Day Two hundred and forty four - Une année sans lumière

Let's keep on reviewing decades old records, shall we? 

Who : Arcade Fire

Album name : Funeral

Formed : 2001

From : Montreal, Canada

What do they play : Indie rock / chamber pop / art rock / baroque pop / symphonic rock (at least according to Wikipedia)

Release date : September 14 2004

What do you mean this came out almost twenty years ago? Surely that can't be right. Why, I vividly recall listening to it for the first time, it feels like only yesterday, you can't tell me 2004 was twenty years ago, right? RIGHT? God damn, twenty years. And yeah, as I say, I can very vividly recall that first time I listened to it. I know where I was, I know who was with me, I know how I felt as soon as I heard the very first music notes. I also know that prior to that first listen, I hated, hated, hated the band. Why? For no reason other than they seemed to everyone's darling, they felt like the band du jour for me, everybody was raving about them, about how amazing they were when they saw them at some festival or the other. And me, if you can believe this, not having heard a single song of theirs, hated them with a passion. And then came the day, sometime in lates September 2004 where I was at my friend Hugo's and he tells me about his new favourite band - Arcade Fire. I might have groaned audibly. Possibly. But he says 'Trust me. This is good stuff'', and when he says things like that he's usually right. We were in his living room, me, him, and I'm guessing still a couple of others, when he puts the record on. It two all of two seconds for me to fall in love with it. As we listened, Hugo talked a bit about the band - other than previously loathing them, I knew nothing about them. He told they were from Canada, and for some reason, as soon as I started listening to the record I was reminded of the works of Joe Matt, Seth and Chester Brown, published by Drawn & Quarterly, a Canadian comic book publisher. These were very confessional books, autobiographical in their nature, in which they reminisced about different times of their lives - including their childhood and youth. And these songs I was listening to seemed very much like the perfect companion pieces to these stories I so adored. 

As the record progressed, I found myself not only enjoying it immensely but also looking forward to listening to it again and again. I never bought it on CD, it's very likely that Hugo burned a copy for me, or I downloaded it. I never really minded the low quality MP3s, especially not back then. I would eventually have it on vinyl, both on my present collection as well as the one I sold off back in 2013. This also marks a strange relationship that I have with Arcade Fire albums. While I love most of them - none of them is an outright 10/10 for me - what I actually love is like a handful of tracks and then sort of just tolerate the deep cuts. Some are good, some are just OK, others are just now skips to me. I have always hoped that some day these tracks would resonate more with me, but eh, it is what it is. Still, the songs I do love - and let's just focus on 'Funeral' for the moment - more than make up for those that I find just pretty ok. Though to be fair, here it's only two songs really that I don't like as much as the others - 'Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)' and 'In the backseat'. I don't mind them, really, I just don't love them as much as I love the others.

I've been trying to figure out what would my desert island disc selection be like, and I don't think I could exclude Arcade Fire. And this would be a contender, but there's one I think I do like more. One that has grown and grown inside my heart. Which one is it? Stay tuned to find out.

If I had to rate this one, my nostalgia goggles do want me to stay that this is flawless, and though I know it's not a 10/10, that's what my nostalgic self would like to rate it. But... listening to it now I do find it a little bit less exciting. A little less good than what was to come. But still pretty darn good. Like 8/10 good.

Day Two hundred and forty three - Hinnom, TX

I have five nightmares. I don't mean bad dreams - no, I mean things that I would consider a nightmare, a living one, were they to happen to me. I also am faced with a conundrum right now, because I can only remember what four of them are. But I know that I have, indeed, five. Maybe I'll remember what the missing one is along the way. Three of these nightmares involve death, which is something that will surprise no one. I think we all ponder death, at one point or another, and though I've become much more comfortable with my own mortality this past decade or so, there are still some aspects about death and dying that I desperately dread.

So I'll list my nightmares, the four I can remember, at least. Only the first is in its proper order, the others can be debated where they fall on the list and may be somewhat interchangeable. I do wonder what the missing one is, though.

