Moods, Words, Movies...

GUILT IV

2012-01-08T05:11:00.000-08:00

WORDS & MOVIES

Bleak Night, Yoon Sung-hyun, South Korea, 2011.

Was it late spring? If I’m not mistaken, it was not too hot yet. But hot enough to climb up the hill and go for a swim in the winding ravine. There you went, along with your gang. Around four or five, full of hormones and nicotine.

The game goes like this, I’m sure you haven’t forgotten: one says he has had sex with his cousin, another says he stole some of his father’s porn magazines, another murmurs he is virgin. He is the only one not lying.

Surely you haven’t forgotten. You must remember, because that sincerity pierced your pride as a spear. And you started.

At first, just a bit of constraint, but you kind of enjoyed it, so you went a bit further, and burnt his incipient pubic hair with a lighter; as laughs raised, so your insanity did.

Your mates followed your brutality, how could they do otherwise? Until you got bored; he was not opposing much resistance, anyway. But when the poor fellow didn’t return home that night, you suffered the biggest remorse. Your pals could blame you the next morning, when his dead body was found floating in the water. But you had none else to blame, none but yourself, am I correct?

MORE

Memories over your shoulder, by Desártico.

GUILT III

2012-01-03T00:44:00.001-08:00

WORDS & MOVIES

Vertical ray of the sun, Anh Hung Tran, Vietnam, 2000.

Stupid teenage insecurity. It makes us moody; it turns us irascible and distrustful. And you are no exception. Any other way of explaining that beautiful act of loyalty?

Hey, you were a difficult guy, to begin with, yet he was always right there, standing your fits, your failures, your sudden changes. Did he ask anything in return? A couple of cigarettes, maybe. Your leather jacket, just once. I bet he never dared to ask for your motorcycle, and you will never know he walked, yes, the 5 km from your village to hers through the darkest night, and back in the early morning under the fucking cold of winter. This afraid he was of asking you. This much he cared about your friendship.

I won’t be easy on you: you just took your motorcycle and rode to the neighbour village. You have your charm, but why her? Why, from all the girls, you had to pick exactly her?

He was there, the whole time, frozen behind the wall, watching how you got in a single night what his many walks never let him achieve. In utter silence. Not to interrupt you, afraid of losing his only, sickeningly handsome friend.

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Cringed, by Desártico.

GUILT II

2011-12-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

WORDS & MOVIES

Raise the red lantern, Zhang Yimou, China, 1991.

Back then it was just your sister, and you. You loved her in a way, I’m not questioning that, though you always seemed to find ways of pestering her when all she was doing was, well…, playing with her little cute dolls. She was a few years younger than you, and that is what girls of her age usually do, remember?

Yet she always raised her voice to defend you when those little bastards used to bully you in the schoolyard. That tiny, defenceless, stubborn girl between you and the kids, shouting her high voice at them to protect your older cowardice.

I don’t pretend to interfere in family matters, but tell me, was it worth it? You wanted that fastidious bit of attention, all right. But, was it really worth it? Worth her profound and utter sadness?

What if I tell you she always knew it was you who let her canary fly away the cage?

MORE

Premature autumn, by Desártico.

GUILT I

2011-12-17T01:15:00.000-08:00

WORDS & MOVIES

Aftershock, Xiaogang Feng, China, 2010.

Do you remember? Yes, I’m talking about that. That day you were really pissed off. It was not her fault, of course not, but she was there, nevertheless. Only she was there when you most needed being alone. And she said those things to you: things about being a kid, about being inexpert and wrong.

You couldn’t stand it, and you screamed to her. Yes, I heard you did. And you know what? She did just that: slapping your face as any other mum would have done.

You were shocked, I understand, but that doesn’t smooth what you did, that doesn’t justify your fury, your arm raising, your violent slap on her face.

Your mother ran away. Not even your father could have hurt her the way you did that day.

Now listen to me. If you, after all these years, gather some courage and dare talking to your mother about that at last, you will understand something so, so important:

That she doesn’t even remember.

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Blindness, por Desártico.

