Storms

    Water felt good. Even the cold that had descended from the clouds was nice on the skin and bones. Everything seemed alien in a way, covered by the storm and a fog that was thick and somber. Sitting on a bench in the park didn’t feel like something normal, but so wasn’t the absence of people or of any kinds of sounds. It seemed as if the world had lost all of its inhabitants in a single moment and it was glorious. He sat there, not minding anything but the was happening right then and there. It was amazing.

 There were no birds, no dogs or cars turning the corner. There were no people talking on cellphones or others talking loudly with their coworkers. There were no babies or children or teenagers whose hormones made even more sounds than the storm. No one else was around. Only rainfall made noise and, occasionally, a thunder or two would break the peace, as if it was announcing its presence and power. All of that was beautiful and very special and something people would rarely stop to really perceive.

 Granted, storms like that one were not that common, even in the rainy season. But people should’ve taken advantage of them more often because, it almost seems that you can listen to deeper sounds when you have the chaos and calm of a storm. It’s almost as if you could listen to yourself, to what your deep feelings are really telling you. It’s such a peaceful state and place to be that it becomes almost as a temple. Of course, prayer is not mandatory but you could do that if you wanted to, if it was up to you.

 The man was drenched, from top to bottom. He wore a hat that was now almost black because of the water, a t-shirt, jeans and sneakers. Everything was flooded with water. Yet, he seemed to be thinking, he seemed to be really taking advantage of the moment. Maybe he didn’t get to meditate a lot at home or maybe it was just a way to breathe a little before the end of the storm came, which would eventually come. He seemed to feel every drop of rain on his body, every single water stream coming down his limbs.

 Two consecutive thunders and their lightings lit up the sky and made it look so different; that it was a shame more people weren’t outside enjoying nature. Sadly, people only learn to love when they get something in return and that includes nature. If she behaves in a way that its natural but that takes away something from mankind, then humans do not want anything to have with it and they even declare war against it. Humans never really learn to enjoy things as they are. Instead, they want to world to be what their image of it is in their brains, and that image is almost always highly inaccurate.

 The storm continued for several hours. Eventually, silence was broken by cars and people running to them and buses and trains and planes, in order to get home safe and hopefully fast. Then, at night, silence came again. The darkness made it all even more silent, more serious in a way. Now that most people were at home, relaxing in the world that they had build for themselves, they really didn’t care at all about what was happening outside their homes, not even caring if there were people like them outside, the less fortunate.

 In general terms, they really were unfortunate souls. They had difficult access to every single thing that a human being needed to survive and they didn’t have a home, which would cause several problems for any normal human being. However, they were much more in touch with nature than other people. They loved to have animals on their side and they learned from their surroundings about how to survive many things. Nature taught them everything they needed to know, if they listened and paid any attention.

 At those hours of the night, no one would do the same thing that the man did during the day. No one would sit on a park bench and just wonder about life, not even if the night was perfectly clear and warm. The weather came in second or even third after the dangers of the city. They could be deprived of any soul and dangerous because of those people that have evolved to feel they permanently need to take away from others. It’s a disease that many have inside their brains and it grows and cannot ever be eradicated.

 As they say: “once a thief, always a thief”. And it’s a true saying because no one really stops being something like that. Once you think you have the right to take someone else’s belongings, you will never stop perceiving the world like that. It’s not that some steal because they are poor, less fortunate or just hate society and everything in it. No, it’s because they have gotten used to it, they have started to like scaring people in parks at night, cornering them and threatening their life. They have become addicts to that feeling.

 It is power that they love and even during storms at night, they will come out and try to cure their obsession by doing the only thing they feel they know what to do. They can be caught by police and send to jail for a short time, but that rush will not come down. Once you’ve felt power, you just cannot let go, especially in a world where only a few fortunate souls really do have power, mostly in the form of money. If someone outside that circle gets to feel a little bit of that, they simply become remarkably obsesses and they continue fulfilling that rush until they can’t, for one reason or the other.

