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The soap opera continues! Welcome back to episode two! The soundtrack – still Ioana Radu's music: Heart, why won't you grow old? Haven't you loved enough, and suffered enough? Heart, you get drunk on the same old stories, with which you've always lied to yourself... Heart, why won't you grow old? Don't you see how foolish you are? You always love...
As for the characters, you already know them. Shhh, quiet, it's starting!
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„I imagine your reaction if you saw yourself in the mirror of my mind. Now I see you slightly astonished. I see you smiling gently, with one corner of your mouth lifted by tenderness and a little shock, wondering to yourself how someone can look at you with such adoration. And I feel this thought of yours, your state of wonder when your projection from within me is shown to you. You, the one in my mind” – look, it's getting dangerous! – „whom I always see and with whom I fell in love, you, in turn, in love with me, you look at your true self, alive in reality, about whom I know nothing” – the girl knew psychology too, bravo, bravo! It didn't stop you from doing what you set your mind to, but at least the girl was aware it was all in her head! The first step is awareness, you know how they say...
„Last night I spoke to you for two sheets; four pages, and only after two hours did I tell you my name. Please forgive me for that” – and for everything, poor you, how much you've endured! – „because I spoke to you as if it were my right, as if you should have known me from somewhere, to await these letters” – as I was saying, collateral victim, how much you've endured... – „this for me, but without considering the confusion I probably created for you. Because you don't know who's speaking to you now, and even less do you know who spoke to you pages ago. I'm the same, it's still me. Ah, what an immense controversy that I chose to speak to you and you didn't. You probably didn't choose anything, because you never thought of us two in any context, of any pot we could both fit into.” – if I checkmated myself by rereading what I wrote, poor him, I think he was beyond the mother of all checkmates...„I didn't refrain from using any strange expression that, in my head, gave me the impression it sounded good” – Really?! I wouldn't have thought so! – „and that's why I allowed myself to slip in the derivative of that «we're in the same pot», which is actually «we're in the same boat», and I mixed it, in my characteristic disorder, with «to boil your pot», or rather, «not to stick your nose where your pot doesn't boil». And I find it funny!
Anyway, if you think about it, it still makes sense, it connects somehow, because, in a way” – in all ways – „I also stick my nose quite deeply where I have no idea if any pot of mine is boiling...
Did you boil water for my tea? Yes? How did you know I wanted it, and how did you know rooibos is my favorite? How did you put exactly the amount of honey I like: so it's not tasteless, but also doesn't let its sweetness overpower everything else? Or maybe you boiled that water for coffee in an ibrik? And... I don't like coffee made in an ibrik that much...” – well, some things do change! The madness of infatuation, no; the passion for ibrik coffee, yes.
„Maybe I won't like the coffee you made, maybe you drink it weaker, maybe you don't add warmed milk, maybe you don't add milk at all, maybe, in fact, you don't even like coffee...
Wait a minute, maybe you only boiled water for one cup, or maybe you really boiled for two, but not for me. And now I'm self-inviting, I'm craving your coffee, to which I wasn't invited, to which I'm uninvited. But maybe you don't even drink coffee... maybe you're scared! Just like I was when I was little, because I knew I wouldn't fall asleep anymore.
Or? Or maybe you're not scared by the internal tremor this drink gives you, which externally doesn't move, doesn't stir a single pore, but inside... it's as if the coffee is being ground then – and you are the grinder! Ah, the smell of freshly ground coffee! The occasional tremor is worth it for that, yes, it really is!
Do you like the smell of coffee? How do you smell? What perfume do you wear, besides the immortal one of youth, which we are both still blessed to enjoy? How beautiful young people are! Externally, obviously, but most concentrated – internally. And there are, therefore, people who never grow old, because their soul remains eternally captive at our age! I long for such a captivity too, and I wish it for you too! I always want to enjoy coffee, its smell!
Does it scare you that I sweeten my coffee with honey? That I also add cinnamon ‒ and, oh!, the taste is flooding me even now! Perhaps you will get to know me and watch me prepare my coffee, and then how I savor it...
I don't know how to bring myself to tell you this, but I want to have the courage to do it, so, here it is: I am incredibly happy just seeing you from a distance, like that, in the crowd, and my day brightens because I was in the same place as you for a few hours. Even if we didn't exchange a single word with each other. Even if you didn't even look at me. I stand there and thank God for giving me eyes, and for bringing me to that day just so I could see you. Nothing more.
You are such a beautiful person, if only you knew! Maybe you do. I return to my life skipping on one foot after staying, I exaggerate by saying, “next to” you, intoxicated by the joy of having gazed at you.
I'm not yet decided if I'll ever hand you these letters...” – Oh yes, you are! You know, deep in your heart, you know very well! – “although I'm thinking more and more about giving them to you. But then the door to new questions opens: When and how? I'm convinced I'll figure it out at the right time. For that, I need to have the courage to make you aware of my existence...” – I'd kiss you for that nuclear, quantum, explosive courage, dear Anuța!
“In this lies all the beauty of my current condition, in the volatility of my perceptions, in the possibility of shaping hypotheses as I please. Now, as long as I don't know your side of the story either. After that, I might have some fun... But, whatever happens, I know it won't break me. You, listening to me, I don't know what you think of me. You don't know who I am and, reading up to this point, you might think that if things don't go my way and you flat-out reject me, I will completely and utterly lose myself. I know it might seem that way, but I want to assure you that I am and will be fine, happiest with myself, regardless of your answer.” – My darling... I'm smiling!
“Right now, I've actually become fixated on you, to be honest. Don't worry, it might pass, I can free you from this pseudo-burden if necessary. If you ever know all these things... And I believe you will know them, because that's up to me...” – And the girl's got it covered, no worries! – “It would be so beautiful if I weren't even a little bit afraid to look for you, to approach you, and to look into your eyes... Then to be able to connect my thoughts as if I weren't putting anything at stake, as if I had nothing to lose – and that's how it is! It's hard to conquer your fears, but I will do it...” – Listen to her! Extraordinary, girl, extraordinary! Please, remind me sometimes that you are me!
“I believe that these unrequited "loves," secretly grown and kept in the shadows, are the most delicious, savory, pure, sincere; in a word that keeps repeating – beautiful! Juvenile, unblemished, childlike in the good sense – I feel most grateful that you have offered me the opportunity for such an experience. Thank you. From the bottom of my heart.
Once again I'm listening to love songs and thinking of you. I wonder now: should I give you the letters today? N-no, not today. Today I'm coming to talk to you, for real! Right now I'm not nervous, but I certainly will be then. I'm not asking for anything in return, I just want to free myself from everything I'm thinking, and I want you to know. Because our exchanges of glances, in all their beauty, torment me, because they bring confusion, and I don't know where I stand. I don't want to draw any conclusions on my own, that's why I'm turning to you.
So, with complete trust, I hand you the key to a window to my soul, and during your journey, I hope you see yourself perhaps at least half as I see you. Now I'm preparing the window through which you will look inside me, into my heart, and you, if you've made it this far, are just getting ready to close it...
What do you feel when you push the pane back into place, when you turn the handle down? Is it cold? Or warm? Are you well? Or are you unwell?” – might they have called an ambulance that day?!...
(to be continued)
Ana Bănică
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