This story is part of the literary competition created by In Trieste magazine “Trieste:Rebirth” which was open to all writers living in Trieste.
by Geraldo Brachette
I had said: I mean she had a kind of messiah complex, no? Her father, a rabbi and all. What is it that Hanuman, the great monkey God says: if you feel separated then do service. Otherwise you are with God; are one – are God.
I remembered feeling like I was maybe the new one: when I was visiting those crafty, culty, Moonies- if I had been the next Messiah they certainly wouldn’t have seen it, what with their blind allegiance to the Reverend. But I was far from being trapped by them. I was just lonely. I wanted to ask her if she ever felt that. But the question never re-surfaced in my mind.
My mom had sent a pastor, Lutheran, to save me. We had a nice talk. I must have convinced him I was safe. As there were no more inquiries or posses sent out from home I guess they saw there was no risk of me rising up to sit at the side of the Lord.
I did resurface well enough though. Wasn’t that just before I met Betty and starting painting? The smell of the paint; the ritual of stretching the canvas; the sneaking into the studios after hours to look at the new work: a birth, a new direction, a renewal. Oh but that was forty years ago now! Old crazy Betty and me stealing her yellow or blue Valium; us talking, sipping wine; me, again forever forsaken, in crisis. I think she had it for me – I was pure and virginal, though soon and finally not to be anymore.
Morning, eternal return: feet on ground; open curtain; sit back down, gulp some water, some days a prayer offered. Get up: turn on noisy, hot water heater; open bathroom curtain, pass to the balcony shutters, hand over hand pulling the cords as more light floods in. Another day, the same day; same gulls and other birds fly by my windy tower over San Giacomo. Make coffee, take favorite mug; check the daily news; war here, war there, war on the way; Hollywood gossip; old starlet in bikini shot, viral. And the balcony, with the sea and horizon beyond Trieste, beckoning my attention; as does the ground eight flights below; swan dive. Arriving from the clouds, haha!
I did the math for her on the phone: 2022 minus 1994: 28 years: almost as many years as you have now! Sunday, tomorrow, my clean and sober rebirth anniversary. You never read Aleister Crowley? Diary of a Drug Fiend? It’s religious, addiction: the ritual preparation, the hopefulness of resolution, absolution, the blissful reunion, new life, miracle blood mingling with dope; like William James mind versus spirit; a forced spiritual summoning, a witches’ chemical brew, like Bacchus, ecstatically butting your soul against the material of cells, molecules, synapses and ether.
But you’re cold now: we should walk – but continuing, you know, it‘s like time is just the effect of a filter – I draw a straight line across a menu the waiter forgot to strike. The Big Bang: it’s happening right now, in this very moment as is the end of the universe; as this breath we are sharing here. All the rest is just human projection: like I am creating, projecting you, here: again, right now- there’s no actual space between us, just more mental constructions; and time of course is the same. We‘d kept agreeing on everything, though I asked her to analyze me as to why I’ve never had any paranormal experiences. And the medieval mystics: every moment, is exploding instantly, constantly, continuously recreated. Reborn. So every moment is death then. Hmmm…
On the bus back from Ljubljana I felt more as if I were falling into the here and now. Falling down, in the moment, off the cross!
Passing slow moving trucks in their designated lane: a blinking sign above reads: LOVE HAS NO LIMITS; DRIVING SPEED DOES. The Slovenian version pulsating, alternating with the English; like eyes blinking, every time I open a new world appearing again.
If you’re not busy being born you’re busy dying. Thanks Bobby D.
I kept flashing on remembered shards of contact: a glance; a stolen, audacious kiss and repeat performance thereof. Ah, lips! – I had trouble maintaining eye contact – I wonder if that was what turned her off, why she didn’t come back to my room.
Anxiety me? Yeah a bit every morning: My teacher always said it like this: I’m in a race with death. I know he‘ll win in the end but for the moment I’m winning.
Meantime on the bus with my guys, Bruce, Bob and Bach – the 3 “B’s”. I answer Bob’s refrain: wars aren’t won; one side simply loses, concedes: to symbolic Death. Does he, Death, get bored, always winning?
In the pass between Trieste and Ljubljana: yesterday fog, clouds, rain. Going back through today, open sky but the day is the same, always one: just happens today there’s sun. Turn a curve and snow’s melting on the distance slopes; Spring trying to slip in but I feel to be moving in the opposite direction, back toward Winter. I sense both movements: moving away from her but also back to our date…back to the table by the river; and back to tears of long ago – tears of today, all of which never really dry up: there always there, the residual feeling – near, or far, from the surface: yesterday’s tears, next week’s, the final one: and a deja vu passes through.
Oh look! she entreats me: I glance quickly to my left toward the river, – old river’s end, present as is its birth source. I saw the swan. I mean: I see the swan – I’m falling, forever falling, shifting, a pulsar beckoning in, out. Comes. Gone again, disappear. Return. Reborn, die and repeat. I am that Swan’s long neck; reaching into now, not an inexistent future…but into presence. My wings flap, up down, pushing me forward. Floating, soaring free yet ever falling, vertigo-like, without feet – but she’s beside me.
The swan trails out of site as we walk on together, for just a short stretch, in the opposite direction. Always, now and forever one last, short stretch. And the swan: what was calling her?
