She sat, silently listening to her friend's voice narrating an incident that happened a week ago, vaguely gazing at her eyes, sometimes on her lips, sometimes jumping to a body part that jerked this way or that as she got illustrative in her narration. The series of stories started about three months ago.. Now seven days were left for the full given account, then she would have to talk back.. She grasped her stomach hard, and asked herself a million questions all together. Question number one, does she have to give all the answers at once too? It is much easier to lose her mind to the Empire of Lunatics, aka Heaven.. She wondered why she was so stubborn, why didn't she just break down and really lose it? Maybe she had some kind of mission on earth that needed her to be sane. Yes, maybe.. What was that again? Ah, he refused so they had to leave early that day, Monday, that is. Five days left.
Suddenly she found out she was terribly lonely.. Sounded like old news but it felt like a new revelation this time. She could not talk about the most important things in her life because rejection, personal prejudices and instanteneous discouraging was the certain feedback.. She was almost sure she could go no further than a couple of sentences. Yes, suddenly all the love surrounding her was strictly conditional.. How sad is that? To know that if at any moment your greatest dreams hit a dead end or faced serious troubles, it would make no difference whatsoever on your loved ones, and you appear like nothing has changed.. "You look great today" and you are, in fact, crumbling like a piece of stale bread from inside. Thank you and a wide smile. Pain..
There is always this tendency to reach an equilibrium, to make the inside at peace with the outside. So she spends the nights and a great portion of the days bargaining, weighing, doubting, taking various decisions, questioning her choices, or finally digging in the fridge for something that is hard to chew, or grinding her teeth until she gets a headache, all in the hope of finding a solution to live in peace, sometimes talking herself to complying for the sake of others and their love and their peace of mind (oh they look so peaceful, why should she ruin it) -yet she cannot help thinking it is an atrocious psychological blackmail-, or at other times deciding to rebel and just do what she feels and believes is right.. But then she is afraid of the magnificent oppression of which this world is capable, and more now that she sees how lonely she is, she wonders of she can hold on without love and support.. She is highly sentimental and is much affected by desynchronization.. But somehow she believes that if she gave full reign to her heart, things will be perfect.. But yes, she is a coward, she needs a serious, courageous first step, irredeemable, right in the face of Everything, the overwhelming tyrant. It seems that she needed to rebel against some things in herself too, things that had been chaining her.
Being in her body hurts, she thought, as she walked away from her friend. The week had ended and she gave her best.. Now she needed a hug.
"The streets looks malicious, the buildings glances at her with a look so suspicious, her petition so outrageous! How dare she claim her soul?" a voice sounded in her ears, a threatening tone.. She stretched her arm in a desperate final act before she hit the asphalt, that could be a warmer embrace than that of flesh and blood.. She waited for the collision but it never happened, as if she fell in a non-ending hole in the fabric of time and space.. But no.. She was supported.. A few moments elapsed before she became aware that the hole in time and space -the idea that felt so everlasting and safely consistent, a relief, in fact- was just the arms of a senior woman who caught her falling after swinging her way into unconsciousness, the mandatory shutdown of her consumed system...
The lady was so warm and she fit in her arms like a baby, she surrendered because she didn't have the energy to stand up, and the woman's arms curled around her securely and she heard her muttering soft, melodious words, she stopped breathing to hear her, and she found out it was her favorite lullaby, the one she sang to herself and dreamed of singing to her children under starry night skies accompanied by the soothing cicadas playing their harps to the full moon..
She held her head up to look at the mysterious lady.. She had a familiar face, she smiled to her through the dim light as she whispered the lullaby and her eyes glittered with moonlight, only if there was really a moon, for the only source light in this narrow street was that of the abhorrent, depressing yellow street lamps. Her energy failed her and she relaxed her head back in the generous embrace of the old woman, and felt the pulsating serenity that waved from her, a feeling so strange, as if all her past life was unreal and this moment was the essence of Truth and the only reality.. She breathed deeply and wondered, smiling, if she died..
The lullaby went on like it was the river in which everything else in Existence flowed.. As if it was in place of Time.. The questions, the doubts, seemed all so absurd, and she knew exactly what would be done. Actually, it was already done, and the fruits of the sowing were ripe.
"Love and compassion are far?" the lady asked in a quivering, sweet voice. The serene adult baby raised her hand, trying to summon words to answer, but the old woman grasped her hand suddenly.. The scars she knew so well glistened in white lines on the back of the woman's hand, just above hers.. her heart sank. She smiled to her when she saw her shock, embraced her more tightly that she became completely engulfed, and started again to hum the lullaby. After a moment in which thoughts grew roots that ran deep in her soul and turned into Faith, she almost fell to sleep, but she jerked up and looked around.. the street was quiet and the few passer-bys didn't even bother to glance at her as she sat on the pavement...
She shivered strongly that she had to rub her head.. She stood up, and walked away...