Wherever you are

1am. After a long tiring day at the office I decided, after spending some quality time at a café nearby, I decided to sit at the spanish steps. I still had a bottle of wine in my hands. It's a nasty habit I've learned from the italians: always bring your own wine since cafés and restaurants hardly ever know your taste anyway (except the really expensive ones but that doesn't matter).

It was a chilly night and at this time of night nobody else was there, the famous Piazza di Spagna was empty leaving myself alone with my thoughts. Not a awhile ago I remember to be writing my blog back home scenes precisely like this one. Every single detail was there. I remember being able almost to hear the quiet sound of Amsterdam's channels, of the cheerful tunes of Munich's bierhauses.

But one thing I always felt about these texts: they couldn't give the readers a proper idea of how it felt to be truly living these moments. I've always had the idea that no matter how well I described things (which I didn't), they'd always be missing somenthing like the thrill of diving into the Inn Valley in the Alps to arrive at Innsbruck or the warm and relieving feel of the tears that insisted to fall when I saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time many years ago.

As my sight was lost in the long Via Condotti I realized something: in all of my posts I've never talked about this place. For some unknown reason I left Rome forgotten in my posts. It's interesting because I've written about many things, situations and places but never talked about this beautiful place, for some the cradle of western civilization.

Unfair! Oops..guess I just let my thoughts slip through my mouth...think I said it out loud. But I decided to fix that and write a new post there about this place, it's people and my experience here which is being much more than fantastic.

2:30am. I run out of wine, but I feel like having some more. Guess the roman air requires you to have your wine always close. I think I'll stop by a café on my way back home. Before leaving, I walked towards la fontana de la barcaccia, to drop a dime as I always do when I stop by the steps. When I threw the coin I noticed that someone was watching me bacause I could make out a face through the water reflexion. As I turned back I could see this blue-eyed brunette woman smiling at me and looking at me so sweetly that I felt she was no stranger.

I had the weird impression of déjà vu so I decided to ask her if we've seen each other before (using my lousy italian). She answered me:

"Oui, nous avons nous rencontré plusieurs fois à plusieurs places de plusieurs manières. Tu me trouveras dans ton poche et dans ton coeur aussi."
(Yes, we've met many times at many places on many ways. You'll find me inside your pocket and also inside your heart.)

I was puzzled. Why would she speak french if I asked her in italian and I was in Rome! I had nothing else to do: I reached my pocket and I felt something: it was the paper from my dream. How on Earth did it end up in there? It was folded in half and had "Je t'aime" written on it.

When I showed it to her she smiled and held my hands. Never before I felt such warm, delicate and soft hands in my life. After that she took my right hand and moved it towards her face. When it did she just said:

"Je suis réel."
(I am real.)

When I heard that I started crying like I never did in my life. I wasn't loud, it was a resolute cry of relief, liberating years of frustration imprisoned deep inside me.

While my tears were cascading though my face she took my hand again and said:

"Je suis réel mais tu ne m'as jamais connu...encore. Cette vie ici est réel aussi mais pas maintenant. C'est un rêve mais je ne te quitterai jamais mon amour et ne désespère pas: nous nous trouverons à la vie réel au futur...proche. Moi je existe aussi, je ne suis pas partie de ton imagination. J'éxiste et je te cherche tous les jours."
(I am real but you never met me...yet. This life here is real as well but not now. This is a dream but I'll never leave you, love and do not despair: we will find each other in real life...soon. As for me I also exist, I'm not part of your imagination. I exist and and I look for you everyday.)

After she said that, while I was still crying she came closer and kissed me. It was different the the one in the other dream: this time everything moved really fast turning reality into a typhoon of thoughts and feelings and when I felt that it was time to go back I could see her face and hear she saying:

"Je suis toujours avec toi."
(I'm always with you.)

After she said that the inevitable happened: I woke up...again. I noticed something weird this time: my face was red and swollen and my pillow was wet. The tears...they were real.

Je dédie ce texte à toi...partout où tu es.

Whispers

I had a dream. Yes I did. I blinked my eyes and I saw myself standing once again at Alexanderplatz in a cold february night. I was on a café by the old sovietic television tower having a hot cup of coffee. I pinched my arm and I didn't wake up. It was for real, so I thought.

But instead of wondering how I ended up there I decided to just enjoy my cup of coffee in this starry berlinese night. I was wearing my heavy overcoat and a nice dark gray scarf but no gloves since I had the warm cup to take care of my hands.