 Anyway, stormy nights belong to no one, just as stormy days. No one can claim them; no one really knows how to describe the feeling of it all, how special it really is to finally being able to talk to your real self and to connect with nature. It’s different for everyone; so one experience is not really similar to any other. They are just as us humans, similar in key aspects but vastly different in what really counts. And that’s a fact that nature imbued into us, making us realize how really complex life is.

 The same feeling can be experienced when snow begins to fall or when you experience the natural darkness of the wild. You can also fill it when you dive deep into the water or when you swim in the ocean. It’s just something that is more than all of us combined, something that we can only experience privately. If we do feel it, if we really achieve that point, we will simply find it very complicated to use appropriate words to describe what it’s all about. After all, it really is a personal experience, different for each one of us.

 We have been led to believe that, as humans, we are precious and very special. And a way, we are, because we exist out of pure luck. We just happened, like a miracle, and now we are here doubting every single thing that surrounds us or worst, no even stopping to look at our surroundings. We believe that our brains are a masterpiece but most of us rarely use them properly because we just don’t have to. The world has stopped trying and now we just have to do a small amount of things to be a successful human.

 Of course, that is only in rich countries. In the rest of the world it is even worse because we still think we are miracles but we do not see any advantages of that anywhere. We try and try and try and nothing works and that’s how people get frustrated and they do whatever comes first in their heads.  So, that special part of us is just useless, like having the world’s most expensive object but not being able to sell it because it has become something more than just a very expensive object, whatever it might be.

 What really makes us special is how we choose to live life and how we decide to learn about ourselves. Thinking and precisely using the tools we were giving at birth is precisely what makes us special, not just having those tools. Anyone can do anything but not all of us can do it the right way.

 So just go out into the storm, drench yourself in water and make yourself feel. All those other things are not us, all those objects and people. They do not matter when don’t even know where we are and who we are. In order to live properly, we should really learn to look inside and around ourselves.

The tower

   When Samuel woke up, the first thing he felt was the stone cold floor of the tower. It was made out of huge rocks that had probably being recovered from the river down below. The sounds that the water made stumbling down from the mountain could not be heard at such heights. The cold wind blew and he was finally awake to see the horror of his situation. He had been trapped and put in a tower, far away from anyone that would be able to ever rescue him from his ordeal.

 Before losing his consciousness, he remembered a gentle smile and green bright eyes. He almost remembered huge yellow eyes and fire. But nothing else. Only those four things and when he put them together in his mind, they didn’t make any sense at all. It was as if he had many fragments of one story in his head but not the whole thing. He could put them in any order and try to make sense out of it, but it was useless. Even if he came up with the right idea, he wouldn’t know it.

 After waking up, he walked to the balcony and saw the land beneath the tower. There was an immense forest, larger than any he had ever seen or heard of. His motherland was located near the ocean. He had seen mountains only from afar and now he was surrounded by them. He had water so close he would fish every single day with his friends, for his parents and the townspeople in general. Now, the river was only a glistening thread that sometimes shone beneath the trees.

 Sam walked back to the tower’s interior and saw his new kingdom: a straw carpet on the center of the room, a bookshelf with many dusty volumes, a large wooden table with some fruit going bad on a basket on top, a chair, and a something resembling a bed but much smaller. It was uncomfortable even looking at it. Only one pillow and one thin blanket on top. It wouldn’t be enough for the nights on such a high place. The final touch was two doors: one half broken, going to the terrace, and the other made of solid metal, leading elsewhere.

 He ran to the metal door. He tried to push and hit and kick the door. But nothing happened. It wouldn’t even make a sound. It was just there, impervious, being the frontier between his cell and the rest of the world. He banged at the door, crying and yelling, desperate all of a sudden after realizing some mad man had imprisoned him. He begged for his life and for his sanity but no one came. He put one of his ears against the cold metal but couldn’t hear anything besides the wind. He was probably alone in that damned tower.

 Samuel tried to look for something else around the room, something to help him, but there was nothing there than what he had already seen at first glance. It was just that room, with those objects. No magic or mystical thing behind it all. For a moment, he had felt like one of those imprisoned damsels on children’s stories. But his situation was far worse than what those ladies had gone through. His captor was not even there. And he only had bad fruit to eat and nothing to drink.

