Nocturne

The gloomy melody was coming out of the old piano as those long fingers, almost as pale as the ivory keys, stroke them with bold lust, sometimes slowly, others energetically.

He played with the same sensuality that he strategically used on skin contact: careful, light, slow and precise, as opposed to the vigour of those big, strong hands.

The music score was all scribbled in an attempt to always perfect the work that would never be finished. Was that really perfectionism, laziness or a not-so-disguised narcissism?

How sad had the autumn become before a bleak, desolate winter was unexpectedly announced.

- Will you be back?

- One day.

- When? How?

- You'll know.

- Will I?

- Surely. Why not?

He tried to grin, but his smile was always so sad. How come he'd never smiled completely, with his eyes, his mouth, his whole face? Those eyes didn't even have proper wrinkles. Had he never really smiled? Had he never been truly happy?

That seemed more than a simple 'see you soon' or 'until one day'…

- Will you be happy?

- I will.

A strange uneasiness in my heart. I wanted so much to hug that much-desired body again. I gave in to the internal conflict, which ran between right and wrong; between will, need, and longing, against what seemed ridiculous and coherent.

‘Damn the conflict. Who cares? It's now or never again!’

- Can I give you a hug?

- Sure.

How sad this hug, this anguish, that moment was... I wished I could hate him. But I couldn't.

How could someone hate those that were so much loved?

I let myself go free from that embrace. My eyes were moist. It was always so damn hard to let go.

- Don’t cry.

- No. I won't cry. I never cry, as you know.

He laughed.

- Yeah, right.

He looked at me for the last time with that sad, distant look; almost indecipherable; almost insurmountable and that was all about his decision to leave, so abruptly.

And then we parted and he departed. All those parts and pieces were all partly broken and parted, when he departed like he did. I felt like all parts of my soul were shattered and scattered around me.   

Only his song was left. Out of time. Out of tune and out of rhythm. Just like my heart…

The many notes were all left loose all over the aged and ripped-up music score so worn out by the use of those long pale fingers, which were tired of rewriting them, over and over, so many times and without being able to finish the piece, for once and for all.

There were also those words, handwritten one after the other, without metric and without rhymes in an impulsive and poor construction. A mixture of vowels and consonants, arranged to make some sense, on the yellowed paper sheets and fading, in time… in the eyes of memory…

A nostalgic, downhearted and unfinished Nocturne, left untouched on the old and now muted piano, at a strategic point in the living room.

That melancholic music still seemed to fully flood the empty spaces.

The emptiness, as a consequence, was overflowing all those blank spaces, once so full of life in my body and soul.

In my life there was only the glum, unfinished melody, still vibrating in the corners of the ambience and memory, like that pseudo-relationship, which had been suspended in an 'until now' expectation… infinitely…

***

Noturno

Tão melancólica melodia, que vinha daqueles dedos longos e quase tão pálidos quanto o marfim das teclas, a acariciá-las com atrevida lascívia, ora lenta, outra energicamente.

Tocava, levemente, o velho piano, com a mesma sensualidade que usava, estrategicamente, no contacto com a pele: cuidadoso, leve, lento e preciso, em oposição ao vigor daquelas mãos grandes e fortes.

A partitura estava toda rabiscada, na tentativa de aperfeiçoar, sempre, a obra inacabada. Aquilo era perfeccionismo, preguiça ou um não-tão-disfarçado narcisismo?

Quão triste havia-se tornado o outono, antes de ser anunciado um desolado e sombrio inverno.

- Voltas?

- Um dia.

- Quando? Como?

- Tu saberás.

- Mesmo?

- Claro.

Tentou sorrir. Aquele sorriso, sempre tão triste. Por que razão ele nunca sorria por inteiro, com os olhos, a boca, a face toda? Aqueles olhos, nem rugas tinham. Será que nunca sorrira, de verdade? Será que nunca fora feliz, realmente?

Pareceu-lhe mais que um simples ‘até já’… ‘até um dia’…

- Vais feliz?

- Vou.

Um aperto no coração. Queria tanto abraçar, de novo, aquele corpo tão desejado. Cedeu ao conflito interno, que discorria entre o certo e o errado; entre a vontade, a necessidade e o anseio, contra o que parecia ser ridículo e a coerência.

‘Que se dane o conflito. É agora ou nunca mais!’

- Posso dar-te um abraço?

- Claro.

Que triste este abraço, esta angústia, este momento… Quisera poder odiar. Mas já não conseguia. 

Como odiar a quem se ama tanto?

Desvencilhou-se. Tinha os olhos húmidos. Era sempre tão difícil.

- Não chores.

- Não. Não vou chorar. Eu nunca choro, como sabes.

Riu.

- Claro, claro.

Olhou, pela derradeira vez, com aquele olhar triste e distante; quase indecifrável; quase intransponível e prestes a ausentar-se, assim, tão abruptamente.

E, então, partiu. Partiu a cara. Partiu o coração. Partiu a louça toda. Até, mesmo, a partitura, que já era uma parte toda partida, na partida, ficou partida.

Só restou a canção. Fora do tempo. Fora do ritmo.