Ok, this is a nightmare I had even before my son was born. I might have written about this before, but I always had the desire to have a family. It was in 1997 that that particular urge started to swell in me. I guess me and Dora might have had some conversations about it at the time, but it wouldn't be until after her parents passed away in 1998 that the timing began to be right. But I briefly worked with a guy that was a huge Joy Division fan - a band I love, but which, by that time, I hadn't listened to in years. Much of what I listened to in the 90's was metal, and I rarely strayed from that. Though I would sometimes revisit some stuff from the 80's, it was a rare occurrence. But this guy got me hyped about Joy Division again, we'd talk about the band and their troubled lead singer - Ian Curtis. This got me so hyped that later that year I'd buy the 'Heart and Soul' boxset. There was one particular conversation I had with this guy, though, that left something inside me. He'd told me that he had read somewhere that when Ian's child was born, he sometimes would feel too afraid to hold her, lest he drop her on the floor. And I've always known I was clumsy, if I had a child would I be likely to drop the baby on the floor? Thoughts like these percolated in my mind for another couple of years until my son Ian was born, and these thoughts coalesced into a nightmare. That of him dying as an infant. Scratch that, that of him dying. And yeah, I guess when he was a baby that frightened the living hell out of me, but to this day I find myself praying that I never get a call telling me that something happened to him. So - my son, anything happening to him, that's number one.

Two and three are also about death. One of them must be related to some past life trauma I harbor to this day, and is one of the reasons why I am not overly interested in travelling and also why I am not a big beach guy at all. I tend to stay away from large bodies of water altogether. So that nightmare is dying a horrible, slow death - especially something like being eaten alive. I loathe sharks with all my heart, and I am very sure that in some past life I ended up as a snack to them. Now, I love cats, but not to the point of being eaten by some big cat. No, there will never be safaris for me, nor shall I ever go to those exotic places who are incredibly beautiful but are located in shark infested waters. Nah, I'm good.

Another nightmare regarding death is one that is very, very real, and - unfortunately - more likely. We are all of us just one bad day away from completely breaking down, right? None of us is exempt from losing everything we have, from being left behind by everyone. All it takes is that one bad day. And I am dreadfully afraid of screwing up my life so bad that I not only end up in the streets, but end up dying completely alone. Anonymous. With people I know passing me by and not even recognizing me. It's something that has been on my mind for decades now, ever since I was a child. I'm not sure whether or not I told this story, but as a kid my mother used to buy groceries for a family that lived in a cardboard 'house' near where she worked, and I always felt that fear inside me, cold and slithering, that there but by the grace of god could well be me.

The fourth nightmare would probably rank second on my list. Sometimes, and depending how low I am feeling, it could actually be number one. This is a nightmare that I guess I sort of always knew I had - it's something I think I already felt as a child, though I could not yet fathom how it could apply to my life. I started feeling it very early after me and Dora - my son's mother - split up. There was something that grew deeper into my core, a feeling of unease that I sensed whenever I was with someone, that made me realize I was wasting everyone's time by keeping up a façade. Then, as time went on, and as people came and went, I started to feel this more and more. After Silvia, I already knew, but deluded myself into thinking I didn't. After Sofia, that feeling started to seep in my core even further. And one of the very many reasons why no relationship worked out after was because I began being more and more honest with myself when it came to the fact that I could never content myself with someone. By this I mean that I could never settle down with someone, or even be with someone, just because I deemed that that should be my fate, that it was either that or wallow in nothingness. I can't do that. Some people do, and hey - whatever works for them. I couldn't spend a lifetime of pretend love. I did years of that with Dora when we were younger, and that was enough. I could never be with someone I don't love, even though sometimes I might love their company, of I might love things we do together. But that's not enough for me. It's never enough. And one of the reasons why I walked away from all of this is that I do not want to waste anyone's time ever again. Being with people because it's better than being alone is a pretty piss-poor reason to be with them. I will not suffer it, nor have anyone suffer through it. I won't.