BLINDNESS

2009-03-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

WORDS

Sometimes she has seen him walking, though most of the times she discovers him sitting down on that spacious sofa, looking ahead absentmindedly. She ignores completely what attracts his attention, as she just focuses on him, on his gestures, on his way of preening his hair and scratching his legs, on how he smokes. She has been in that room for just a few days; he has stayed in his at least the same, if not his whole life. Drowsy on the rocking chair of her balcony, she observes him carefully, reading his movements, victim of intrigue and tedium. Some minutes later, she is able to guess the moment when he will stand up from the armchair in search of a soft drink –one foot open one eye, full of sleep, and starts elbowing his comrades-. Some hours later, she can predict the exact moment in which he will look out of the window to that common horizon full of palm trees –a wandering hand traces the border between two tiles-. Some days later, she is never wrong: now he will call by phone. Now he will smoke a butt. Now he will masturbate. Now he will sit down on the floor, leaning his back on the wall, and cry.

Berta rises slowly. He has lowered the blind, perhaps longing for some intimacy. But she keeps on imagining what that unknown man must be doing now, even though he is out of her sight. While entering the room, she locates him on the edge of an unmade bed. She walks towards the bathroom. He, staring at his toenails (they are asking for a sacrifice), drinks from a glass. She undresses her clothes. He takes an ice cube, caresses it, observes how it vanishes between his fingers. She turns on the tap of the bath. He collapses backwards on the drunk mattress, and the glass shatters on the floor. Berta submerges herself under the lukewarm water.

Suddenly, a hand appears out of nowhere and touches lightly her wet thighs. Berta shouts in panic. It must be her husband, who always talks to her in that incomprehensible language.

MOVIES

M/Other, Nobuhiro Suwa, Japan, 1999.

The only difference between lying face down and face up is in the position of the camera.

LOVE

2009-03-07T21:13:00.000-08:00

MOVIES

The road home, Zhang Yimou, China, 1999.

The river, by Desartico.

EVICTION

2009-03-02T01:36:00.000-08:00

WORDS

Besieged in his bedroom, Moisés joyfully moves the stool over to the window, draws back the curtains slightly, and rests his elbows on the knees, with forehead pressed against the glass and chin on the palm of his hands. His diligent eyes immediately start examining the surroundings, searching for possible threats. Even if there are any, they don’t have to be taken into consideration, as the boy has ignored them and doesn’t delay for a single second his desperate encounter with the house.

The walls undermined with abandonment, the plants climbing, the tiles broken, but the call of any stray cat cannot be heard, as it could be expected, nor the ailing groan of the rust or the imperceptible surrender of the roof. In their place, a ferocious coming and going of vehicles is heard, and the screech of invisible people invading with their corruption the old mansion enclosed by ruins.

Moisés observes the dark, mysterious openings and suddenly he pushes a rickety windowframe open. The stinking spittle of solitude welcomes him from every corner and every flight of the stairs, from every pipe and every floor tile; desolation dwells where emptiness hasn’t reached yet; where emptiness doesn’t exasperate, decadence alarms. Moisés explores every room without fear, because there’s nothing to be afraid of in that calm full of insects. The plague of the city is eased in that insane and exciting silence. Moisés is trembling nervously, and his fingers are breaking the abyss, caressing the edge of his own soul. How lonely must that old house feel, so vast and frightened!

Moisés feels the pain of that eviction in his own skin, which suddenly has lost all his clothes to our surprise. Like in a macabre game, we follow the trail of each garment forfeit through the corridors until we reach a mattress.

MOVIES

All about Lily Chou Chou, Shunji Iwai, Japan, 2001.

Lined up clumsily along the irregular slope opposite the school, the kids await the sign that spurs their legs on, although, before we can even get to hear it, a stampede of spirited bodies sweeps us away.

With adolescent energy, the youths run up the hill in total disorder, a pair of hands moving the air out of the way, a couple of eyes gaining ground, all approaching the summit recklessly. And, without prior agreement, everyone, sooner or later, reaches it. But their feet don’t stop there; on the contrary, they quicken and, with a flush of joy, jump.

Over the cliff, the bodies embrace freedom; however, none warned them that the price of wings is blindness.

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Rubble, by Desártico.

REMORSE

2009-02-27T04:08:00.000-08:00

WORDS

Knocked down by the fists of many unnamed youths, León is falling to pieces in a night forest crowded with echoes. Even so, he is still able to lean on his arm and raise slightly his head from that bleeding asphalt. And the moon?

