The Train of Memories Long Lost

...and looking at all these people, all around me, trying to sketch details of their emotions - the angle of their eyebrows, the length of their smile, the way in which they kept their feet, sometimes close to each other's, sometimes apart, sometimes entangled, they way they would change their mood and expressions and how the most insignificant details (the wrinkles, the discreet moles, the freckles, some loose locks of hair) were working together to build up complex instant that would last less that a second, instants of most significance, instants that would pass unnoticed save for me capturing them in simple, thin lined, fine pencil sketches that would carve deeply into a more involved participant - just like the light of a fading star, witness of what once had been an instant - merely noticing the whole spectacle or irrationality and chance made me forget why I was there in the first place.

Even in a less crowded place, like the restaurant I was in, I would often mix my feelings with the alcohol fumes and lose myself in the mist of the whiskey or the occasional rum or rather the rare both and enjoy the waltz of the circus acrobats of small-talk, restaurant conversations, conjugal fights, innocent smiles, timid glances, obsessed stares...

But against all the odds or, better said, oddly enough, I would be no more than an uninvolved participant, a spectator with no responsibility, inspite of some moments when I would catch the eyes of another, a curious glance or a shy smile. Just a passer-by, a nomad, a passenger, the occasional uninvited guest. Though in the centre of it all, I would be everything but the centre of their attention. There had been nights, most of them actually, when I would go completely unnoticed. I enjoy those nights, nights in which I would have my drinks quietly, I would capture the expressions in my sketches without further emotional complications or unnecessary interruptions and I could return to the couch I had temporarily borrowed in a flat I had rented with three months payed in advance. There I would spend most of my time, combining details - eyes with smiles, noses with cheeks, jaws with ears, chins with eyebrows - in the true spirit of Doctor Frankenstein. I would take notes and everything would end in disappointment. Inspite of giving up my limitations and starting to sketch any face, no matter the age, the sex, the colour or the hair, trying to find that smallest, most insignificant detail that would spark a fuse in my memory, inspite of all the combinations I would make, nothing would even come close to the slightest resemblance to her face. And I would go on, leaving everything and everyone behind, leaving a wagon for another, just like a passenger you wouldn't care to notice. And all the other passengers were no more to me than I was to them - ghostly-shades of apparent temporality, forever caught in the present, forever lost in the past.

Trust

If life was a marble,
the Moon's shine in its inner glow,
I'd give it to you
to hold it in your palm.
I'd even lend it to you,
just like that book I never got back.

Păsări

Şi-acum mă uit la păsări şi, arareori, mă-ntreb de ce zboară.
Nu într-un sens tehnic, nici măcar într-unul filozofic.
Mă întreb dacă li se pare obligatoriu sau, cel puţin, de bun simţ să zboare doar pentru că au aripi.

Unde se grăbesc tot timpul?
Unde sunt aşteptate atât de urgent încât nu pot sta pentru o clipă să admire lumea din jurul lor sau nu pot să meargă pe jos până acolo sau, măcar, să ţopăie galant.

 De ce nu mă lasă să le mângâi, să comunic cu ele şi, în schimb, mă ademenesc către un loc unde s-ar simţi confortabil numai ca să zboare îndată ce mă apropii, lăsându-mă, în sens profund, cu ochii-n soare.

Şi mă mai întreb de ce oare nu întorc capul niciodată, măcar de curiozitate, să-mi răsplatească cu o singură privire dezinteresată holbatul meu cu admiraţie.

M-am întrebat şi de ce zboară aşa de jos, când au tot cerul, întreaga lumea sub fâlfâitul aripilor lor dar de multe ori m-am bucurat să văd măcar un cioc, un vârf de aripă pe deasupra gardului înalt de fier.
În închisoarea minţii mele, au fost captive cândva şi ele.

Dar le-am eliberat pe toate încet şi din câţiva noi am rămas puţini şi apoi eu singur.

Inappropriate Proposal

Johnny-boy was an orphan who had only just met life. He had lost both his parents in what remained a mystery, for Johnny included, up until these days.

His adoptive mother, legal guardian and Johnny's closest relative, the widow Aunt Tessa, was not much of a relief for the boy's first encountered feelings in life: loss, sorrow, deprivation, abandonment... Through Tessies' (as Johnny remembered his mother calling her sister) supposed care, the boy knew not the world but dark and desert.

Soon, little John lost his memories of his parents, memories which he struggled to preserve, memories which Aunt Tessa was slowly but surely dissolving by calling the boy Jack and by hiding all the family portraits and photos. But Johnny couldn't live without her aunt as well as he couldn't live with her. His kind heart held no grudge against Aunt Tessa, nor his innocent eyes showed any hatred or even contempt for her and, at her funeral, Johnny cried as much as when his parents died.

But the good in Aunt Tessa, or what was left of it at the end of a petty life full of suffering, finally rose to the see the far sights and the warmth and brightness of the Sun's flaming arrows. In a hurriedly written testament, full of mistakes and several out-of-subject doodles on the sides of the newspaper on which it was written one night before her timely death (judging from the newspaper's date written in a minuscule font at the top of the front-page), Aunt Tessa left the still young boy in the guardianship of her late husband's furthest living relative, Professor Helga Busworth. Aunt Tessa and Helga were wretched, declared enemies since the death of Angus, Tessies' (he too used to call her Tessie) husband for who she dedicated her whole life and sadness after his tragic accident.

Helga, now an old hag herself (as Johnny remembered his aunt mentioning her one time) still thought children elemental knowledge, basic communication skills and, on all levels, manners - her own, personal obsession. Throughout her life, Helga remained unmarried and, eventually, unwanted. She knew not the pleasures of life, nor the joy of a child, nor the common feelings of women. Since Angus chose  Aunt Tessa over herself, Helga forbid herself any feelings of love or pleasure or anything similar, did not permit herself to fall for anyone and dedicated her whole existence to education, knowledge and discipline while, in the process, slowly but surely, consuming her youth and humanity, from the inside, becoming something less than a hardened volcanic rock.

