Not there

   A small crab ran across the beach, fighting the powerful gust of wind that was sweeping the area. It moved fast and then burrowed himself into the sand, disappearing in a matter of seconds. There was another creature in the beach. A young woman, dressed in plastic boots and a coat that resembled the capes that superheroes used in comic books and movies. It was red and the boots two. Not like the crab, she just stood in one place and looked at the ocean and how the waves were becoming bigger and bigger, how they appeared to be alive. The water and foam came closer and closer to her feet but she did not move. She seemed out of herself, in a way.

 Finally a wave crashed violently against the beach and reached her knees. She seemed to have woken up from a dream, only cleaning her legs with her hands and turning around, walking up the natural hill that had formed because of erosion and went back home, not far from the sound of the ocean. The sky was becoming darker, both because of the time of day but also because of the storm that was brewing in the ocean. The woman walked slowly towards her house, soon joined by a beautiful Labrador dog that was of her property. The dog’s name was Chance. Hers was Amelia.

 She entered the house through the back door that led to the kitchen. She took off her coat and boots and left them in a small cabinet she used for such purposes. Walking in socks, she grabbed a beer from the fridge and petted Chance who followed her everywhere. She crossed the house towards the living room, where she lay down in a sofa, drinking her beer and letting the dog sleep by her feet. But the women wasn’t calm, she was apparently trying the drink the content of the bottle in one gulp and even some of the beer slid down her chin and neck. She cleaned it with her sleeve.

 The main door, a room away, opened to reveal her husband coming in. They had been married for about a year and had come to this house, owned by Amelia’s father, to get away from everyone else. Their anniversary was the next day and they didn’t want to have to share that day with anyone else. Or at least that was the original reason they had for coming to that windy beach. He went straight to the kitchen, left some bags there and organized its contents, and only after finishing he sat down on an armchair across Amelia.

- Isn’t it a bit early?

  Her only answer was to burp with no shame or limit. She had finished her beer so she left the bottle by the sofa and looked at her husband, her eyes sad as they could be. He looked at her too and they wrestled with their eyesight for almost a whole minute, until Amelia asked her husband Matt to come to her in the sofa and he refused. She heard her footsteps going up, to the bedroom. She decided to follow, seeing night had already fallen.

 When she entered the room, he was taking off his shoes and putting some slippers. He always complained about some of the shoes he had brought recently, because they all made his feet hurt a lot. He had just being out in the supermarket for a couple of hours and he felt blood pumping through his feet. Amelia sat down by him on the bed and took his hand. She squeezed and he squeezed back but they didn’t look at each other. They just sat there in silence, only illuminated by the very week light of a nightstand lamp.

 The moment was broken by a thunder in the distance. They had not seen the lighting so maybe the storm was out in the ocean but they knew the night was going to be long. Matt looked at Amelia and proposed to her to go down to the kitchen and make some dinner. She tried to smiled but couldn’t; only nodding and releasing his hand from her grip. She walked down first, arriving at the kitchen where Chance was smelling his plate. She had forgotten to feed him and proceed to pour some of his food into it before Matt saw her. But Chance had to eat earlier.

- You always forget. Is like you don’t care about him

- I do.

- Really?

 Matt had that quality that some people have to make you feel, with simple words, like a bug squashed against a wall. Of course she loved the dog but she had been thinking all the day long, going away to the beach   and the dog didn’t like the beach, possibly because it was very humid or because of the crabs. Maybe if the dog had come with her to the beach, she wouldn’t have forgotten to feed him. But it was too late for that now and the dog was eating already.

 Her husband gave her some vegetables to cut into dices as he marinated some shrimps and cut some slices of eggplant. He had always loved to cook and invent new recipes. It drove him away from everything in the world; he became the only person alive with all the ingredients, focusing only on how good it had to look and how nice it had to taste to any palate. The recipe they were doing had been created by him, several years ago.

 Amelia cooked the vegetables with a bit of oil and butter. They had to be nice and crunchy. The shrimps were cooked in a pan with olive oil, salt and pepper and also some paprika. Amelia looked at him, almost smiling to the prawns, so much happier than ever before. She loves to see him smile but it wasn’t often that she saw that these days. Then again, she didn’t smile herself too often either. He proceeded to fry the eggplants after submerging them in water. The smell was all around the house.