 He decided to grab an apple and bite a chunk out of it. He felt the need of food in his stomach and maybe it would be best for him to think with a somewhat filled stomach. But he ended up eating the whole apple. In his rage against himself, Sam threw the apple’s heart over the balcony, and looked how it fell several meters before disappearing among the trees. After he saw that, he started crying and sobbing. He was going to die for sure and he had no way to ask anyone for help.

 Night fell soon enough. He closed the wrecked wooden door but it was useless, as the freezing gusts of wind entered through the huge cracks. He got into bed, with all of his clothes on, and just lay there, trying not to fell the cold that pierced through the thin blanket. Besides, it was too short, so either his feet would froze or his chest. He decided to get up and use some of the bigger books on the shelf to cover his feet. They were more dust than paper but his idea worked. However, the sadness he felt prevented him from falling asleep quickly.

 From afar, he heard the noises made by the forest. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the faces of his family and friends, his adventures to the beach and how he was congratulated for a week after having caught the largest lobster ever in that area. He had been so proud and had provided for his family for a whole month because of that feat. The pride lit his heart and that made the perfect temperature to fall asleep and visit his home in his dreams. He needed it badly.

 As he dreamt, he saw the yellow eyes again and the fire but he also remembered something more: a laugh. Soft, almost imperceptible, but capable to chill every single fiber of one’s being. The laughter wouldn’t stop. It got louder and louder and louder. Until the green eyes appeared, the sound of metal was heard and everything became silent and peaceful again. Then, saw a smile and felt his heart filling with heat again. But this time it wasn’t pride that was doing the job. It was something much more powerful. It was love.

Samuel woke up all of a sudden. He had felt so good but then something had changed and his eyes just opened. But no one was in that place with him. He was still alone and the wind was still entering through the rotten door. But it was day outside. Not only that. His blanket had been replaced with a thicker and larger one, with many bright colors all over. And the moldy fruit was replaced with baked goodies and fresh fruit. The books though, were still as dusty as before.

 It was obvious someone had entered the room. He stood up in the middle of the room, looking for more changes, and he realized he had overlooked something very obvious: he wasn’t wearing his boots anymore. Those were outside, the sun shining bright over them. And his vest had been put on the chair next to the table, nicely folded. He could finally spot something, the only thing, out of place in the whole room: a pair of wool socks made into a ball, on the bookshelf.

 He walked towards it and grabbed the ball but, just when he did it, a piece of paper fell down to the floor. The bad thing was that the damn wind pulled it over to the balcony and through the biggest crack on the wooden door. Sam raced after the paper and was able to catch it just as it was flying over the edge of the structure. He pulled back so hard out of fear that he fell on his behind, hitting the stone floor hard. He couldn’t get up so fast, so he decided to read the note first.

 It was short and very concise. It read: “Nights are cold. P”. That was it. Nothing more. No explanation of who the person was or why he or she had imprisoned Samuel on that tower. Nothing more than a kind thought made into a pair of woolen socks. They were new and Sam learned they worked wonders in order to try to keep the cold at bay. But it was a pain in the butt not to know who had been there to leave that present. Not even the actual pain could put his mind to rest.

 The man from the coast stayed in that tower for a long time and each night, new food and objects would appear out of nowhere. Sometimes, he would get a new book; some other times it was board games he could play by himself. He even got more clothes, all which fit perfectly.

 In time, he learned to live in the tower. He doubted his host less and loss until, one day; he eventually met the person who had put him there. And the first thing he did was to cry. And then, he looked at the horizon, and knew exactly what to do.

Rollercoasters

   The end of the lines was just next to a Mexican food stand, were many people ate, unaware that the line that was getting longer and longer had nothing to do with the food they were eating.

 The last two people to get to the line were a couple, a woman named Mel and a man named Jon. They had come to the park because they wanted to ride The Abomination, a very tall and long rollercoaster, built out of steel and wood at the same time. It was one of a kind and had landed the best reviews for a rollercoaster in a while.

