LONGING

WORDS

And there we were sitting down, both silent, staring at the bonfire that was burning uncomfortably between us, when suddenly it started to drizzle, just a few timid drops, though I stood up immediately to go and pick up an umbrella. I didn’t care about getting wet, but maybe the excuse of a shelter would bring him closer to me.

The fire was not in danger: it was covered by the roof of the barbecue. But I ran some risks indeed: to return and find he had looked for his own shelter; to return and face him looking for my refuge. To return.

Running from the point I thought he couldn’t hear me and so suspect my anxiety, I went into the house; some voices raised a question looking at me, ‘is nothing, we will be back in no time’, and my steps were running over the garden again.

A back keeping an eye on the bonfire. I approach quietly, incapable of words, open the umbrella and cover him. I’m scared, don’t want to risk myself to go back to the place where we were before and see how he doesn’t come; is not that far, just a couple of steps, the edge of the wall is comfortable and is seldom wet, but two steps are wider than a hug, anyway.

A mouthful of smoke in his face, and he moves away. It seems to have stopped raining. Will I dare to look at him directly now? I sit down. He comes closer and sits down by my side. My look, finally, brushes his eyes with its longing. An elusive smile. The smell of roasted meat. He wakes up.

We have finished dinner and each one looks for his own space. I climb some stairs looking for the clouds; maybe a star can evade them and surprise me; the surprise, however, are some steps, lost in their thoughts, going up, ‘oh! What are you doing here, all alone?’, and sit down. Is very dark around so my look won’t be able to deliver any more messages. So I approach and touch him.

I swear it has been an innocent contact, just a hand landing affectionately in a friend’s shoulder, but he has rose too early for my fingers to remember.

Night gets deeper and everyone gradually return to their houses. I linger behind, helping to tidy up the leftovers of that uncertain evening. It looks like we have been left alone. He closes the fence. Suddenly, his hands are guiding me in silence I don’t know where.

MOVIES

3-Iron, Kim Ki-duk, South Korea, 2004.

Why call him a ghost, when he can walk, hit, eat, and masturbate the same way we do? Is it that surprising that he barely has a shadow, and that his voice never awakes?

The hands repair in silence other people’s sins. The lips smile at the most despotic ignorance. The body groans while learning its own limits.

There is nothing extraordinary in the fact of living without luggage; what we haul is, most of the times, only a burden. Let’s get rid of those symbols that tattoo our soul with indelible marks and instead let’s leave invisible traces that can only be trailed by those with patient eyes.

In this children’s language there is no need of magnificent words. Only the unavoidable necessity of sharing, and communicating.

MORE

Mirror, por Desártico.