The invitation came suddenly. Just a few words scribbled on a piece of paper that he must have torn out of a morning newspaper. He must have been sitting motionless for a moment, engrossed in lackadaisical thoughts mixed with the smell of the world news, and then a sudden glow of the raising sun reflected in his eyes giving him an extra dose of energy that enabled him to stand on the stage one more time that day. He laughed to himself and picked up a pen to write those few letters that she got to hear the next day.
He felt angry inside. Each day made him loath more and more that part of himself that made him wear a polite smile on his face as he stood in front of the audience as everything else in him wanted to scream and walk away. He despised himself for this. The lack of courage and hypocrisy that he did not want to admit even to himself. He lacked courage in many other instances too, yet this one bothered him most.
He did not have courage today either so he crumpled the note he was writing and threw it towards the window.
He got used to it. The absence of courage mingled with the presence of fears. These two states accompanied him throughout his life, only the proportions varied.
His childhood was marked by the absence of those who should have been present. His father embarked on a journey to the lands more beautiful than the simple drawings that his mother had decorated the walls with. He returned years later proclaiming that after seeing the world he decided it's time for his family to look after him once again. Nobody objected, only a child hid in the corner of the heart of a man looking outside the window.
It was beautiful out there. He loved watching birds and flowers and his eyes would often wander in that direction when people around him were busy teaching him the rules of the market economy. He failed his exams in marketing many years later, which sometimes left him scared of those around him who managed to exchange schooldays bicycle for shining fast moving cars. He began to look towards the window even more often - out there nobody asked for his marketing results.
The world outside the window called him to join in its eternal movement. The soaring of an eagle, the branches shivering in the wind, the gentle precision of a bud turning into a flower, the everchanging shapes of the clouds as they surfed through the sky. He could feel each of their movements tying invisible strings to his limbs as his body stretched, spiralled and dove through space. He enjoyed this sensation of being one with all those being outside the window. It made him feel as if he was a bird. He would sometimes even toss invisible wings in his dreams...
She came to him suddenly. He had not seen any such creature before... her limbs so fair, hair that resembled a field of sunflowers on a summer's day, her movements so fluid that he could swear she was walking in the clouds and not on earth. She touched him and he entwined himself around her like a creeper. He felt he found that place for himself that would link all the scattered worlds he belonged to. She smiled at him and allowed him to develop wings that would carry her high in the sky, until one day her eyes fell on a man driving a red shining car. Before he even noticed the stem of his plant had nothing to support himself on.
He fell and the fall was so strong that his wings broke in many places. He suddenly understood the scar in his mother's heart that grew to become a canyon the day his father had left. The fall disoriented him and so he began to run away from himself not knowing where was he running to... The day he stopped he tried to look back, but he could not see himself anymore. The only thing that his eyes could perceive were the broken bones on his back and a report card that proclaimed him to have failed in business marketing.
He would sometimes let himself being touched by various bodies that came near him. Strong musculature of men and curvy lines of women. He wanted to forget himself at night yet it hurt again in the morning. Not knowing what to do he began building the wall around. It felt safe in that space that would demarcate the boundary between him and them and he still had an open sky above to look at.
He woke up screaming one night - he found himself floating on a melting iceberg and there was nothing but water all around. He did not know how to swim.
She had a strange dream that night - she was walking on a desert and the hot sun was burning her feet. It made her cry. She felt invisible that night. It wasn't only nights that made her feel invisible, the days made her feel like that too.
He watched her from a distance. She was playing with a child and seeing this made his eyes shine. It filled him with a sudden warmth. It irritated him. It reminded him of all those things that 'might have been...' but were not there. It was a strange mixture of feelings - tenderness, anger, irritation, regret and fear. Fear of falling that prevented him from ever trying to fly again.
She felt sudden warmth as his eyes fell on her. It felt as if the broken bone of her left wing was healing and if he was giving contours to her otherwise invisible body. She did not move though. She was scared of falling.
They did not know I was watching, but I did.
The crumpled piece of paper raised itself from the floor and flew outside the window. It had the wings of a butterfly and it made me smile when it sat in my hair the other day. The Comma... It whispered "Hi, how have you been? I've been missing you. Will you tell me a story?"