 The couple had come all the way from another country just to have a go in the rollercoaster. The ride was supposed to last for a whole minute but the expected time in line was a bout two hours. That’s why the people from the park had to relocate some garbage bins and benches in order to put up a special place were people could make the line. It extended all over the park and it was cut at some places in order to let other visitors to the park move around with ease.

 In every place where the line was cut, there was a supervisor checking that every person in the line had a decent behavior and that no one got in line out of nowhere. If they discovered someone left or cut in front or behind their friends, there were taking out of the line very rapidly by the security agents of the park. So it was a very tense place.

 People would also have food in there. As many had backpacks, they brought everything they needed as they waited on line. The only thing they took care about was the amount of liquid they drank. It was hard because the sky was clear and the temperature had begun to rise dramatically. Yet, they didn’t want to have to go to the bathroom and then lose their seat, so everyone took very small sips and only if they felt really thirsty.

 Mel and Jon had drunk a lot of water before going to the park and had also eaten all that they could back in the hotel. They had complimentary breakfast so they stuffed themselves with everything and even brought some food in Mel’s purse in case they had the urge for something with sugar or to eat something after the long wait.

 They also had cards and videogames in their cellphones, which many were playing. Others decided to just chat with the people they had come in or they would simply eat because they had left their hotels early in order to be the first group in line. Needless to say that the first train that day had left with people that had camped outside the park, something that was supposedly forbidden but they had found the way to do it without the police arresting them or something.

 Jon was the one that had taken her girlfriend into the world of rollercoaster. Since being a young boy, he had been an enthusiast because they lived in a town with many rollercoasters, where people fro mall over came to ride them. So he thought there had to be something great about those structures and he eventually discovered there was, when he was finally able to ride all of them. The day he turned eighteen years old, he rode a rollercoaster called Dragon slayer. He was so happy that day that he celebrated his birthday right on the park with all his family and friends.

 Mel had never really been a fanatic of rollercoasters. She had rode some in her younger years but she had never really seen the interest of riding rollercoasters. When she met Jon, it was obvious he was a fanatic and, at first, it seemed there was going to be a problem about that because he was too obsessed the subject. What she did was taking him a away of all of that, at least for some time a week, in order for him to know there were other things in life he could be trying.

 That’s how she got him to try a variety of food they had never eaten, especially very spicy food. He got really hooked on that, to the point he bought a bottle of Tabasco every single time he went out to a supermarket. His parents noticed right away and asked him if he was ok and he answered that he was very happy with Mel. Instantly, they blamed her for every change his son showed in the next months, something she had to live with every single time she visited their home.

 Eventually, she got to convince them, by actions, that it was their son that had a problem. Everything obsessed him with an incredible ease. He grew attached to things in a matter of minutes after knowing them. It was amazing the amount of foreign food he brought home, the amount of sports he tried to be involved in and the way he got involved in every single thing.

 When Mel convinced him of playing volleyball with her and her friends, he grew extremely competitive after a single match. Even after hurting one of her friends after hitting her face, Jon’s enthusiasm wouldn’t go out. By the following week, he had already bought a net to put on his family’s backyard as well as an official volleyball and the proper attire to play the game. He started watching matches in TV, surprising his father who had never seen him enthusiastic about a sport.

The same thing happened to him with rollercoasters, with other sports such as basketball and softball, with spicy food, confectionery and even with the grooming of his dog Mordo. He grew to be obsessed with every single thing, driving people around him mad.

 Mel was the first to talk to his parents about it and, surprisingly, they agreed with her. It was obvious there was a problem to be solved and it had to be addressed before Jon was older, before he had to start working somewhere or prior to someone taking advantage for those obsessions, because he was sincere and innocent in some way when he had that uncontrollable rush to be into something. They all agreed they would help him overcome his problem.

The first difficult thing was to actually speak to him and tell him what they thought was happening and what they thought could be a good thing to do. He wasn’t really convinced but he listened to Mel when she asked him to go to a therapist she knew very well. It was the father of one of her best friends and he was a very well renowned professional that helped various types of people to improve their mental health by doing exercises and talking a lot.

