Yesterday you came and put a smile on my face. A smile of circumstance, but a smile nonetheless. Am I smiling for you, to you, now? We haven’t seen each other for three weeks. Three weeks! An eternity. What happened in-between? A blackout. My mind must have switched off. You told me that we would have to catch up. But catch up on what? There is nothing to catch, and everything to loose.
You threw your Santiag boots on my coffee table and made yourself comfortable. You took your time, but you do not own time. You cling to me but I am no anchor. What is it worth, I ask myself? I count every minute when you are not with me, and when you are I feel disappointed. You are that moment which I cannot grasp. The rest of the time I live in a limbo. I know this would hurt you if I said this, or would it really? Would I hurt you if I said that after all these years you have remained a complete stranger to me?
Train is stopping, doors open. A woman is sitting on the platform, crying, her face all red and puffy with tears. Doors are closing, train starts off again. What is wrong with the world? I turn my head around. Faces look back on me blankly, they haven’t seen what I have seen. An empty mirror. I keep staring, I insist, I want to exist, I want to share. There is nothing to share. A girl is smiling at me, I avert my eyes, I feel guilty. Like my own smile, hers came uninvited. The woman keeps crying in my mind and the train is on its way, moving too fast.
What did we do yesterday? We talked, oh, we talked a lot, but what did we talk about? We talked because we had to. I cannot remember what we talked about. I remember the woman’s face crying and I want to get off, I want to help her. She did not see me but I saw her. I feel like a thief. What would I say to her? I don’t even know you.
When I got up this morning your shapeless mass was lying next to mine. I have trouble these days distinguishing the contours of your body. I look at these portraits of you I used to paint and I think, is that really you? I would not be able to paint anymore, I would not know where to start. I’ve been lacking focus.
On a train ride there is always the risk of running astray. My eyes close for no less than a second. When I reopen them, the person sitting next to me is gone. I missed it, how could I miss it? I feel angry. It seems the world is moving only when my eyes are closed. I close them again, just to be sure. I open them, nothing has changed, the world is safe, I am safe.
I remember now. I remember, not because of the words you said, but because of these Santiags of yours. I always feel annoyed when you do that, who's going to clean after you? I was watching them while you spoke, your Santiags on my coffee table brought focus to your words, your Santiags said: ‘I want to marry you.’ Your Santiags did not say, ‘Can you get me a beer?’ , but these five words instead.
Yesterday, it happened only yesterday. I did not reply. I do not know what I want. I cannot even remember the days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, no Wednesday… I cannot. Even this simple trick does not work anymore. Three weeks! And you ask me to marry you! Where have you been with your Santiags? I see someone who could be you boarding the train. I see you everywhere and yet you are nowhere, no one to me.
I feel cold, I feel dry, a little melody is humming in my head, It is annoying me and I try to stop it but I can’t. My stop. The melody brutally stops. My stop! I nearly missed it. I run, I get off and behind me doors close. Swiiisssssh. I am standing on the platform. I think of that woman crying a few stops away from me only on the same line. Is she still there?
When I come home, the first thing I see are your Santiags. They are sitting uninvited in the entrance hall. Without their owner they look inoffensive. I want to kick them, I want to kick you, why are you here? I feel like an idiot. You are here because this place has become yours as much as mine, because you have spare keys, because you’ve always had spare keys, as long as I can remember although you never come around at all these days, because you want to marry me, me, me, me...
‘Suzanne?’ He is calling my name. I do not like my name. Suzie at most, but Suzanne… He never calls me Suzanne, he never calls me at all, but when he does, it is Suzie, never Suzanne. It must be serious. A smile, a smile on my face, laughter, refrained laughter to myself. I understand your reaction last night, he’ll say, I have not been around a lot, he’ll say, but I love you, he’ll say, I want to marry you, he’ll say, I know this sounds absurd, he’ll say, but not if you consider… If I consider what? And what will I say? I want to leave. I leave. But where will I go? I stand in the hall, hands still on the door, staring at your Stantiags, not knowing what to do.
The melody comes back, unexpected, uninvited, unfriendly unfamiliar unimaginative in its repetitiveness. Where did I hear it? ‘Suzanne?’ His voice. The melody stops again, a riddle. ‘Yes’. ‘Are you back?’ That’s a stupid question. I’ve always lived here. ‘Yes’. ‘Yes’ and ‘yes’, but no. I shut the door, I leave, I run, I feel stupid, I nearly fall down the stairs, I am still running, I am outside, I am alone, it is cold, it is dry, he’s upstairs, the lights are on, he hasn’t moved, no one’s chasing me, you came because you had to, you said you want to marry me because you had to but you shouldn’t have, really, this is too much of a gift but a gift’s a gift and I feel free. I feel free because I know now that freedom always comes at a cost. I will marry you, oh yes I will, ah-ah!
Who are you? All I ever asked for was a little bit of company, all these years, is all I asked. To exist. To marry you? You came uninvited, like a fly on my nose which I can never grasp, after all these years.
I am boarding the train again. I want to see if the woman crying is still there. She is there, she hasn’t moved. I feel safe, the world is safe. I want to say something but her face is closed and hard on mine. I feel uninvited but I sit beside her and wait for the next train. The melody is there to annoy me, too. Where did I hear it? How could I forget? I try a smile at the woman but the woman has gone, along with the next train. Tears come swelling off my eyes, uninvited. At last I am crying.
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