But Johnny hadn't had the ears to hear Helga's stone heart resonating throughout her rocky-self. Johnny was glad to have someone who could really take interest in him, teaching him all the wonders of life. Johnny became fascinated with living, even though his attempts to get closer to Helga were repelled much like a flyswatter repelled flies. Helga showed no motherly love and she showed no guardian responsibility, something Johnny was used to. She did represent, however, a strict and extremely moral, professional and educational figure, something through which Johnny always pierced one way or another.

The day in which she was taken by surprised and acted almost unconsciously soon came and Johnny reacted as normal, as natural as possible. After a profound sigh that could shatter a soul into a billion shards, Helga addressed the walls, without paying attention to Johnny's curious eyes, his fixed look and his static head.

"I feel so lonely." she uttered.

Johnny did not answer. However, he felt something new, something unexplainable, something he, especially, could not explain to himself.. She carried on as if talking to someone and being lonely in an empty room at the same time.

"There comes a time when you feel like you need someone. There comes a time when there's nothing left but... nothing. Loneliness."

"What is loneliness?" Johnny dared in a low voice, as strongly as he could.

Helga spoke with a lot of pauses, with constant emphasis on key words and with an impeccable pronunciation. Although it was clearly a desolate statement that came from the depths of Helga's spiritual wounds, she maintained her calm speaking as neutral as ever.

"It is how you feel like when you cannot lean on either side..." Helga commenced as if dictating a definition and Johnny started jotting it down accordingly. "... it is a feeling of imbalance, of permanent decline. It is when you feel empty inside with nothing on the surface of this planet to fit within. It is..."

Helga stopped. Johnny finished curving the last letter and raised the tip of the pencil from the surface of his notebook. He looked up. Helga was still facing the walls in contemplation, as if she spoke alone up until then. She still seemed to not notice Johnny.

"... it is the time when you lack company. The proper company." she ended emphatically.

"I can keep you company, Professor. I can keep you proper company." Johnny cried with a most sincere and hollow voice.

His newly acquired smile and the glare in his eyes depicted a young boy who had singlehandedly solved the biggest problem humanity had ever faced. He had the look of a man who had all the solution ever required. Helga noticed the boy for the first time. She appeared to be struggling to smile but then quickly frowned at the sight of Johnny, the orphan, the abandoned boy who was so innocent that he couldn't even understand his own misery, torment and calvary. She stared the boy with compassion for a while.

"Oh, Johnny, dear. I do believe that is a most inappropriate thing to suggest to your teacher."

Johnny looked disappointed and he swiftly assumed his former obedient position and returned to his state that most were mistaking for stupidity - condition of innocence,discretion and poor understanding of the world and of life itself.

Just for a brief moment, for the shortest period of time that there ever was, the two hearts synchronized a heart beat.

What Was Left Behind

"Generations later, the fact that, down in the mud and dust beneath your metropolis, you can find abandoned frames and chassis from the city's founding traffic jam, will be impossible to believe—a run-of-the-mill urban legend. Archaeologists will argue over the best sites to excavate to find truck doors and ancient oil spills down there in the formerly mobile foundations of the city. " Geoff Manaugh, BLDGBLOG

Doi tineri într-o maşină

"Nici nu mai ştiu... nici nu îmi amintesc de ce suntem aici."

Ea îmi răspunde cu un râs amorţit. Mă uit la ea şi îmi zâmbeşte aceeaşi figură simpatică, atât de senină. Nu ştiu dacă mă ia-n serios sau nu. Încerc şi eu o figură simpatică dar îşi strâmbă nasul şi îşi mută privirea, semn că nu mi-a reuşit. Mă simt atât de singur doar stând lângă ea. Câteodată. Şi tot câteodată face ceva de la care nu-mi mai pot lua gândul niciodată.

"Mă bucur că suntem împreună..." mă vede că tresar şi adaugă repede "...aici, în seara asta. E chiar plăcut."

Inconştient, rămân tâmpit cu o privire între durere şi extaz. Adică nimic, încă o grimasă urâtă pe care, însă, nu se chinuie s-o bage-n seamă. Nu zic nimic, nu ştiu niciodată cum să răspund. Cum nici ea nu ştie. Protejat de tăcere şi împins de penibilul de a mă holba prin parbriz mă aplec şi apuc sticla de scotch. O văd că se uită la mine dar îmi îndrept atenţia către cer, (lucru care o distrage şi pe ea) care începe să urle şi să trosnească de parcă-ar vrea să scuipe o furtună tropicală. În câteva momente asta face şi profit şi încep să-mi desfac sticla cu dinţii ca să evit să folosesc mâna rănită. Cu mâna despre care vorbesc îndes acum trei pastile în gură, fiecare cu rostul lor, bine ştiut de farmacistă, şi înfund gâtul meu cu gâtul sticlei. N-are timp să reacţioneze. Mă las pe spate, ploaia mă calmează.

"Nu te înţeleg..." îmi spune şi pentru prima dată mi se pare că citesc ceva în tonul ei.

Asta mă animează şi, surprins, sau poate speriat să nu mă-nşel, răspund şi eu cu ce îmi vine-n minte: "Mă doare burta." încerc un fel de explicaţie. Nu o înghite şi pare că se supără dar, de fapt, se aşează şi ea comod şi trage aer în piept ca să îmi spună ce urmează:

"Nu înţeleg ce facem noi aici. De ce m-ai chemat, de ce păreai atât de fericit? Ce s-a-ntâmplat să-ţi omoare tot entuziasmul?"