 In each plate, Matt served two big slices of eggplant topped with shrimp and vegetables. He poured some olive oil to give it a nice look and asked Amelia to take it to the table. He took out a bottle of wine from a special fridge he had bought and joined his wife at the dining table. It was a small space, the table only for four. They sat one across he other and sat in silence. Matt poured wine into two cups that had been set up by her and they just started eating in silence. It was really good and Chance had followed them to see if they would give him at least a bite of what they had cooked.

 But each one of them was too distracted to notice him, panting included. Amelia wanted to tell her husband how nice it all was but something in her throat didn’t let her. It was as if she had a knot there that wouldn’t let her talk her mind. It wasn’t that she feared her husband or anything like that. She loved him deeply but she knew she was know miles away from him and had been like that since her mother had advised them to come out here and get away from all the eyes and the ears.

 He was distracted too, cutting his eggplant and then sipping some wine and then looking out the window to the storm. From that room, during the day, you could see the horizon and part of the ocean. If there had been light, he would have seen the darkness of the tempest and the violence of the waves in the sea. But now he could only guess all of that by the lights of the thunder and the resounding sound of storm, that seemed like a monster rising from the water and howling, trying to caution every other living creature from getting near him.

- It’s good.

 Amelia had finally said it and as she did, she knew she had committed a mistake. Her voice broke off and couldn’t speak anymore and he looked at her for a moment and just stood up, walking towards the living room. She followed him, thinking for a second he was leaving. She grabbed him by the arm and he pulled her apart, almost in disgust. Her eyes were filled with tears. It was then he said, he finally said what she had dreaded for some time: “You killed her”.

 The only thing Amelia could do, out of rage and despair, was to grab the bottle of beer she had left there earlier and throw it towards him. He dodged it just in time so the bottle crossed the room and smashed against the window, which broke into thousands of big and small pieces. She was breathing heavily and he seemed scared. She finally shed a single tear and said: “Never. I could have never”. The wind entering from outside froze them, leaving them like statues in the middle of the house, thinking of the unborn.

A hotel story

   When Peter got to the hotel, the first thing he did was taking off his shoes and socks. He massaged his feet for a while after arriving, checking if it was as bad as he had imagined. He had some blisters on his foot, probably because he had used the wrong shoes or the wrong socks or who knows. The point was he couldn’t walk anymore so he decided to shower in order to freshen a little bit and then go to bed.

He decided to sleep naked, as the rest of the body also ached from the long day and he wasn’t planning on doing anything special the next day. He wanted to be comfortable during the night and that was a nice way to be at ease. The weather was nice so he wouldn’t feel cold at night or anything like that. Just five minutes after getting into bed, he was already asleep, dreaming some wild story were he had to run and do many things that he would simply not do in the current state of his poor feet.

 All night long he tossed and turned and pushed his pillows to the ground and pulled up the covers and then down. He couldn’t stop moving and he finally woke up when his body felt the smell of smoke. His senses were not very good but he was certain it smelled as if someone was smoking right there in his room. He looked from one side of the room to the other and couldn’t see were the smell was coming from, if that makes any sense. He came out of bed and suddenly the room’s main door was pushed open by a group of men with flashlights.

 Poor Peter fell backwards and looked like a turtle trying to get back up. He had hurt his back and the men had to help him up and tell him to go out. With a hand on his back, the man obeyed and walked towards the door and it was there he noticed the smoke was everywhere. Maybe he had so many weird dreams because of the smoke and no because of his own head but, yet again, he always had weird dreams.

 He continued walking down the corridor, barely seeing were he was going, until he hit a wall and didn’t know where to go next. He noticed a fire escape sign on a wall and followed it. The firemen had remained behind, probably fighting the source of the smoke, so he had to go down some dark smelly stairs all by himself. He wasn’t thrilled to do it, especially since his feet hurt and he couldn’t walk very fast.

