happened. I will not condone it, but I figure you already went through quite a bit. But, man, you could have trusted me, and you could have trusted what friends you had around you."
"People who were there for you. You know that, don't you?"

I know.
"I know. Not then, of course, but I knew later. But there was nobody then who could have helped me. Or so I thought..."
"It could've been so very different, you know? We haven't seen each other since... since the day..."
After all these years the pain is still ever present.
I wanted to speak the words, but they would not come.
It was as if invisible hands choked me, and prevented me from speaking.

"Since the day she died," he added.
"You were gone, and nobody saw you again. Sure, from time to time someone claimed to have seen you. You joined that stellar pantheon where Elvis and Kurt Cobain dwell."
"And it was only a couple of years ago that I knew something concrete about you", he continued, finishing his Guiness, a beer that I could only ever drink with a shot of J.D. in it.

"I read your book", he said.
"I liked it. Some parts more than others, sure, but I liked it. I confess I enjoyed the way in which you wrote me, though I think that you didn't write me or describe me exactly as I am. And I liked what you did to yourself in the book. At least there things worked out for you. You were happy."

"Yes", I said, finishing my tea.
A few more hours. It won't be long now.
"Do you know that i got the idea from reading an interview with Grant Morrisson on his book 'The Invisibles'?"
"I reasoned, if my avatar is happy then I too would be."
"And for a while, that was actually my life, you know? All thanks to the Great Guru Morrisson... he was right all along."
"Did you read some of his later work? The last thing I read was his 'Uncle Scrooge' run before he transcends this plane..."

"O.d.'d, you mean. The last thing he wrote was a sort of sequel to 'The Invisibles', super crazy, that took place during, before and after the original series, and all at the same time. Sometimes it came out bi-weekly, sometimes months would pass without a new issue... and the numbering was chaotic as hell, too."

"By the way", I asked, "Do you know what else he got right? He and the Mayas?"
"Two thousand and twelve? Yes, I know. Not much time left, is there? Have you decided where you're going to be?"
"Yep, I fly back home tomorrow.", I answered.
"Stands to reason I should speak with her one final time. Deep in my heart I know she'll be waiting for me."

"Let's go", I said, almost as an order.
"I got to wake up early tomorrow... You staying or going?"
"No, I'm going too. Too bad we can't get the same flight back. But send her my regards... tell her that we'll all see each other again soon."
"Osiris is ready to make his final flight..."

Night had fallen, and the cold increased severely.
With night came a slight mist fall, and the sounds of this city sounded sweet and innocent in my ears.
One day, and because time is a circle that repeats upon itself eternally, all this will be here again, and so shall we.

But now none of this matters, not really.

"This is the coastal town
that they forgot to close down - Armageddon!
Come, Armageddon!, Come, Armageddon, come!"

Morrissey, Everyday is like Sunday

Chapter 11 : Our farewell

2007-06-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

"It must be the last time we see each other, little girl." , I begged.
"For both our sakes. Perhaps even more for mine, than yours."

An incessant rain fell outside.
February had come, cold as ever, bringing with it not one sign of an eagerly awaited and desired Spring.
The sun tried to break through the clouds that hung heavy and grey in the skies, but to no avail.
The falling rain seemed to soak our bones, even our very soul.
"No", she replied, "it won't be the last time.”
"No", she repeated.

"It must be. It must be. You know how I feel for you... even after all this time. And it's so hard, being with you. Because I will always want something you won't be able to give me."
"Jon...", she said softly, "it doesn't have to be this way. Listen to me, please, just listen, ok? I like you, you know I do -- as a friend."
"And I am sorry that o can't like you in another way, but who knows, one day maybe..."

By then I couldn't help the tears from flowing freely, but they fell unnoticed, for they mingled with the rain that flowed from my hair,
I cried for you, in front of you, and you never knew it.

"A fine hope you give me," I said without the smallest trace of enthusiasm in my voice.
"Who knows... one day maybe..."
"Words like those, or 'we should just be friends', or 'maybe under other circumstances' are sharpened knifes that tear at your heart, rips it to shreds, and leaves you empty inside."
"Do you see now? Do you understand? Why this has to be the last time?"
"This", I pursued, "is the nature of things. Things fall apart. It's scientific. It's entropy. And everything ends. Especially what never even began."

No tears fell. I fear that is a river that has run its course.
"It doesn't have to be sad. It doesn't have to be filled with joy. It just is."
"And this, however much it hurts, is for the best."

"So this is goodbye", you said to me, and this time, for the first time, you were the one who cried.

"I'll sing it one more time for you
then we really have to go.
You've been the only thing that's right
in all I've done."

Snow Patrol, Run

Chapter 10 : No surprises

2007-06-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

"I'd take a quiet life, a handshake of carbon monoxide
no alarms and no surprises..."

Radiohead, No surprises

I

She:
"I'm so tired of this crap, you know? And it's not like I'm tired in my body, or even tired in my head... I feel tired inside my soul. I'm tired of living. Tired of this life. My life."
"And I am tired of you, and everything you don't give me. Just one person fighting for something is not enough... it's too hard, and I don't have the strength in me to fight for this anymore."
"Why? Why did you tell me all that? You promised me so much... and after all, it was all empty lies."
"And the worst part is I believed in every single one of them. And that hurts so very much."

