I'm dark matter,
mystery,
timeless line.
I'm disagreement and misunderstanding,
doubt and silence,
nuisance,
pleasure.
Questions and more questions.
Corridors only I know.
I'm extreme,
resilient.
Collisions and ruptures,
I open craters.
Every night, I would put on headphones and turn up Tchaikovsky's volume just to deafen me with the symphony that rang so loudly it rocked my brain, wishing to reverberate my memories until I brought them to the surface in vivid dreams.
Like a dandelion that hangs in the air in the verdant fields,
driven by the refreshing breeze,
On and backward on its lightness and delicacy,
I was floating around the stage.
And though it was divine to be able to let my thoughts flow and my imagination take me where I wanted to be, the bouncing effect ravaged me. Without music, dreams, and poetry, I even woke up "well", that is, conforming to the idea that I could be as happy as a bird with broken wings.
I wasn't me in physical form.
I was the music that filled the air with its sentimental notes
I slid, being the anger that the melody conveyed...
Then the calm that the symphony evoked.
The pain that the play expressed!
Until I remembered that, for ten years, I hung, perfectly, between the innocence and grace of the white swan and the malice and sensuality of the black swan, but, in the last ten years, the closest I got to art was feeling in the skin the strength of the performance of those who live trapped inside their flesh.
And even though I wasn't alone in that show, the moment was too sublime to see anything...
I didn't see or hear the crowded audience.
I just felt and repeated the movements that would transmute me to what I didn't even know how to describe,
That made me who I was and loved so much to be.
Remembering that made me hate the idea of still being human. As a result, I was dominated by a deep sadness that prevented me from getting out of bed even to eat. When that happened, all my effort focused on breathing, but it was still suffocating.
Ten years means three thousand and a few more days, which, if you look, does not seem so terrible and catastrophic. It's relative. For example, when someone is sentence to prison, they can be happy if the sentence is only three thousand days, assuming that the crime committed was something heinous like a murder or something like that.
I wondered about it regularly and concluded that I would be happy if they told me that in three thousand days and a few, I would be free again. That's because my days dragged on like sparks from an eternity.
Perpetually doomed.
Still, in the darkness that precedes the sunrise, in a colossal effort I got up, beating my own body. The shoulders weighed tons and more tons; I slipped on my gray slippers and put my faded robe over my heavy pajamas; I walked in devious steps through the wooden floor of that old house.
Even its ranger abandoned me. All I heard was the sound of the winter gale. The neighbor's tree grew and was out of control. One of its branches scratched the aluminum in the gutter. It made a scraaaatch, scratch-scraaaatch that got on my nerves.
Willingness to take a pair of scissors myself and shatter all its ends.
I went to the kitchen determined to prepare something, trying to believe my own lie: that, with food, fatigue would decrease.
However, the effect was the opposite. As soon as my eyes swept over the room, I felt such a weakness that I had to sit down. The mess reigned, both outdoors and inside me.
I opened the shelves and all I found were three crackers withered and broken. My inability to even buy a simple noodle was surprising.
I opened the shelves, and all I found were three crackers withered and broken. My inability to even buy a simple noodle was surprising.
I searched the fridge for butter or anything that would make the crackers more edible, but there were only two forms of ice, water bottles, anti-mold, and half a carton of milk.
I looked in my wallet. Empty.
I installed the bank app to see that a new transfer had dropped, just like every other day. The toes began to move frantically.
Disgusted, I uninstalled the app and tossed the phone on the couch. Unintentionally, it slipped out of my hand ahead of time and fell to the ground. The screen cracked and went completely black. I felt like throwing it against the wall but held the impulse.
Now, the beams of clarity that appeared on the horizon through the glass of the Victorian window were visible to the eyes, and I chose to say goodbye to the pitch before practicing a little cambré and, perhaps, taking a little breath to endure the day.
I took the milk with one hand, the three crackers with the other, opened the door, and sat in the rocking chair in the porch, next to the noisy tree. Ready to enjoy my morning ritual of watching the darkness leave my home and occupy only my mind.
It hurt to see how the sunlight rising in all the darkness was resplendent. Next thing I knew, I was crying.
Every morning, I would repeat this process just to make sure that the next twenty-four hours would drag on at every angle. Eternity operated every minute of my days, and I only realized how much time had passed when the phone started to make noise from inside the house.