Mă uit la ea şi pare tristă. Cumva, mă întristez şi eu. Mă muşc de buză în timp ce-mi amintesc şi eu entuziasmul meu şi planurile care mi se derulau în minte. Îmi amintesc ce noapte a fost în capul meu şi cât de bine ne-am simţit amândoi. Îmi dau seama cât de prost arăt şi cum o dau în bară mereu şi că ce-a fost a fost numai în gândul meu şi nu va fi nicicând la fel. Îmi pierd curajul şi, încă o dată, pierd tot.

Uite doi tineri care stau într-o maşină, gândindu-se fiecare la altceva, încercând să pătrundă unul în mintea celuilalt. Ploaia loveşte puternic parbrizul, să intre înăuntru şi să mă trezească. Pe ea n-o mai interesează nimic. Cu privirea pierdută şi cu mintea scursă, îmbibat cu alcool şi fără nici un fel de sentiment sau bucurie, bag mâna stângă în buzunar şi scot "biletul de urgenţă". Aşa l-am poreclit, sperând să mă salveze în situaţii ca acum. Îl deschid şi mă uit prin el. Ea are ochii ficşi şi îndreptaţi spre gream.

"Vreau să-ţi citesc o poezie. Am scris o poezie." încerc nesigur.

"Serios." îmi răspunde dezarmant, mai mult ca o afirmaţie decât ca o întrebare.

Mă uit la ea şi încearcă o privire înşelătoare. Mă las prostit şi continuu.

"Da. Am scris-o mai înainte, cât timp te aşteptam. E una din surprize, nu-i mare lucru..."

Îmi zâmbeşte şi îşi roteşte întreg corpul către mine. Mă activez, mă simt din nou urnit. Dau drumul la poveste fără o invitaţie formală şi fără să mai aştept vreun semn:

"În pădurea de nori,becul e stins şi uşa-i închisă./ Cu capul greoi şi cu gura deschisă mă sprijin de un perete rigid./ Când ai ceas dar minte nu orele curg diferit şi unde eşti ai fost şi-acum./ Un şir de gânduri mă inundă, încerc să prind, mă enervez şi le alung./ Iubesc, urăsc şi vreau să urc dar numai-n jos mai ştiu să cad./ Şi brusc îţi aminteşti de oameni din poveşti, începi să crezi că eşti Tarzan, că nimeni nu-i ca tine dar ştii că nu eşti bine - în locul fără uşă la intrare./ Cu cât urci mai mult cu atât cazi mai mult şi n-ai nimic de făcut când ştii că nu îţi va ieşi nimic./ Numai de jos mai poţi să te mai uiţi la cer şi cu curaj mai poţi să umpli ce e gol./ Ăsta-i blestem şi paradis, e şarpe, e măr şi e abis."

Inima începe să alerge şi să mă înţepe, ocazional, să ştiu că sunt în viaţă. Sunt slăbit dar mă uit cu întristare în dreapta mea. E locul gol şi nu e maşina mea. În spate, în penumbră, râsete cu răutate.

"Iarăşi bei singur."

"Beau când vreau!"

Ploaia se opreşte, curcubeul se uită trist la mine. E dimineaţa zilei în care ne întâlnim şi nu sunt sigur ce să-i spun. Că o iubesc sau că nu mai pot să o mai văd? Bătrânul drac îmi râde din spate şi printre dinţi îmi scuipă:

"Iarăşi ai visat-o?"

Dream Farer

I wake up. It's not my bed, though it seems familiar. I must have seen it in a dream...

Several steps down the stairs and I find myself in a decently sized lounge with a great opening towards the backyard. The neatly cropped lawn, the terrace view of the ocean, the violet curtains. It's all very spacious inside, all the white, all the right angles, everything carefully aligned. I'm sure nothing of this is mine though I've seen all this before.

Just as I try to makes something of the nonsense I'm trapped in, I sink even deeper. Placed against an empty wall, a wooden table with a typewriter on it. Maybe this place is mine, after-all? The stream of thoughts is rudely interrupted by a shout coming from outside:

"Good morning, honey!"

As I look in the direction of the high-pitched cry I'm blinded by the shiniest, brightest light. My unadapted eyes struggle against something I have never thought I'd see again: the Sun.

While the burning sensation clears, images start to form. First, they all appear in a hectic sporadic movement then, they start to settle. Outlines start appearing and I can make out some of the shapes. Out of the pitch black, the white spots begin to combine with colour and, as I get used to the powerful light, I can clearly see the blue sky separated by the horizon from the dark navy-blue ocean. In between, a canvas stands on an easel depicting a miniature image of what I'm beginning to see. The horizon merges with the horizon line represented on the canvas.

Just in front of the canvas stand a most-familiar silhouette. My heart starts pounding and just like a huge hedge hammer I plummet downwards and hit the ground with a loud

Buzz! I wake up. Again and again and again. And in my wakefulness I dream the same dream, over and over and over again. Was she not everything I desired or am I only now beginning to see?

I realise that I am forever doomed to live inside my mind though, in this world, I am numb and lonely. I somehow am trapped inside her own fantasy, an intruder forever to complete her ideal - independent of myself. But forever is a very short period and, sometimes, this span is too close to too short to ever mean something - just as she's no more than what I imagine her to be.

I am forever to be captive in a paradise of plenitude and happiness and never taste the sweetness of it, for though she represents the ideal in my projection of a relationship, I know now that I am just attracted by the idea of what she would mean. I live an artificial life - she is not my lover for this plastic world contains no love, she is not my friend for she has not the notion, she is not my muse for she has not the value.

She is not my ideal for I simply have none.

Awake again.

Escapism

"When there's nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire" Douglas Campbell

An artist dies. His wife shoots her brains out the kitchen window.

The ivy covering the façade leads a thin dense stream of blood all the way to the first floor.

Below, a red-haired girl stands against a hedge - her eyes filled with sorrow, the tip of her nipples piercing gently through her black sweat soaked sweater. Small pieces of brain fall upon her beautiful unsuspecting head.