After every slow sip of coffee I gazed around the square with it's soviet style buildings sharing the blocks with super-modern style post-Cold War complexes. Everything seemed to be in perfect harmony.

The coffee is over, left some coins in the table and left. Felt it was time to take a walk around Alex to remember how this place was and to make things clear for my mind.

As after I crossed the Banhof I blinked again and once my eyes opened I could see Avenue de Wagram right in front of me. It was still a starry night, I was still winter but I got transported to the heart of Paris.

Again I decided not to find out how I ended up out there I just decided to walk towards the Arc de Triomphe. As I walked towards the big Napoleonic monument I decided not to go there. Don't know why but I decided to turn at Avenue d'Iéna just after reaching the Place de l'Étoile. I thought the Trocadero was a nice place to sit and watch the beautiful city changing it's shapes.

As I walked down the beautiful tree-lined avenue I felt that my hands were freezing so I reached my pocket in order to get my black leather gloves but when I stuck my hand there I could feel a small piece of paper. It was a white heart-shaped paper folded in half. I remembered the heart from a dream long ago but this one was different since it was folded.

I decided to open it and inside I could see "Je t'aime" written with a beautiful women's handwriting. When I read it I realized that I was in Paris when I dreamt and found the other heart. After figuring that out I felt tears coming from my eyes. I stopped walking and grabbed a tissue in the pants' pocket to wipe them out. When I opened the eyes again I was sitting in this garden bench in a beutiful garden. It didn't took long to find out that I was in one of my favourite places on Earth: the Jardin du Luxembourg, still in Paris.

The night was still a starry and cold one but it was different. Ah yes..the moon. This time it wasn't there allowing more stars to shine at the beautiful sky of the "city of lights".

I opened my right hand and I could still see the heart-shaped paper in there. It was still folded in half the the phrase was still there. As I read it again many times over I heard a sweet female voice coming from behind me:

"Pouquoi tu as encore le coeur que je t'ai donné, mon amour?"
(Why do you still have the heart I gave you, love?)

Before I could answer she sat next to me and when I realized she was lying in the bench with her head on my lap. I was paralyzed for a couple of seconds and then she closed my eyes with her hands.

When she opened my eyes I realized I wasn't in the gardens anymore, I was in a bench by a river. When I looked around I could see the Tower Bridge in the distance...I've been transported to London but she was still there with me the same way she was when we were in Paris.

She took my paper-heart and kissed it leaving a mark with her lipstick and the she wrote something and left the paper inside my coat's pocket. She didn't tell me what she wrote but I didn't ask either.

As I looked deep inside her eyes all I could see was the full expression of love. Her face was bathed with the delicate star light. Her hair was like it was made my angels, if they existed.

When I was about to say that I loved her she stopped me very kindly saying:

"Tu n'as pas besoin de le dire. Garde le mot parce que c'est une parole précieuse mais qui ne peut pas être utilisé tous les jours. Laisse les yeux le dire comme les tiens font maintenant."
(You don't need to say it. Keep the word because it's a precious one that shouldn't be used every day. Let the eyes say it like yours are doing right now.)

When she said that I lifter her up and kissed her. I felt that right there the time stopped. And I was thankful for that since I wanted that kiss to go on forever. I felt that all the suffering I went through all these years was finally gone. I wasn't lonely anymore. That felt like a warm blanket in my heart.

When I opened my eyes I saw a ceiling and a fan. I was home again. It was all a dream...again. I wish everyday from that morning on that I am able to live that dream and never ever leave it behind.

Going with the flow

Millenium Bridge. It's a chilly spring night over the Thames. As I face the river with it's swift waters I begin to wonder if my heart was taken away by the flow.

Since I was young I could notice clearly my life moving forward in every single side of it except one. It's been a long way from the noisy warm streets of Rio to this quiet and chilly evening at London. I always did what I had to do to reach my goals and here I am, with a good job, living in the city I fell in love at first sight years ago, with my friends at both sides of the pond and a few scattered at some other distant places but...

Why am I facing down this modern bridge looking at the clear dark waters of this water-way? Why did I chose this particular bridge? There are so many others in here...

A loud noise broke my thoughts. The Big Ben announced: it's midnight, about 26 minutes to the last tube departure of the day from Saint Paul's station nearby. I didn't care much, because I wasn't in a hurry, I could take the long walk home of taking one of the night buses that serve the city...I wasn't in a mood for a cab ride.

I dediced to return to my thoughts...why this bridge? Perhaps that it shared one strange coincidence with me: no matter how we are we're always incomplete. I always felt this way towards this particular bridge: very modern but lacking one thing which is personality. I don't lack personality, I lack something else, something that can make this quiet and chilly London evening a warm and colourful one.

