Our young past

   Like a waterfall, all the books on the shelf in the closet came running down towards. One of them hit me on the foot, but it was a small one, so the pain was not that bad. However, the incident reminded that stuff had been stored around the house for years and years. There were so many shelves and drawers and hidden little closets and tiny spaces to keep things, and we had all used them ever since I had lived there as a young boy. I even remember my mother telling me where and how to store everything.

The book that had hit my foot was one that I had read a lot when I was young: 1984 by George Orwell. I remember being fascinated by the world building this master of writing had achieved. I really felt there, with all the characters, enduring their hardships and helping them survive somehow. Of course, the book was maybe too dark for me as a young man, but it was one of those building blocks of my personality. I think everyone should be obliged to read such a masterpiece.

 I decided to grab all the books and put those I wanted to keep in a box. Of course, 1984 would go there but there were many others that I hadn’t seen for decades and now I had to decide whether to throw them away or not. The first thing I decided on was to put all my former schoolbooks and notebooks on trash bags. I had no use for that. School had been kind of a nightmare at the end, so it made no sense keeping something that reminded me of any bad moments in my life.

 Some people keep those kinds of books as souvenirs, even to help their children in the future with their homework, but I’m more of a realist. I will never have any children and even if I did, I wouldn’t put them through the trauma and boredom of watching how lousy I was at school when I was young. I’d rather help them with current knowledge and not by reminiscing about things that no one longer cares about. So I put the about ten books and seven notebooks in trash bags.

 I did the same thing with notebooks from college. I had already studied enough and keeping them would only occupy space for other books that I would like to keep. For example, I had a small but very well preserved collection of graphic novels that I had binged through during my college years. They had been great entertainment when I wanted to relax for a while and not be so dependent on internet or anything associated with it. They were a great source of a imagination and certainly helped me build my own creativity during those years. I loved them too much to part with them.

 The remaining books where old and had belonged to my parents. So it wasn’t my choice to put them away or throw them away. I had to ask before doing anything. So I put all of those in a different box and clean the whole space with care. I put on a mask on my mouth, as the amount of dust was just incredible. It took me a long while to properly clean the closet, every single corner and space, before leaving for my former bedroom and start doing the same thing there. It seemed like a job that wouldn’t end.

 But, in time, it did. Every single thing that I wanted to keep was in boxes that would be sent to my place. Some other things would be sent to mu parents home, where they could decided if they wanted to keep all that or if they want to throw something. Knowing them, a visit to their place would be necessary because parents are all the same, they have difficulty trying to part with anything that reminds them of something you did when you were young or that reminds them of a tiny thing they did year ago.

 It’s their choice anyway. I carried all the trash bags to the containers and said my final goodbyes. After all, many of those books and toys and so many other things had been there through my younger years. Years that had been difficult at some points and joyful at others. It is weird, but as humans we do tend to give this human quality to everything that is not alive. We care for our things as if they knew we cared for them and it goes beyond of trying to preserve them as long as possible. It’s a weird kind of love.

 Driving back home, with two boxes filled with my past, my eyes started to fill up and I had to take advantage of a red light in order to clean my eyes with a tissue and just try to compose myself. Cleaning the house in which I had lived for so long had been a very unexpected experience. It’s one of those things you don’t really think much about but, once you’re there doing the job, you realized that it’s not as simple as it looks. It’s difficult to stare at your past and just see it all in front of you, kind of like a movie.

 I was grateful to get home and put the boxes on the elevator. A young woman I had never seen on the building helped me hold the button for me, as I pushed the boxes into the steel container. She got down first. She seemed very nice and that made me realize I really had no idea who my neighbors were, except for the lady that lived next door who loved to sing opera at the top of her lungs every single afternoon. I guess she thought it would be less annoying at that time of day. Maybe she had been a famous opera singer or had failed to reach her life dream. Who knows?

 I pushed the boxes all the way from the elevator to my doorstep. I was about to pull the keys out of my coat, when the door flung open and he stood there, smiling. Apparently, he had heard me coming from the elevator and had waited patiently to open the door. He grabbed one box and I took the other. We put them by the sofa and hen just fell on the furniture. I was exhausted and he seemed to be tired too. He had gone out with friends to hike some mountain or something like that. A sportsman, he was.

 We lay there for a while, slowly embracing each other, in silence. Then, the afternoon came and we realized we had fallen asleep for a short while. I woke up because my stomach was hurting. I had been working on the house all day and had not eaten a single thing. He proposed we should order takeout but I reminded him we had no money to spare for that. So I decided to stand up and cook something fast. Pasta came to mind, so I just started cooking right away, not even listening to what he was saying.