It vibrated and whistled, with the screen completely dark. I tried to press the screen or turn it off, with no control over the device. I didn't have to answer to know that it was my bosses arranging the commitment for later. Only they had my number.
Although it wasn't snowing, the fog was thick and icy, covering everything around. In addition, the lake in front of the house moistened the air even more. As soon as I stepped outside, the cold froze my ears, cheeks, and nose. That feeling embraced me, warming my heart with memories of a distant past.
I tripped and caught my heel on the floor in time not to fall.
I lowered my gaze and found a bouquet on the porch, of truly fake flowers from laboratory-made forestry. Yellow, flashy, and garished. My blood warmed up. Why did the courier need to leave them lying around in the middle of the porch?
I knew why, and it infuriated me even more.
I couldn't resist and kick my anger out. The petals were torn-off on impact. I took pleasure in seeing the beauty shattered and kicked again and again. I took a deep breath and made a subtle movement with my feet, taking control of myself. Calming down, I bent down and picked up the busted bouquet. I went downstairs, opened the wastebasket, and threw it in.
It contained a letter. Black, full of gold accents. I analyzed for a few moments the relief of a sun-shaped coat of arms before tearing it and pouring its fragments on top of the flowers. As always, a slight curiosity to know what was in its lines touched me.
It lasted a few seconds before I remembered I didn't want to read what was written.
"Looks like someone doesn't like secret admirers," the neighbor remarked, his broom raking in his hands. In addition to the immense coat, he covered his grizzled and gray hair with a cap. He watched my footsteps full of greed, desperate to get closer and find out something about my life, just to tell his bingo buddies.
"Sir, for the last time," I declared, "I need you to prune your tree before I damage it myself and go to jail for environmental crime."
"I pruned the branch you complained about a week ago."
I shrugged.
"Then don't give it so much fertilizer."
It was just slamming the car door to blame myself. I opened the window and called him: "Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude. It's just that my day started badly," it was implicit that all my days were.
"No problem, no problem." He smiled. "Be well, miss..." He kept looking at me, hoping that after so many years living next door, I would finally say my name.
Obviously, I ignored him and got out of there.
St. Johnsbury was a tiny town amidst majestic forests. The center was small and sparsely inhabited because everyone who went there had a goal: to hide. From people, from the chaotic traffic of large metropolises, or oneself.
With every person that stood in my way, I judged what would be the motives that guided their life. I liked to imagine how other people's lives were. It was a fun way to survive the passing of mine.
But that family that hired me... I had no idea if all they wanted from me was simple dance classes. Rotten rich; so far, nothing new, since even the poor in St. Johnsbury was rich. However, the way that gentleman always started conversations differed from other people.
He didn't want to rummage through my story like everyone else, which was strange since the few questions he asked me seemed strategically designed to break me.
The mansion stood on top of the hill. And on a day like today, whose fog clung to the atmosphere, cloud overlapping cloud, in heavy and dark almost-monumental formations, the shadow incorporated itself into the thousands of doors and windows, giving the impression of native suspense.
They cleared the passage. I parked the car and unconsciously headed towards the fountain, only to admire it for a few moments, remembering that I loved to watch stones like that bubbling crimson. Water gushed from the sculptures into the artificial lake mirroring the majesty ahead. What I hated most was seeing my existence in all the grandeur of the environment.
As soon as I realized that, I turned my back and ran from there. As I approached the dance hall, I began to hear things. Instead of announcing my presence, I stayed hidden.
"You had no right to listen to my private conversation with grandma!" a thick and powerful voice scolded.
"Frankly, Damon, I expect nothing more from you." Mr. Duncan's voice came out full of disappointment.
"It wasn't his fault, dear," Aarona Duncan defended. "She wanted to leave him." I felt embarrassed and looked away to an onyx bench ahead.
"The truth is you never expected anything from me." This time, the guy sounded choked with sensitivity. I was curious to see if his face matched the power of his timbre but remained paralyzed, as I loved to see that their lives were screwed-up, and having a ringside seat was an unparalleled pleasure. "You know what? I have no desire to pretend pride or try to achieve your unattainable expectations. I tried hard. Unfortunately, marriages end, and it only concerns..."
"You know what you should do, yet you insist on opening craters in our surname! I've never seen a marriage end in eleven months!" the old man fought back, cutting him off. "You caused a lot of shame to our name by acting like a weak man like your father."