"Your pain is not love."

HIM, The Heartless

II

She, again (and a few months later):
"The funny thing is that I felt so good. All this time without seeing you... You can't even begin to imagine, but i felt happy once more. I felt capable of everything. I felt complete, whole..."
"And out of nowhere, here you are in my life again."
"This world is really a small one, and cruel as well, because I would have died happy if I never saw you again. But here you are, and them's are the breaks for us."

"I realized that I had been lying to myself then, because I see now that nothing was as I had seen it. Because you are you, right? And you are unique. There's no one quite like you."
"And what you made me feel... trust me, no one before or after you made me feel something like that."
"Believe me, there have been a few after you. Too many, perhaps. Somewhere along the way I just stopped caring. But there was none like you... Never like you. Sometimes it feels that I had to go through a lifetime of loneliness just to meet you, to lose myself in you, and to be destroyed by you."
"But here you are, and them's are the breaks for you and for me."
"So, what do you want? No, don't even bother. I know the answer. I have always known, I guess.
But it's not in your hands anymore. It's in mine."
"Now I will forget you. Because I look at you and I can't imagine what I ever saw in you. Because I look at you and I know exactly what I saw in you."
"Because forgetting you will be what's best for me. I know one day I will wake up and I won't think of you. One of these nights I'll stop crying myself to sleep from thinking so much about you."
"Because I can't love anymore. And most of all, because I will love you forever."

"I know, my love, this is not the only story we can tell
this pain won't last forever... this pain won't last forever!"

Bloc Party, Two more years

III

He (a long time ago, in a galaxy far away...):
"I'm gonna tell you why you'll always be mine."
"Shortly after we met, there was a day when we went for a walk in the park, and after a while we sat on a bench. I looked at you for entire ages of man."
"Right then and there, I wanted nothing more than to kiss you. To hold you. I knew in my heart of hearts that I loved you."
"You know what that was? It was a perfect moment my love. A moment when seconds become centuries, where we walk hand in hand through entire generations, through infinite fields, through endless constellations, past white shores, far farther than the eye can see..."
"And that is where I long to be, with you. In an endless, timeless, eternal perfect moment."
"The centuries will beat in vain, my love."
"So this I swear : nothing or no-one can tear us apart."
"I will always be yours."

"If you were the road, I'd go all the way,
If you were the day, I'd cry in the night.
If you were the night, I'd sleep in the day.
Because you are the way, the truth and the light."

The Divine Comedy, If

Chapter 9 : The first of the gang to die

2007-06-18T14:04:00.000-07:00

There is something about you that makes me think about death.
And thinking about death, makes me question my beliefs.
You made me dream of death, after years and years of celebrating life.
I asked myself, if I died, would there be anybody at my funeral?
Part of me hopes not, and that part can't bear the thought of anyone crying for me, watching over my dead body.

Another part of me would like the reverse, and that part would feel touched from behind the veil, with the fact that even in death I would have so many gathered for me.
I'd like it if someone read something I wrote, but deep down I know I have not the art to touch your hearts.

I was eight when I found out that one day I was going to die, and so, too, would everyone I would ever love.
It was the strangest thing; I distinctly remember asking my mother when my birthday was due (for, as a child, birthdays were magical days that seemed always too distant to me), and she said that I would be eight in three days time.

Three days later i was an eight year-old girl, older than any eight year-old should be, with the knowledge of death.
She braided my hair, and I cried because I didn't want to die.
It's funny, because as I think these words, I know they are not mine, and they are not me.
But still... still they are more me and mine than I'll ever know.

This is all I wanted to say to you, and I wanted you to know that it won't be much longer now.
Beyond the corner of life, you await me.
And I will fall in your arms.

"He stole from the rich, and the poor,
and the not very rich, and the very poor...
and he stole all hearts away!"

Morrissey, The first of the gang to die

Chapter 8 : Rubicon

2007-06-17T15:46:00.000-07:00

"Hugo, dude, you have no idea, but the other day i had the craziest dream, and you were in it... I can't remember much about it, but we were playing PES in a stadium type thing, and everyone there looked like they were all cloned from your brother, and they were all shouting those typical Virgil phrases,"
"Oh horror upon horror!", we both said at the same time.

We were in a ditch somewhere in Bairro Alto, and we were drinking a very cold beer.
It had been a hot day, today, and the heat, oppressive.
One of those days that turns even the quietest of persons into someone quite temperamental.
And fact is, the music didn't help none, it being of the kind favoured by long-haired heavy metal bands who don't really have a clue that the 80's had already passed...

"Jesus H. Christ, the things i remember...", I said. "Did you ever have to take... humm.... what was it called... i don't know, like Religion class in school?"
"What? No.", he replied. One of his many virtues is that he doesn't smoke.
I have nothing against smokers, I would just like to banish them to another star system.