 He apparently grew tired of not getting real answers, because he then turned to the boxes and opened them. He grabbed some things, looked at my toys and browsed some of the old magazines I had wanted to save from the dumpster. He laughed when he saw my old video games, as he had never known I had played videogames when younger. It’s weird but we had never really talked about our childhood personas. Our younger self sometimes feels like a whole different person, away from us.

 I saw 1984 in his hands, just as I chopped some tomatoes for the sauce. I waited to hear if he had something to say about it, if he had any input about me owning such a book. He didn’t say a word for a while. He appeared to be checking the state of the book and some of the pages. But he wasn’t saying anything. For a moment, I asked myself what kind of couple lives together for almost a year and they don’t even share their tastes to one another. It made me feel like a failure, so much so that I almost cut off a finger.

 Then, he started reciting. He just opened the book on a random page, the one where Winston talks about Julia, and how he sees her and how he feels. The way he read it was just delightful and, as the water boiled and I put the pasta in, I smiled hearing his voice reading my favorite book ever.

 He only stopped when started serving. The food looked amazing and I think his reading inspired me. He left the book on the coffee table and, before sitting down to eat, he kissed me softly and I gently grabbed him by the waist. It felt different somehow. But different good. We smiled and ate, while talking.

Sunday morning

  The first thing I noticed was the smell of his hair. It had notes of coconut and olive oil, but also a sweetness that I blamed not on a particular shampoo but on his very personal scent. As I woke up, I couldn’t see his face as his back was against my chest. But his smell was enough for me not to move too much and just enjoy the moment. It was then I realized no man had ever stayed all night in my house, let alone in my bed and with me by his side. I smiled, as I closed my eyes back and tried to enjoy the moment a little bit longer.

 I used to wake up early on Sundays, as it was the only day of the week I could actually spend in things that I couldn’t do any other day. I would go to the gym for about three hours, then come back home and clean the place up real good, get in the shower for a good ten minutes and finally head out to the supermarket and buy any groceries I would have any need for. After that, I would just go back home, put everything in order, cook something fast and put on a movie, possibly one that I had already seen numerous times.

 But that Sunday, I wouldn’t be able to do the same thing. He was there and I wouldn’t like to be the kind of person to kick someone out just after spending a night together. I wondered if I should stay there in bed with him or just go to the kitchen and make some breakfast. Maybe he would be in for some time at the gym… But I then thought that was a stupid idea because the point was probably to spend some time together. Although that would maybe send the wrong message and I didn’t want him to be confused about anything.

 He then moved around, in order to face me. He was still asleep, that was obvious. He proceeded to get closer to me and then go back to being still right next to my chest. I caressed his head a little bit, now that I could move my arm freely. He was really cute, something I had already noticed but never really appreciated in its entirety. His eyebrows were thick and very black and he had long and luxurious eyelashes. His eye color was brown. I knew that. A beautiful brown that almost seemed liquid caramel.

 I stayed there for a while, just caressing his hair and smelling that beautiful coconut scent. I had no idea what to do with him, except looking at his face and feeling his body. He was a bit shorter than me, which was odd because I had rarely met men shorter than me, and had never had a crush on one. But there he was, and I could feel his warmth and that was great. I hugged him, not to tight in order not to wake him up, and then kissed him in the forehead. It was just something I felt like doing at the moment, no idea really why I did it. It just felt right, like the perfect thing to do.

 He opened up his eyes and looked at me. He gently got himself to the same level and then kissed me. His lips tasted a bit like tequila, which we had drank the night before, but also like those sweet worms that come in colors and are covered with sugar. He reminded me of those, sweet and kind of sour too. We kissed for a long while, maybe almost half an hour. For a moment, I felt self-conscious about my looks so early in the day and my breath, but then just enjoyed the moment kissing a beautiful man in my bed.

 After our kissing session, we stayed there without talking a single word. I put my chest against the bed and he faced the ceiling, looking up as if he was appreciating the sky. We stayed like so for a long time, right until he got out of bed because he wanted to pee. I let him go and stayed there for a moment, realizing then that I was very hungry. We hadn’t had anything to eat the night before; we only drank like sailors and had some peanuts, which really wasn’t any kind of substitute for real food.

 So I stood up and walked towards the kitchen, realizing half way that I was completely naked. I stop right in the middle of the aisle and looked back but then I realized how silly it was to be ashamed or something. After all, we had being having sex for a while and we had slept together for the first time. Being embarrassed didn’t make any sense. So I headed to my kitchen, a tiny space with a bar, which worked as my dinner table. The place was more like a hotel room than like an actual apartment.