Ficaram as notas, todas soltas, numa pauta envelhecida e carcomida pelo uso e pelos dedos cansados de reescrevê-las, tantas vezes, sem conseguir finalizar a obra, de uma vez por todas.

Ficaram, também, aquelas palavras, dispostas uma atrás da outra, sem métrica e sem rimas. Um repente mal construído. Uma mistura de letras, dispostas nas folhas amareladas, desbotando, ao tempo… nos olhos da memória…

Um nostálgico, melancólico e inacabado Nocturno, deixado, intocado, sobre o antigo e, agora, emudecido piano, num ponto estratégico da sala.

Na sala de estar, aquele som melancólico ainda parecia preencher os espaços vazios.

No corpo, o vazio ficou preenchendo todos espaços, antes tão cheios de vida.

Na vida, ficava, apenas, a taciturna melodia, inacabada, a vibrar nos cantos do ambiente e da memória, como aquele pseudorelacionamento, que ficou suspenso num ‘até já’… infinitamente…

***

No Day Like Today (A Pact. Impact)

- You shouldn't have gone out in this weather!

He laughed. He expected a less rational welcome, but someone had to keep both feet firmly on the floor.

- Well, I thought that…

- It's really awful! It doesn't stop raining!

- Only out there. Not in here, no. Or maybe it does… But I like the rain… you know…

This time he didn't smile.

- Has anything happened?

- Not yet!

- What do you mean?

***

The room was still dark. It was hard, almost painful, to open the eyes. The blinds were lowered to the floor level. Getting up and reaching the switch was an extra effort, almost not achievable. The sound of the engine slowly moving the thin blades up and allowing light to enter the room, seemed louder than usual. Sunlight getting in felt like thorns piercing the eyes.

Had they had too much wine? That uncomfortable sore head was not welcome at all. It seemed like spinning around amongst those not so clear thoughts and memories that came and went, in and out, in and out.

That secret knocking code at the door. The heart beating fast under the promise of a secret loving. Secret lovers, sharing love-making like the last living lovers on the planet and creating inexorable new memories, never to be shared with anyone else.

How unfair and how unavoidable. How sad and, at the same time, how indescribably pleasurable and satisfying.

Looking around it was noticeable that the bed was totally untidy. Unwelcome small red spots still stained the white fabric. All that mess should be fixed right away.

The sheets were immediately tore off the bed and placed into the laundry basket without much thinking.

That bed should always be seen spotless and with clean sheets. It would look great with those white linen with hand-painted red poppies.

***

Seagulls. He envied those birds. He liked the ones with white bodies and huge grey wings with black tips. They were really frightening at times when they brushed over his already so tormented head. All those strange ideas kept tantalising his mind.

Maybe he would be like the birds, one day soon, when… He tried to divert the thought…

‘Not yet… but soon’…

The sky, full of heavy grey clouds, anticipated a storm. Another tempest. None as big as the one that had unleashed inside him, however. He hoped, even without much conviction, that that time it would be easier.

The iodine scent of the sea filled his nostrils with life and memories. He felt the wind blow harder against his body. There was little left… and yet so much…

***

- Promise you’ll understand?

- No. I'll never understand.

- Do you remember that stormy night?

- Remember what about it?

- Can you recall that night?

- Recall what, for heaven’s sake?

- Everything. The pact.

- That damn wine! We were so drunk. It was such a crazy thing!

- It wasn't... or maybe it was, but... it was a pact... of blood...

- You're not going to take this forward, are you?

He looked into that beloved face, now showing great concern, and considered whether to tell more than the known truth. He couldn't keep his gaze steady. He looked down, as if turning inward once again, after so many other times in those last days.

- I will… eventually…

***

The seagulls. So white and so loose, soaring, with their huge wings, supported by the wind that blew against their bodies and against the cliff, celebrated, in their own way, their freedom to fly.

He opened his arms. He felt lighter, like never before. The sea below roared like a huge dragon… patient but merciless.

Thunder echoed in the distance. The thunderstorm was coming closer… but it did not matter anymore.

***

From the window of a particular spot in the city, two tired eyes watched a lightning strike across the sky, followed by the inevitable thunder.

Those same eyes stared at the small scar left on the wrist by the short, sharp blade of a pocket knife, which appeared almost playfully in the man’s trembling hand, that night of heavy rain, like the one that was approaching quickly.

A shiver went up the spine when the pact came to mind...

‘How stupid!’

That should have never been agreed to and now there was that discomfort making its home in the worried mind.

It was a cruelty not knowing the exact day, not being able to help, not being able to interfere. But a pact is always a pact. The feeling that something horrible was about to happen was even more gruesome than anything else. The mind was still processing the fact and the heart was already reacting to it.

One more lightning bolt. That one fell very close, by the sound of the thunder that followed almost immediately.

***

‘Be bold now. It can't be that hard’…

He took a step forward… and another… until the ground dissolved into ether and his body was diving down in the open air.

And he savoured the victory. That war was finally over, before the damn illness would make him invalid for good.

He would have hated being a dead weight on anyone’s shoulders.

There would be no other day like that.

***