 Not surprisingly, Jon got really hooked up with going to the shrink. He would be there thirty minutes earlier and would try for Dr. Bernstein to let him stay longer, as he thought it was very interesting how he dug into people’s minds with his knowledge. Mel was very disappointed at first. It was then when she realized it would probably be for the best if she ended up the relationship, no matter how much she loved Jon. The situation could drive her insane and she didn’t want that for her life.

 But then, something happened. As Jon had to talk about his problems, had to really dig deep into his past, his present and his thoughts on life, his enthusiasm begun to dwindle down after a full month going to visit Dr. Bernstein. When he came back from there, he would never talk a lot and would prefer to play his videogames or work to get his degree in engineering. He grew very quiet around that time and his parents got very worried and, again, blamed the girlfriend.

 Eventually, she was invited to join one of the appointments. It was the first time she saw Jon cry and the doctor explained him they had found the cause of his obsessions. It was simply because he needed things to be trustworthy, he needed to trust into objects that would always satisfy him. It was not a surprise, as he had always had problems dealing with people. He had few friends and he had met Mel practically by chance.

 So they visited the Abomination as a way of atoning all of those awful feelings he associated with people and with objects. The idea was for him to say goodbye to his obsessions and just live a life where he could like something without it becoming a huge thing in his life.

 After two hours in line, a bit hungry and dehydrated, they entered the car in the Abomination. They sat down and put on the safety bar down. Then, he took Mel’s hand and smiled. She hoped that was a good sign.

Visiting hours

   The large male nurse walked as if it was the most normal place in the world. Esther followed closely, looking sometimes at the windows to sea the weather outside but also to the side, where she could see some other windows but these gave views into the room of several of the residents of the psychiatric hospital. Some of them were apparently silent but when she passed other rooms, it was easy to hear strange sounds like bumping or slapping or strange mouth noises.

 The weather outside had turned worse in the last few minutes. The sky had been dark all day but the first drops of rain had finally begun to drop. Esther thought it was maybe the best weather for such a day, for such a visit. The reached another gate, where she had to show some ID and a guard checked her for anything that couldn’t be allowed inside. She didn’t really know what those objects were, but she didn’t mind at all.

 Her purse had stayed behind, at the first gate. Also her car keys, her house keys, her cellphone and a knitting kit she carried everywhere because it made her feel a lot calmer. The only thing she was able to carry inside was a plastic bag with some chocolate bars inside as well as banana muffins and a bottle of iced tea. They had wanted to open the bottles to check it was really iced tea, but an officer had stated she trusted Esther. Apparently she understood what a mother would feel in such a circumstance.

 When they were done checking her bag again, they walked through another corridor but this one was short and ended up in a large room that was filled with people. The place was very warm and she noticed it was because of the amount of people there. Immediately, she could tell all of them were patients of the hospital. Some of them were blankly staring at nothing in particular. Others were playing by themselves or watching the TV, where a man was explaining to the audience how butterflies mated.

 The male nurse told Esther to wait inside a small room besides the recreation area. It was a small space with a table and two chairs. She sat down in one of the chairs and realized the table had two metallic hooks of some kind, small, possibly to tied down the patients in order for them no to attack or anything. She thought that was awful and decided not to think about it because the image in her mind was horrible.

 The room also had a small window and she decided to stand up, leaving the bag on the table, in order to look out the window and not think about the horrible things that maybe happened in that room, or for the matter, in that hospital. She already felt guilty and imagining situations she didn’t know about, was really not necessary.

 Her son entered the room, followed by the male nurse. She turned around when she heard his voice saying “Mama”. Esther walked to him and huge him as strong as she could and he did the same. They hadn’t seen each other in two weeks, since he had been interned in the hospital by order of a court that had decided that Kevin, Esther’s son, had to undergo psychiatric evaluation and, if necessary, rehabilitation in a psychiatric facility. And that was exactly what had happened.

