- The quiet man and his car were trapped in the middle of the highway, with a broke motor. They were looking at each other in the middle of nowhere. The only thing that hold them up was the big blue sky, and the shine of the sun climbing against the gravity force to reach the midday.
- The quiet man: - Well... This'll be a long, long, long day -he said out loud, but his car didn't answer-. I know you can't talk, my dear machine; but I need to tell you something.
- There was a deep noise coming out from the 'chinchillas' throats around them.
- The quiet man: - Last Sunday, I had a dream. It wasn't normal... I mean, the feeling was too real to be a lie. But my mother was there and she's death, dear -he paused-. Anyway, the thing is that I started to think in dead. I saw her so pale but so alive instead, that for a moment I thought that we were together again. Her hands were cold but her smile was deep, as always was...
- Suddenly, a butterfly landed on the window door next to him. It made him loose his concentration for a minute.
- The quiet man: -I'm sorry... -he apologized with his iron fellow- When I'm talking about her something happens. No matter what I'm remembering or telling, but something like this - he pointed to the butterfly- happens. Strange, huh?
- Despite the facts that he was a little bit old, his mind was very clear and also capable of know when he was exaggerating the situations. But the insect wasn't part of that at all.
- The quiet man: I don't want to bore you with a long story. So, the thing with the dream is that my mother told me something very important -he made another long pause.
- The car cranked because of the hot weather and a bird landed on the roof of the car.
- The quiet man: She said in a loud and cranky voice: 'Rusty, there is no need to bleed before the cut'. And frankly, I didn't get it till now. Do I need to run to get a crane to be in home before six o´ clock, just to be in bed early and have a good sleeping night in order to have a good mood in work? -his hands twisted the wheel with anger- Why in this Earth I have to run?!
- A sudden silence covered the undulating waves of his voice over the endless Cordillera. The bird flew away, but the butterfly stayed.
- The quiet man: I'm sorry... -he took a quick glance to the bug- It's hard to know when we need to stop, mum -the butterfly flapped its wings-. I have to take it slow, the life I mean. I always run, but what I had been running for nothing. Who I wanted to chase? Me?
- After his last question, the butterfly flew away. The quiet man dropped a tear from his right eye and quickly removed with his hand. There was no need to rush or anticipate nothing. Not even cry for his mother's dead.
The universe of the mind
The journey wasn’t long. The only thing that mattered at the time, were the quantity of people travelling in the red train. When she stepped in, through the metal door, a girl with a little piercing crossed her sight. She looked uncomfortable because of the space, that wasn’t too big, but they still could breath and move their arms.
A few stations later, this girl took a book out of her pierce and started to read. The women in front of her thought that she was reading something about self help. She didn’t know, but it had no importance at all.
Suddenly, she focused her attention in the rest of the people. They were going to their works, schools, universities or even their houses. She didn’t know either, but she tried to figure out where they were going that winter morning. But the real question was, where was she going that day? “At university, of course”, she answered herself. But where else would she go?
Books, students, classes and all that were her deepest passion. Once in a while, this woman imagined herself helping others to understand the world she was trying to understand. Not because the others were stupid or something like that, but because of her need of teaching.
As humans we have a lot of capacities. Some of them were developed within our family, friends, teachers, strangers, experiences, media and more. Some of us had received formal education and others just didn’t. But the point is that all the people can learn, in different levels according to the stimulation during life. I mean, no one is better than no one. Everybody can do a lot of things. This was her daily theory. She wasn’t thinking consciously about it all the time, but it often went through her mind.
That day in the train wasn’t the exception. She was thinking in her theory while the people went in and out of the train. In the middle of her reflection, a man offered her the seat next to him. She appreciated the gesture, but she left it to the girl with the book.
The woman continued with her idea and then she locked it in some part of the brain. Who was the man next to her? She didn’t know either, but he was concentrated in something. It was deep, not dark, but deep and it had all his concentration. “A love issue”, she thought. Was it? It didn’t matter either.
Near the final station, a lot of people went out of the machine. She finally sat over a black seat, next to the piercing girl. The woman remembered that she had something about French revolution in her bag. She took the copies out and began to read. When she finished it a note about North American history appeared. She read a few paragraphs and a name caught all her attention. She smiled, because she remembered a face that she had never seen in reality, or even touched.
Before the arrival, she saved her papers and glasses inside the light-blue bag. Her mind was in a cloud and her feet on the stairs of the transport. There were a lot of souls walking in the same direction; but she wasn’t there. Instead, her dreams were reaching a place far away from her city, crossing the ocean to another country.