But... but I would be lying if I didn't admit that I have felt that temptation in the past. That I could opt for what would be the unhappy way out. It wouldn't be easy, it would mostly be not good for however long it lasted. This I know, because in the past decade - and especially up to 2018 - I tried far too many times, and felt that way very often. Was that why I always felt like I planted the seeds for the demise of whatever I had going on with someone? Maybe. I do know that none of these people that wandered in and out of my life were people that gave me the feeling that things were going to last. Yeah, sometimes the sex was good, sometimes the other stuff was good, but nothing was all good, no one was all... all good. Only before. Only once. And knowing this, knowing all this, keeps me from wanting to be with someone else. No one deserves that. No one deserves not even the bare minimum, less than that. Most souls aren't like mine - I don't need much, but I do need a little bit. Most others need far too much. And they deserve nothing less. Wasting whatever years I have ahead of me content with only a small measure of what I once knew so intimately? That is a true nightmare, one I will ever avoid.

And what the hell was that fifth nightmare?

Day Two hundred and forty two - Matte kudasai

I wake up in the middle of the night, and a sticky film clings to my skin. I feel exhausted, like instead of sleeping I had been running for hours. I wasn't running, no, I was falling. I dreamt I was falling, forever falling. Where? Was I... I was where? In no place, in a place with no time, at the end of all, at the end of everything, and I fell and fell and fell and fell, and then was brought back time and time again, only to fall and fall and fall and fall again and again and again, endlessly. Then, a light, a shining sun amidst the primeval dark. I know that light, it spoke to me. I know that voice. I know it. I know.

Where I was, where I was, where we were, we were racing against time, in a place where there is no time, where there is all time, and the time was nigh, the time was coming, the time has come to choose. 

And the choice was love or fear of pain and I chose love because everything is energy and energy is you and me.

Day Two hundred and forty one - And you and I

At the other end of the universe, there is a twin to this well I fell down so, so many times. It is not a well, though, but rather it is more like a pool, its waters deep, dark, and still. There, another soul has dwelled for an eternity of eternities - just as mine has resided here. This soul has dived down the pool's placid waters just as many times as I fell down the well, and it was always the same for her : she sought a point in the distant past, sought to change it, but ultimately couldn't. Then there would be the violent return to the point of origin, the confusion, then the clarity. There would be an infinite number of hers, there was always a conversation between her and her, but she always went back down the waters. Just as I did, one day she too coalesced.

The universe folds into itself. The two most distant points now meet and become. If I look down the well, I see distant dark waters, unperturbed. If she looks at the water, she will find a long, long well going ever down. I am haunted, though. There is now more nothingness than ever. There is now more and less at the same time. Everything feels empty. A true void. And yet... I hear the sound of a piano in the distance. Who would be playing it, here and now? How would a piano even have survived this long? But there is no piano, not in a physical sense. The music is in the mind. The music is in the soul. The music is in the heart. As I walk towards where I sense the sound is coming, I feel it becoming clearer, louder. I know this song. But what is it?

I see you, away in the distance. You are sitting beside the pool, your feet dipped in the waters. I approach, so close. The sound of the piano is joined by your voice. 

                                                                                        (Come on Balthazar, I refuse to let you die)

                                                                                           (Come on fallen star, I refuse to let you die)

You are alone. You should never have been alone. That's wrong.

                                                                                ('Cause that's wrong and...)

I sit down by your side, my feet joining yours in the pool. They lightly touch yours and in the void there is electricity. How long have you been here, I ask.

                                                                                           ( I've been waiting far too long)

My voice joins yours, softly, and the piano echoes in the night.

(It's wrong)                                                                         (It's wrong)

   (I've been waiting far too long)                                         (I've been waiting far too long)

(For you to be mine)                                                          (For you to be mine)

                                                      (For you to be mine)      

You placed your head on my shoulder, then, and wove your fingers around mine. I missed you. I missed you, you said. What a strange place for us to meet again, after so long. But we always said we'd wait. We just didn't know how long. What is time, you ask. Time, what is time? Time is like a dream. Time is a river. Time is a raging and roiling sea in an ebullient ocean, on whose crashing black waves we crest only to dash ourselves in the rocks. The rocks of time. The rock of time. Time. There is no time. Where we are there is no time. When we are there is no time. Everything without a time. But a clock is ticking. We know this moment will be far too brief.

Can we not stay here way forever? We can not stay here forever. Why can't we? We can't. There is no forever here. There is only a closed loop of time that is winding down. But.

But.