Oh yes...there are no words to describe properly, they're not enough. I feel the feelings taking control of me.

It's a bit past midnight, guess I'll drop by the pub for a pint, alone this time...I need to think. Better hurry..otherwise it will be too late for that.

As I walk towards the end of the bridge my thoughts tookover. I was walking in the air..at least that's what I felt. Time was meaningless now but I kept walking without paying attention to nothing. "It's fine" I thought "The bridge is empty anyway.". But I was wrong. A few seconds after the idea came across my mind I bumped into a woman. I apologized and helped her with her things, which she dropped because of me.

I introduced myself and we started talking and walking towards the other side of the bridge, the one that I wasn't supposed to be going, as we talked I felt charmed by her eyes and her voice. I invited her for a coffee, she agreed with the condition that she picked the place. I agreed since it didn't really matter where we would be.

As we walked a cold breeze started blowing, it was London's famous unstable weather. I offered her my jacket and she took it. The wind blew away the clouds showing a gorgeous crescent I started looking above and she noticed:

"Why are you looking up like that?"
"Sorry but I'm fascinated my the moon. I never get tired of looking."

After hearing that she looked a bit surprised but kept the date, apparently she changed her mind regarding the place and she took me to this small cafe with some tables at some sort of terrace at the second floor where the crescent was shining over us warming our hearts and giving hope to those who were looking or just making the night view of London even more beautiful.

Le mystère du coeur

La lune plaquait ses teintes de zinc
Par angles obtus.
Des bouts de fumée en forme de cinq
Sortaient drus et noirs des hauts toits pointus.

Le ciel était gris. La bise pleurait
Ainsi qu'un basson.
Au loin, un matou frileux et discret
Miaulait d'étrange et grêle façon.

Moi, j'allais, rêvant du divin Platon
Et de Phidias,
Et de Salamine et de Marathon,
Sous l'oeil clignotant des bleus becs de gaz. (Paul Verlaine)

Janela aberta, uma brisa gelada entra. O tempo cinzento e as árvores sem folhas indicam: é inverno. Vou para a janela e vejo pessoas de casacos pesados, alguns elegantes outros nem tanto.

É inverno na cidade luz. Nesta manhã o rádio anuncia que está caindo a primeira neve do ano e, como de costume, não é nenhuma calamidade. É apenas um fino manto branco que cobre as margens do Sena.

A vida continua apressada, o caótico trânsito parisiense está lá, pelo menos é o que o reporter informa. Constato que fiz uma boa escolha ao deixar o carro na garagem e seguir de metro para o escritório.

Coloco meu sobretudo preto favorito e encontro minhas luvas nos bolsos, como de costume. Mas ao puxar a da mão direita vejo que existe algo mais ali: um coração de papel. Tentei imaginar o que seria aquilo. "Quem será que me deu isso?" pensei. Não me lembrava, mas enquanto estive com ele na mão senti uma estranha sensação de déjà-vu.

De repente algo quebra minha concentração: "estou atrasado!" gritou minha consciência, e meu relógio informava impiedosamente que estava 30 minutos além da hora.

Lancei mão de minha pasta e desci à rua. No trajeto para o metrô pude perceber a fina camada branca deixada pela neve que caíra momentos antes, uma beleza sutil e delicada que, ao primeiro momento de sol, iria desaparecer. Enquanto apreciava senti algo estranho, estava intrigado com o objeto em meu bolso. Mas resolvi deixa-lo lá e seguir para a estação mais apressadamente, afinal, como meu censor de pulso informava, precisava correr.

Desci as escadas do metrô e logo que passei o bilhete na roleta alguém me chama atenção dizendo: "Monsieur, vous avez laissé tomber votre petit papier." Agradeci ao gentil senhor e recoloquei o coração no bolso. "Devo ter deixado cair quando fui tirar a carteira", pensei.

Ao chegar em meu destino: estação Alma Marceau, me deparei com uma cena que me deixou intrigado: uma linda mulher aparentemente mais nova que eu e trajando um casaco bem elegante, estava encostada em um muro parecendo estar bastante irriquieta. Ao me aproximar dela, reparei que estava analisando algo que repousava em sua mão.

Resolvi me aproximar dela, não sei porque mas fui impelido à isso. "Qualquer coisa, eu invento uma desculpa na hora e vou-me embora.", decidi.

