Tuesday, October 4, 2016

I thought you may want to know


I opened her email curiously and I started to read.
I always thought that looking deep in someone’s eyes is like throwing a hook to secure a safety landing in that person’s mind. I can even picture that slowly roll on a climbing rope until one’s hand reaches the other’s shoulder. And becomes translucent and hazily attached like some sort of shadow, in a different stage of molecular coherence. “This was a soft landing my friend; I am closer to you now. Or you are closer to me now. Or whatever... makes you feel comfortable”.
But it is not. It is like a door ajar that allows a flow of things to come in. And the conquest was nothing but smooth. An insinuated glide past the unconscious mind, random and erratic... but all of a sudden the conscious mind opposed waking up in the middle of the night quivering. “I do not know what you are doing in my mind...but you’d better get out”. However, those moments when a flow of images suddenly pumped up out of nowhere were just the preamble of other weird things that happened.
I used to know that we lived in the same neighborhood. But, we rarely met. Our time frame overlapping is strict and well regulated, no other contact than exchanging few glances, few words nothing important. But, that time our encounter was completely unexpected. Somehow, both of us seemed taken by surprise. Or at least so it looked and so it sounded. The hesitant small talk, stroked me unexpectedly. “Oh, I have found a backpack I was talking about in the email... I thought you may want to know”. The words remained suspended in the middle of the road, as the talk turned abruptly towards other things totally unrelated. Minutes later, this short happenstance ended curtly and we both left as if nothing ever occurred.
And it was not like I have been thinking for a while earlier that day, is my damn backpack clean or not. Have I washed it or not... it is not polite to lend a dirty thing. However, I am sure everything is going to be all right, without my help, anyway. And those unimportant words caught me off guard “I thought you may want to know”. ”Oh... ok” was everything I was able to say as my mind stopped for a while. What the heck is going on?! Why would you say that and how have you... oh god. I do not want to know how much, or how often...or simply how. I just do not.
I was about to write to her...I think you are overreacting, overthinking, over analyzing some random sequences of events. You give too much importance to details. But I changed my mind. Because I remembered. I remembered how it was to be emotionally synchronized, well too synchronized for your mind to accept others’ feelings running through your veins, making you nauseous, anxious. Likewise, the reversed effect, causing your consciousness to perceive, to the point of no return, that it may happen for your emotions to massively ooze out, and each and every thread of your sheath would be ripped off, leaving your entire being exposed and vulnerable.

And somehow, all the unspoken details of her strange encounter unfolded, skillfully placed here and there within the hidden layers of her story. A phrase remained stack in my head and kept spinning over and over.
But, sometimes I miss being there.
... and sent her back. I guess he knows... that



Photo: Hattie Ellis/Getty Images on http://www.npr.org/2013/06/24/195193839/turning-points


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