 I took out a lemon juice from the refrigerator and poured some in a glass. I was about to pour some for him but then realized I had no idea if he liked lemon juice at all. For a minute, I was all confused and had no idea what to do, as if the concept of lemon juice would destroy anything that we had built up to that point. But then, the answer came by itself: he had come out of the bathroom and saw me with the bottle in my hand. He just grabbed the glass I had poured for myself and drank all of its content in a heartbeat.

 I was frozen in time for a moment but then I just poured some more in another glass and drank that, much slower. He said he was very thirsty and also very hungry.  He didn’t want to impose but he proposed to cook breakfast with me in order to make something faster. I agreed and we decided on something rather easy: eggs, sausage and toast. It was a protein filled breakfast and it would certainly satisfy our hunger. We could have pretended to only want granola or fruit but the truth was we were very hungry and we needed something big and full of everything to really feel good.

  We started cooking right away and breakfast was done in no time. We didn’t bothered to make it look good or anything, we just sat down naked and ate everything on the plate like a couple of vacuum cleaners. We didn’t even talked or looked at each other during that time. We just ate and filled our empty stomachs with something more than tequila. Once the plates were almost as cleaned as before we had served the food, we did stare at each other and shared a smile that seemed to be much more than that.

 I then decided to, again, follow what everything inside me was telling me to do. I stood up, grabbed his hand and took him back to my bed. We got it again and just started kissing and touching each other. However, it was not as sexual as all other times we had that exactly that in the middle of the night. For once, doing it in the daytime seemed bold and amazing, much different that the secrecy and forbidden pleasure behind the nocturnal shadows. It was something much different, in a good way.

 We did that for a long while and then just stopped, hugging each other tight. Through my head passed several different things to say or ask or do. But I couldn’t decide on any so I just stayed still, wrapping my arms around him. I did think about us, about the nature of our relationship. We had been “fuckbuddies” for a while now and that was okay but now something felt different and I couldn’t really just ignore it. It had to be addressed and talked about but I had no idea if that was the time and the place.

 It was him, again, who talked first and proved to have more guts than me. He asked me if this meant our relationship had changed. And I just asked what he thought of the nature of our relationship. He looked at me, with those beautiful eyes, and said that he had always felt something for me, from the very beginning. He confessed he had never done many of the things he had done with me with anyone else, including staying at their place on a Sunday. I smiled and just caressed his face gently.

 We stayed there in silence for a while and then we decided it was best to shower and do something that day. So we got in the bathroom together and also into the water. It was nice and warm and it felt just perfect. So I decided to tell him I really liked him to because he was nice and beautiful and so much more.

 We then kissed again, more passionately than ever and made love under the water. It felt very different, very good. And I could tell he felt exactly the same way. Something had changed that day and it was something better than I had ever expected. Finally, after so much wondering and time, I was in love.

Conviction

   I just had to do it. That’s what I talk the officer when they came to my home one sunny Saturday afternoon. The day had started so bright and beautiful, but my body somehow knew something else was going to happen. I had been living in that cottage for more than a year, never really feeling safe. And my past, my actions, had finally caught up to me. It was very scary but, at the same time, a relief. I didn’t have to keep running from everyone and I could finally breathe in relative peace, even if it was inside a cell.

 They came in and talked to me. We didn’t even tried bullshit, as we all knew what we were doing there. I wasn’t a danger to anyone, so they avoided using harsh language or force. They didn’t even use handcuffs. I asked why because, as you always see in TV shows, handcuffs are supposed to be mandatory. They said they would make an exception for me, because they didn’t really wanted to upset the villagers, they didn’t want them to know what was happening. The less they knew was best for everyone.

 It was clear they also wanted to avoid been noticed because they weren’t dressed like officers. They looked like a nice couple, touring the beautiful towns of the English countryside. But they weren’t a couple and I never knew if they were really nice or not. They just wanted to do it all without a fuss, avoiding any kind of commotion and, especially, any possibilities of the news leaking to the press. I guess they wanted to be the ones revealing to the world that I had been captured, without any resistance.

 They let me call a fellow villager, a friend I had made with time. I told her I would be leaving because of an emergency and that I would need her to take care of the plants and animals in the house for a while. I had two cats and a dog, as well as a very well cared garden with all kinds of flowers and herbs. It had been my everything for this time. She asked why I was leaving but I just insisted on the reason being an emergency. She didn’t say anything else, maybe understanding that I was, somehow, under pressure.