Just across, a man wearing tight jeans and a black-leather jacket steps out of the bus at its last station and walks away even further. He is beyond lost - in his path, in his mind and in his heart. A nobody going towards the nowhere. 

The wavy blood stream makes its way onto the pavement, under and between the legs of the red-haired girl - reflecting her desperate look just for one moment - onto the streets, escaping through the person-hole, beneath the bus, into the sewage.

A couple of crawls on the elbows away, in the neighbouring building, close to the top floor but not quite at it, if you are to push open the old putrid wooden door - which, if you stand still and quiet enough, resonates the many crunching teeth of the many termites - you will reveal a house-full of moths. Inside it resides a man whose only joy in life is to keep his only two remaining corroded-teeth as clean as possible. His front teeth makes him look like a bunny rabbit, or even something more sinister - a sewage rat. Which would be of amusement since the tap water he is using for rinsing is of sewery-nature, now with a sour-sweet taste of blood.

Through the open window a moth escapes - one of its wings heavy and imbued with water from passing under the tap - and sits to rests its tiny lungs and fragile feet on the wool-shoulder of a young man standing on the edge of the roof, right above the hare-looking man.

Hanging in rags, counting bruises and cuts, a drunk whose only definition of life is the nasty part between drinking that starts and ends with a fine drink is positioned, within two inches of error, unknowingly, to save the young man's life. A nifty-bow, a careful lunge, a head-forth dive, inertia and then a combination of sounds: several cracks, a meat-hitting-meat sound, a meat-hitting-concrete sound and a suppressed shout.

A grog-soaked, salt-covered grand frigate sinks, the sloop built to keep afloat raises its sails once more. A young man learns that if something is impossible to reach, the most likely route towards it doesn't count as most likely anymore - in a world that is not yours or a you that is not of this world, despite the illusion, there is no  place to run to and no place to run from - you are trapped between what you could have and what you want, what you dislike and what you need to lose. 

Tulip

The glisten of the smooth, colorless, glass-like surface was the reflection of the Universe, with all its fading stars, taking care of the poor, powerless, frozen, dead tulip – for ‘twas Winter.

Spring came one day too soon, along with the castling of the Moon and Sun. The fiery rays melted the mortuary cast and engaged the stiff plant in a macabre corrugated dance to the ground, petting and stroking its seeds out.

Pete pe perete

Că şi atunci când stăteam toţi împreună şi-atunci stăteam despărţiţi, fiecare în câte un colţ al camerei şi, chiar dacă era o cameră octogonală, tot eu rămâneam singur, în mijlocul camerei, la o distanţă egală de oricare dintre ei.

Abia ne cunoşteam (de fapt, nu ne cunoşteam deloc) şi plecam în călătoria vieţilor noastre (mai mult a vieţii mele, ea ştia unde aveam să ajungem). Despre ea nu pot spune multe. Era şi-atunci, cum e şi-acum, cel mai nepotrivit personaj pentru o descriere. Nici un detaliu caracteristic, nimic special, nici măcar un miros - mai curând îmi aduc aminte mirosul peştelui prăjit pe care îl servea mătuşa în fiecare seară, mai puţin sâmbăta.

Îl servea ea şi sâmbăta dar aia era ziua în care curajul pe care îl adunam în timpul săptămânii îmi permitea să sar peste cina în familie, să sar şi peste restul meselor din timpul zilei şi să plec de-acasă. Cât timp respectam regulile nu mă puteau prinde vreodată. Nu luam pe nimeni din casă, tot timpul plecam singur când toată lumea dormea, nu plecam niciodată la aceeaşi oră şi mergeam tot timpul în locuri diferite. Sigur, mătuşa mă bătea când mă întorceam şi îi punea pe fraţii mei să mă bată toată săptămâna până când le spuneam unde plec sau până când "îmi ieşea plecatul din mine" cum spunea mătuşa. Până la sfârşitul săptămânii aflau şi unde am fost şi îi lăsam şi cu impresia că nu voi mai încerca să plec încă o dată. Ambele se schimbau în ziua dintre sâmbătă şi duminică.

Pe Jezabelle am cunoscut-o într-una dintre escapadele mele nocturne. Îmi amintesc şi-acum cât de fascinantă mi s-a părut luna. Se vedea printre vârfurile de brad şi lumina tot câmpul din faţa casei. Umbra brazilor prelungea pădurea până aproape de fereastra mea, o pădure neagră fără adângime, fără grosime, fără profunzime dar cu atâta substanţă, o fantezie aşa cum ar fi trebuit să mi se pară şi ideea de a pleca în noaptea aceea. Fireşte, nu mi s-a părut. Încă de la începutul nopţii am ştiut că ceva va fi diferit pentru că încă de la început am încălcat prima regulă. Nimeni nu dormea, era încă lună afară, lună de atâtea zile şi nimeni nu mai putea dormi dar nici nu mai putea sta trează. Sistemul de rotaţie creat de mătuşă pentru a mă împiedica să mai evadez eşuase şi fraţii mei se certau care în ce tură să fie. Să ies din casă fără să mă vadă nimeni a fost simplu, să merg pe vârfurile brazilor întunecaţi până la potecă a fost şi mai simplu, să mă decid în ce direcţie s-o iau mi-a fost cel mai greu.

Jezabelle devenea pe zi ce trece sora pe care nu o aveam. Nici acum nu-mi amintesc nimic, ce a fost, ce nu a fost. Eu şi ea aveam acelaşi scop şi pentru prima dată acelaşi drum. De multe ori mă întrebam dacă să mergem ţinându-ne de mână dar până şi în gândul meu ideea părea absurdă. Eu şi Jezabelle, Jezabelle şi eu, doi care n-au contat nici măcar pentru ei, dar petele de pe perte au rămas şi-acum.