"Yeah... Moral and Religion, or something like that... my parents tricked me into taking that class. The bastards. I have a kid one day? He's not gonna go through half the crap I had to go through, that's for sure..."
"So...", Hugo said, "that drivel mean you want one more?"
"Yes", I answered, "but this one's on me. You having the same again?", I asked as if I didn't know the answer beforehand.
Men do prefer Sagres, after all.

The girl who was working the bar has a charm second to none, and for half a fraction of a second it actually seemed that she was going to smile.
She just sneered in her usual constant PMS kind of way.

With his bottle of beer halfway to his mouth, he said, "I've been reading your blog lately. I saw an older post where you talk about Rubicon..."
Rubicon was the name of a river that existed (maybe even still exists, i don't really know) in the south of Rome, at the time of the Holy Roman Empire.
It was a sort of DMZ (which is an acronym for De-Militarized Zone), that no legion was allowed to cross, under penalty of death.
It was this very same Rubicon that Julius Caesar himself had to cross, in what was one of the boldest moments in history.
To this day, it stands as a metaphor for that point we all must go through, that final obstacle... the point of no return.

"I recall", I said. "I wrote it before I left."
"And soon after writing it, I thought I had found my Rubicon in the departures area of an airport... I really thought that was it, I was... I really thought I would never return."
"I didn't think that there would ever be a way back, you know? And... heh."
I confess i didn't know what explanation to give to another one of my glorious failures, and after a small sip from my drink, I said "Ah, it's just another one to be chalked up in my already very long list of bad ideas... and even worse outcomes."

"Man, I'm thirsty, and I'm feeling a wee bit crazy today. All this talking has worked me up a mighty thirst, and I'm going to ask for another, this time a Bohemia. I'm gonna go over and talk to Miss Congeniality at the bar. You want a Bohemia too?"
"Oh horror upon horror, no!", Hugo replied, "Get me a normal beer, ok?"

I somehow survive the grating look that the poster girl for niceness throws at me, and return to the table.
"Ahh...", I sigh, "This, sir, is magnificent! Mellifluous nectar, amber hued, cold as sin... it's as if there's a party in my mouth and everyone's invited!"
A moment's madness, and its contents are emptied in one, two, three goes.
"Another one for me!", I said, making the now familiar trek to the bar.

When I come back, I feel a certain warmth, a somewhat pernicious heat taking over me... I felt my neck, my ears, my entire face reddening... I can't believe it, I was getting excited...
"Man. But why? I know that Ms. Bridesmaid at the bar isn't the nicest girl around, but did you see the pair she's packing?", I asked Hugo.
"I know!", I continued, "I Just had the bestest idea ever! What if all men were born with breasts? You know, real breasts like Sylvia Saint? Then we could even lick ourselves!"

He smiled, then answered, "First, Sylvia Saint is a porn star, and no way those are real, ok? Second, I'm sure you know what really real breasts look like, right? Third", he concluded, " Thank God that women have no idea what goes on in our minds... then they'd never speak to us again!"
Wiping tears from the laughter that ensued from my eyes, I say, "I might be wrong, but I think we haven't come here in what two, three years?"
"Yeah, I guess, something like that," he replied, " I even think that the last time we were here was with that girl Sara."

"Sara?", I asked, "What Sara?", and by now what little blood I had left in the alcoholic flow was dwindling.
"Not the one from that party you told me about, the other one, you know? The one who took her Master's degree in England.", he reminded me.
"Oh, that Sara! Poor girl. Do you know, she really liked me? A toast to Sara!"
But it is kind of hard to propose a toast when there's nothing to toast with...
"Grand Vizier", I said, and this Grand Vizier reference begs an altogether different story for another time, "Will you get us another round?"
"Will do. Same for you? Then again, maybe not, considering the state you're in already..."
Hugo looked at me and said, "Yeah, you're looking good..."

"Looking good?", I asked, "Hah, my shoes look good! I look great!", I said, so loud that everyone looked at me.
He rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, right, of course you do. Look one more and then we're off?"
"Sure thing", I replied.
"And if you want, ask for a plastic cup, that way we can get out of here quickly. This music is making me sick."

Later that night, in another place whose relatively dumb name became doubly dumber due to the fact that once we, and just a little bit drunk, read the name of said place back to front, and laughed our asses off, I asked ,"Do you remember that question I asked you a few weeks ago? The two more years question?"
"Yep. Why? Because if it's an answer you're looking for, I still haven't got one."

"When you think your chance is passing by
When you blow your moon away
I'll bleed like the reed, fall with your knife
It's here I'll be with you!"

Peter Murphy, I'll fall with your knife

Chapter 7 : Protége moi

2007-06-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

The last time I slept by your side, I remember thinking about how much I love you.
That night, I spent long hours just looking at you, watching your arms, your delicate lips... I wanted to kiss you so bad, but you were fast asleep, and I didn't dare wake you.
I thought about how good it is to hold you in my arms, and how good it is to feel your kisses.
You're all I ever wanted. You're all I ever needed.

Sometimes it feels like there never was a love as great as this.
Never leave me, I beg you. Never.
My life would make no sense without you.
Without you I'm nothing.