"Don't compare me to that man!" He seemed to want to scream, but still, his tone came out full of respect. Or was it fear?
"Don't talk about him like that..." she asked.
"No matter how hard I try, I'll always be a failure to you, grandpa, so, frankly, I give up!"
I couldn't assimilate the sequence of events in time and decided to take a step forward to pretend to be on the move, a second later he left the room, his pace so wide and fast that our bodies collided.
"I'm sorry," I asked, stepping away abruptly.
He continued speechless, processing the moment and everything it meant.
"Everything you need, Damon," Gerard walked towrad me, "is learning to choose women." He touched my shoulder. "This is Alexia. You should ask her out. Besides beautiful, she's like us."
For the first time in eight years, I was afraid. I backed off. What if they knew me? A sudden urge to flee overwhelmed me until I thought it made no sense... If they knew who I was, I wouldn't be alive.
Aarona, seeing the discomfort in my face, asked to start the class. When she was young and single, Mrs. Duncan did ballet, so she hired me every time she stayed in town. She knew there was no better ballerina in the area.
As I helped her with the stretches before the mirror that occupied the entire wall, I observed my thinness exposed in detail by the black bodysuit marking the curves of the bones. I regretted what I was, what I had become. It hurt me to admit being less than the shadow I once was.
At one point, I realized I was watched and liked the feeling. In the past, I loved the looks and the claps because they used to be the recognition of the months of rehearsal and the severe restrictions imposed on me, the dedication and determination above everything else. They meant the salutation of all the times I'd gone from playing to dancing or the romantic experiences I'd given up for not thinking about anything but being a dancer in the world's biggest theater company.
I felt sparks light up inside me and dance like flames sharpened by the breeze, shaped like spasms all over my body.
"You are the spectacle, goddess. See how they look at you?"
His eyes were like chips of melted chocolate dripping over the dark blue waters that were mine, out of control.
"Will he be watching?" I asked loudly, irritated.
"Yes," he replied, crossing his arms.
I stared at him, outraged. My feet were making involuntary plies. Pretending chivalry, he added: "I can leave if I'm not allowed to stay."
"It's your house, son," Aarona intruded, smiling at her grandson.
I had to endure his piercing gaze burning me for the rest of the class. With every wiggle or twirl he seemed more focused on photographing every move.
Aarona Duncan used to be a fortress, impenetrable. She didn't smile or speak more than half a dozen necessary words. Now, she and he were talking about a thousand and one subjects, hindering my dynamic with music. The grandson praised and encouraged, making it notorious why the tower opened up to him.
He seemed like a good guy. However, what man reveals his true face to his maternal bridge?
I counted the seconds until I could get out of that uncomfortable situation.
"So, you can hear a personal conversation, but I can't watch you?" he asked as soon as Aarona left the room.
"I didn't hear anything," I lied.
"Yes, you did."
"All I understood is you have a nosy grandfather."
His smiled.
"Do you know why I watched you?" he changed the subject.
"Because you're a maniac?" I returned the question automatically.
He laughed at my provocation as if the world was his. I put on my jacket and zipped up my neck.
"When I saw you tiptoe, a flash came to mind."
"Flash?" I gave in to curiosity, suspicious.
"Yes, but I won't tell. I'll show you." He put his hand on my waist.
I shuddered at the touch, feeling terrible agony seize every cell of my body. I pushed him.
"Who do you think you are?"
"We dan..."
"It's ironic how people like you think you have what you want in the palm of your hand," I added, taking the bag. "Don't think you have domain ov..."
"Hey!" he returned firmly. "I just wanted to remind you of..."
"I'm not interested in where you know me from, Mr. Duncan. Keep the memories for yourself."
At one point, as I headed toward the exit, burning with anger from absolutely the entire world, he dared to catch up with me. He asked: "What happened to make you like that?" I ignored him and hastened the steps. "Last time we saw each other, you seemed nicer."
I swallowed the cry right away.
"Why don't you go solve the problems of your failed marriage?"
His jaw locked, and I thought he'd turn his back on me, but instead, he kept analyzing me for a few moments, intensely and deeply. Then he replied: "Because your posture tells me you carry bigger problems with you, dancer."
Before I got in the car and disappeared from that world, I turned my heels to look him in the eyes. I warned him: "You're right, so be smart and keep your distance."