M-au prins, cum să nu mă prindă. S-au prins şi ei că nu mai sunt şi au fugit pe urmele mele. Când m-au recuperat era prea târziu. Cum mă fascinase luna, aşa mă fascinase şi gândul ăla. Se vedea în ochii mei dacă ar fi avut ochi s-o vadă. Aveam să-ncalc a doua regulă şi poate asta era ultima pe care o mai puteam încălca. Voiam să mă întorc şi însăşi gândul îmi arăta că eu greşesc. De plecat nu mai puteam pelca. Părinţii veneau în fiecare duminică şi aia era singura zi în care uşa se descuia. Dar azi mama stătea liniştită şi nu mă mai supraveghea. Nici nu i se părea ciudat că îmi tăiam unghiile de dimineaţă, unghie cu unghie. Acum era aproape cina. Probabil că era fericită că nu-mi mai rodeam unghiile, obicei pe care îl dobândisem din noaptea aceea, obicei care ducea tot timpul la a-mi scoate cu dinţii unghiile din carne. Asta-i supăra tot timpul. Tata era acum plecat să cumpere hârtie igienică pentru că eu consumasem toate rolele. Tapetasem toţi pereţii cu hârtie igienică lipită din loc în loc cu pete circulare roşii de la picăturile de sânge de pe vârfurile degetelor. Pentru că, da, tăiatul unghiilor era doar o diversiune, un sunet care să-i sugereze mamei orice mai puţin faptul ca îmi smulgeam unghiile cu dinţii.

Am profitat de agitaţie ca să alerg pe vârfurile brazilor întunecaţi, pentru că era lună şi m-aştepta călătoria vieţii mele.

Diary of a Paranoid Skeptical Schizophrenic Manic-Depressive Sociopath

Yes, inspiration, such a great marvelous thing that fills you with a feeling of well being, which allows simple ideas to multiply into a more complex set of ideas and which brings creativity and wit into the equation. Of course, this is not the case here.

While documenting my past months, I figured that something is awfully wrong. Yet again, yes, but please bare with me as I try to formulate an idea whilst we go along. I often fantasize about being happy and, as often as that, I feel rather stupid and delusional. What are we if not beasts of burden, so lonely in essence, damned to carry a product of our own: joy and see it for more than it really is, just a joyful sound that three letters produce when spoken. When you finish repeating this sound loudly, please carry on reading. In desolation I sought happiness and I was led astray. Joy or happiness is something for which we constantly change meaning, thus it does not exist or it merely exists in the sense of the absence of sadness. What is joyful today can easily become sorrow tomorrow. What is happy tomorrow could have, just as easily, been sad yesterday. This concept is a measure of activity, something we produce and give meaning to, in our own subjective and temporary way, something that we need, something that we feed ourselves with and yet another plank in the picket fence that separates us from the beasts. Surely the donkey does not dress the clothes it carries and the ox doesn't eat the crops it helps plant. The opposite concept is a measure of a passive stance, thus is a measure of the essence of every human being.

I have agreed, a while ago, with the concept of life as a string. I simply added that the string is just the individual, subjective life which carries its course above and below perpendicular strings, parallel to other strings contributing to the braid: the objective, collective life - the universe. Before this, in the same line of thoughts, I have denied the existence of time as we perceived it and as we agree upon today, dismantling the concepts of past and future. Now the novelty - I came across this thought which incorporates both my previous statements as well as this change in perspective.

If each and everyone's string goes above and below perpendicular strings in order to create the braid, then I could deduce three things, each derived from the above one:

• Each string depends on the other strings, everything is interconnected.

• Each string is influenced by the relationship it develops with another string (a perpendicular string which goes above and below it).

• Each string is constantly respecting the above and below movement thus creating repetitive patterns which describe a sinusoidal shape.

• Time constantly repeats itself in a perpetual present, in a loop (already stated above and before, I tried to offer additional explanations).

The idea I wanted to reach and the idea I would like to insist on is, clearly, the third idea. I never liked the concepts of reincarnation or of life as a loop because it created certain paradoxes in my braid. For example, if a braid was to be in a loop, it could never evolve or constantly produce itself, thus demolishing the concept of the braid entirely. But looking more into the details of the braid, the basic element - the string - is, in its perfection, a loop. Considering the tip of the repetitive pattern in the sinusoidal shape as one point on this loop, the bottom of the same repetitive pattern would be the antipodal point. In other words, the repetitive pattern in the sinusoidal shape has the same tip and bottom every time making it easy to consider this repetitive pattern as an unfolded loop. But, just as a thought, - something else that bothered me while considering the ideas of reincarnation or looping life mentioned above - what is in the center of the loop? What is the loop filled with? Following another mathematical concept, between each two points there is an infinite number of points, thus making it impossible for the center of the loop to be empty. Why this vast emptiness, in larger quantities that the loop itself? I will not answer all these questions. Instead, you have the option to send your own thoughts below, whatever they are.

Having said that, what that this all mean? How have I reached this conclusion? I believe, based on what I have experienced until now, that in the course of a string we constantly evolve according to the connections we make and the relations we develop, but that we will always be variating between the tip and the bottom of the pattern. We will pass through numerous instances, we will acquire massive amounts of knowledge or understanding, we will modify our core and restructure our whole system of values and beliefs. We will constantly change only to fundamentally fluctuate between the same two constants: the tip and the bottom of the pattern only to finally close the loop and start all over again. You will, at some point (tip), return to something that you have believed in, to someone that you have loved, to something that you have cared about, to a tune that you have danced on, to a movie that you have enjoyed watching to one of these or all of these that, at another point (bottom), you will find useless, futile, worthless or simply forget about them.

However, I still cannot end this any other way than the way it will eventually end. I realized that no matter how much you have acquired, no matter how much you have learned and gathered, once you return to that thing of yours or, more importantly, to that someone you have always kept closest, you will come across a situation that you could solve as a different person, but the way of things inherits your past weaknesses or mistakes that stopped you in the first place to complete you wishes or desires.

