FOUR
Inevitable
Present
The darkness persists, but dawn is near. Through the mist, Christopher can make out the faint glow of the parking lights of a pickup parked on the roadside, next to a traffic cone warning drivers. Some people are checking the engine, while others converse with concern.
He doesn't know which path to take to reach his destination. All he can do is challenge coincidence and provoke the past. He wants it to influence his future once again. So, he seeks to bounce between situations, testing if chance becomes his guide and leads him like an invisible compass.
How can he tell if the pickup broke down because coincidence is on his side or against him? The only sure thing is to move forward and keep bouncing. But for now, he has to wait, and waiting is no defense against the past.
Should I have stayed, feeling months as days and days as hours?
Christopher adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder. He approaches a group of people who are looking at a map on a cellphone screen and asks for any directions, no matter which. They point out a path through the trees. Christopher moves along the edge of the road and disappears into the mist.
No, I think it was time to do something.
He enters a path that connects the grass to the road. The wet grass soaks his black sneakers. The further he ventures into the field, the harder the visibility becomes. He takes a flashlight from his bag, turns it on, and becomes a point of light moving through the fog.
Don't get me wrong, my Mermaid, it's just that... I forgot how heavy a minute is, or how many hours I can bear on my back.
He feels like he's been walking for hours, but his perception of time is not to be trusted. He constantly has to ignore strange sounds that often come from different directions. It's not difficult for him because he feels he's doing the right thing.
He climbs a hill for a few minutes. The atmosphere begins to turn blue. He looks up at the sky. The stars and the Moon remind him of that journey he took far from Earth. He stops for a moment, closes his eyes, and listens. He feels that the mist whispers him interstellar melodies of Neptune. It seems like a good sign.
That's why a good shoulder routine wouldn't hurt.
A few steps later, his foot slips on a wet branch, and he slides down uncontrollably. His skin scrapes against branches, bushes, shrubs... Until he's finally stopped by a strong blow to the head, and then, an inert darkness
*
He is awakened by the sound of a river and the water splashing on his face. He opens his eyes and sees the sunlight filtering through the mist, so intense that he has to shield his eyes. Then, a tremendous pain shoots through his right arm, making him groan. When he turns to see what's happening, he realizes he's injured and bleeding.
Despite the pain, he forces himself to stand up and limps to the riverbank. With his other hand, he rinses the wound and takes a sweater from his bag. He ties it around his neck as a makeshift sling and places his injured arm inside.
When he checks the hill, he discovers that some of his belongings are scattered on the wet grass. With only one arm, he has to pick up the items one by one and put them back into the bag. It seems like he'll never finish.
When he lifts the last item, he realizes it's his cellphone. The screen is cracked, and although he presses the power button, it only displays a moving photo of the woman in the crimson beanie that she sent him while walking on the beach. Nevertheless, Christopher keeps it.
After making sure he hasn't left anything behind, he takes a breather and then notices that his wallet and the notebook of the story he wrote with her are trapped between some rocks in the river, about to be swept away by the current.
He rushes to the shore and grabs a strong, long branch from a bush. Climbing the rocks, he approaches the wallet cautiously. However, his attempt fails, and the branch pushes it into the water, where it drifts away.
Christopher curses and decides to try to rescue the notebook. Carefully extending the branch, he slides it between the pages of the notebook. But a strong gust of wind rushes down the hill, destabilizing him and causing the branch to push the notebook into the river. Without thinking, Christopher plunges into the water. Desperately, he swims with his good arm, holding the branch in his teeth, and positions his legs on the rocks to push himself closer to it. He reaches out to stop it, grabbing it by the lapel, and then hurls it back through the air.
The notebook lands on the grass, and Christopher crawls to the shore, in pain and exhausted.
*
The sun shines directly overhead as Christopher reaches the top of the hill, with his shirt and underwear still wet. He scans the horizon, finding no signs of a road, only plains and hills. He heads towards the shade of a solitary tree in the middle of the plain.