Fui me aproximando, tentando ao máximo ser natural. Ela não notava a minha presença, creio que devido à curiosidade com que analisava o objeto em mãos. Quando cheguei mais perto fiquei atordoado: ela segurava um coração e, por incrível que pareça, era igual ao que tinha encontrado no bolso minutos antes.

Após o choque, resolvi conversar com ela. Perguntei o que era aquilo que ela tanto analizava. Ela me disse que não sabia, que simplesmente encontrou na carteira quando foi buscar o bilhete do metrô.

Contei a ela minha estória e como encontrei o meu coração-gêmeo, ela parecia não acreditar em mim até que retirei o meu do bolso e entreguei a ela. Depois disso conversamos longamente, quando me dei conta já tinha perdido metade do expediente mas não era importante, não naquele momento.

No final de nossa conversa, percebemos que não tínhamos nos apresentado. No momento que ela começou a dizer "Je m'appelle...", ouvi um barulho ensurdecedor.

Era a alvorada, o sonho acabou. De volta à dura e triste realidade.

O reencontro de dois inimigos

Devido a protestos, estou postando uma tradução (porca) do post de ontem. A noite, talvez, o post real do dia.

O quarto está vazio e silencioso. O ar está agradável mas não faz sol. A vida não está mais lá. No final da sala pode-se ver uma cama e sobre ela está um homem que foi acometido com uma doença terrível. Os médicos não sabiam o que fazer para curá-lo então deixaram-no ali para aguardar o fim que se aproxima.

Ele não deseja companhia alguma, deseja ficar só. Não quer ser visto por ninguém naquelas condições. Sua pele tornou-se amarelada, seus cabelos... brancos. Seu rosto que outrora era belo e radiante, agora passa somente dor e tristeza. A vida não foi fácil para Ariel, mas ele não tinha medo de trabalhar, lutar...jamais.

A doença misteriosa que o atingiu, dias atrás, o fez perder a alegria de viver, a motivação para lutar e tornou seu coração cinzento e duro, como uma pedra. Sua alma, que era repleta de cores, sorrisos e música, silenciou-se e se tornou triste.

A porta se abre. Alguém fala com ele: "Ah Ariel...você era o mais belo dos homens. A vida foi dura contigo. Porque você não é como eu?"

Ariel não responde, ele não pode. É impossível pois está fraco demais para falar. O homem continua:

"Escute, meu amigo, eu não ficarei aqui contigo. Eu sei que você não quer, mas deixarei com você estas flores. Não morra, Ariel. Eu preciso de um nemesis...de um inimigo... de uma força tão forte quanto eu mas diferente de mim."

Depois de falar, o homem deixou um buquê sobre a mesa ao lado do leito de Ariel com uma carta onde estava escrito: "Ao meu inimigo favorito."

La rencontre des deux ennemis

La chambre est vide et silencieuse. L'air est agrèable mais il ne fait pas soleil. La vie est sortie de là bas. Au bout de la salle on peut voire un lit et sur lui reste um homme qui a une maladie terrible. Lés médecins ne savent pas qu'est-ce que c'est nécessaire por la curer et à cause de ça il est laissé là-bas pour attender le fin qui s'approche.

Le monsieur ne veule pas aucune companie, il veut rester tout seul. Il ne veut être regardé par personne en cette condition. Son peau est dévenu jaune, ses cheveux...blancs. Le visage qui, autrefois, était belle et brillant, maintenant suggère la douleur et la tristesse. La vie n'était pas facile pour Ariel. Mais il n'avait pas peur de travailler, de luter...jamais.

La maladie mistérieuse qui l'est touché, il y a quelques jours, l'a fait perdre le joie de vivre, la motivation pour luter et a tourné son coeur gris et dur comme une pierre. Son âme qui était pleine de couleurs, de sourires, de musique est dévenu silencieuse et triste.

La porte s'ouvre. Quelqu'un parle avec lui: "Ah Ariel... tu était le plus beau des hommes. La vie était difficile por toi. Pourquoi tu n'est pas comme moi?"

Ariel ne parle rien, il ne peut pas. C'est impossible pour lui, parce qu'il est très faible. L'homme continue:

"Écoute, mon ami, je ne resterai pas avec toi ici. Je sais que tu ne veux pas. Mais je laisserai avec toi ces fleurs. Ne meurs pas, Ariel. J'ai bésoin d'un némesis...d'un ennemi...d'une force si grande comme moi mais pas comme moi."

Après parler, l'homme a laissé un bouquet sur le table à côté du lit d'Ariel avec une lettre où c'était écrit: "À mon ennemi favori.".