 It was just before descending the last step when he heard the voices of many people and realized he had arrived to the lobby, which was packed with people; probably waiting for the firemen to extinguish whatever fire they were fighting against. It was then when Peter realized he wasn’t wearing any clothes, not even underwear or a t-shirt. Not a towel, not a robe, nothing.

 He decided to remain there, in the darkness of the stairs and just hear the people talk in the lobby. He got very near the door and heard someone saying the fire was in one of the rooms, not very far from his own room. It was probably because of a smoker, said a man in very deep voice. He blamed the hotel for not having a policy against smoking and letting some people just do whatever they wanted. He also reminded his audience, which Peter couldn’t see, that many children had caused a scandal the night before at dinner in the restaurant and that it was rumored an old gentleman had once peed right there on the lobby.

 Peter wanted to laugh because that last story had to be false but the man had said it as if he was talking about some very important matter. Even if he couldn’t see him he was sure he knew who he was, a guy that looked at everyone as if they were a bother to him. He had seen him once during breakfast and he thought it was curious that such a large man could blame others for not respecting boundaries. That thought made him want to laugh but he knew he couldn’t.

 Then, he heard some noise coming from upstairs and decided to hide on one side of the stairs. Thankfully the space was almost completely dark except for the emergency exit signs. Sure enough, about five people were coming down the stairs and a fireman was accompanying them. He assured them everything was going to be fine and that they just had to join the rest of the people in the lobby. They passed very near Peter and opened the door, flooding the space with light for a while. Everyone outside turned to look at the family coming out.

 It was really unpleasant to hear so many people faking worry, as if they all knew those people. They were a mother, a father and three children, probably the same children the fat guy didn’t liked and he was one of the people to ask if they were okay. It just proved how false a person could be. Shortly after, the fireman attracted attention to him and announce the fire source had been found and that they were close to extinguishing it. After they had done that, sleeping bag would be borrowed for people to sleep in the lobby.

 Someone asked who had been the responsible for the fire and all that smoke but the fireman refused to answer that as the most important thing was that everyone was alive and well. They were still going floor by floor checking no one had been left behind. He then asked people to be still and let him count them in order to know if someone was missing from the lobby. After all, they had the list of every single person staying in the hotel and they could easily find out who was missing.

 When he heard that, Peter felt some cold sweat in his forehead. It was obvious they were going to see he wasn’t there and if that fireman had been one of the men that had entered his room, it would seem even stranger. The most obvious thing would have been to come out and just reveal himself naked as he was but he had a better idea: he climbed up the stairs as fast as he could and waited by the door there to check for anyone passing by. When he noticed that the floor was deserted, he came out and started pushing every room door he could.

 That level wasn’t as filled with smoke as the others but people must have been evacuated anyone. The bad thing was that many rooms had blocked automatically but not every one of them. Some had been left open and the system hadn’t closed them back. He entered some rooms and realized many women were at the hotel because he couldn’t find a single clothing piece for a man. He finally decided to put on some pajama pants he found in one room and just come down like that, with nothing else.

 Hoping no one would notice their pants on him, he went back down and opened the door to the lobby to reveal… Well, nothing. No one was there. The place looked even more deserted that the floor he had been in before. He had no idea where so many people had gone so he decided to go around the place to see if he could find someone. They weren’t in any of the two restaurants, or in the kitchens. They weren’t by the reception or by the smokers lounge. Finally, he saw some people running by the building and screaming. He understood right then he had to go out and see what was happening.

 Just as he crossed the doors, a horrible sound flooded the space. He knew he had to run but not why. He followed a fellow runner and just sprinted as fast he could which wasn’t much because of his feet. But he had to make them hurt because his mind knew it wasn’t a time to choose. He ran for at least to blocks until he stopped. Many people were running more but he just couldn’t. His feet were red. He sat on the ground and looked up, realizing why he had been running so much.

 The fire in the hotel had apparently been much more serious than what the fireman had said. A whole floor had sunk and the top part of the building had collapsed into the other and now it looked like one of those futuristic visions of architecture, the top part of the structure not far from collapsing into the street. It was certainly going down but for the moment it stood there, in an odd balance that everyone was fascinated with. He realized many people were looking at the spectacle besides him and that the people of the hotel were just some steps away.

