Friday, September 12, 2008

Cities -- 2

“Because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.”

– One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez –

Other times it’s simply different…

…So it all ends, and you’re packing your stuff to leave. It’s raining heavily outside as the invisible hands of God squeeze the remaining drops out of the tired old clouds. You’re standing in the middle of the room in utter idleness, with music pouring in from the old cassette player near your bed, accompanied by Fairouz’ ironic song:

“They loved each other…They left each other”

That angelic voice fills the room with sadness and floods through the windows to follow its destiny. It quickly breaks its ties with your mundane existence and ascends to meet angelic ears up in heaven, increasing the rain’s intensity, and adding that crystalline texture to its heavy, lonesome drops.

---

But it was, after all, an End without a beginning. An entire story focused within a point, defying your attempts at rationalizing it. A single point hanging outside the course of your lifeline; like a candle stranded in the darkness of the desert. And we were running blindly towards it, being hurriedly rushed into it by a desire to get rid of what we couldn’t explain. An end that offered no paths to follow, no promised futures, only that simple overwhelming Inevitability; “Es muss Sein!” That’s just the way it had to be.

---

You close your bag and take one final look at your room before you leave, seeing for the first time that thin film of dust that covered everything in it; from ceiling to floor. And you start wondering how these tiny particles managed to accumulate over time without you ever noticing. You lift up your bag and realize it weighs much more than you remember, despite the fact that you had exactly the same stuff you were carrying when you first stepped into that room. But you knew that would happen. The perfect transformation of the light dreams you brought along into the heavy memories you packed as you were leaving. As a writer you knew that too well, you’ve seen it too many times; the burden added by your dark words on the white innocence of blank pages. You switch off the tiny table lamp beside your bed, putting an end to the unsteady and blurred flow of light through the enclosing layers of dirt. You wipe your fingers on the dark green raincoat you’re wearing; hoping the rain outside would wash off the tiny stain you just created. You step outside with your luggage, closing the door quickly behind you, as if you were afraid that the darkness locked inside could creep out to follow you, and then, you turn your head and simply walk away.

---

And it was those memories that first grabbed my attention, that “Sack of Bones” you dragged along; a mixture of guilt and nostalgia that contradicted with the alluring life force you radiated to draw in everyone else. Intrigued by the mystery, I wanted to relive your memories, to replicate every second and capture each moment, unaware that it was almost impossible for me to understand. But I had to try; I needed to make it happen. And as I compromised my shield of protective apathy, I discovered that my confused curiosity was slowly turning into something new and genuine, a feeling I never experienced before, and frankly: I was afraid.

---

You’re walking these streets one last time, on your way to the train station. Shocked by the way this city has come to resemble you over the past year, or perhaps it was the other way around. The continuous flow of rain magnifies the silence in the deserted streets, setting your thoughts free to roam beyond all boundaries. A fragment of an old song crosses your mind and you concentrate hard in order to remember the lyrics, but your memory is already shattered all over the place; and you have to settle for a few scattered words and a broken melody; “As sad as your days”. You close your eyes for a second and you’re overcome by the unmistakable smell of Jasmine, that fragile Eastern scent carries you away to a different time and a different place, and you have no choice but to give in to reminiscing.

---

It was Death I saw that day. That pure and paralyzing fear in your eyes showed me how stupid my fake detachment was. Life was real; I could see it behind your stupored gaze and hear it beyond your terror stricken voice. And for the first time, I felt real anger and hatred towards everything I couldn’t control; towards everything that kept you awake at night pondering choices you made, and wishing you were somewhere else. The merciless and vengeful eastern Gods became my true enemy, and I felt that I was another stupid knight tilting at windmills. But something in your trembling voice reassured me of victory, the hidden frailty of a defiant hope known only to a few, those lucky enough to have walked the abandoned streets of the East during cold winter nights, where the memory of Jasmine still fills the air with unspoken promises of a beautiful rebirth.

---

You stumbled upon it during one of your journeys; your visit there was unplanned and almost certainly unwanted. You still remember walking through its streets for the very first time, recognizing every corner with the drunken familiarity of a sleep walker. You were certain that you’ve never been there before, yet you knew by heart every step along your path. The colossal palaces were spreading their arms to welcome you, and the huge statues stared at you with friendly eyes. It took you some time to realize that you’ve seen it a million times before. It was that recurring dream you’ve had since birth, the one that always failed to leave a trace on your conscious memory. And as your initial bewilderment faded away, you knew that you've arrived at your city, you were finally home.

---

Lying in bed, so far away from you… Unable to sleep. I was suffering from the same Insomnia that kept Adam awake during his first lonely days in heaven, before God realized that his idea of perfection was simply flawed. The horrible aching in my muscles was just my body longing for yours, that prehistoric nocturnal yearning to hold you in my arms and feel your warmth beside me. I couldn’t close my eyes, because your image was alive and painful inside my head. My mind held nothing but visions of you: laughing, crying, dancing, sleeping… As if nothing else ever existed. You've occupied every single spot in my recollection, and I started to seriously question the details of my past Life, wondering over and over again; if I was alive before we met; how come you're haunting all my memories?. But the answer was simple: I must've been dead.