The young men surround him, but they are faceless as well, because León can only see dense undergrowth and thorns and caves. By his side lies a wallet, open and hopeless, whose interior shelters the scream of fear. He leans on the palm of his hand trying to sit up, but another violent burst undermines him brutally. He doesn’t feel pain, as the noise is gatecrashing within his core and the roar prevents him from hearing the cry of his own body. A shoe has lost a high heel somewhere nearby, and its edge is the rock polished by the dark ravine. The owls observe him, the branches await, and León shifts again in search of support but, after a torturous effort, another jolt, and he barely has any strength left.

The din of howls keeps on growing and his soul is filling up with thousands of unknown mouths that spit in unison, swamping his heart. The path is invisible, his feet trip over stones and brambles scourge him. The night blows its darkest obscurity upon him, who has finally lost his way and is lost in the shoves of death. This impenetrable wood is swallowing him and only this wood full of yelling eyes remains in his thought while he receives a new murmur of irate feet crying out for vengeance. The sharp knocks, the threatening shouts, the immense trees, the springy grass, the clear water…

León is going to die and, in the scattering of his life, all his memories flee terrified from that black cesspit.

MOVIES

Oldboy, Park Chan-wook, South Korea, 2003.

What is a man doing with a raised mattock, the clothes muddied, the forehead wet with sweat and the teeth gritting? Either he is about to kill someone, or he is planting something.

Although, well considered, he could also be just posing for a photograph.

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Stones, by Desártico.

ATONEMENT

2009-02-23T01:32:00.000-08:00

WORDS

On that side of the track, an endless maize field with goose pimples, and Diego is dragging the body through the mud, penetrating into that colossal opaqueness. An evening rain threatens his advance, but it can only sense it, because the walk of the youth hides between the stalks. In the distance, somewhere beyond that drowned abyss, must await the marsh. He knows it, as he has covered that same purgatory before, but each time his feet walked more slowly, his arms pulled with less strength, the panic chased him more closely. Today, after so much blood and mud, his task becomes unbearable: each stride sinks him deeper into the slime of misery and each pace floods his chest with more desperation, but he has no choice: before him stretches the swamp; behind lies hell; if he stops, a viscous embrace will swallow his heart.

Perhaps it is the fear, but Diego manages to raise a foot, wearily, and walks another step, while pulling up that misshapen form from the filthy pit were it had run aground. Some rooks have smelled his frightened sweat and are approaching him, cawing in circles above the trail of death that Diego’s escape is drawing in the density, awaiting the moment that the exhausted boy crosses the boundary of the sown field and collapses from exhaustion on the edge of the water. But the young man cannot hear them: his weeping is growing along with his anxiety, and he can barely take another step.

However, and despite all, Diego manages to reach the bog, with the last of his strength. He won’t stop for a single moment in that horrifying place. First, he will hurl the bundle. Once with empty hands, he will be able to forget again.

MOVIES

Eureka, Shinji Aoyama, Japan, 2000.

The child has been late for school for the first time. But everyone looks at him with astonished faces, whispering to each other, pointing at him, pronouncing his name indiscreetly, waiting.

MORE

Green, by Goretti Broto.

SELF DISCOVERY

2009-02-17T21:45:00.000-08:00

WORDS

Like knitting in water

with trembling hands

hope,

shading the pebbles

of the bed

with dancing, nervous

fingers.

Like drawing on mist

with imprecise lines

a longing,

dragging out from the dense volatile

steam

some flickering shavings

of brightness.

Like sounding out the depth

of silence

with a splintering stick

laden with fear,

or gauging the bottom

of the well

with the husky echo of a voice

tired of insinuations.

It is easy to get lost

on a path travelled by so many

if your footprints are not

deeper and more solid than the others.

The kiss, the words, the dream

won’t bore through the ground

you have walked,

but the furrow of its trail

will stroll within you forever.

MOVIES

Postmen in the mountains, Jianqi Huo, China, 1999.

From climbing so many stairs, the legs acquire the habit of flexing alternately like automatons. That is the reason why, when receiving a particular command (pay attention to what you have in front of you: it is called step, and you must conquer it) they become confused, clumsy, and they collapse.

Our father is an entity that has always been there, taken for granted. That is the reason why, when staring at him one day, suddenly, we don’t know what he means.

Past and present, by Desártico.