“If I can travel in mind, others could do bigger and better things for humanity”, she thought while she was walking along the platform. When she had asked herself where would she go that day, she found the real answer there. Where the people next to her thinking about the same? Of course they weren’t. Well, actually she didn’t know what they were thinking.
Again her mind travelled to the foreign country, till she saw something that moved her completely. “Blue eyes…”, she said out loud and laugh softly. The people around her haven’t noticed her gesture, because they didn’t matter about her. Or where they? And that was the whole point, the knot where her theories and reality joined: communication. Not between machines, as one of the meanings about the terms says, but between humans.
We communicate a lot without even talk… And the woman was thinking in communication while she communicated herself with others. A miracle? No, we all do this things all the time, but most of it we don’t think consciously. Anyway, it didn’t matter.
She would be abble to travel, only if she discover the key to show her ideas to others.
When she arrived to college, there were no people at all. She went to her classroom, took her seat and closed her eyes. She listened to the unusual silence of the place. Then she thought that, sometimes, we need a rest of ourselves… And as soon as the noise filled the room, she started to think in nothing but French revolution.
The lion was there and she could not feel her legs then. Her arms were pieces of skin trying to avoid the claws and teeth of the beast. His long and brown, almost grey, mane always had remembered how you she was when they first met -two years before? She cannot remember now. The only thing she could logically do at the moment, was a little attempt to take him back home. Not her home; his place. A spot where he would live alone and happy forever -maybe not so happy, she thought. But why the hell she was thinking on that? When he had cared about her?
Lions are the kings of the jungle, the masters of all animals, stories always said… Wasn’t it?
Anyway, it was not the question at the moment that mattered her; just the fact that he was there trying to catch her with a violent movement but… She was not the same girl. She was always feeling the youth in her veins, of course, with the little add of a clear thinking about most of the things in her life. So he could not demolish her as an old tower that’s about to fall because of the time.
When the animal finally stopped the attack, she took her paws between her hands and said:
—If I were so easy to catch, there would be no effort from you at all to get me back.
—Why are you doing this? —he asked with a mournful voice— You adore me…
—Long time ago, I did —she smiled—. Now I can’t love someone that makes me feel like nothing.
—Did I… —he made a long pause— Did I hurt you?
—Yes, you did -she answered with her sight nailed on his eyes- But it’s ok, I needed that to see…
—To see what?
—That I’m too much for a Lion that hates the Jungle and his reign —she smiled again— And you always said that we could not avoid the fall from the waterfall we live in. Do you remember, Xavier?
The only thing he could make in answer to her new attitude was a hard roar; nothing else. Just a prove of his vocals and his strong and old body that could just try -and just try- to awake her lost fear. An insignificant try for so clever and noble animal. One that had always belonged to the family of the cats -and they had always been treacherous, she thought while she walked away from his anguish Kingdom.
There is no love for a woman and a beast that can resist the reality of their worlds.
“Puhleez take it away-the pain!”
He eyed me over the foggy video cam, altogether pent-up. Blink. Blink.
“I’m(connection: error,error,error) TRYING you fool!” I said, stumbling with my mouse. Finally the speech came up in word.
“LORD god almighty, creator of heaven and earth, knower of…
Mona played with the car radio knobs as Carl gently stuck the black gas pump into the tank. bending over as the gas poured out fast. Mona arched her back as the rhythm of the music got to her. “Faster“. She touched her love box. at 3.77 a gallon, she was the cheapest whore around.
she jammed her butter knife into the jelly. i’m toast i thought. as i squeezed oranges to make juice i asked her if she was okay. i noted the brow, it raised. i went back to squeezing.
“why didn’t you tell me you were going to be late,” she finally cut the silence with her tongue. “i didn’t know until it was too late,” i replied.
“don’t get wise,” she said.
“i’m not, trust me,” i said.
she went back to the jelly, i went back to the oranges.
this was all starting to feel like a lemon.
the phone rang. she put the knife down and went to answer it. i switched the butter knife with a plastic knife. you know, just in case.
she came back, i noted from the way her brow went up that she noted my cutlery switch. i was certainly no mission impossible Tom Cruise.
“i have something to tell you,” she said.
“what’s up, babe,” i replied.
“well, i was late too,” she said.
“you didn’t go anywhere,” i said.
‘no, no … i’m late.”
“for what”
then it dawned on me.
“why didn’t you say anything,” i asked.
” i didn’t know until it was too late,” she replied.
jam. toast. lemon.
Hello everyone! Hope you all are doing well! So since I’m probably going to be taking a break from writing here to focus on schoolwork as well as other personal matters I thought I would share with you a short story I wrote late last year. If you’re in for a read, please take a look and I would…
Click link above to continue..