But we can have a different forever. One towards where we stride together, as one. Though it requires pain and sacrifice. It demands we look past that day for good. It demands we let it rest, so that we can rest. I don't want to forget, I say. I don't either. But it's a choice we can make now. It'll probably be the only chance we have. All we have to do is join hands and walk together. Will it hurt, I ask. Not anymore, my love. Not after we go. I'm afraid. So am I. Stay here with me. Stay here with I. I-I-I-I is starting to lose cohesion. Stays. Pleases. My love, we can't. I am so sorry. But we can go together. If you give me your hand. But it's a choice you have to make.

I-I-I-I is afraid. I sees the well and the pool ungluing. Things going unstuck and back and I is I don't I can't I isn't, I-I-I-I reaches out my handses. I is I is I is I is I is your voice. Your beautiful voice, as you hold my hands and fill me with light. I see your smile. Oh God, your smile, the same I saw that first day. It is everything to me. Our time approaches. Our time approaches, so near that I sigh. I look behind me, I look beyond me. Hand in hand, we became everything, and for a moment in that eternal night, there were two suns. The flickering light of the burning suns meant that all would be extinguished and left behind.

It also meant a second chance... It signaled a new day -- a future... regained. For if we live there is hope. And if there is hope, then there is tomorrow. And if tomorrow... then, forever.

  

Day Two hundred and forty - I am the Antichrist to you

A trillion, trillion years from now.  Fifteen million light years. Two million light years. A hundred thousand light years. Ten thousand light years. One hundred light years. One light year. A billion kilometers. One million kilometers. One hundred thousand kilometers. Ten thousand kilometers. One thousand kilometers. One hundred kilometers. Ten kilometers. One thousand metres. One kilometer. Three thousand feet. One meter. One centimeter. One hundred microns. Ten microns. One micron. Point-one microns, or a thousand angstroms. One hundred angstroms. Ten angstroms. One angstrom. Point one angstroms. Point zero-one angstroms. Point zero-zero-one angstroms. I am inside you again, and I am going to burst.

That day you didn't feel sad. Rather, you felt relieved. You felt like you'd been living a lie. Everything felt wrong. You didn't want to be here anymore. You found no faith in yourself that a future was possible. You stopped responding to my texts, and didn't pick the phone when I called. I was getting worried, had something happened to you? The hours went slowly by, and I still couldn't reach you.

I didn't know yet. I didn't know you'd spent hours in the dark thinking about what to do. You could see two roads diverging before you : one would take you to me, and the other would take you far from me. 

Two roads diverged in a wood and you — you took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Point zero-zero-one angstroms. Point zero-one angstroms. Point one angstroms. One angstrom. Ten angstroms. One hundred angstroms. Point-one microns, or a thousand angstroms. One micron. Ten microns. One hundred microns.  One centimeter. One meter. One thousand metres. One kilometer. Three thousand feet. Ten kilometers. One hundred kilometers. One thousand kilometers. Ten thousand kilometers. One hundred thousand kilometers. One million kilometers. A billion kilometers. One light year. One hundred light years. Ten thousand light years. A hundred thousand light years. Two million light years. Fifteen million light years. A trillion, trillion years from now. I am back to where I started. I have the talk again with myself. I cannot stop myself. I fall again.

A trillion, trillion years from now. Millions of light years. Hundreds of thousands of light years. Ten thousand light years. One hundred light years. One light year. Millions of kilometers. Thousands of kilometers. One hundred kilometers. Ten kilometers. One thousand metres. One kilometer. Three thousand feet. One meter. One centimeter. One hundred microns. Ten microns. One micron. Point-one microns, or a thousand angstroms. One hundred angstroms. Ten angstroms. One angstrom. Point one angstroms. Point zero-one angstroms. Point zero-zero-one angstroms. I am inside you again, and I am going to burst.

That day you didn't feel anything. Rather, you felt neither sad nor relieved. You felt like a choice had been made for you and you were going along with it. Everything felt numb. You didn't want to think. You didn't even want to move. You stopped responding to my texts, and didn't pick the phone when I called. I was getting worried, had something happened to you? The hours went slowly by, and I still couldn't reach you.

I didn't know yet. I didn't know you'd spent hours in the dark thinking about what to do. You could see two roads diverging before you : one would take you to me, and the other would take you far from me. 