WAIT

2009-02-15T06:58:00.001-08:00

WORDS

One of those innumerable cities without personality. One of those big shapeless buildings. One of those burning days. And Luisa, dressed with a fine linen blouse and light trousers, is looking through one of those identical windows. Further below, at the feet of that human anthill, the crowded pool. And she is still poking with her finger at the bottom of a glass, looking for the trace of a single drop to kiss her fingertip and transport, embraced to it, across the most uninhabited bends of her neck and her soul. The blades of a fan are groping her legs, but she is fainting of the heat. And that is why finally, exasperated by that silent breath of summer, she takes some shoes, some hope, a hat, a resigned face, and leaves the bedroom. In the deserted corridors, not even a moth has survived that stifling midday. None, therefore, will witness the sudden anxiety that hounds her when she passes by a metallic door, on her way to the lift: No Entry: Terrace Roof. She looks to both sides of her conscience, and finds them empty. Nothing, therefore, will stop her. Determinedly, she turns the handle and leaps into that solitary, dark stairwell.

Luisa climbs the steps one by one, while they applaud her nerve at the rhythm of her heels: slow, brave, expectant. A hazy brightness is taking shape high up, and after a last rasping breath of darkness, the orgasm of the sun splashes indecently in her eyes, on her face, all over her body, leaving her stunned for a moment. Luisa half-opens her eyes, lost in that moor of light and heat, and sees an aerial, a chimney, a ventilation exit; they escaped there looking for solitude, that’s for sure, just like herself. And in that company, Luisa spreads her towel out and undresses her clothes. Soon, her beautiful body will be defenceless under the lust of the evening, which will harass every pore of her skin with its cohort of volcanic fingers; a film of transpiration will sprout to protect her, but only in vain.

Luisa stands up, dehydrated and breathless, and looks for shade. She skirts the walls of the lift shaft and sits down behind it. A gentle breeze stabilizes her breath gradually. And it is only then when she notices the other pair of unwary legs, asleep under that devastating summer, sticking out behind a fold of the terrace. The feet rest on top of the parapet that prevents them from falling into the precipice, but the body lies hidden from her perspective, and Luisa wonders how will the face under those unworried feet look like, those feet that sometimes scratch their soles on the wall, and other times stroke each other affectionately, unaware of her, of nothingness, of love, of death…

MOVIES

In the mood for love, Wong Kar Wai, Hong Kong, 2000.

Possession is the cancer of memory: what fits in a hug will never be as big or as powerful as the reminiscence of that little elusive desire that always evaded us.

Footprints will be obscured by the most discreet snow. Scars will be covered with some clothes. A kiss is nothing but transplanted saliva.

But, how to dry the tear not yet shed?

MORE

Shanghai Street, Hong Kong Circa 2008, by Daniel Chen.

FREEDOM

2009-02-12T08:59:00.000-08:00

WORDS

With the first light of dawn, Liu Cheng has escaped. A pair of worn out shoes in his hand, the passage of tears furrowing its way in his face, and the young monk rushes desperately down the mountain, stumbling incessantly around the crags of the slope, running away from the temple that is all he knows in that foreign country. The sandals he was wearing soon abandon him (they don’t want to be accomplices of that betrayal), but how can those bare feet worry about the stabbing lick of the rocks, when they finally have courage.

The boy falls over repeatedly, but he always regains his footing. The cloak he is wearing is getting soiled with dirt, but Liu Cheng doesn’t stop nor look back. With the vast expanse of the fierce mountains before him, he has an immeasurable horizon to decide where he wants to start being free.

After some time, the youth arrives to an enormous tree that rests in the middle of a meadow. He stops, supporting himself with his hand on the ancient trunk, panting. Some threads of saliva fall from his lips to the ground. The morning shines radiantly. Liu Cheng crouches wearily, and sits down leant on his back. Slowly, he removes his cloak, cleans some unnoticed blood in his feet before putting on the shoes, caresses the budding rebellion of his hair, closes his eyes for a moment, and takes a deep breath.

Liu Cheng inhales the fresh air of liberty, and disguised in his euphoria the trail of tears has turn his face into a bog, but nothing the noon sun cannot dry. And that’s why the boy, finally, wakes up, sure of himself. He looks ahead. And starts walking again.

Liu Cheng advances, lost in his thoughts, under the evening spell. His eyes sparkle. His hands hold some dry stalks. And his feet walk uninterruptedly further away from the temple.