---

A couple of days after you settled in, you began to realize there were no adults to be found in this city; its inhabitants were all children. They were everywhere at their games, stopping only to watch as you passed by, still suspicious of your sudden arrival. It took them days to get used to your presence, and even longer for their curiosity to replace their fear as they got close enough to start a conversation. At first you were a bit surprised; the language they spoke was like nothing you’ve ever heard before. It was a beautiful mixture of lyrical notes that flowed visible out of their tiny little mouths, vanishing into thin air before you were able to capture them. Obviously, you couldn’t understand a word; but gradually and with unexpected patience the children taught you how to speak, how to draw colorful images with every syllable you uttered. And Satisfied with your progress, they decided to teach you some of their games, which you learned passionately but with limited success. Of course that didn't really matter, cause after a while you managed to convince yourself that you succeeded in becoming one of them.

---

Challenged by my silence and my ignorance, you decided to teach me everything. You wanted me to run and dance, to shout and sing all at the same time. And you were so insistent in your attempts that you finally broke my passive inclination for laziness. I became young again, regaining for a short period the amazing feeling of juvenile freshness that I lost among hours of useless thinking. You knocked down my Atlas’ burden of stupid worries about irrelevant wars in far off places. And with time, I had to give up the melancholic mask of a fake deity I was wearing; so I stopped blaming myself for the misery of the world, and finally: I was Free.

---

Something changed… You were sick for a while, and you decided to lock yourself up in your room for a few days so as not to infect them. But the children failed to understand that. Growing up, absorbed in the endless hours of their youthful games; they must’ve missed the ridiculous notion of illness. And when you came out, slightly changed by the gloomy air inside your dark room, they treated you as a complete stranger. They refused to talk to you and they wouldn’t let you in their games. Wherever you walked you could feel their accusing stares follow you around, penetrating your skull from every side, and shattering your brain like a storm of silent bullets.

By that time, dark clouds were gathering in the horizon. The children knew what that meant, they’ve seen it happen once before; another hurricane would strike their little town. They remembered with fresh agony their friends who drowned in the streams that flooded their city after days of continuous rain. But this time they were prepared, overnight, while you were asleep, they gathered their stuff and ran to the hills, abandoning their city.

You woke up to a shockingly perfect silence. The playful childish sounds you were used to no longer filled the streets. At first you panicked, you thought you were going deaf, but one look outside your window made you realize that the city was actually empty. You rushed outside to look for them, wishing they were just playing another one of their silly games, but you couldn’t find them anywhere. Frustrated and tired after long hours of futile search, you finally managed to find a trace of their footsteps near the eastern gates, and you knew by then that the worst had happened.

Oh, how long have you gazed upon that eastern road! Those unexplainable white snow flakes sprinkled across the hot brown tiles that paved the way to the haunted mansion uphill. For months you wondered about the secrets hidden behind its huge black walls, but every time you tried to ascend that path, you were dissuaded by a heavy sadness that slowed your steps and released dark thoughts inside your mind. Terrified by the hurricane, the children fled their city and took refuge in that mansion, unaware that they would soon grow old and weary of the darkness it held, and that nothing awaited them inside but a sure and imminent Death. And as you stood there watching, you saw the last one of them entering the mansion. Within seconds black veils covered the huge windows to block any glimpse of the abandoned city, and huge black gates were closed on their sweet childish laughter that was still ringing in the city streets, and that won’t be heard again for a long time to come.

---

How fragile this stupid thing called love can be! Its strength cannot stand in the face of Time and Distance, it’s too weak to handle the forgotten shadows of the past and surely it is no match for disillusionment. And I had to put you through all of them, rejecting happiness by consciously torturing myself and wanting to wake you up. It was my own misdeed, but we both suffered the consequences of my stupidity. Sadly, it took me a long time to realize that nothing really mattered, that it was all pointless except for the few seconds I spent with you and that nothing else in the world could ever make me feel alive again. But it was too late…

---

You’ve arrived at the train station. Here your journey finally ends; you’re leaving without return. You’re setting alone on that broken wooden bench waiting for your train to arrive when it suddenly hits you, no train has ever stopped in that station. You start thinking fast; something was missing in the illogical sequence of events that led you here, and finally you realize it: You were not going anywhere. And looking back at the city you lived in for so long, you see it clearly for the first time, it was the one leaving you… An entire city with its houses, its buildings and its streets was silently moving away, leaving you behind with that frozen look of amazement on your face, unable to breathe.

---

And there I was once again, setting there all alone, staring blankly as you left. For a moment I couldn’t believe what just happened, but it was the only logical end; for I’ve lived through my hundred years of solitude, and it was stupid to think that I earned another opportunity on this earth.