Midnight Dream (excerpt from a novel in process)
He had been staring at her for the past few minutes, sitting motionless in his chair. The cigar in his right hand was burning out already, only half smoked, but nobody seemed to notice or to care anymore. Even though just a few minutes ago he had been holding everyone’s attention in his palm, right now they were all looking at the door, their eyes fixed upon one particular woman.
She wore a black, silky, long dress that perfectly shaped her round body and which lured the men to wonder about what was underneath. Her face was nothing special, but nobody was looking at it anyway. That left her a bit disappointed, especially after she had spent half an hour that evening on her makeup just for this occasion.
It was Peter Mason’s party and she was not going to leave unnoticed. She smirked at the thought.
Only when the ashes from the cigar finally reached his fingers did he manage to take his eyes away her. He let it fall on the floor and casually stepped on it as if nothing had happened. He took a look around to analyze everyone’s reaction at the new apparition. There was not a single person in the room not staring at her. But Peter knew.
He knew that the real reason behind the interest was not actually the woman, but the purple gem elegantly resting on her collarbone. Taking the form of a raindrop engraved in an onyx skeleton, the Midnight Dream was not particularly beautiful but it had a certain something.
He got up, carefully buttoned up his jacket and made way through the crowd. Hurrying in her direction, he was pushing every step into the ground like he was trying to fix himself there. He did not want to have that conversation and moreover, he did not want that conversation with her. He wasn’t ready.
‘Sophie.’ he said when he finally found her green eyes among the others and stopping a few steps away from her.
‘Happy birthday, Pete!’ She smiled with a sweet voice, almost innocent. But he knew better.
‘Where the fuck did you get that?!’ It couldn’t have been more obvious he was mad, though he tried to keep quiet. She, on the other hand, was very relaxed.
‘Oh, the necklace? An old friend gave it to me. He said you might know each other… Lance Howard was it? He sends his regards.’
Peter was sure that he had never hated Lance more in his life - which WAS an achievement - and that he never heard Sophie so happy before. For a brief second there was terror in his eyes, but he decided to shake it away and leave room for trying to find a solution. He already had in mind ten ways to take it away from her.
‘Do you have any idea what the Midnight Dream can do?!’
‘No.’ She smirked again, this time like a threat. ‘Do you want to show me?’
‘Fuck it, Sophie!’
Consume
Today I got out of the house in a dress that fit my body perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that it showed every bit of curve and every gram of fat that I had gained around the edges over the years.
I was crossing the street with my weight showing and crossed by a taxi driver who felt the urge to open the window and tell me how much I love fast food. He was an adult and had a job and a client waiting inside. And the fact that I was fat drove him so mad that it was more important than his job. He wanted to shame me.
He couldn’t resist.
I ignored.
He insisted.
Today I was supposed to hide the way I look. Just like any other day, I had to choose clothes that covered my body the best they could. Difference is… this is the day I decided not to care. But some others do and that makes me incredibly sad. And even sadder is that the most important things aren’t their thoughts, but what they say about you and the way they say it.
I saw a taxi driver who walked past a fat, confident girl and tried to take her down. Because how could someone be confident if they’re not thin, beautiful, perfect?
A taxi driver looked at me and only saw my body. And I do accept that looks matter – I may not like it, but I accept it. But it was so simple to take only the flesh and treat it as a person. And addressing a person as if it’s just meat.
Today I looked at the taxi driver and saw ignorance. And then I looked back at myself and saw the flesh and it was so hard to remember that I am more than that. And I know there are so many people who can’t see past it – and they should.
We are not human because of the body we have, but because we have a conscience that allows us to think and feel and act accordingly to that. And because he didn’t… maybe he was more flesh than I was.
I want you – the fat, the thin, the ugly, the handicapped, the beautiful - to look at yourself and see a person, not a piece of meat which was lucky enough to grow a personality. And if you want to look in certain ways do it because it makes you feel good, happy and because it’s something that you want. Not for them.
Never do it for them because they will consume all the flesh you let them and they won’t ever stop.
Snow
It snows.
The kind of weather that you can feel on the inside, rather than the outside, because even though you have a million clothes on, you’ll never be warm. The soul is cold and asks you for a pair of gloves and a scarf for itself, but unfortunately this isn’t posibile, so it will keep freezing inside you.
Even so, however horrible it is to feel your soul catching icicles, it’s beautiful outside. Ridiculously beautiful, because you feel ugly. The landscape stole your beauty and warmth and turned it into snow, like the sky has its own soul, so cold that needs to spread its frostbite.