Dependency

I am waiting, for some time now, for something new to write
But, lately, I can't really get anything right.
Words go as they come and I wish I could go too
At least as far as I can possibly be away from you.

But the way the future looks these days,
We're with one step ahead of us while our whole body stays.

Odeur

This is a true story, something that really happenend to me. Now, women might want to lock their children, hide their pets and look away.
So, I was in the bus, right? Going towards the same place I go to every day, following the same route, my nose in between the pages of a book and other's noses in my business. The first thing you are going to notice in a bus is dirty noses from all the nosing in between other's ass cheeks. That's why I always keep a book or a sudoku magazine or even a notebook quite close to my nose. However, today, the two seats on each of my sides were empty. I was sitting there, isolated like a bomb waiting to be detonated. Nothing could go wrong with so many noses at such a distance, right? Wrong! Where have you read a story without conflict?
Bus stops. Open doors. Enter lady, mild aged. Unpleasent feeling. She asks me if the seat next to me is free, as if it wasn't obvious enough - I know now that the Universe was giving me the opportunity to change my fate, to shout: "NO!". I had a similar idea then but the confusion of not knowing which of the two seats she was referring to acted as a gag.
I returned to my undisturbed state of perfect calm and taoist inertia. People started gathering in a chicken-like fashion, with their eyes like those of pigeons - looking sideways, moving their heads in short bursts of agitated ample movements. The other seat was now occupied also. My claustophobia started pumping more blood in less time, filling the capillaries in the nose and increasing my respiration. And then the smell. The smell of cheap cologne combined with a few drops of perspiration that brought back memories that I was striving to unmemorize.
I was trapped in a death chamber. I knew then and there that, somehow, life was slowly but surely ending. I soon begged the Universe from all my heart for a quick death. It chose to ignore me. The agony lasted until I recovered my lucidity that had to make a detour because of the initial shock. I figured then that soon I would get used to that smell but, somehow, I didn't want to - I didn't want to embrace all those horrible memories that were trying to pierce my cranium. Instead, I challenged my mind to block the perfume but it was futile. I even tried to stop breathing but when I started feeling dizzy, I took a mouthful of air, perfume infested air, intoxicating me further and deepening my dizziness. That only intensified my suffering as I was now feeling every particle of it and I made a quick promise of not trying stupid ideas anymore.
I was now caged in the final stages of my detonation and I really felt like I was ready to blow. I challenged my mind again. I was now trying, with my remaining energy, to change that smell into a more pleasurable one. I provoked my imagination and I filled my mind with happy memories and happy thoughts. Pleasant ones. To no avail. The smell caused them to wither and burn like a flaming filmstrip or a polaroid on fire. Coincidently, that ignited the fuse and the bomb was seconds to explosion, despite my desperation.
My last attempt failed and the bomb went off. Last night's beans and beer were of great use now and, in no time, I was isolated again. The smell was replaced by a far better one and, relieved, I smiled.

Cuisine

Something that I said I'll never be, I'm slowly becoming. I was half way to a white empty plate when I realized it. Instinctively my eyes raised and stopped on where she sat, an empty seat now, next to a burning cigarette consuming itself in the ash tray on the table, the ignited tip far from the brown-yellowish end. I was reading but I stopped to concentrate in forming a dull and surprised-looking expression thinking of how I wanted her to see me when she would come, even though that moment would not arrive soon. I think she only mentioned it once, she didin't brag about it, she never felt superior or even different, for that matter, in any way, she wasn't trying to convince me or others of her belief. I don't really know how I came across the thought and feeling that something is missing, that something might be wrong or... not right, or different in any way but it hit me right there and then like the Sun temporarily blinds the caveman when he emerges from his cave. I looked again, just to be sure - you know - but reality was not to be altered, no matter how I was handling it. Somehow, it seemed pretty obvious, easy to explain. She was a vegetarian and, since she was cooking for me, she was not serving any meat. But the mere fact that she said nothing about it, that she would do it mellow - but not in a secretive fashion - made my discovery so much more interesting and surprising. The scary part was how I never noticed these simple facts until now, how she knew this and how she took pleasure abusing it. As unconscious as I was eating anything, I was unconsciously being turned to eat only some things.

The Tail I Couldn’t Dye Without Telling

I had received it four years ahead of the time I was supposed to receive it. They told me a lot of things, most of which my short termed memory could not satisfy me with, for now. As they were telling me everything they seemed to be instructed to tell me, I was staring them blankly, unmoved by Granpapa’s occasional spit, nor the often censorship from Aunt Pansy imposed on certain aspects of his storytelling nor the horrible things that they were actually trying to relate. In spite of my father’s wet-melted-wax-like face and my mother’s tears-eroded-canyons-like face I stood still, thinking of only one thing. All four looked very disappointed when I started smiling, becoming shades and outlines of the pale colors of their thick woolen clothes. Granpapa cried a distorted and flat sound followed by a strange alignment of his eyebrows in a way that his astonishment could easily control, but his aged muscles couldn’t anymore. He disappeared in the dark hole that was the bathroom entrance, enclosing himself behind the shut metal door. My mother started crying again and was led out of the small dark and dank kitchen that always had the curious smell of dirty-perspiration-soaked-socks-boiled-in-soup. It was me, my Aunt Pansy and her sadistic look upon her ugly face that brought back so many childhood memories that my mind was struggling to block. And there it was, creating shades of grey in the black kitchen. My big smile had an aura that shone. For a moment I forgot I was cold and shivering, even if my sweater was itching most horribly, irritating my sensible white skin. Aunt Pansy said something, but I can’t remember what right now. I only know that I asked her if it was really true. I think that my prolonged smile started to become a sinister grin because it reflected in Aunt Pansy’s witch-like nose which erected the solitary hair in its tip. That was all she permitted to show of her dread. I know now that she feared me. I asked her once again, almost angry, I even demanded her, taking profit of her unnoticeable moment of sensibility. It was only when my parents flung inside and snatched me, dragging me out of the frozen darkness that my Aunt Pansy stopped them, uttering the expected words: “He must have it. That’s what he would have wanted. It’s his now.”. Right there and then, I had forgiven all of Aunt Pansy’s abuses and tortures.