I look at your eyes, and they seem so much like mine; eyes that tell everything mere words couldn't ever describe.
And the words I say now, "I love you", hold no justice to what I feel inside of me.
I love you, I proudly re-affirm.
And you're beautiful. You're beautiful.

And then i think about someone else, someone from so long ago.
Someone who had me as I have you.
And I wonder, did he ever feel the same for me?
I don't know, I confess.
But most of the times I doubt it.

"Wedding bells ain't gonna chime
with both of us guilty of crime
and both of us sentenced to time
and now we're all alone."

Placebo, Protect me from what I want

Chapter 6 : Hurt

2007-06-17T14:27:00.000-07:00

"I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel.
I focused on the pain
the only thing that's real."

Nine Inch Nails, Hurt.

Months ago : "You don't have anything that you want to say to me?", she asked while she was drinking something, coffee, maybe.
I didn't say anything. I just stared ahead, contemplating the infinite.
"You don't have anything that you want to say to me?", she repeated.
"I'm going to the toilet. You should do well to try and think real hard about what you have to tell me."

Argh.
The only thing in my mind that I could think about were songs.

"I thought the future held a perfect place for us.
That together we learn to be the best that we can be.
In my naivety, I ran, I fell and lost my way...
Somehow I'm always falling over me."

VNV Nation, Holding on.

I don't know why, but if I were to say this, it didn't quite strike me as being a good idea.
Shit, shit, shit. Think about something valid to say.
Nothing. Zip. Nada. Blank.
More songs.

"You had to sneak in to my room just to read my diaries
It was just to see, just to see all the things you knew
I had written about you... oh so many illustrations
but I am so very sickened... oh, I am so sickened now."

Morrissey, Suedehead

She came back, and once more she asked : "You don't have anything that you want to say to me?"
I searched the depths of what I thought defined the kind of man I was.
After long, long seconds of strenuous soul-searching, I answered :
"There is nothing left to say."

More months later : "You have something that you want to say to me.", she said, with all the warmth of an iceberg.
Something which, frankly, I deserved.

"Yes", I said, obviously discomfited and uncomfortable.
"Something I should have said such a long, long time ago..."
"I'm sorry that I wasn't able to trust you. But I have no idea how to do that, not anymore."
"And I'm sorry I didn't love you, as you loved me. I have forgotten what it is to love... I haven't done it in ages."
"I'm so sorry."
"Simple as that. I know what it's worth, but there you go."

"See", I said, in tears. Honest to God tears. "Someone who cared for me deeply, and for whom I also cared died recently. And seeing him die, worse : watching him slowly fade away into nothingness, made me see so many things... and it breaks my heart in two knowing all that was left unsaid."
"And now it is too late. It's cruel. I don't want to make the same mistake all over again."

You looked at me.
"Huh-huh. And THAT is what YOU have to say to ME?", asked the Ice Maiden.
"We-ell," I answered, "Yeah, but not only that... I wanted to tell you that I was somEone different, i dunno, someone more... stupid... when we were together..."
"I swear that was someone else, not me."
"So, and I know it's way too much to even ask this of you, but if you're willing to give us another chance..."

I left the question hanging in the air, half waiting for a slap that never came, while she stared incredulously at me.
Of course that the fury came, in the shape of an ice storm, each word more terrible than a thousand whips.

"No. Shut the fuck up. Shut your mouth. How can you say that? Please, no. No. Not another word."
"I really can't believe this. Now you want me?"

"But I thought that you could give us another chance!", I cried.
"Us?", she replied. "There is no 'us'! What part of that don't you understand, you bastard?"

She looked at me, eyes set like pale diamonds that saw straight through me, and the most wicked and cruel smile I will ever see formed in her lips, and she said.

"Fuck you, William."

"Don't kid yourself,
and don't fool yourself
this love's too good to last
and you're too old to dream..."

Muse, Blackout

Chapter 5 : Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken

2007-06-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

Ten minutes ago, I had my ipod on, and Michael Stipe was screaming from the top of his lungs that "This one goes out to the one I love".

I say, "Listen very closely to what I am going to say."
And i wanted to say, "For you shall say it only once?", but decided against it.
It would have been too much.

"Sometimes", I continued, "sometimes you act as if you have no idea what you want for yourself, or what you want out of life. You're stuck in some kind of limbo."
Cue funny song that puts people trying to do a weird dance that involves a stick.
"And both of us know why."

"Yes", you answered softly, while you studied minutely your own hands.
"Look at me. Yes, just like that. Not too hard is it?"
"Now think", I asked earnestly. "It's not fair, neither to you nor to anyone else, that you live like this."
"Yes, I know what it is to seek someone who you can't forget."
"Yes, I know what it's like to let a feeling like that destroys your days and haunt your nights."

"But look at what that did to me. Look at what it made me become. I destroy everything I touch, it seems. And that which I touch, I don't feel."
"Is that what you want for you?"

In silence you remained, for a few moments, for an eternity of moments.
"No", said the faintest of voices, almost imperceptible.
"No", I agreed.

Years later you would tell me, full of joy, with an abundance of happiness, that the decision had been made for a long time.
"Even before that conversation, you know? But that conversation became the driving force of how everything played out."