The kind of weather that doesn’t allow you to get out of the house, but you can’t stay inside either. The warmth of the radiator and the hot chocolate will only warm up your hands, but not your heart. And you’re so cold, a snowflake through so many others. One that does not fall from the sky and that doesn’t melt so easily.
But if you looked closer, you could see the snowflakes screaming as they fall and crash upon the cars or the pavement. You’d like to scream too, but then you remember that no one pays attention to them.
I feel bad, walking in this weather, thinking I’m a strolling cemetery for all this snow, that the wind tears down my memorial stones and the church is already demolished.
Remember
I like to think of you sometimes. Not much – when I’m alone, and my eyes catch the colour of yours in a glimpse, then try to reach you, but you’re gone. When I’m alone, and I can hear the sound of your voice, not deeply, but softly whispering in my ear.
When I’m alone and your memory invades my senses and I start recomposing our story hoping that this time, just this time, it’ll end right.
I remember you once told me you didn’t care about anything, but me, that I stole all of your emotions and never gave them back.Then you took all of them away, forcefully, pushing aside the remains of me inside your heart. In an instant that still lives on, I turned from your everything into your nothing.
And I remember the time when I thought love was about chasing after you, not letting go.
And I realize now, after all this time, that I was desperately and hopelessly in love with you. But I didn’t know how to love you, and you didn’t care enough to show me.
I remember us, always a shadow of what we could’ve been, believing that being a shadow was enough. I remember us never being silent, not even when we were, like our breaths could communicate and say those words that were missing. I could get you from your breath, and you could get me from mine.
For The Ones Who Left Their Soul
‘What do you see?’ I asked the person next to me. I didn’t know who it was, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did, except the old building that was standing before me.
‘A house. Why, what do you see?’
‘A soul’
‘I think you need to see a doctor. Houses don’t have souls.’
‘I don’t see its soul. I see mine.’
I was sure of it. Even if it sounded crazy. I could see my heart in my old room, full of frozen memories, that were going to remain there forever. All my life was written on its walls and made everything harder. I didn’t know if I was prepared to leave all the things that happened behind. It was like getting rid of pieces of my own life.
I was thinking about the past, and I couldn’t believe that so much time had passed and so little remained. I felt more and more insecure about the future and about myself with every second that was going away. Like my life was skipping forward and I wanted to play it on repeat.
It took me a while to realize just how cowardly I was and how much I needed to change. And I also started to realize that life is nothing more but a collection of endless memories, regrets and hopes. And that if I had selfsame memories, I had to get rid of them.
And suddenly, I wanted to leave. I felt like I was taking a step forward, leaving the past behind, in the empty house that was calling for me. I wasn’t the one who closed the door and I didn’t want to be. I was determined to leave there the regrets I had, along with the dust that was laying on what was left of the furniture.
The windows, still open, were crying under the blowing of the wind that was trying to comfort them with its chills, failing. I told myself that someone should close them, but I wasn’t brave enough to enter there and see the past, because I would have lost even the last fragment of sense that I had.
I let the door wait for me and I was hoping that the painting on the walls was going to fade off, along with my regrets. The furniture squeaked its sorrow until the last moment, and maybe even after that, but I didn’t stay long enough to listen.
I was moving on. Getting over it.
And still holding on.
The Wait
Last night I feel asleep in your embrace.
I dreamt of waiting and I can swear that I’ve never been so terrified before.
My life was about to turn around on its own, only that I had no idea when. There was SOMETHING, though. I could feel it. SOMETHING was about to happen and it would change everything forever.
Only that it didn’t.
I just stood there and the hours were passing by.
One
By
One
By
One
By
One.
I had a nightmare about waiting only to realize I could never wake up. With every second that goes away I become dust. With every minute that passes by I turn my face to my deepest fears and greet them cheerfully into my life. They settle in, make themselves comfortable and fill me up with waiting.
Waiting for them to go away. For them to disappear or die or scream or move.
But they just sit and smile back at me.
Too bad your arms couldn’t protect me from my own mind.
Fat
I learned in life that all people are both thin and fat at the same time. And I met some people who are fat in body, but thin in confidence and self-esteem, while some of them are thin in body, but fat in shallowness and indifference. And somewhere along the way it became more important to be thin in body than fat in love, kindness and creativity.