Two roads diverged in a wood and you — 

Point zero-zero-one angstroms. Point zero-one angstroms. Point one angstroms. One angstrom. Ten angstroms. One hundred angstroms. Point-one microns, or a thousand angstroms. One micron. Ten microns. One hundred microns. One centimeter. One meter. One thousand metres. One kilometer. Three thousand feet. Ten kilometers. One hundred kilometers. Thousands of kilometers. Millions of kilometers. One light year. One hundred light years. Ten thousand light years.  Hundreds of thousands of light years. Millions of light years. A trillion, trillion years from now. I am back to where I started. I have the talk again with myself. I cannot stop myself. I fall again.

That day you didn't feel-

Trillion years. Millions of light years. Hundreds of thousands. Tens of thousands. One hundred. One. One billion kilometers. Millions. Thousands, hundreds, tens, one. One meter, one centimeter. One hundred microns. Ten. One. A thousand angstroms. One hundred. Ten One. Point zero one to point zero-zero one. I am inside you again, and I am going to burst.

From angstroms to meter to kilometers. Millions, billions of kilometers. Light years, thousands, millions. A trillion, trillion years from now. I am back to where I started. I have the talk again with myself. I cannot stop myself. I fall again.

That day-

Trillions of years to angstroms.  I am inside you again, and I am going to burst.

That-

Angstroms to trillions of years. I am back. I fall.

Years to angstroms. Inside. Burst.

Angstroms to years. Back. STOP

I is tired. I is overwhelmed, I is, I is, I-I-I-I is, I is speaking, I all is speaking, so many of I, so much of I, so little of I. I-I-I-I is, I isn't. I-I-I-I is losing myself. I. I. I. I can't go on. I must go on. I is echoes, I is ripples. I-I-I-I please. Please. I-I-I-I have to stop. I can't stop. I must fall. I is footsteps growing louder. I is crowded by I, so many of I, so much of I. I... is I silent? I is silence. I coalesce. Slowly at first I. I pours into I. I more. I more me. I am more. I am more of me. I am. I am. I am. I am me. And I look at what's in front of me. I look at at who's in front of me. It was me, waiting for me. Me, seeing me this time. I stand where he wants to fall. I know his pain so well. But mine - ours - is so much greater. I know, he doesn't yet know, and though I tell him the truth, he cares little for it. He who is I, I who is he, who is we, who is us. Come, I say. Let us sit and talk. I hear from my own voice that I am done listening. I have heard these words - or variations thereof - so many times now. I try to persuade, to dissuade, to negotiate. Come, I say. STOP, I plead. This is a losing battle of wills : an unstoppable force rushing headlong against an unmovable object. I am going to fall again. He is going to fall. We are going to fall. And then we hear it, for the first time ever : the sound of her wings. 

Day Two hundred and thirty nine - Wait

It always ends up like this, I would learn. But not yet. I have exploded in a burst of hope, and, as I await nothingness to finally claim me, I feel myself being pulled back. Something's wrong. Everything is wrong. I'm going back. I'm becoming more. Point zero-zero-one angstroms. Point zero-one. Point one. I am leaving, I am leaving. One angstrom. Ten angstroms. One hundred angstroms. Point-one microns, or a thousand angstroms. One micron. Ten microns. One hundred microns. I'm almost out, but I don't want to, I don't want to. One centimeter away from you. One meter away. I can see you! Let me stay, please, let me stay. I'm being pulled back, increasingly so. One thousand metres. One kilometer. Three thousand feet. Ten kilometers away and I already can't make out what is beneath me. One hundred kilometers. One thousand kilometers. Ten thousand kilometers. One hundred thousand kilometers. One million kilometers. A billion kilometers, I'm screaming past Jupiter. One light year, Sol becomes a distant dot on the horizon. One hundred light years. Ten thousand light years. A hundred thousand light years away, and I'm moving past the milky way. Two million light years away, and Andromeda slips past me - I can't touch it with my fingertips. Fifteen million light years. The sky's gone out. All the stars my tears created have ceased to be. There is nothing. There is only the void, starless and bible black. I am being pulled away, I am going back to where I started. Trillions and trillions of years away, I am back to the Well. I am back. And I am looking at myself, as I prepare to fall all the way to you.