After that night's conversation, she got home and made up her mind.
"I know who I am. I know what I am. Yesterday, I was but a child, and I spoke like a child. Now, I am a woman grown, and I have left behind that which is childlike."
"I know who you are, and I know what you are. I know who you'll make me become, and I know what you'll make me become. And I thank you for that. I welcome you. I make you mine, as I myself am made yours. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Always. All ways. Forever and for ever. World without end."

"I didn't choose you, as you have chosen me. You haven't chosen me, as i have chosen you. This is our fate, newborn, old as the stars."
"You are my God, as I am your Avatar. Loudly, I cry, I cry with pride : My God has an Elephant’s head!"

Slowly, softly, with a voice like liquid honey, she said : "Ga-nee-sa."
"Ganesh, the Lord of Beginnings, and the Lord of Obstacles."
"The abolition of the past has begun. Tomorrow belongs to me."

Days after that she came to me.
"Listen", I said, "I've been reading the letters written by Theo Van Gogh, shortly after his brother Vincent died, and the last thing he said just before dying was "Le tristesse durera toujours". The sadness will never go away. For him, at least. And for you?"

She looked at me, with such a mighty strength in her eyes, a fierce sunrise in her eyes, and smiled that smile that's brighter than all stars combined.

"What do you think?", she said, laughing.

"You can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies.
When everything feels like the movies,
Yeah, you'll bleed just to know you're alive..."

Goo Goo Dolls, Iris

Chapter 4 : C'mere

2007-06-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

All that was before. This is some time later, some time before "Now".
But we'll get there, and soon.
"Look", Hugo said, "I liked what you wrote. It's honest. It's real. And in a way, you ended up writing about something that everyone at one time or another has felt."
"Some of the things you wrote have a little bit of Morrissey, or Neil Hannon, or even Nick Hornby in it. It's good. And to be frank, it's a whole lot better than your poetry. Well, at least that stuff you sent me. It was... Jesus, I don't know... well..."
"Hey, give me a break, okay?", I said stunned still by such high compliments.
"I was younger, and everything then seemed and felt romantic to me."
"Yes", you agreed, "Excessively so!"

Now, the strange thing about this conversation was that we were in some coffee shop or the other, somewhere in the city, but it really wasn't one; we were in a huge stadium, a Roman coliseum, packed with thousands, hundreds of thousands of faceless people looking at us, all the while shouting such incomprehensible phrases as "Oh horror upon horror!", "Cheat anti set-piece", and above all "Paura", which means "fear" in Italian.
"Excessively so... cessively so... ely so...", the words echoed in my mind, meaningless, until i forced my eyes open.

I woke up, and I remembered sage words said to me long ago, "Who knows what bounties tomorrow may bring?".
I held on to this moment of introspection, and took a quick shower and got dressed.
I got out of my house and while i pondered what to do, a familiar ring tone plays on my cell.
I saw who the caller was, thought for long seconds what to do, then I made a decision I would later regret.
"Fuck it", I thought. "Had to happen sooner or later."

"Heya", I said, maybe with too much excitement. Don't want to give you any wrong ideas, do I?
No, we don't, Precious, I said to myself in my best Gollum.
"Huh-huh, and you?"
"Hmm-hmmm."
"Ok."
"Ok, sounds good!"
Damn, there goes Mr. Cool.
"Today? Gee... today is kinda... well, yeah, ok. What time?"
"...."
"Ok, ok. I'll be there."

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!
Fuck!
What now?
Seven o' clock came, and off I went to meet her.

"It's way too late to be this locked inside ourselves.
The trouble is that you're in love with someone else...
It should be me... it should be me!"

Interpol, C'mere

Chapter 3 : Last night, she said...

2007-06-17T10:09:00.000-07:00

"Man, sorry I'm late... the Babe (that's how everyone calls his wife, even him) had to work a few more hours, and we had no-one that could look after the baby (they have a seven month old girl), so i had to wait until she came back, so i could nip out and meet you. Should've seen the look on her face... I'm gonna get an earful when I get home later..."

Pete is one of my best friends, and all around good guy, who, much like maybe ninety percent or more of the world's population, just can't seem to get a break.
I welcome him to the table where I'm sitting, and say " No worries, Pete. You want anything? Only I'm going to get me a beer, so..."
Secretly, I was maybe kind of hoping that he would volunteer to buy me a beer; I'm a bit short on cash, and every little extra helps.
Shameful though it may be to abuse your friends, i had little to no alternative left.
Besides, when life so chooses to be that way, one can always be generous in that time, i suppose.

"No, no", he says. "I'm good. But you... you're maybe just a tad... how shall i put this... tipsy? What have you had to drink?", he asked me, while he rolled a cigarette.
Filthy habit people have, and always next to me.
Oh well.

I shrugged.
"Oh, this and that, you know.", and my speech was getting a bit slurred. "This and that", I emphasized.
"Besides, and this is just so brilliant, I saw a girl with a t-shirt that said "The liver is evil and must be punished"!
We laughed, and it was good to hear our laughter. There is something quite magical in laughter that echoes deep in your souls, and makes us believe that things aren't that bad.
And makes us want things to be better still.