  He walked there slowly, sitting on a bench near them. The fat guy was arguing with some lady, a woman was drunk or high or something, fighting against one of the fireman and a paramedic was curing a child that cried incessantly. Peter felt tired right there. So much he closed his eyes and the last thing he heard was: “I have a pajama just like the one he’s wearing”.

Connection

   As we headed to the station, to take that small train that goes around every terminal, I decided to take his hand in mine. Normally I would never do that but I decided this was the best moment to do it. It was time not to mind anymore about who was watching or if they had things to say. All the hate in the world could fall on me but I didn’t care because I understood what he was going through. He needed much more than just my hand in his, but I was happy to feel he took and squeezed it a bit, as if telling me “Thanks, I needed this”.

 We hadn’t spoken in several hours and I decided I didn’t wanted to be the one to talk first. For me, it was a decision he had to make because it was him who needed this time to reflect and think about many things. Well, that was my guess anyway because I couldn’t be inside his head. I did wonder though, about his thoughts and his secrets. But all of that was his to have and not for me to know. I respect a person’s life, and a life always has secrets and things you rarely share with anyone.

 The train station was a bit crowded and, oddly enough, most other passengers were foreigners, just like us. We were in San Francisco international airport and in our train there wasn’t a single Californian. We sat down, put our bad in front of us and felt the pull of the train beneath us, moving slowly towards the next terminal. I noticed my eyes were closing a bit, rocked by the movement of the train. The flight had been very long and we still had another one to go. I had never travelled so far before and felt a bit guilty, as I hadn’t paid for one dime. It had been all him.

 He squeezed my hand again and I turned towards him. His eyes looked sad but they felt stronger than before. He looked at me as if wanting to tell me something but there was no need. I proceeded to lay my head on his shoulder and he did kind of the same. I closed my eyes but I couldn’t really sleep. I just felt closer to him now and didn’t want that moment to end. But the train, after two other stops, finally arrived to the terminal we needed to be in.

 When we stepped out, we walked slowly towards some escalators and eventually to a commercial area. We passed a coffee shop and I asked him if he wanted to grab a bite. He didn’t say anything, just nodded as he yawned from exhaustion. As we wouldn’t let go, he joined me in the queue. We bought two big sandwiches each with cappuccinos and a big muffin to share. After we paid we found a little table a bit separated from the rest of the people and sat there. Our baggage was there too, with the few things we had been able to bring for such a short trip. We started eating in silence, watching people go by.

 We let go for a few seconds, to take our coats off, but he grabbed my hand again as he ate his sandwich. He ate it a bit too fast, he was hungry and he hadn’t told me. I wanted to ask him why he hadn’t told me he was hungry if maybe his stomach hurt or something. I was growing very mad for a moment out of such a silly thing and even my hands began to sweat so he noticed I was going through something. He looked at me and I saw his watery eyes looking at me. I had never thought they were as beautiful as they were in that moment and I felt bad for that.

 I at my sandwich as he drank his cappuccino, drying his eyes with a thick napkin they had given us. I saw he wasn’t feeling good, I saw he was still broken and I hated him for not talking to me. I felt so far from him and I didn’t understood what I was doing there, why he had brought me there if he wasn’t going to tell me anything. I had had it with all the silences and considerations. I didn’t wanted to wonder anymore about what he was thinking or what he wanted to say.

 Suddenly, he stood up and left. When he was two steps away I thought I heard the word “bathroom”. He had used his voice once only to tell me such a stupid thing? I almost made my cappuccino cup make a flip in its own plate but luckily my fist landed in the right place. People looked at me anyway and I just covered my face and lowered it to finish my sandwich and the cappuccino. I took the muffin and took a bit chunk of it with my teeth. The sweetness of the chocolate helped my spirit feel a little bit better.

 When he came back, I noticed he had been crying but I didn’t say a word. I only gave him his half of the muffin but he didn’t grab it so I ate it. I wasn’t going to waste a good muffin just because he wouldn’t talk to me. We took the baggage and started walking around the terminal, trying to make time for the next flight. I checked our gate on a screen and he stood up behind me, not even looking at the screen but at the airplanes on the tarmac. I hate to see him do that because I felt I just couldn’t leave him, ever.