I am at once what I was before the fall, and yet more. Solid, yet ever changing. I was different, and yet the same. And I am here fully knowing of my folly - something my yet to fall other self does not know. I walk soundlessly towards myself, and as I approach me, I remember now when I had this conversation with myself. A wraith, thought I, here at the end of time, come to deter me. More fool I. I see myself and I see myself. There is a vague moment of wary distance, then a semblance of recognition. I have the look of one who has now just realized that I am destined to fail. Ah, but I am stubborn. Far too obstinate for my own good. I know I won't listen.

I sit down beside myself, and motion me to sit down. I look down at myself, unsure about what to do. But I end up sitting down next to me. If you think this is confusing now, wait until an infinite number of me appear on the scene. I look at myself, the one who still hasn't jumped and I tell him I have something I need to let him know. I don't listen. I lapse into silence. I break it when I ask myself if I had this conversation before with me. I say yes. And I say yes, and I say yes, and I say yes. I say we always have this conversation. I say we are having it right now and will have it again. All this has happened before and all of it will happen again. I say we haven't had this conversation yet. I say we need to fall for the very first time before we find ourselves here so that this loop can begin. I say all this, and there, behind me, there is me, and me and me and me and me. A line of those who ascend the steps to the top of the well, infinite in length, and a just as vast throng of those who have returned from the fall. 

I - I - I - I - everywhere, I. I all speak. We all speak. I speak, I speak, I all speak. I all speak a jumble of words. I is cacophonous. I asks I for silence. I had but to say your name, and I all fell silent. Then I says to I, to I who hasn't yet fallen down , to I who doesn't know yet. I look at the assembled I, this council of I, and say I am going to tell me what I all know. In the infinity of the void there is a silence no deity would dare break. I am looking at myself near the well. And I say the words I heard innumerable times before. I don't care for them. I don't believe them. I say in reply that no words will change my course. I say I know. I all say I know. I say them again. She never chooses me. Never. I am not enough. I am never enough. It's never enough. I wave away the words. I have steeled myself for the fall. She never chooses me. I can't give her what she wants. I can't give her what she needs. I look back before I plunge into the night that never ends. I will not have this conversation, I say. Never. I don't know yet. I will. I shall be telling this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I fall. I am falling again. Now, I wait.

I all look. I ask I what now. I say I hope. I say I hope I don't come back. I say I wait. I said it all before. I will say it again. Will I say it again? I all hope I all don't. I is tired. I wants to go home. I - I - I - I - I is everything. It's everything. It's everything without a time. I time is running out. I - I - I - I end. I - I - I - I goodbye. I - I - I - I no time.

No time

No time

No time

No time

No time

Day Two hundred and thirty eight - One day like this

That day you didn't feel relieved. Rather, you felt sad. You felt like you'd lost something. This was just a missed opportunity. Did you want more? Did you want to try again? Did you have that much faith in us? You stopped responding to my texts, and didn't pick the phone when I called. I was getting worried, had something happened to you? The hours went slowly by, and I still couldn't reach you.

I didn't know yet. I didn't know you'd spent hours in the dark thinking about what to do. You could see two roads diverging before you : one would take you to me, and the other would take you far from me. 

Two roads diverged in a wood and you — you took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Day Two hundred and thirty seven - My tears are becoming a sea

It's a trillion, trillion years from now, and I have long known that I would never meet you again. But there is a way to see you again - one that requires the ultimate sacrifice.  I'll have to do something truly desperate. I will have to drop from time and space, on a wing and a prayer, from this, the last haven of light in the universe. Here I am, the last in a long lineage of a soul that has searched for yours since time immemorial, the last of us, the last of me. At the edge of this dead universe, there is one shining beacon of light still, the abode of the last traveler. Here you can find the oldest remaining structure, the Well of Infinity. It precedes the universe. It precedes all universes. It is a relic of the first firmament, that will forever be. If you were to find yourself close to its innermost edge, you could peer down it and see all that was and all that never was. If you were lucky, you could see something that would resonate with you deeply. If you were very lucky, you would see, and remember, and know. And if you were very stupid - or very brave - you could find yourself falling forever down the well until you forgot everything.