"Ah well, screw it, they don't even have beer here. Proper beer, that is.", I complained.
"They only have what a friend of mine superbly calls "Water from Leça do Balio".
"What. Are. You. Talking. About?", he asked, puzzled.
"Super Bock", i answered.

"Oh, ok. So... how are you these days?", he inquired. "You ok?"
"Heh. No. Yes. I mean... sort of. I've been thinking."
And no, this is not cause for celebration, nor was it the first time it happened.
"Thinking about what?", Pete asks. "About the world we live in and life in general?
"That's your thing, you know? You always think too much... or too little, i can't tell anymore."
Someone much wiser than I am once wrote that "Most men would rather deny a harsh truth than face it".
But not me. Not me.

"I've been thinking about when did i become such a horrible person.", I said.
"And why do you think like that? By the way, I'm gonna get a... how do you call it? Water from...?"
"Water from Leça do Balio, bro. Get me one? Cheers."
So much for pride.

A few minutes later, he returned with two bottles of horse's piss those fools call "Beer".
"To us?", i proposed.
"To us", he replied.
"Shit, of course you can't even know what it tastes like, if you drink it all down on two or three gulps. You stupid bastard.
"Bull", I burped. "Can't a guy be thirsty? But seriously, now, what i just told you... I've done some serious thinking, and I know now that it wasn't Claudia, the summer girl that made me feel like a child, or even Ana, who made me feel so extraordinary."
"No, it was Sara", I said finishing the rest of the beer.

"Sara... your ex-Sara? That Sara? Geez, how long ago was that?"
Yep, my ex-Sara.
"Not that long ago, apparently", he concluded.
"Understand", I asked him while I contemplated asking for another beer. "You know full well how my other stories played out."
"With Claudia and Ana? Sure.", he said, rolling the thousandth cigarette.

"Yes, them... you know what I felt for them... and how that love near crushed me. And I now ask, after feeling so strongly for someone, how can you ever hope to feel those kinds of feelings ever again for anyone else? Especially, if you consider the less than auspicious circumstances under which Sara and me met.."

"I was scared, I admit it. Hell, I was more than scared, I was frightened out of my wits. What she ever saw in me I guess I'll never know... But Sara, right? That woman, that goddess, who could have anyone she wanted... wanted me."
"Yes, I know...", he said, eyes closed. "That Bondage party... my God, sometimes I still have nightmares..."
"Exactly", I said, way too loud.
"Why me? Well, whatever, the thing is tat we hooked up.... because it was she who came after me, it was she who wanted me, it was even she who asked ME to be HER boyfriend. Now, how fucked up is that?"
"And so once more I ask : after the other two, how could I ever like her?"
"The answer is so simple it hurts. I couldn't. I wasn't able to."

"I think there was nothing more to give, simply put. And so, in time, we grew apart. I (the irony of this kills me...) became cold and distant while I had Wonder bloody Woman next to me. And, of course, when you treat someone the wrong way, and you ignore her, and for however much that person may love you, one day she'll see the light and dump you, right?

"Right", you agreed. "And was that what happened?"
"Shit, yeah, and I fully deserve it."
"And that is why you think you're such an awful person."

By reflex, I picked up the bottle and took it to my lips just to find it empty. His, too, was empty, and he asked me if i wanted another.
"Well", i said a bit shyly " it's not that i don't want, but... er... you know, I'm maybe kinda broke?
"No worries, man, it's on me. One?"
I nodded slightly in agreement.

He came back to the table, and gave me my beer, and said to me, "Now drink that shit in two goes, and you'll see the back of my hand", and with this we laughed a bit more.
I took the bottle once more and greedily put it to my lips, but this time, i let only a small amount of beer in my mouth.
Ah, sweet and cool nectar... you are one of life's true and undenied pleasures, I thought, as slowly I savoured the golden liquid in my mouth.

"I will tell you why I'm such a horrible person, but first I will tell you something that nearly no-one knows."
I beckoned him closer, and we huddled together in the table.
"About a week or two before Sara broke up with me, we weren't really seeing each other at the time. And this absence of her in my life is what ultimately led me to falling in love with her. Ironic, I know."
"And every day, every minute, every goddamn second I spent without her, hurt like you couldn't believe. She wouldn't answer her cell, or return my text messages. It was hard."

I drank a bit more, and I thought that never a Super Bock had tastes this good to me.
"So after all that time, one day she meets me at the record store. And believe me, seeing her, and not being able to touch her? That was sheer hell."
"I was at the counter, and she came up to me. You know me, man, I'm always making jokes, an to try and lighten the mood, i played her up a bit."

I took a long sip of beer.
For a while I said nothing.

"And...?", you asked impatiently.
"And I asked her, you know, in a very playful way if there was any way that I could be of service to her."

Another pause for dramatic effect.

"And...?", you inquired again.
"And she took my hand to hers, and said 'I want you'."
"Right then and there? I knew, Pete, i knew that nothing could ever take her away from me."
"How naive was I? Very."
"So what went wrong?", you ask.
"Hell, to this day I have no idea, but a few hours later she finally broke up with me. And I can't really say I blame her."