 We got to our gate and sat down by the counter in order to be ready when they called us for boarding, which would began in a matter of two hours. I wanted to fall asleep or at least feel I wanted to be asleep but that time had passed. Maybe it was the coffee or the fact we had eaten something, by I couldn’t fall asleep.

 Then I felt his hand grabbing mine and, of course, I didn’t push him away. Because I wanted to feel his hand and smell his scent and taste his lips. But I didn’t now when I should go for a kiss, a hug or a conversation. I felt lost and kind of in a disadvantage. After all, we had just arrived from his mother’s funeral.

 He squeezed my hand and also stroke it and I just had to look at him. But he wasn’t looking at me but, again, at the planes outside. I squeezed his fingers softly and he did look at me at then he came close and kissed me. His face felt a bit cold, his lips a bit dry, but I knew those were the kisses I had learned to love although covered in a veil of sadness I had to understand. He let go of my hand and put his hand on my face and just keep kissing me. We stopped after a few seconds, smiling.

 Our hands stayed together as people arrived. The plane was going to be full, that was certain. He kept looking to the planes and then he started watching his watch. He was clearly anxious to get back home or maybe worried he had to go back in a plane. He wasn’t that friendly with them. Finally, the boarding process began and some minutes later we were already inside the plane, sitting side my side with and old lady as our neighbor. She was the first person to speak to him and he responded.

 Hearing his voice was the best thing for me. I loved it so much it filled me with joy, tumbling down all the feelings that had gone through my body earlier.  I smile at the lady who told me I had a very charming husband. Of course, I didn’t correct her but my blushed cheeks should have been enough to tell anyone she wasn’t exactly right. As a matter of fact, we had been boyfriends for a bit more than a year. That’s why I felt so strange doing all of this, the trip and meeting the family and all that.

 I mean, I had met them earlier, his mom too. Bu that situation was like getting to know them all again, especially his father who was obviously different now. He interrupted my thoughts by whispering in my ear: “Would you like to?”

 He caught me completely unprepared. I started to sweat again, my heart racing as the plane separated from the terminal and made its way to the runway. He grabbed my hand and from his pocket took out a small box. I started coughing right there. He knew I did that when nervous because he just opened it to reveal a very simple but beautiful ring. He took it out from the box and took my hand. Now, he asked me in a normal voice, making some heads turn.

   - Would you marry me?

 I felt all of them watching me, even if there were maybe only three people paying attention. In my mind, I revisited the funeral and what had happened earlier and the day we met and how we shared our lives and then, I remembered him watching the planes. I remembered that feeling I had when saw him standing there, his back towards me, looking at the tarmac.

 I knew his body and his way of dealing with things. I knew how he ate, how he peed, how he showered, what his favorite curse word was and how high he could jump. I knew I like his hugs and his voice. He had said to me he liked my body and my eyes and my mind. I also knew there were things he didn’t know about me and I didn’t know about him. There were secrets and thought that were private. So many feelings.

   - Yes. Yes, I will.

Secrets & Nightmares

   I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. I had no idea what time of night it was but I remember the first thing I felt was his breath on my hair. It was warm and soft. He never snored. I knew that because I was very sensitive to sounds and I would have woken up if he was. When I felt his breathing I was relieved, because I wasn’t in the world of the nightmare anymore but on the real one, the one that recently had been very nice to me in many aspects.

 Some people say that if you are successful or happy is because you deserve it or because you have worked hard for it. I think it’s a combination of the two., mainly because I don’t believe in the concept of fighting for everything in life. People who believe that are the type of people that are very competitive and that don’t stop at nothing to get what they want, they believe everything in life is a competition and that’s simply not the way it is or at least not my life.

 Anyhow, I was glad right then that I didn’t woke him up, because I knew he had problems sleeping and didn’t wanted to be the one to disrupt his night. I decided to try and close my eyes again and slip away into a deep slumber, hopefully without dreams. But, again, I fell right into a nightmare, a horrible world filled with the worst creatures I have ever seen, with all my fears parading around, rubbing past mistakes or their simple existence in my face. I had to wake up once again, this time really drenched in sweat.