He removes his wet clothes, piles them on top of the bag, and then hangs them over the branches. He lays a pile of leaves in a sunbeam and arranges the items from his bag on them to dry. He sits down in front of his belongings and wraps his nakedness in a couple of large leaves.
He places the notebook in front of him, separating the pages in the sunlight. He leaves the first page open and waits for it to dry.
The great weight in front of me was what they made me see with no escape.
The memory overwhelms him. It's inevitable. He begins to read.
Limbo
Time continues drowsy, and gravity is weak. The rain of mirrors falls slowly and indolently. Among the countless reflections splattered with blood, Christopher continues to float suspended in the air. The walls don't cease to blaspheme, invoking blind metaphors about mud and matter.
A drop of blood circulates lost and carefully on the surface of a fragment of mirror, multiplying infinitely within a collision of reflections and projecting itself in all dimensions. The crystals spin with a pleasurable lethargy and reflect the image of Christopher, who seems to fall like an orbitless satellite.
His body is the landing base for the unyielding sharp tips that arrive with gleaming signals. One embeds itself in Christopher's arm; his skin does all it can, but it peels it, blood drops explode like fireworks and hang suspended in the air until lazy gravity assigns them their undeniable direction.
Another piece pierces his thigh, and blood gushes in an explosion. Christopher gazes at the sky; he appears unaffected by the pain, but the flashes passing by caressing his eyes are like an injection into his brain, demanding the awakening of memory.
Past
He walked in heavy rain with an umbrella in his hand. The sky was so overcast that it seemed like nightfall. The warm lights of street lamps flickered and their reflection accompanied the gleam of water on the sidewalk. Christopher was heading to the library; it was the time she frequented it. He stopped halfway down the block when he saw her coming out, escorted by a guard, arguing with a lady in executive, refined, and imposing attire, who was forcing her towards a car parked at the entrance. The argument heated up as they moved away from the library, and Christopher could barely hear faint screams over the downpour.
The lady began to struggle with her, shaking her vigorously by the arm, then took her by the waist, practically dragging her towards the car. It was then that the woman in the crimson beanie shook herself free, stood her ground, and said something that made the lady leave on her own. She closed her umbrella, got into the car forcefully, and drove off. The woman in the crimson beanie stood in the middle of the sidewalk, getting wet, as she watched the taillights of the car vanish into the traffic.
Christopher observed how she ran back towards the library and went to find her. He passed by the bookshelves until he reached the back, where he found her in the last aisle, sitting on the first step of the stairs, with her hair down and her face in her hands.
Christopher approached slowly; she felt his presence and turned around, startled.
"What are you doing here?" she seemed to reproach him.
"I saw you arguing with a lady..." he replied cautiously. "Who was she?"
She remained silent, tolerating her own bitterness.
"My mother," she finally said, her voice low and trembling.
Another silence followed.
Christopher moved closer to her on the edge of the furniture.
"She doesn't like me coming here," she continued while wiping raindrops from her hair with her sleeve. "She's not like us. She hates all of this, says it's useless." She fell silent, gazing at the books on the shelf in front of her. "And she's right," she concluded after a moment. She picked up a book on criminal law and opened it with a nauseating grimace.
Christopher couldn't bear that logic any longer and lost his patience. He took the notebook from his backpack and dropped it on what she was reading.
"I wrote something new," he said to her.
She looked at the writing; it was just a paragraph; the rest was blank.
"Is that it?" she asked with disappointment.
Christopher handed her a pen.
"What do you imagine could happen next?" he asked, sparking her imagination.
"Nothing," she replied coldly.
"Nothing?" he looked into her eyes. "Are you sure?"
She read it quickly and thought seriously.
"I've never shown anyone what I've written," she replied lazily and stood up. She seemed more nervous than usual, or maybe it was just the cold.
"I won't tell anyone you wrote it."
She moved towards the end of the aisle as if wanting to leave but stopped. She was uneasy.
"If it turns out so bad," Christopher said, "we can burn it."
She smiled and allowed herself to be convinced, shaking her head as she remembered that she had told him the same thing when they first met.
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