Suddenly, a playful bark distracts his rapture. In the solitude of that place, a dog has sensed his presence and now scampers to him with its tongue hanging out, exhausted but harmless. Liu Cheng stops and kneels down to stroke its back and talk to it in its own shapeless language. The animal understands, gets excited, runs around him; guides him. And the monk simply follows it, obediently, wherever it may go.

And that is how he gets to that field. A small flock of sheep grazes idly on it, and a bit further, on a throne of polished stones, their shepherd dozes. Liu Cheng walks calmly towards him, who soon has noticed his approach and has half-opened two eyes big as the moon. Both smile shyly, and a subtle bow strikes up the greeting, and the welcome.

Liu Cheng sits on the mud wall next to old Adolfo who, silently, has taken a piece of stale bread and some cheese out of his pouch. Without looking at him, the young boy appreciates it, and eats.

The evening yawns. Some sheep continue their mundane task of surviving. A dog nods off at his master’s feet. The brow of two men facing the horizon, where a crimson sun is about to dive under the distant hills. Adolfo shakes off the crumbs from his tired lap, and Liu Cheng bends down slowly, lying on it, to observe the dusk.

MOVIES

Spirited away, Hayao Miyazaki, Japan, 2001.

One piece has to be placed on top of the other. We have to be careful that the projections fit perfectly in the incisions, because violence is not a rule of this game. Once they are correctly inserted, another piece has to be chosen to repeat the procedure. And we can repeat it as many times as we wish.

If we want the result to be visually pleasant, we must calculate skilfully the colour combination and the harmony of shapes. Once satisfied with the final product, it is time to put away the instructions in the drawer, and sit down to smoke a cigarette.

A child, however, has a potter’s wheel in his fingers and a dragon in his heart: he will dismantle the figure to create a new one.

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Not only roses, by Desártico.

IMPOTENCE

2009-02-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

WORDS

Like water torn from the seams of a cloud

Like the leaf anchored in the wrong branches

Like the salt crouched down in a snowflake

Your incomplete essence

Looks for me amid a barren fog

Until I'm found

MOVIES

Oasis, Lee Chang-dong, South Korea, 2002.

The cat rummages through the rubbish. There is a high heel shoe without her partner, a lamp of dubious style and worn cloth, the punctured tire of a bicycle, what seems to be the remains of a fire, and also the tangled stalks of a climbing plant, strangling a mirror who is tired of living.

Inside the chaos of this bedroom, a fish backbone could give some humanity to the scene.

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Spiderweb, by Goretti Broto.

SIMPLICITY

2009-02-04T08:13:00.000-08:00

WORDS

Under the scorching sun of an endless summer, two reckless teenagers dare to ride their bicycles. With no other protection but their yearning for discovering whose legs are stronger, they fling themselves into the path that goes deep into the fields with no shade at all. One rides upright on the pedals, the other one sitting, both sweating and making an effort not to fall behind. One slope, one curve, one unexpected pile of sand or one stone slightly bigger than the rest, but two pairs of legs doing everything they can to arrive first.

In the distance, between the first trees, the house can just be made out, or better what remains of her: some walls, some stretches of the roof, the floors full of ruins. The shade.

A bicycle stops with an abrupt skid just centimetres away from the fence. Another one is abandoned still running while its former passenger is already running towards the door.

Two pantings, four legs in a rush climbing the stairs, pushing the others amid laughter in that narrow and miraculously standing flight.

Everyone is having the nap of the burning summer for miles around, and only some locusts desecrate the silence. Sorry, I forgot. It can also be heard a nervous and mitigated look escaping trough the paneless windows.

It must be the kiss, that finally has arrived.

MOVIES

Blue Gate Crossing, Taiwan, Chin-yen Yee, 2002.

Which doesn't mean ignorance, shyness, not even naivety. On the contrary, transparency: when we say water, undoubtedly we want to drink; also sincerity, because when waiting at a door, we are openly longing for an embrace. And, of course, naturalness: the shortest way was always silence.

What a joy to smell the scent of an unknown flower, completely unaware of its name! And what a surprise finding out, any morning, that the everyday bicycle has, today, its own will.

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School roof, by Desártico.

INTROSPECTION

2009-01-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

WORDS

When you see (leaning on the railing of a bridge, or rocked by the water, or maybe sitting down by the bank, on one of those giant stones), the canoes of white foam descending beaten by the current, down the river, think that they have a mother, just like you; that they have a finite life, just like you. That under the moonlight they seem to be ghosts; the same as you.