 Thankfully, he had moved a bit away from me so I just separated my body from his slowly and went to the bathroom, to wash my face with cold water and try to relax a bit. I tried sitting on the toilet, pissing, even going to the kitchen and grab a bite. I also did some simple exercises in the living room and saw possibly five minutes of a TV show I didn’t even like. When I was back into bed, he woke up and asked me, between asleep and angry, where I had been?

 I kissed him in the lips, which made us both very happy and laid there with him. He fell asleep very fast and I stayed up for a long while, in fact not sleeping again for the rest of the morning. At that moment I did check my cellphone and saw it was five in the morning. We had to wake up in three hours and I couldn’t do one more of sleeping. I just used that time to think about it all, checking in my mind if everything was ready and found myself shaking a bit and my stomach growling.

 I grabbed his hand, which he had put over my chest, and squeezed it softly. He tightened his grip on me and I liked that. I felt safe and I guess that’s what I needed to feel.  If the alarm hadn’t gone off in that moment, I think I would’ve slept a bit. But I didn’t.

 The first thing he did when he woke up was kissing me, and then we showered together, hugging a lot and almost dancing beneath the water, When we were finished, we dressed up in silence and went to the kitchen to have breakfast. We both had cereal and talked a bit over it. He noticed I hadn’t sleep and I had to convince him I was ok, only a bit anxious about our day and that he shouldn’t worry. It was clear he was already worried but he didn’t go on with the subject, he just said he had to be at his sister’s in an hour.

 When he left, I cleaned up the place, changing the sheets of the bed to new ones I had bought secretly. I also pulled out some scented candles from a shopping bag I’d hidden beneath the sink, as well as other products that we would use for other purposes. When it was all ready I grabbed my kiss, gave the place one last look and went out the door. I had no car so I decided to walk to my mother’s house, which was an hour away by walking but I had the time.

 He had left before me because he said his sister could handle everything and that we shouldn’t do anything else than just show up at the right time. He was going to her place because that was the closest relative he had alive. His parents had died several years ago and since then his sister had been everything. She was a very organized person and had proposed to help us because she knew that the event needed a woman’s touch to be just perfect.

  As I walked to my former home, I thought about it all. I was nervous, obviously, but I knew the nightmares had been produced by something else. It wasn’t fear that had put them in my mind; it was something else that I didn’t quite understand. I mean, as everyone in the world, I have secrets and thing I wouldn’t like every single person to know, but that had never given me nightmares so what was this all about?

 I used my walk home to think about everything that would happen that day and I realized I was entitled to feel worried and maybe being a little bit scared. Marriage was not someone that I did everyday and it had been a question of “When?” for a long time and that time had finally come. I was sure about my affirmative response to it because I loved him dearly, beyond anything I had ever dreamed of. He was my prince charming and my bad boy, all in one. How corny does that sound?

 Thinking about him made me smile and many people on the street smiled me back. I didn’t noticed for a while but when I did I just laughed and thought that being in love was not as people described it but that it was good if you were ready for the long haul.

 In my mom’s house, my parents were dressing up, as well as my sister and her husband who had just arrived from abroad with their baby. She would have loved to have him carry the rings but he was still too young for that. Instead, my future husband’s youngest cousin was up for the job. She was a very nice girl and a bit mad for a seven year old, so she was right up our alley.  I also changed in a matter of minutes and decided to just wait in the living room for everyone to be ready.

 I dozed off and entered, once again, the dark territory of my nightmares. I recognized the feeling and the images and I could even feel my body sweat. I was in darkness, only able to see a light very far in the distance and the only thing I could do was walk towards it. Trying to grab it. But every single step I took was filled with pain, as if spines or small knives entered my every limb. Besides, and this was the most awful part, I felt hands in the darkness touching me, grabbing me to a place below that seemed liquid in nature. I knew that if I were pulled down there, I would die. And then, as always, I woke up before my head was submerged.

