And you are a coward...

‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’

It’s like a mantra on your lips that is just starting to be enough, even for me. It’s out there, you said it and there is no going back, no second chance.

How do you think great loves end? Is it big, messy, public and humiliating, or just like a flame that at one point died down, ceasing to exist?

I think it depends on the two people that were once in love and the way they were. It’s suffocating; it chokes you, that feeling that you have lost something so important, so beautiful, it is simply overwhelming. It’s like for one second your mind stopped, just because it could not comprehend the pain, the loss, the other half that isn’t there anymore.

Did I ever tell you how it happened with them? That one day he realized that he simply didn’t love her anymore. Do you know how that feels, how it eats you up from the inside? How it ruined her for the rest of the days that were to come? That from that point onward and every other relationship would be defined by him; that glimpses are painful, and smiles tear you up inside?

Do you know how it feels to live everyday with the fear that the person you love will just wake up one day and realize that he stopped being the person that loved you back?

Cowards should not exist, at least not in love, because their actions are pitiful. They denigrate everything that was important; they ruin every single memory that was beautiful, just so they don’t have to say they’re sorry, sorry they stopped loving you. And they make you doubt every touch, and every kiss and every thought. They make you question your feelings and yourself, when in reality, love simply rotted away, because some are just incapable of such emotions.

So, when the time comes, I want to be the one that wakes up one morning and realizes that my heart does not belong to you anymore.

Because, otherwise, I am afraid that you will be a coward.

And you see, cowards should not exist, at least not in love…

Resolution

I’ve decided to turn things around for this blog, to make it a little more interesting and a little more versatile, by actually posting more often. Of course, to do so I need to change a little the format and the topics. No more insight in the lives of my fictional characters that have no name, no address and no continuity.

I don’t plan on forgetting all about my small narrations, but considering that they are so few and far between, there needs to be more in there to fill in the blanks of my life, because I don’t take a breath only once every five months and because there are so many things to say.

So this is my 4th of September, 2009 resolution…

Glimpses of time and space

I close my eyes and a memory invades my senses. I can feel myself slipping easily and comfortably into it. I’m sitting high above the floor, on my stomach, with your hands around me, and your strong heartbeat throbbing underneath my left breast. The windows are opened wide, while the room is warm and nice, filled with the smells from the rain outside. Raindrops are hitting the metallic window frame, creating a soothing noise. It’s like there is nothing else out there but you and I in the warmth of the room, and the rain. The illusion of time simply disintegrates in front of my eyes, the idea of something before this or of something after is simply nonexistent. There is no space and there is no time, just the two of us happy to be here, now, together.

My eyes are closed, while the wind is tangling my hair, whisking away a lock that escaped my messy loop. The air is cold, it smells of rain and grass and green, while all around us the temperature is lowering, creating the illusion that we have slipped into a different world, where the air is fresh and the heat is welcomed. You are in the driver’s seat, with your 70’s glasses – to protect you from the light; and your white t-shirt – just in case it rains again. Music is filling my ears, the beat accelerating my heart, while the speed increases my adrenalin level. I know you feel it too, the anticipation, the suspense, the need to keep going. I know I could do this indefinitely, sitting in the car, while you drive, taking us somewhere, anywhere.

I open my eyes and the site that first greets me is of your hair, falling over your closed eyelids. You’re sleeping calmly on the other half of the pillow, with your right arm loosely around my middle. I can hear the noises outside, I can see the first glimpses of morning coming from the window, and still, I am reluctant to move, to go anywhere, to disturb our peace and quiet. Trying to blink the sleep away, I see you watching me and I realise that you have been awake for a while, waiting for me to open my eyes.

And I smile.

And you smile.

And it’s morning.

Musings on a winter day:

So after I was gone from the face of the planet for about two months, I thought I should show my big, bright smile around here again. Since my last post I entered the new year, I passed all my exams, I read a few books, dreamed about white skin and cold hands, started the second semester of my second year, laughed, cried, got pissed off and on the same note I went through all the human emotions.

Right now I am sitting in my dorm room, perched up on my upstairs bed, looking at my room mate as she is warming up a cup of tea. I am a little bored right now, wasting time doing absolutely nothing, looking around myself and realising that life is more or less a complete waste of time.

I just feel everything passing by me, nothing is different, nothing is happening, while I just sit here. I have this mental image of a figure standing completely still, while the whole world is moving all around it, at an alert pace. Maybe in a way it is important to just take a break from all the things around you and analyse, think, perceive the world as it really is, while everything around you is in a blur of speed and agitation.

In all honesty, I like this rhythm of my life, at a slow controlled pace, taking it all in. This is me in a weird way of looking at things, but I don’t mind. While with a goal set I am fast and driven, alert and just a little hectic, without one, everything around me just seems to slow down, from my heartbeat to my breathing, to the people passing me by on the street, to the water running in the sink.

Tick tack, tick tack...

[photo: gorjuss Art - Suzanne Woolcott, 'Driftwood' ]

My imagination has gotten the better of me, probably because of sleep deprivation. Honestly, during vacations I usually turn my internal clock upside down. For a simple explanation, let’s just say that I indulge myself during this time of the year by watching movies non-stop, cooking and intensive holiday cleaning (the last one does not enter the above mentioned category of indulgence). This also means going to sleep at around 5 am and waking up around 11 or 12 the next day. I am like this for the entire 2 weeks of Christmas vacation since, probably, high-school.