MOVIES

Tropical Malady, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand, 2004.

When the sun hid, everyone got into the shade.

Was there commotion, desperation, anxiety in that flight? If so, it was discreet: an elderly man comes closer to a tree, a cane in his hand; that girl dives into deeper waters; this beetle patiently looks for a bigger stem. The sunflower just lowers her head.

And, what about us?

Maybe we will remain under the cloak of darkness. At least here we can see the moon.

MORE

Cemetery, by Desártico.

EXILE

2009-01-26T07:52:00.000-08:00

WORDS

There is one or two beds; one or two bedside tables; one or two lamps. In that aparticular setting, Armando takes a seat in a tired chair, approaches an indifferent desk, and extracts the penknife from his pocket. Slowly, he unfolds the blade from the niche where it was waiting to be summoned, and he strokes it caut`ou}y; the sparkle in his eyes is brighter than the one in the metal, but both are sharp like the tusk of a wild boar. He opens a drawer that was there by chance, and inside it both, he and she, become embarrassed: the pencil and the notebook. Armando has interrupted an ancient romance that had been budding secretly for centuries in that chest; mercilessly, he takes the boy, snaps him off her, and closes it again. He doesn’t want to hear more cries.

Very gently, he brings the blade closer to the graphite and starts whittling it softly. One by one, the wooden shavings split up from the trunk and fall down silently on the table. That lead is sharpening steadily and the skin around it is beginning to fear that it won’t be able to retain that scathing guest forever. But Armando ignores those fears and his fingers carry on the task of trying to achieve the perfect figure of a cone.

The evening slips in the room through an ajar window, with no sign of reserve, looking for a mountain of tiny rubble that lies aground on the table. If it dares to be braver, maybe a puff could cause an earthquake. But Armando doesn’t care about those contingencies, as he has just accomplished another small miracle. He opens his leather case and, with an incomplete smile, his fingers place accurately the minute coal needle next to the others.

Now is time to leave that deserted place, in search of another one. He carries a new offspring with him. There he leaves the memory of a home.

MOVIES

Platform, Jia Zhangke, China, 2000.

On one side abounds our necessity of self-affirmation; on the other hides the materials we rejected in favour of others, the unsatisfactory drafts, the fears that don’t threaten us yet, the faults that are waiting to be committed at any time, all that we have decided to forget and even those things we will emphatically deny if someone dares to ask.

The mirror is that simple. A sheet of quicksilvered glass and two faces. If you have it fixed to the wall, you will always see the same image until you stop recognising yourself.

MORE

Railtracks, by Desártico.

AWAKENING

2009-01-21T09:35:00.000-08:00

MOODS

How fast Sebastian runs! Without hesitating a single moment, hardly stopping anywhere, he crosses the avenue, goes across the square, his legs are in a rush and his breath never fades: a brief traffic light will give him new strength. He runs alone as he knows every street and in his marathon there is nothing that can stop him. He moves forward swiftly between the tumult of cars, avoiding one person, another person, a litter bin. His feet cannot be still, they love speed and movement; if they have to sleep, he has to be barefoot; if they have to stop, let it be at the edge of a zebra crossing.

And how does he smile while running! Some people gaze at him curiously when he passes by like a bat out of hell, but it is not his frenzy which attracts their attention, but the captivating spectacle of that radiant smile that guides his race diligently and will never make him fail. Sebastian runs the city and smiles at it, measuring in his giddy march the size of his own resistance, sharing his joy with everybody.

How lovely Sebastian is, still so small but so smart already! I see you going straight past and I wonder where you must be heading for in such a hurry, now that you are about to turn around that corner therefore leaving me behind forever. But, suddenly, my doubt is postponed: you did stop! There, under that tree, you stand motionless, although your muscles crackle restlessly. Maybe some ignorant insect has bitten you, because you are inserting your hand inside your pants and you seem to be scratching your ass. Your hand doesn’t reappear yet, and your shining smile has vanished into an expression of disorientation.

—Sebastian, don’t look like that, please. Don’t worry, everything is fine. It’s only your body. Flesh and bones.

And then you disintegrate at a stroke in my memory, and I rdalne, painfully, that kids don’t grow up; one day they simply die and transform into adults. The hardest thing, however, is that nobody attends the funeral; not even the corpse.