"So... is that it, is that the reason?"
"No, of course not", I said.
"Of course not. It's because of everything that came afterwards. Because of everyone that came after her. And because of the fact that I reasoned that if i got hurt, then that gave me the right to give some of that hurt back."
"Do you remember the kind of person I became, Pete?"

I felt you struggle inside, I could see you fighting for the right words.
"Say what you have to say."
After a while, "Ok. You became someone... more complicated. Harder to like. But never awful."
"An awful person", I insisted.
You put your hands on my shoulders and said "Do you think you still are what you say you are? Because I don't think you do, not anymore. And that's what matters, my friend. I look at you and I see a finer person, and maybe even wiser."
"You just gotta let it go, once and for all."
"An awful person", I repeated once more.
"Is that what you want for yourself? Is that what you are going to convince yourself that you are? Because it's your choice. And yours alone."
"Think on that, while I'm going to get one more for us."

"My choice alone", I finally agreed.
"Excellent", you said, smiling. "I'll drink to that!"
"Cheers", I saluted.

"Like the naked leads the blind
i know i'm selfish, i'm unkind.
Sucker love, i always find
Someone to bruise and leave behind..."

Placebo, Every me Every you.

Chapter 2 : Like a child again

2007-06-17T09:17:00.000-07:00

I had arranged to meet with a dear friend of mine, who I had not seen for quite some months now, so we could go for a drink and maybe catch up on what had been going on with both our lives, when I started to reminisce on times long gone by.

Once, I fell in love with a girl that had the beauty of summer in her, and held in her eyes the richest sunset ever I had seen, and her name is now lost to me; lost in the mists of time.
I can barely recall today how good it must have felt to touch her, to kiss her.
Only the tiniest ghost of what I felt for her, that boundless, unfettered love that could only have been sired by Summer itself remains.

But i remember how she made me feel...
Oh, and how I miss feeling so small and vulnerable, like a child in your arms...
It was good. So, so good.
But as summer ends, so too does the love of summer...

Summer, that faraway and distant summer of which i am so proud.
And pride, so they say, comes before a fall.
And after Summer, comes Autumn.
And with Autumn, Fall.

I once loved a girl as melancholic as Autumn.
And you, little girl, were all i ever wanted, and all i ever knew i wanted for myself.
Worst of all, you were all i always, always knew i could never have.
You made me feel so... so extraordinary... so awake to life... so alive!
Not just the merest traces of those feelings linger; but memories, memories that are both bigger than space, and longer than time.

"I will be yours forever", you said to me, in another life. "But if you want me, you'll have to run after me."
"Madness", I answered.
"Don't you know who I am? I run after none. Only the weak run, and someone of my grandeur proudly blazes the trail that he for himself makes. I do not run.", I answered, jokingly.
And you ran away from me, my love; you ran far behind the mountains, and beyond the shores of night.

Thousands of years ago, it seems, you told me that everything has a price; every action we make has a repercussion or consequence.
"I am the Sun, the Sun that shines and gives you life. I am Life, the life that every single day enfolds you when night falls. Everything has a price."
You would say things like that, and I'd find myself saying words that I could have never said to anyone else.

I'd say that I would love you forever; though I knew that one day one of us would falter.
And I would love you like none other; though I knew that every day I spent with you killed me softly, and slowly.
And I knew that if I had to, I would gladly die an infinite number of small deaths just to be part of you.

One last time, you said the killing words, "Everything has a price."

And I fell.
I fell like the Morningstar, never to have another ascension.

" You make me happy, and i hope you feel the same
You make me feel just like a child, a child again!"

The Mission, Like a child again

Chapter 1 : If...

2007-06-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

Today has not been a good day.
For one, it's way too hot and the heat feels oppressive on my skin. The day has barely begun for me, and already I'm feeling like i could use another shower.
It's so hot that I'm sweating, and that's something that I don't normally do. I'm sticky, and because I'm sticky I'm feeling irritable.
My temper is flaring; and that, also, is something that doesn't normally happen.
And because of the heat, and because of this conversation I'm having, and because my temper is indeed rising, I say :

"Whoa. Slow down. Wait a fucking moment, ok?"
"I'm sorry, but can you not see what this pain has fucking done to me?", I asked.
Maybe i used a tone that was too aggressive, that's as may be.
Maybe what I said, I said in a way that was less than appropriate, but them's are the breaks.
Maybe I raised my voice just a little bit too high, I suppose, because the people all around us were looking at me sideways, as if I were a worm; to be trodden and scorned.

Idiots. How dare you? You make me sick.
How dare you judge me?

I pulled myself together again.

And she looked at me, uncertain if she should say something.
"I know that this wasn't one of my best or brightest ideas. I know that. After all you -- and us -- was a long time ago. Sometimes it seems that it was lifetimes ago."
"But do you remember the last time we were together?", I demanded.

She looked at her purse for a great deal of time, maybe five minutes, maybe only a couple of seconds, and finally took out a cigarette and lit it.
Before she could answer me, I said : "And think well on the words you want to say before you speak them."