So, of course, the madness that my subconscious has become, has also brought into focus one of my long obsessions regarding sleep. For a while, I have thought sleep as a complete waste of time or, better said, a weakness in the human body. We all know that 8 hours of sleep per night are essential for a healthy lifestyle. A study demonstrated that cognitive performance declines with fewer than 8 hours of sleep.

All of this led to me imagining a world where rest was not needed. That would imply that out of the 24 hours in a day, we would not be ‘wasting’ at least 8 of them doing ‘nothing’. In the ever-moving society that we inhabit, work takes at least 8 hours per day, but of course, considering the fact that big companies and multinationals have a very competitive working environment, employees are forced, in a way, to do everything they can to get ahead of their rivals, that also meaning working overtime. Successful people usually work up to 11 or 12 hours in a day. In a world where sleep is not needed, I have an inkling suspicion that no one would actually increase the percentage of free time in a day, but rather the work hours put in at the office.

The thing is that in my utopian little world, everyone works in a multinational or a big company. If you can not sense the sarcasm, let me make it clear: I am ironic. Maybe there are persons that are going to take advantage of all of this, maybe factory people that will be happy to get out, to spend more time with their families, to have hobbies, to enjoy life. That is, if nobody will increase the number of work hours.

I have to consider poverty also. When you sleep, you tend to forget about everything, about the hard life that is waiting outside of your dreams, about the hunger in your stomach, about the pains in your body. You sleep more with the intention to numb your senses, to dull everything to a simple ache. Without even the notion of sleep, reality would literally devour you, with all its hardships.

Another aspect that I should examine when eliminating the need for sleep, is the lack of dreams, or even nightmares. People dream to let their subconscious analyse whatever happened during the day, and prepare them for the next one, at the same time. Without rest, the subliminal will, of course, just have to work at the same time with the conscious part of our brain, in order to take the amount of time it needs to analyse everything. But dreams would disappear. No more staying in bed just imagining what could be, hopping for a better future; there would be no more nightmares for the troubled minds, no more sleepless nights for those with a heavy mind. In a way I would be eliminating our conscience, because when you keep busy, you tend to not have enough time to stop and think everything through, to consider the consequences of your actions. All of us would require a Jiminy Cricket of our own. Joke aside, where would our society be, in such a world?

There are so many aspects that should be analyzed in such a situation, but this is not an essay, it is just a post, with a lot of economic influences, for which college is to be blamed.

[photo: www.photobucket.com, Kurt Halsey Frederiksen]

‘It’s been 9 months, 14 days and 3 hours since I have been stuck in this place. In this wonderful place where life is simply pulled out of me bit by bit, where my soul is broken into a million pieces, leaving me haunted and empty. I can hear patrolling outside, heavy steps hitting the muddy ground. Rain has been coming down in gallons for the past few days, it is sad and wet, while even time seems to have stopped altogether… seconds into hours, hours into days and days into weeks. This year is the longest of my life, this year is my entire life, because there is no future beyond it and I can’t remember a past before it. Have I ever lived in another time and in another place?!

I don’t remember anymore. I go outside. The cigarette in my hand in tattered and ruined, but I smoke it anyway. It is the only one I have left. The smoke is filling my lungs, killing me little by little, but not fast enough for my liking. I am sitting in the door, trying to avoid the rain. I crush what is left of my fag in the mud bellow my feet. My boots are almost broken, the water is sipping through the holes in the sole and my socks are getting dirtier. Hmm … I don’t care anymore, if it’s cold or warm it is the same to me. I take a few more steps outside; my face now invaded by a thousand small drops of water. It’s cold and clean. I can feel for a split second once again, a difference from everything else around me at this point. It’s gone. It left as soon as it came. But that, I want that back, the ability to feel, the ability to understand things around me once again.

No matter how much pain is inflicted on me, I can’t sense it after so much time, even in the shower I don’t feel anything anymore. I am dead on the inside. My body has stopped responding to the life around it.

I re-enter the room I just vacated. It is damp and the smell of mould is invading my senses. The bed in the corner is wet and the mattress is ruined, while the sprints are digging into my back every time I sit on it. Pointless.

I put the gun on the wooden table. I trace the cold metal with my forefinger. Fascinating. To be able to feel again, to be able to hold her and love her once more. What more could I wish for?!’

From outside the barrack two men sitting for a smoke away from the pouring rain hear a gun shot.
Pity…

[photo: Angel, Falling : Final by *GwenGothIllustration, www.deviantart.com]

Things going through my mind at the moment: Frank Sinatra ‘Singing in the rain’; a boy buying two Coca-Cola cans just to reach higher for the Pepsi button; rainbows and rolling stones; 250,000 bouncing balls going down a San Francisco hill; my grandmother’s tired voice in the telephone; mountain trips; French seminars; International Trade essays; autumn leaves; kisses under a cherry tree; 22:01… 22:02; tea and hookahs; heartbeats; bad grapes; wet long hair; cold shivers; spoiled apples; the crashing of a wave on a deserted beach; double beds; carefree summers; lime tea with lemon; hot chocolate; warm cheese sandwiches; cold hands; one month; three months; white tulips, anniversaries; snow; fog; ice; freshly baked bread; warm rooms; novels; glasses; oil lamps; candles; ; bubble baths; puppies; black cats; good luck charms...

Are you tired yet of the labyrinth that my mind is?!...
I am...
[photo: weheartit.com/user/astronautas]