 My dad noticed when I woke up, because apparently I had let out a scream. He said that the best way not to dream bad things was either not to sleep or trying to make sense of whatever the dreams were about. I know my father wasn’t into Freud or anything, he just thought that if something was bothering it would translate into annoying nightmares and it was. I knew that was the case. Bu t it wasn’t just easy, it wasn’t just about letting the air out. It was harder than that.

 When everyone was finally ready, we jumped into the family car and drove towards the venue, a small banquet hall not far from there. When we arrived, every single guest was already there and I could notice he had already arrived too. So I was the one who had to go second, as per the rules. They started right away with the music. Then his sister escorted him to the altar, then me by my mother. I when I see him, my body let out one single tear. I say that because I had no control over it.

 The notary started talking about the law and citing many aspects of marriage that he found funny but also very important, so that the audience and us took it into account. He told us it was a very important thing to sign a paper and say “I choose to live my life with this person”, and that he personally admired those who did. We signed, me crying more and more, and finally kissed to the cheering and joy of our families and friends. As we kissed, I realized it was time, so covered by the wall of sound I whispered in his ear, took him by the hand and walk the carpet back into the main hall were food was being served.

 We didn’t discuss it until after the party, that went on for quite a while. He liked the candles in our room and the new sheets but he went straight to my confession as we sat down in the bed. I started crying and he held me, in love with me. He told me that he would do whatever I wanted, whatever made me happy. I smiled at him and then told him, clumsily, that I really needed to know where my only son was and what he was like. He grabbed my hand and kissed me.

Rush

   What did I dream? What did I eat last night?  What was my last thought before closing my eyes and falling asleep? It’s silly, but I don’t remember any of it, or at least not once. I have to be still and really try hard to remember the answer to every single one of those questions and many more that appear many minutes after I wake up. Does it all have to do with this? Is it all connected, as many people believe? They think that if one thing happens and then another or something else on the other side of the globe, then it’s all connected. To me it sounds stupid and very easily dismissible as a theory but who am I to trump over the delusions of so many of our fellow human beings. Maybe it’s better to let them wonder through the cosmos and just not pay attention to whatever they might have to say.

 Yet, I feel confused, scared and my stomach is rumbling like mad. Did I lose my last meal too, even if I haven’t vomited at all? It feels like I have. My belly really hurts and my body overall feels tired and weak in a very weird way. It’s like something took away my bones for a single second but I can still feel them readjusting to their original positions. It also feels as if the room had been completely moved like a gigantic cube while I was sleeping, causing my senses to become insane. I can’t really tell if up is that way or down is that other way. I don’t know and to be honest I have no intention to help anyone in that department. I just want this very awful feeling to leave me, my heart to stop pounding. It seems it wants out.

 Turning on the light in the room, and I say it in singular because there’s only the one, was not the best idea. Only to see the mess I caused… Well, it wasn’t me and it was, all at the same time. Maybe that’s why I feel a little bit guilty too, like when you’re little and you pee your bed. And you are conflicted between going to your parents and tell them what happen. Or maybe, you think, you can clean it yourself and put the linen in the washing machine and no one will ever know. And when they realize what happened, you feel weak and shaky and you cannot really talk and you want to cry but know it’s not really a moment to cry because, somehow, it doesn’t feel like it.

 My stomach is the worst part. It’s still restless and I don’t know if it’s a good idea to have breakfast. I mean, what if I just expel all of that in an hour or less? I don’t want to be cleaning that or feeling even worse than I feel right now. I don’t want to risk my mental health and my physical one. Besides, the possibility of having to clean the floors (here’s hoping it’s the floors…) does not really excite me at all. If anything, it makes my stomach even more restless, as if I had a very violent electric eel trapped in there and she stings me every time I think of pulling her out of her cozy environment. I don’t feel good, that’s the point.

 Breathing has become harder. I don’t know why, but it feels like this room, filled with freezing air, is running out of oxygen. However, I don’t want to open the window and become a human popsicle. Because even know, seating on my bed, I can feel that damn cold air like a snake going up my legs, through my belly and chest and to my brain. My fingers feel weird too, like they are about to crack. And I still cannot breath. Opening my mouth seems futile and only my nose is trying to keep me alive but I have no idea how skilled my nose is, even less right now when the punch had come from the area. I try to inhale some air and it feels heavy, almost solid. I can almost feel its taste and it doesn’t taste good at all.