I hold the grey tail which belonged to my grandfather. I am on my balcony, trying to finish the bottle of brandy, though the heavy morning is pushing my shoulders like Atlas’ burden. I am trying to remember why I wanted this tail so much, why I dedicated my whole petty life and existence to it. I remember when my parents used to send me to my grandfather in the stifling hot summers and I used to sit there, doing absolutely nothing all day, in a small claustrophobic room that permitted no light, nor heat. I could choose, of course, each summer, to go either to the proprietor of the ant sized room or to Granpapa. The latter was a declared enemy of the former and, according to his philosophy; he was keeping his friend far away and his non-friends even further. In a way, my grandfather was the only family I had. I think I do remember how I came across the tail. But I could never say it now. What I need to say, what I need to let out, is that today I decided to dye it. I know you might not understand why I am doing it or why it is so hard to do it that I must empty a brandy bottle before. I am still not fully decided myself, but I know that I couldn’t do it alone. That’s why you are here. That’s your part. You are the impartial judge, the neutral witness, the uninvolved sideshow character. You are here because I needed you to know that I want to dye this tail, because it is the tail I couldn’t dye without telling.

The Strange Face of Love

This is the world and myself as I see them today. This two lines I wrote after I finished everything that you will henceforth read and, even now, I feel that I wrote nothing or an incomplete something.

I once felt an unexplicable power, the power to do things my own way. I once felt that the human capacity is only 1/6th of my capacity. I simply felt that I could do anything just by thinking of it, and for a time, everything went well for me.
The first time things started moving another direction I noticed while writing. There was no substance in what I wrote, no inspiration, no easy fluence. That is when I began to be ripped into small pieces and left out into the nothingness of the New Universe. Had I not seen everything? Could I have not been able to forsee everything? I now have the certainty that I was never right, but neither was I ever wrong.
So what happened then? What happened that shook my whole existance and meaning in a matter of days? I could not tell then, and I can't be sure now, but I've seen love doing devastating things. I've seen love destory people to the core. I've seen love infiltrate under the skin and eat everything inside, leaving just a hollow shape behind. You could really see these people, shadows, outlines without filling. Simply talking to them would pull your heart out. It's only when love starts feeling like true pain and it starts hurting like nothing before, it starts hurting being awake, that's when you know and you start realizing, and that's the one moment too late. Nor sleep nor alcohol will help you now, though they might ease you pain. For love is a flame and, like any other burning thing, it fucking hurts.
Not aware of any of these, I continued my life of self-reliability. And for a time, it worked. When love starts to infect you, you first start feeling small holes inside which must be filled. Filling them is the real challenge, something that could change you forever, as I now realize. Some choose to fill them with hate, some choose to fill them with plastic love, a self-induced love which, in retrospective, is as insignifiant as an ant in the Milky Way. I started filling them with happy moments - this is the worse thing you could do when you get infected. Just a higher scale from which you would have to sometime fall.
And that's what I did. I climbed, higher and higher, trying to escape, trying to reach everything I lost, thinking that, somehow, I fell below them. The truth is, as I can now state, unblinded by that foolishness, is that they are somewhere behind, trapped in time, in a place of no return. Trying to go back would only create a paradox. You can go back to a time in which you were someone, only to get there as someone else. I don't know if you understand.
The real mistake I've done is run away. Run away from my feelings, try to somehow hide them, burry them away. This ultimately rendered me as less of a human, with only the idea of living, a simulation of existance. Never has it been so hard to cry, though so necessary. Repulsion comes during the introspection, and from so much hate and disgust, I start neglecting my own self. That's how the altruist was born. I died so many times that I can barely call myself alive. I'm just a walking absence.
In the clarity of things, I was permited to see all this. By embracing my sickness, I started contemplating not upon a cure, but upon a symbiotic way of living. Love is permited in my life, but I give it minimum interest. I find this... well for me.
So why this, I now ask myself? I don't believe that everything has a reason, nor that everything has a meaning. I don't even believe that all the lines will meet in one or more points. But at least one of the many things that turned me into the less of a human-less of a monster I am today must point towards something. I tried with creation. Maybe this state in which I am will help me write or draw. I will let you judge that, I remain skeptic. If it's not this, then maybe this state is not made for the present, but for the future. I tried with past, it only helped me get this far. So what about the future?
We were shown to be mistaken considering time and space as a simple liniar string. I agree. I think that everyone is defined by his own individuality, thus everyone has his own time and space. The whole world, the Universe is as big as each and everyone's world is. Well, maybe not the Universe. So I thought of a braid. Everyone has his own string. Everyone crochets his own way, until they meet with another string. This is how braids are made. Try to pull one string out and the whole fabric rips apart. That is why I will clearly state that retrospective can be done only passive, inactively, without trying to change the past or the way in which you've done things but merely work with what you have inhereted from you past self, as agreed upon earlier, a totally different person. In the same time, future has the same certainty as something that has not yet been knitted. You can only imagine the design, the colors, the material, but never the end result. It all depends on the other strings.
Following this idea, giving up the idea of the birth of a genius creator, giving up the idea of travelling backwards in time, or forward into the future, giving up the idea that there even is something as past and future, I started chasing my own tail. I'm a spinning elipsoid motherfucker in a world of strings.That can't be right. But until now, until I learn something else, until my disease is cured (in this writer's opinion, hopes of a cure are naive and quite dangerous) I will continue pursuing something that is not there. I will not be running away, but I will be running around. I will be doing this alone or, to a certain extent, with whoever wants to run around. This question will still remain: Why have I become what I am today?(not the reason but for what reason)
But I am as sure as the devil's tail that I will be doing everything in this great shadow that love is.