 They let go of each other and sat down in the two chairs. The male nurse stayed there, by the door, leaning against the wall and pretending he wasn’t hearing anything but it was obvious he was. He had no option. Nevertheless, he had done exactly that for so many years already, that he had learned when he had to be listening and when he could just wander into his brain and imagine what he was going to have for dinner at home or what kind of car he wanted to have.

 Esther told Kevin his hands were very cold and asked him if he was eating properly. The boy, around seventeen years old, told her the food there was pretty okay and that she shouldn’t worry about it. She didn’t really listened to him. She just turned her bag upside down and showed her son all the treats she had brought him. Esther smiled to Kevin and he smiled back but it was obvious he was sad or at least not as happy as she was pretending to be.

 They decided to eat the big banana muffins first and the nurse’s stomach growled because of the delicious smell. Esther offered him a bite but he just raised his hand and moved his face, so she didn’t insisted. She asked Kevin if everything was okay with him, if he felt good there, if there was anything he wanted to tell her about it all. He took his time to answer, preferring to eat his banana muffin, which had been his favorite since he was very little.

 Kevin said to her mother that everyone in the hospital was very nice and that the only bad thing so far was that his room was a bit cold but he slept well with some two blankets and a thick quilt of top of them. She said she could bring more if he wanted it but he just said no and went on to finish his muffin. She ate too but she was more worried about her son. She didn’t know what to ask or how to ask.

 But she had to. She had no choice but ask things. Esther’s next question was about the medication they were giving him. Kevin told her he took a couple of pills everyday to control his anxiety issues and that he took others for physical problems like his blood pressure and such, because it was always very elevated. She nodded when he said that, as she tried to build in her head what that meant for him. Was he getting worse or better?

 Kevin took the chocolate bar next and smiled. It was a weird smile, as he didn’t even know how to do it. And it lasted only a few seconds. He felt the deep scent of the chocolate and took a bite. It was also filled with oranges, which he loved. He thanked his mother and kept eating it, until he reached half of the bar. His mother told him he could have some for later but then he looked at her and, out of the blue, laughed at her. His eyes appeared to transform and his laugh was so exaggerated, she felt bad to say what she had said.

 The male nurse looked at Kevin first and then stated that the patients couldn’t keep anything from the outside in their rooms, no even food. Kevin pointed at the nurse and nodded, indicating he was telling the truth. He told his mother that she should have known that, if she had come earlier to visit him. Esther felt hurt by that but explained to him that they wouldn’t let her in because his treatment had not being properly initiated so they didn’t want her to spoil it.

 Kevin just nodded and it was obvious he didn’t care one bit about what his mother was saying. He didn’t believe her and told her that the first week had been horrible, with all the people there crazier than anyone else in the world and the doctors pinching and poking and asking and everything going on and on every single day. He felt tired every night and in the morning it would begin again and the cycle would repeat, of course, with the horrible therapy that he went through.

 Esther was horrified because he had transformed before her very eyes. He asked her if she knew what the therapy was all about. Before she could deny that she knew, he explained to her that they put him on a chair, with restraints, and made him answers questions and look at pictures and videos and tried to understand what hade being going on at the time he had killed the children in playground. They wanted to know why he had killed three of them.

 The nurse got nearer but didn’t intervene. This time, he was listening carefully. Esther was on the edge of tears, trying to ask for forgiveness about him being there and also asking her son not to say anything else about he did.

 And then he punched the table and told her that was him that’s who he really was and that she had to accept that she had a son who was a murderer and that had enjoyed it. He was hysteric, not laughing or crying, just yelling to make his point be seen. Kevin told his mother that even now, he thought back about it all and even then he enjoyed it. He had taken pleasure out of it and he had no remorse.

 He stood up fast and the nurse was going to grab him but he had no need to do that, as Kevin went through the door by himself, and on to his room. The nurse told Esther to go back to the gate and tell the guard there that her visit was over. But when the nurse went away, she couldn’t stand up. She looked at the food there on the table and then repeated her son’s words in her brain and she just couldn’t understand, she couldn’t.

 What had ever happened to her baby boy?