 We then walked out of the house, letting me close with the key and leaving it beneath the welcome mat. I didn’t grab a coat or a sweater, because what good would it be for me to do that if I was going to spend a long time in a cell. I hopped into the officers’ car and we rapidly drove off. I couldn’t get myself to turn around to look at my house for one last time. I broke right then and there, my eyes swelling up with tears that rolled down my cheeks. I didn’t clean my face until much later, preferring to taste the saltiness of the tears, to realize what was happening, to make it real.

 I fell asleep on the ride to the city. The officers told me they had to take me there first, to be processed and for a judge to see me. They would even give me a lawyer, but it was clear I wasn’t going to use one. The only thing I was clear about was that I was going to plead guilty and I would pay my sentence, no matter how long it was. I didn’t want to defend myself in front of anyone; I didn’t want a jury to get their nose into what had happened. The fastest way to put everything behind was just to accept my fate.

 The moment I woke up, I realized how life would change for me. As the car crossed the gates of the main police station, I started missing everything from my life before. I missed Paws the cat and the way he like to play on the window when it rained, thinking the water drops were small fish. I thought of Captain, my dog, and Cinderella, my other cat. The three of them had been my companions for a while, at nights and in moments I thought the only exit was killing myself, running directly into a truck passing by on the road.

 I would also miss my times in the garden, caring for the plants and the flowers and cutting and putting things on pots. It had been a lot of work but it was always fun and exciting. I learned a lot about life from those plants, a lot about myself and how I can be a better person. I thought of mentioning that to the judge but then I realized they wouldn’t care about what I had done while on the run. For them I was just another murderer that had to pay the price for what he had done, no matter how many plants or animals I loved.

 The officers finally put me on handcuffs and helped me down the car. We walked through various corridors and climbed up stairs. I thought the place was like a labyrinth and that it was an intentional thing on the part of the creator of that place in order to confuse anyone and make them feel anxious and insecure. It was kind of working, right to the point where they sat me down on a bench and asked me to stay put. Of course, I complied. There was no place I could be and running away made no sense at all.

 I waited for an hour or so before one of the officers came back and told me I had to stay overnight in a cell beneath the station. Apparently, not all papers had gone through and some others were needed for me to be properly sentenced. They guaranteed me it wouldn’t take more than a few hours but the judge was only available until the next day. So we took the elevator, he filled some more papers and I eventually got to a cell, alone in the dark. I couldn’t sleep at all, so I just waited, trying to avoid becoming insane. I realized how hard it was going to be for me, even doubting if I could endure through it.

 Thankfully, everything happened early in the day. I declared myself guilty in front of the judge and he revised the case carefully before stating his sentence: I was going to be in jail for ten years. My so-called lawyer was ecstatic, as she thought it was going to be way more than that. Apparently, I could have been sentenced to life in prison, but as I only killed one person and never really shown tendencies to indicate I would kill again or that I had killed before, they decided to be a little nicer to me.

 Yet, a ten-year sentence was still a lot. I was going to come out in my forties, without any real chance of getting a proper job. I would be more of an outcast that I had ever been, and that didn’t bother me at all. I knew it was not the norm but I thanked the judge before he left, before I was taken down to a van were they would carry me to prison. It took a while, more paper work, but we were on the road about two hours after my hearing. The trip was going to be pretty short, as the prison was not to far from the city.

 When I got there, I have to say every single detail seemed extremely important. I had my eyes wide open, as well as my ears. Apparently, it was a medium security prison. They gave me a uniform at the entrance and I had to strip down in order for some guard to do a cavity search and then watch me dress up. It was the most humiliating part of the whole process and I have to confess I wasn’t expecting something like that to happen. I just thought about the ocean, my flowers and my animals.

 More paperwork. Then, a big muscular guard took me through several corridors until we had reached the third yard. Some more paperwork and then another short walk, this time to my final destination. The cell was a little big larger than the one in a police station. I had a small window, a toilet, a sink and a bunk bed. I was kind of surprised to see someone lying down on the top, staring at me as I entered. The guard took off my handcuffs, closed the door and left me there with my cellmate.

 I didn’t want to speak first. Apparently he understood that, because he waited for a while, as I looked at my surroundings and then sat down on the lower bed, feeling the fabric of the blanket with my hands, its roughness and brutality. He then asked what I had had done to end up there with him.

 I told him, in a very clear voice, that I had assassinated my best friend’s father.  He asked why. So I told him, staring at the pearl white wall in front of me, that he had raped me repeatedly for years, so I decided to stab him in his sleep one night, when he least expected it. My cellmate felt silent. So did I.