Mişcarea

Zgomotul era redat strident, pe o scară ascendentă, o scară a sunetului, disociată după un anumit nivel. Un marcaj discret. Zgomotul era imperturbabil pentru că nici o sursă nu putea genera un astfel de sunet, un sunet trecut de mult de nivelul bunului simţ, transformat într-un zgomot strident ce definea adevărata natură a unui nucleu cultural care găzduia o multitudine de termeni şi cunoştinţe altfel ascunse pentru cei mai mulţi din afară.

Şi apoi... linişte. Atât de improbabilă, nerelevantă, chiar... nesemnificativă. Produsul unor legături strânse, deşi cu sinapse subţiri, gata să fie rupte la primul semn. Rezultatul unui zgomot strident al cărei sursă o reprezintă forfota şi mişcarea haotică a particulelor elementare ce compuneau întregul.

Fântâna

O casă departe de casă. Un loc etern al purificării, refugiul celor însetaţi de viaţă. Un loc al amintirilor, veşnic emanând fericire. Un elogiu pentru cei pierduţi de drum, uitaţi de vreme, îndrumaţi prost de trecut. Timpul se pierde, căldura se adună şi dintr-un cocon răsare-un nou început. Te cheamă şi, dacă ajungi, uiţi de tine şi de toţi cei din jurul tău. Egoismul pune stăpânire pe tine şi te poartă într-un lin dans al norilor, către ceruri, şoptindu-ţi calm într-o ureche... devii nihilist. Tot ce poţi vedea eşti tu... devii narcisist. Şi dacă asta se va întâmpla, însăşi pietrele din care-i este alcătuită fundaţia se vor ridica să te doboare şi însăşi apa-n care te vei pierde se va strădui să te atragă într-un puţ adânc - abisul - pe un lung drum care nu are mijloc şi sfârşitul nu i-a fost încă atins. Pe drumul care-ţi înşiruie, într-o lungă rânduire de secvenţe, viaţa. Un drum departe de orice drum, departe de casă.

Dialog Between Two Skeletons

"Comédie Noire/Noir" the section that puts "fun" back into "funeral" and "laughter" back into "slaughter". Some sketches coming up. Till then, a dialog between two skeletons.

Good mourning, neighbour!

Good mourning, yourself!

You sure look good after a moon-less day slept in a velvet coffin.

Well, the moon might shine brighter for you too, today. I hear you are getting your feet replaced.

Yeah, they found some old ones, barely used, by the unnamed graves in the southern area. They figured that someone who used to be in a wheel chair couldn't get used to them. Where to?

I'm going to the market, catch a bit of a laugh with the fish-bone traders. Humor seems to be the only thing keeping this place alive.

Some of my relatives are selling tattered pieces of cloth at the market. One of my old... eh, previous friends, digged in today. He used to be a tailor so I promised him a visit to the market, maybe he can fancy some clothes. Would you be interested?

Not really. Why should we cover our inhumanity with human means?

We are humans! At least, we used to be. What have you been up to?

Stupid travel agents. Don't you just hate them?

Have they been bugging you again?

Are you kiddin' me? They are non-stop in front of my tomb. One cannot rest his bones peacefully?

What did they want now?

Well, they found out that I just got my afterlife credit card upgraded to golden status. They keep bombarding me with they're imperious offers: "Haven't you spent enough time here already?", "Wouldn't you like to ascend to a higher plane?", "Don't you think that all of your spine problems will go away when you become an astral spirit?"

Your spine does look ugly...

That is not of the matter right now.

Your ten stories fall was quite brutal to your spine...

Are you even listening?

Of course I am! You were talking about your spine.

No, you were talking about my spine, I was talking about the darned... nevermind.

Look, I can really relate to your disagreement with those pesky travel agents, but you must admit they are right! You, of all, really deserve a place in the beyond realm! Hell, you can even afford the top traveling means with your golden card. Why do you stay here?

Hell doesn't exist. There's just this place, and the next one, and the next one and the next one... that's why I'm not interested in paying any of those travel agents. I lived for 99 years and 45 days on Earth. And I could have gotten one hundred if it weren't for that disease-carrying birds. Somehow, we got to this... land of the dead and I've worked just as hard as in the previous life to build a respectful and decent life. For once, I am given the option to stay - I'm not going to blow this one.

Well, I don't have the option. I am bound to this world. You can't even hurt yourself here. But I can't say I'm not thinking about the astral plane.

That's exactly what I'm telling you! You used to be flesh, skin and bones. You used to have feelings! Now you're just bones, left without any physical feelings. Don't you think that the "next life" will leave you worse than you've ever been? And the so called "astral plane" isn't just another "heaven" and "hell" that the fanatics have served us all those previous years? You should be happy to be here. You should be happy to have finally reached a balance.

When have you stopped fighting? What happened to the man who had a dream to ascend. To transcend? What scared you, man? In twenty years of residing here I have never seen a man with a golden afterlife, with the unstained life and brilliant mind that you posses.

The sadness. The heavy sadness of the previous life and the deep sadness of this life. I'm scared to even try another life. Scared by the horrible sorrow of a next life.

That Man Who Had No Tale To Tell, Just a Broken Heart

The first day, my gums started bleeding,
My doctor sent me to the dentist,
The dentist said I'm fine.
The second day, my eyes were red,
My doctor sent me to the eye doctor,
The eye doctor said I'm fine.
The third day, my nose was bleeding,
My doctor sent me to the nose doctor,
The nose doctor said I'm fine.
Today my heart stopped beating and I started spitting blood.
I went to my doctor,
My doctor removed my heart and dried my veins.
He held one half of it, the other on the table.
I couldn't cry or feel sorry for myself; he was trying not to.
The nurse passed out, he wouldn't move his eye.
Finally, I asked, and
My doctor said I'm fine.