At some point during our journey we left the fat people behind, because we’re thin and therefore walk faster. And instead of slowing down and reaching out for them to help we’re saying ‘THEY should run faster!’ and ‘THEY should get thin!’.
Being fat is unhealthy. I’ve heard this a million times, yet no one ever cared about my health. When I started losing weight they never thought that maybe I lack vitamins or calcium, that I get dizzy and blurry every time I stand up, that I start trembling out of the blue or that I catch a cold ten times faster than I did before (and yes, a doctor provided my diet for me) – now I can run as fast as they can, so I must be fine! But I did hear ‘Wow! You look so beautiful!’.
I reached the point where I feel guilty every time I eat something that isn’t part of my diet. I look at myself in the mirror and feel like the 40 kg. that I got rid of came back just because of one damn cookie. And if God forbid I dare eat that cookie there is always someone watching out for it, telling me I shouldn’t. It doesn’t have to be a cookie, it could be an extra egg in the morning… or toast.
When I was fat I heard people telling me ‘You’d be so beautiful if you just lost weight!’ and once I did I heard ‘You should start working out now!’. And I know how this turns out: first you’re too fat, then not thin enough, then not fit enough. And when you finally ARE fit enough… you’re overdoing it. Nobody cared that much about what you looked like anyway, right?
But being fat is not temporary, because it’s not just about your body anymore. It’s part of you. And MAYBE you can get rid of those extra pounds, but you can never get rid of what they meant to you.
When I was in middle school, after the Christmas break, I was walking down the hallways towards my classroom and I passed a bunch of 8th graders on my way. I knew too well they were going to say something, but it still hit me like a cold shower: ‘Look! They fattened the pig for the Christmas dinner!’. (Yes, I was the pig). By that time I had already done the walk of shame so many times it got automatic.
When I was in high school I went clothes shopping. Do you know how hard it is to find something that fits the fat? The world is made for thin people and the rest of us should just adapt. As I was entering a shop the two little girls behind me whispered in surprise ‘Wow! She’s so fat!’. I guess I was abnormal.
And the other day I was telling someone about how I hate eating in public because when I was fat people always made fun of me. The reply was ‘It didn’t bother you that much if you didn’t lose weight until now!’.Because the problem was mine. I was supposed to change so people wouldn’t make fun of me, but those people… not. You can’t change the way they are.
I reached the conclusion that the most unhealthy part of being fat is people screwing you up. And I am not saying that being fat IS healthy (although I WAS and many people ARE both fat and healthy). But nobody shamed others for colds or chicken pox or headaches.
That’s unhealthy too, right?
The Fall
I’ve been falling for a while now, deeper and deeper into – nothing.
I am alone. No, it’s much more than that: I see no one. I hear no one. I feel no…thing.
I guess that’s the punishment He decided to give me for his own mistakes. Wonderful. What an idiot!
I can’t even remember how long it’s been since he banished me, but I do now that all the pain I felt in that moment is gone. Out of all the living and non-living things he was the only one who managed to make me numb.
‘This is your own fault, Lucifer.’ He said right before he threw me out of Heaven. I was so mad. I only loved him, after all. He is the one who created love, yet he got mad at me for feeling it. Isn’t that how things work?
God was always the one to have a quick temper out of the two of us. That’s why we were the perfect couple for such a long time. Nobody seemed to get it, but we did: I told him that everything good needs a part of bitterness so it can be truly felt. He got angry at first, but he liked to listen to me talk, so after a while he realized I was right.
‘I could listen to you all day.’ He used to say. ‘You’re such a bittersweet woman.’
‘I’m not a woman and you know it.’ I replied as I kissed his lips. ‘I’m an angel.’
But I guess I am a woman now, since he ripped my wings and forced me into darkness. I grew a body now, I’m not an entity anymore. And I know that idiot did it on purpose. Damn him!
Was I jealous? Well, of course. Isn’t everyone?
I was not human. My feelings used to reach other intensities. When God gets angry he throws floods and storms and earthquakes. All I did was speak my mind. I hope those humans turn against him soon!
When he created Eve for Adam he said he wants them to be just as happy as we were. Well, I hope they turn out just as happy as we are. Because I know the only reason he got so angry is because he got so hurt. He loved me so much, didn’t he? So did I.
Do you hear me, love? I loved you. And you made me numb. Swallow that.
I’ve been falling for an eternity. He’s been sleeping for one.
And I finally reached the ground.