But very few find themselves here, only the most cursed souls endure this torment. A soul that is resolute and patient enough, though, might considerably come to formulate a plan. A soul that didn't have to see, because it has always remembered. It has always known. And this soul inhabits a body that has been mutated over untold millions years. I became massive - the largest supernova was to me as a grain of sand would have been to you. Clusters with billions of suns would be as a strand of hair. All this mass, though, is to my advantage.

I have to fall, and for an ungodly vast amount of time, that's what I'll do - fall through space and time. And for much of that time, time will not matter. The choice is made, the choice has always been made. I look down the well, and see all our lives. I see all that was and never was - all our daughters, all our sons, all our joys, all our sorrows. I see all our lives. I see, especially, the one moment where everything that could have been, can indeed come to be. By the time I reach you, I'll be nothing, less than nothing. But only by being that can I be something. Only by being nothing can I be hope. Can I be faith. And so I start my fall towards you.

As I fall, I will start to lose my mass. The acceleration will propel me further down the well, and as my mass decreases, I will get closer. I'm on my way. I fall. Visions flash past me, but I must focus. I fall. I am falling. I have been falling forever. I just started my fall. I've still not started my fall. It's everything. It's everything without a time. I fall. I'm on my way. I am untold billions of light years away from you, and far behind me I see the last light start to fade from view. My tears streak past faster than light, and where they fall they explode. My tears are becoming a sea. My tears are becoming a sea of stars. I'm on my way. 

I am becoming less and less - that's good. It means I'm getting closer. I see us on a beach, in our distant past. Versions of ourselves looking at the night sky, our children in hand. It's hardest now, as memories assail me and test my fortitude. I see you struggling to find sleep, at a point later in your life, and my ghost hand reaches across and caresses your face. It would be so easy to stop now, to not go on. It would be the simplest of things to veer into obsolescence. I shrug these thoughts away, though time and time again they conspire against me. I'm getting closer, now. Closer. Closer. Can you feel me somehow? Not yet, I am still too distant.

The void gradually fills with stars, whole clusters of them. The largest of them would swim in my hand. But not for much longer. I am less, becoming less, becoming nothing. There - closer, closer, only fifteen million light years away now. A spiral galaxy, so like a pinwheel. I'm getting close. Look, look, ahead! The galaxy Andromeda, two million light years away, I can touch it with my fingertips. I'm so close. 

A hundred thousand light years away, and I'm moving past the milky way. Ten thousand light years. One hundred light years, and no more than two thousand star systems now lie in my field of vision. I'm moving past the Pleiades, moving past Alpha Centauri, moving past Arcturus. One light year away and I finally see Sol. I'm less, my God, I am so much less. I am almost nothing. I am almost where I need to be. I am almost when I need to be. 

A mere billion kilometers away from you, I fall past the massive orbit ring of Jupiter. I'm one million kilometers away now. Stars fill the sky. They're everywhere. So many. Had they always been here? I'm just outside the orbit of our moon. I see it. I start to see it. Down there, just a little bit further. One hundred thousand kilometers. Ten thousand kilometers. I'm on my way. One thousand kilometers. One hundred kilometers. I'm almost there, all but imperceptible. Just ten kilometers away and everything starts to come into focus. I see the outline of the city. I see the winding river as it flows. I see ants below me, scurrying about. No, not ants - people.

One thousand metres. One kilometer. Three thousand feet. I fell past eternity to reach this moment now. I fell down infinity to reach you, to finally reach you. I fall, and I see a rooftop of a familiar building, I fall through the cement and the masonry. One meter away. I'm smaller than an insect. So close, my love. I am so close. I can see you! One centimeter away from you, I'm less and less. I'm one hundred microns now, as I fall down your core. One tenth of a millimeter. I'm almost there. I'm falling past immense canals, larger than anything I had seen before. Canyons that are impossibly wide. As I fall down your brain, you suddenly think of me, though you couldn't quite pinpoint why. Ten microns, I fall down a blood vessel in your heart. One micron now. I'm almost done. I'm almost there. I'm almost home.