MOVIES

Nobody knows, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Japan, 2004.

A Lie! Childhood was a lie!

They say that childhood is the seed of man, which lets him germinate and become a distorted adult, and also that it is impossible to realise the exact moment in which that change is finally completed; the blossoming is so subtle and discreet that the eye in our memory is unable to catch that transit. And I do answer: a lie!

A punishing hand humiliated violently my head against the ground and forcing me to breathe the grains of sand, my eyes dived inside the humus, struggling between surviving the suffocation or looking for an exit through the stones, the roots, the darkness.

Like an oracle, the seed was in front of me, shining with a rare intensity in that underworld full of insects. And so it happened, in the least expected moment, just a few centimetres from me, that the seed broke with a subterranean roar, the shell cracked in thousands of invisible fragments, and the beginning of that life started to beat hastily. Both, it and me, sharing the same desperation to escape from that cell and breathe.

But now that I know what lies beyond that wall, the door has no meaning anymore.

MORE

2 Children, by Desártico.

LONGING

2009-01-21T07:06:00.000-08:00

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.

Mirror, por Desártico.

DISORIENTATION

2009-01-21T06:57:00.000-08:00

WORDS

The icicle that used to hang above the window has melted. What will my son look at, now, when in the early morning he draws back the curtains and searches, with the naive smile that only exists in childhood, the sharp cutting edge that once pierced the silence of his confinement, filling it with the translucent promise of the imagination? Will he observe the brown bare horizon, swept by an icy wind? Perhaps the roofs of the distant farms, that lie hidden from each other between the hills of this treacherous land? Or the birds that sleep their winter in the dry armpits of the trees? He will scrutinize for sure the emptiness that lies beyond, because not even soot remains on the inside.

What about myself? I gaze at him, his back, the soft hair on his nape, his thin legs, his breath fleeing from me. I’m not far, just a few steps behind, leaned on the door of the room. And yet he doesn’t turn to meet my eyes, not at least while there is still a bit of brightness outside. And at night, when he lies asleep, curled up in a ball on another big bed, I look at him again, his cold feet, his clenched fists, his lips murmuring unpronounceable words. Absent from me.

What rocky looks must be these, not to dare confront each other directly! Maybe it is because they are in a mess with the remains that lie in that suitcase, which is never closed and yet never empty, while inside its chaos a trickle of broken water escapes wounded from a sock.

MOVIES

After this our exile, Patrick Tam, Hong Kong, 2006.

Leaving behind most of what used to be ours, not because it was heavy, but because we won’t need it where we are heading for. In fact, we could even do without our clothes, if it was not indecorous; also without our memory, if it wasn’t being a coward; even without our own family, if it hadn’t its own life, and decided not to stalk us wherever we may go.

There’s no responsibility at all in the fact of having a child, the irresponsible thing would be not having it and so sentencing the ego to its pure total annihilation. We have the right to love it, to hate it, to escape from it. We are not indispensable, essential, not even important. Nevertheless, we are supposed to have a loyalty that enslaves us and distorts us.

If we want to run, we must stop. If we long for a drink, we must share it. If we need to shout, we must do it in silence.

I’m lost, disoriented, fed up. You can do whatever that pleases you, even hating me or blotting out my name from your memory, but if you persist in being by my side, you must know that that is your decision. Be a man, and face the consequences.

Oh! And let me wreck myself whenever I want, please.

MORE

Mother & Son, by Desártico.

CURIOSITY

2009-01-21T06:53:00.000-08:00

WORDS

He asked me just one question:
−Is there any problem if I take showers in the small hours?
Surprised, I answer him the first thing that at that moment comes to my mind:
−You mean you don’t sleep?
An he, inexpressive, only adds:
−Sure.
Obviously, I had asked the wrong question.

MOVIES

Vive L'Amour, Tsai Ming-liang, Taiwan, 1994.

This is a story of curiosity. Of course there are other possible stories and, in fact, they are present, even essential: there is loneliness, there is alienation, there is exile and inner rootlessness, but above all these conditions prevails the fateful urge to know what lies beyond us. Lustful and playful curiosity, tedious and passionate. The motivations can be infinite, and if they are legitimate or not we don’t give a damn. When did curiosity have any sense? But, when did it, simultaneously, stop propelling us ahead, towards a better definition of ourselves?

MORE

Spiral Staircase, por Daniel Chen.