She blew a long column of smoke in my direction, and let out a small wail.
Was that hurt i saw in her eyes?
"Yes," she finally answered. "What of it?"
So this is what I have to deal with. Ok, fair enough, two can play that game.
If you are going to be the Ice fucking Queen, then you'd better get ready.

"Fuck, but do you have to smoke? You know i never liked seeing you smoking..."
"Sorry. You know I aim to please.", she answered sarcastically.
She's good. Very good. But then she's always been. She always had an amazing way with words.
She always knew what words to use to hurt me the most.
"The last time. Yes. I remember. Listen, don't cling to the past. Let go. Move on. Worked out perfectly fine for me."

I want to scream. I want to hit this woman that I once loved so much. Then I feel so guilty about wanting to hit her that I want to hit myself.
It's amazing, we met fortuitously less than hour ago, and we're already at each other's throats. That's serendipity for you, that is.
Let go? Move on? Worked out perfectly fine for you?
Of course it did.
With thirty other different guys.

"What you said to me... what you asked...", I paused for a few moments and i took a sip of a coffee that was already in its ice age.
That's another thing that doesn't normally happen, me drinking coffee.
And it's something I'll never understand... Why do people drink coffee? Why am I drinking coffee? Why the fuck am I drinking coffee?
As you can see, yes, I was very annoyed. More than just that, I was pissed off.
I was going to lash out, but...

"I remember what I said. And I still know why I said it.", you say.

"Because I still wanted you?", I whispered.
"Because you still wanted me", you said, and you said it as if it were the most mundane thing in the world.
"You know me too well. Yes, I'd kill halfway through creation just to hold in you in my arms again, and to find that love that I so dearly miss.

It was so hot, that a mild summer drizzle began to fall. Or maybe it was me that was crying, I don't know.

With an unexpected, and somewhat uncharacteristic tenderness you say, "But you know you can't, right? You know you can't..."
"I know," i reply. "I've known it for a long time. Listen to me. I don't want to make you cry. This is just stuff that I have to get out of my system. You know there was plenty left unsaid."
"And the thing is, I never wanted this. I never wanted this to happen. I didn't need this, and I didn't ask for it."
"You know as well as I do that these things have a way of happening, and you just can't control them. Things happen, it's just that."

"I am only human... and I fell in love with you. Against my better judgement, yes, but i feel for you. And I loved you more than life itself."
Perhaps because I said the words that I could never muster the courage to speak to you, tears welled in your eyes.
"Please, please don't cry. And don't be afraid to hurt me. I think I've moved beyond that point. Don't be afraid. You know I can take it. Like a girl, but I can take it."

We laughed, nervously, and for half a second it seemed that all was well.
"Whatever may happen. Despite anything you say. But I will love you always. Come what may."

"That's ok. That's ok. You know I never meant to make you cry."

I took you in my arms for the last time, and we sang the only song that was left for us to sing.

"You see her, you can't touch her.
You hear her, you can't hold her.
You want her, but you can't have her.
You want to, but she won't let you."

Franz Ferdinand, Aud Achse

Prologue : Wall of Sound

2007-06-14T12:16:00.000-07:00

All stories, it is said, must have a beginning. And for quite some time now i have been struggling with how this story ought to begin.
I should point out that this is not a story about me; no.
It is a story about everyone, and a story about you; a story about stories, a story about truths, and lies.
A story about how a simple lie can bring someone down; a story about how silence speaks louder than words; and, in some way, maybe even a story about me.

It started with silence.
Silence.
But what is silence? What is it, beyond the mere word it is, far, far beyond it?
Is it the absence of any sound?
Or is that absence of sound but the opposite of noise?
It is something purer.
It is something so vast and infinite, that it exists on the very threshold of hearing, something so close, so near... that we can almost hear it.

But, and even if none of us ever had uttered a single word; or spoke yet another ever again, and however in tune we became with silence itself, we would find ourselves crashing headlong, ultimately, inexorably, inescapably against the wall of sound.

That final white noise that surrounds us all.
It is silence that deep down we crave.
Sweet, sacred, silent silence.
And it may be our most important and final lesson - to thrive amidst silence; to shunt noise; and with a primal scream, we let ourselves be heard anew.

For various cultures throughout the world maintain that silence teaches us how to sing; and indeed, only he himself can once more silence the singing that echoes through the ages.
If we were to live all our live in silence, and finally were given the chance to speak... what would we then say?
And what would we say, if by some turn of fate, we had to explain to a child that his family's survival hinged on his sacrifice?
What would we say?
What words would come gushing out of our mouths & what primeval mutterings would we spew forth?

Our names, our very names - part of who we are; of what we choose to become, as much a part of our identity as our personal beliefs, are but words.
Let us forget those words.
Let us forget the words we know, and the words we once knew; and those we know that will ever remain with those whose meaning we'll never know.
What matters now - and maybe has always mattered, and always shall - is silence...
Silence, so much swifter and heavier than sound... for when sound comes, silence has long fled.
Let us drink to silence; and know that because of it, this story, this so tragically human story ran its course and unfolded before your very eyes.

This is how it begins...

"The future teaches you to be alone, the present to be afraid and cold"

Manic Street Preachers, If you tolerate this then your children will be next