…and he asked her again…show me the happiness…teach me to love…teach me to smile…write a poem…for me…all joy, no sorrow, no pain…no hurt turning the words into tears…no memories, no regrets…
And she lied to him, for the first time…her hand closed to his face, almost trembling…she caressed him, just as one caresses a baby…her baby…her fingers played in his hair for a while, not yet ready to face the emptiness of the blank page…not yet ready for more lies, for more deceiving…
Then she started writing. For a couple of hours, tiny letters were running one after the other on the sheet of paper, trying to find the right place in the right word in the right sentence in the right thought. For a couple of hours he remained silent next to her, watching the fight of her dreams in her deep, strange, unearthy eyes. Moon was watching too, through the wide window, but somehow its glance seemed cold and hostile that night, so he made a move and pull down the curtains – blue silky curtains with white flowers, and he remembered once again the joy on her face when they first saw them, and her childish laughter, and the hurry to buy them and make them brighten her room, her very special room…
He smiled…that day…he remembered so well...even the smell of her hair, when they took the elevator in the Mall, and there were so many people around them, and she leaned her head on him, tired of noise and of shopping…and he also remembered the shape of her thin neck, coming out of the white blouse, and the strong desire he felt to let his lips play with that neck…to kiss him…to bite him…to feel the pulse of her veins…
He took his sit back next to her. When she was writing, nothing could get to her mind except for her own thoughts. After a few years, he got used to this way of running away, of disappearing, of losing herself. Maybe – he thought – maybe she is happy there, in her world. But then…he was jealous on that happiness, because he felt that he is not allowed to be there. So, whenever that feeling tormented his heart, he asked her to write something for him as well. Something just for him. In that way he could also be part of her strange universe, part of her hide-and-seek game she was silently playing from time to time.
A black haze was slowly falling on his eyes and mind…He wished she had crumpled the pages right in that minute. He wished she had thrown them in the recycle bin. He wished she had stand up and come to him and taken off her clothes and remained full naked in front of him – that white soft body with gentle curves, the body of a goddess coming right from those times when people were still believing in fairytales and in the magic of beauty…
And she did. She looked at him for a second, with a heavenly sadness hidden beyond her smile. She crumpled the sheets of paper and threw them in that full-of-other-crumpled-papers bin. Nothing emphatic in that gesture of hers, nothing unusual, no regrets or rage – just the simple natural act of destroying something you own only because it’s no use for you anymore. She left her sit and came to him, taking his hand, kissing the back of his palm, promising everything just by a look and yet…giving nothing. She took off her clothes, one by one, revealing that marble skin covering her breasts and her navel. Far from the world, far from life, far from reality, he made her his, again and again, though not even for a moment losing the touch with the consciousness that she cannot be really his. She cannot really be anybody’s. No one can own her. All the men she slept with, he being included – they all took it for granted and accepted this lie because they were grateful to have her at least for those few minutes or hours of lust. Among them, he was lucky enough as to have more than that. He could see her writing, he could watch the fight of her dreams in those deep, strange, unearthy eyes. From time to time, he could be part of those dreams…
Tiny letters were running and running on the sheet of paper. And he simply knew that it didn’t matter what sentences they made, what thoughts they hid, as long as – look – he was there, next to her, both lost in silence, while the letters were running…and running…and running…