Once I saw a young man walking down the street chasing the dogs, the elderly and everyone who passed by, leaving the trouble hereabout. As I was drinking my cup of tea, I could smell the fear coming from those whom passed by that young man, a lad who was living his life with no rules – that was his rule! I believed, on that instant, what that lad didn’t realize was that everyone lives by a rule…even himself.
As the windows were breaking down, and the young man was walking to nowhere and I was still drinking my tea, the people, far from him, were commenting things, horrible things about him. I dint pay attention to those gossips, actually, I never paid attention to any gossip.
That moment I was so confused that I dint even know where the trouble was coming from - from that young man or from those people.
Sometimes it is hard to understand the things inside someone else’s house. It is hard to know exactly where there is a house or a home. But, on that exactly moment I could see that everyone around me knew more about that lad than they knew about themselves. Coz everyone talks about everyone. That’s our society, that is our reality. People are too scared to face their own devils that they entertain themselves talking about others faith.
I didn’t feel pity for them, or for the young man, not even for the windows that were breaking down…but I almost felt pity for myself for living in a world like this, where people can’t get along together and the windows braking just like that. Where people full of money are starving; in a world where I’m having a cup of tea in a crowd and no one is there. In a world where angels and gods didn’t want to say.
I paid my tea, and left walking down the street. Nowhere to go, nowhere to stay, no time to save, no time to waste, no time to keep…
As I was walking, minding my own mind, the windows were breaking down, leaving tiny little glasses on the pavement, and some under my skin. It wasn’t painful, I dint even felt a thing as I was swallowing it.
Down the street, sat on a bench, facing the dirty river, the young man was smoking a cigarette. I could notice he was away from himself, in a sort of place where only his own mind could take him of. So far, too close to himself.
I stood there, few yards behind, observing like I was checking out a clumsy painting of some kind of weird painter. Everything was just…don’t know…like, a one piece of canvas stolen from a museum and turned into something simple, grotesque and wonderful; a black and white painting where you could see all the colors, and all tones, and everything. I felt like I flew inside myself and landed on the most unreal, fascinating and extraordinary part of my imagination. It was like nothing was real - the shapes, the sounds, the breeze, the smell…
Sometimes it is weird how we are what others want us to be. They trace our days, and our personality and our thoughts. They trace each step, each road and each path we walk on. Sometimes it’s weird how people changes on someone else’s mouth.
So I walked through his wreckages and I sat on the same bench, beside him. As I observed the dirty river, that young man turned to me and said:
- There is always a way after the dirt. Nothing ends here! This is not the end my friend!
I looked at him and smiled. I finally knew where he was! I’ve been there before, so many times that I still could remember all the corners of it, all the streets, all the starlight of each eye, all the darkness of each day…and on that moment I realized that he was just too lost and too found. – lost in a world too small for him; found of himself in a way no one else was.
I really didn’t know what to say or what to do. I didn’t know if I could leave or stay. I looked back to the river and I dived inside my thoughts and I swam right to the bottom, right to the end. I jumped into the dirty river and I felt the dump taking care of my skin and my body and my strength and my mind. I didn’t felt like fighting against anything or anybody and I just let myself drown into that dirt.
I went to many places; I saw many people, many strangers, many friends…I stopped in havocs where I’ve been before; I stopped in many old houses where I slept before. All the atavistic vestiges came to me. It was just like a bad trip, a smell of ecstasy, a walk on a Miró’s painting.
I felt the freedom, I felt the pain; I felt the adventure and the euphoria; I felt the fear and the courage. It was an accumulation of feelings and thoughts, a cluster of things that I don’t even know the name or had seen before. So deep, so glassy, so confusing…
As I got to the bottom of that dirty dumped river, I found an old rusty gate. A rusty gate?! A gate on the bottom of that dumped river?!
I struggled to open the gate. I was invaded by a strong will to discover where that gate could take me to. Which places could I find in there? Which reality would I live in there? Would I have the same eyes and the same hands? Would I keep my name, my age, my things?
I opened that heavy gate and for an instance I couldn’t see anything apart from a strong mist if front of me. A bit hideous, a bit grisly.
Strangely I wasn’t scared at all and I walked through that heavy fog like I knew exactly where to go, somehow, I knew exactly where to go, and how to get in there. I don’t remember exactly how long I walked as the time seemed like it had stopped and wait for me, with no rush, no sympathy, no wonders.
In the twinkly of an eye all the fog had gone, all the mystery had gone, all crap had gone.
Suddenly, I recognized the street where I was. I almost knew where I was but I wasn’t sure where I had to go from there, so I walked down the road, towards to an I-don’t-no-where unrecognizable.
All the houses were homes and all the windows were cleaned and shining. I haven’t seen so many unbroken windows like that for such a long time. Everything looked exactly the way it should be, however the streets were empty of people.
As I got at the bottom of the street I saw a lad sat on a bench facing the river, sparkling river. I knew him, I was sure of it, I knew him, I felt it. I didn’t know from where, or how, but I knew he wasn’t a stranger…or maybe he was but I knew him.
As I got closer to the river, to the bench, to him, he smiled at me and with a cherish voice said: -“I knew you would find me here!”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and, when I opened my eyes, I was there, with that young man, sat on a bench facing a dirty river… but somewhat it was a different feeling, perhaps just a different point of view, I don’t know…I guess everything has lots of point of views and we just have to choose the best one to make us happy.