 Why is that? Because of the surroundings I guess. I know now I don’t like this student life, or at least not at this age anymore. I sound old but I’m not, I just complain every single second about things that I have decided to be my life, so if you think about it, I should just shut up. And I do. I don’t really use my vocal chords as much as I did back home, although that is kind of obvious. After all, they are your family and you love them or at least I love mine. If you have issues with yours, well, sorry for that. But these other people, the truth is I don’t care for them at all. They could die out there, rammed by a bus, and I would honestly not give a shit. I would only worry for the next person, the next boring and predictable human male to stay in that room and talk about booze and pot, because apparently this is it for humanity.

  Well, that let’s a weight out, somehow. But still feel a bit lost. After all, my awakening today was too fast, too confusing and a little of a low blow. You never know when things are going to take a turn, one of those turns that changes your whole mindset for the day or even for more time. I hate it when it happens because change scares me and it scares me a lot more than I imagined it. I want it all the same over and over and over again and I’m not ashamed of confessing that. Because I don’t see anything over the hill. No green grass, no cute little houses, no beautiful people smiling at me and doggies coming to greet me. I don’t see anything.

 The future scares me and maybe my body had finally realized it. Maybe the war between my insides and my mind has begun and this, whatever it is that’s writing this, is in the middle of the fight. And I know there will be blood and pain all over, there will be losses and gains and my mind is going to spiral down a wormhole that I have made for myself. Because, if we are objective, no one else is guilty more than ourselves. If there’s something happening to us, we probably had it coming and we even knew that it was coming, even if we chose not to acknowledge and just pretend nothing was happening, as we often do.

 That roll of toilet paper is starting to look funny somehow. I guess it’s because it is. Such a funny thing to have around one’s house, when you think about it. It’s shape; it’s function, the one it is built and all the strategic marketing behind such a strange object. I don’t mean that to be funny or make some funny toilet jokes. I’m afraid I don’t know any of those so I cannot be funny that way. Actually, I have no idea if I’m funny in any way. Maybe I’m like the toilet paper, that’s just strange and everywhere and that’s me sometimes. There but not there at the same time, however always out of place, as if I was an extra and I always come in the scene a little too early or too late. I do feel like an extra sometimes and I believe we all do everyday, so I don’t really fell bad about it.

 I put on my socks again, as they slid out of my feet during the night. Maybe that’s the reason why I feel like I feel right now. But I doubt it. What do socks have to do with anything? I just want my feet to feel a bit warm in order for my body to stop trembling and for my belly to calm down. I know I have responsibilities and all that but I’m seriously thinking about staying in bed all day. The idea seems very alluring and a very great one, I must say… Fuck, there they go again with their music and their noise. I don’t care what time of the day it is; you just don’t shove your tastes down people’s throats. It says a lot about someone, music and how they behave with it and how they consume it or however you want to say it.

 My pillow was spared, mostly. I want to lay my head on it and just close my eyes because I start to feel a little dizzy again. I just want to rest and not have any of that annoying noise around me. I don’t want to feel more than the warmth of the bedspread and the smell that I leave in my pillow. That may sound a little bit self-centered, but I guess it is the only way to calm me down, to make me realize all of this is real and that I’m not imagining anything strange and crazy. Actually, I do want this all to be my imagination and I don’t mean this morning, I mean this whole part of my life. Because it doesn’t feel right and I’m just holding on, trying to make time pass day by day.

 All the blood I spilled this morning… It tells me it is real and that I still have to keep my ground, I still have to wait and endure for more time. I’m not a good person but I don’t think I’m bad either. I’m in between. When I woke up to a rush of blood coming out my noise, successfully avoiding everything to be tainted in red, I thought it was a punishment for something, I thought it was because I had done something wrong and now I was paying for it. Maybe through just the bleeding, maybe through something more. I don’t know that for sure and to be honest I don’t really want to know because my head is spinning. Although that awful music might have something to do with it… Sometimes I do hate people.