At point-one microns, or a thousand angstroms, I see what looks like a tangle of cords. At one hundred angstroms, I see that tangle becoming a twisting stairway of molecules. I'm so small now. Ten angstroms, down the molecular clusters. One angstrom, and I'm inside, inside a darkness so deep it looks as though I am back to where I started, but this is isn't darkness after all, it's life, it's teeming with life. At point-one angstroms I find myself hurtling towards a distant light. At point-zero-one, I see its core. Point zero-zero-one, I finally reach it, I finally reach your inmost light. I hear your frequency, I hear the song that your soul sings. Hear mine : this is the sound of my soul.

Trillions and trillions of years to reach you, so I could give you one thing : hope. Please let this work. Please let this work. I am bursting with light. Please let this work. I am exploding with love. Please let this work. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.

PLEA-

Day Two hundred and thirty six - Twenty years

We met again twenty years from when last we spoke. You'd gone to bed one night, and for some reason you felt a sense of unease. You called your closest kith and kin, but everyone was well. That did not diminish how you felt in your heart, though. You tried to lose yourself in a book, but the words blurred into one another. You couldn't seem to focus, you kept on wondering what was making you feel that way. No matter, you thought to yourself, as you closed the book and placed it in the nightstand. You kissed your husband goodnight and told him you loved him. 

You closed your eyes, then, but sleep would not claim you. Your mind raced, pondering on the day's affairs to see if you could pinpoint what might have happened that was causing you such distress. Nothing came to mind, it had been an uneventful day like so many before it. And yet... yet you found that something was missing, like a part of you had been chiseled away from you by some unseen force. Leaden-eyed, you tossed restlessly on the sheets, as if you were in some form of waking nightmare. But a strange calm suddenly enveloped you, and you could swear you heard a voice saying 'now : dream', and as a soft breeze caressed your troubled face, you felt as though some familiar hand had soothed you.

Sleep came, and you drifted away, beyond the shores of night, beyond the gates of horn and ivory. And you dreamt... you dreamt of all those things you had sworn to yourself you'd never dream of, nor think of again, the moments - now long past - that you once lived, but forbade yourself from ever thinking about. In your dream, you were happy again. There was a lingering melody in the air, as if it was calling to you. 'Come to me', it said, 'come home'. Bounding with joy, you leapt after the voice - you knew it, and though you couldn't quite place it, but it was so familiar. It kept on calling you, and you chased it relentlessly. Then you started to see fleeting images of someone, but you couldn't quite see who. Somebody you used to know? Whoever it was, you found your footsteps moving close towards him. And closer, and closer, but he seemed always out of reach, you couldn't stop for a single second or you'd lose sight of him forever. Then you stopped suddenly, and found him waiting for you - you could almost see his face but something obscured it. You could make out a smile, and welcoming arms that waited for you, wide open. You rushed to that golden embrace, and fell into a warmth you hadn't felt in so, so long... and then, fighting to stay asleep, wishing it would go on forever, sure that once the dream was over, it would never come back… you woke up.

You woke up. And you woke up thinking about the dream, but it slipped like so much sand from your hands. Again, that feeling that something was missing struck you. It was still very early in the morning, your sleep having been a fleeting affair. You couldn't stay home. You took to the streets, wandering aimlessly, stopping only to have breakfast in a café. As you sat there, you took out your phone, and rifled through your contacts, sending messages to those closest to you. Were they OK? Was everything all right? You had to know. Something was wrong. But what? You walked, and walked and kept on walking. Your mind was elsewhere, but your feet were guiding you. It was only when the church came into view that you realized where you were : in another life, this is where you would have gotten married to me.

You saw me then, atop a flight of stairs to the side of the church. 'Over here', I waved at you. You ran towards me, tears trailing behind you. But I was not there, I was now inside the church calling out to you, to come inside. Wary, step by step, you approached the semi-closed door. You saw some people sitting down in some chairs, some were crying. You realized a service was being held, and deep inside the room a casket was resting in a pedestal. The people there looked at you with strange eyes. Some wondered who you were, others thought they might have recognized you from somewhere. Though you didn't want to, your feet took you onwards, and as you approached the casket you saw me lying there.

There were no words for a long time. It was as if you couldn't process what you were seeing - I know I looked different, old, spent. But you knew it was me. You knew. As I stood by your side, unseen to you, I wished - God, how I wished - that things had been different. I told you I love you, but you couldn't hear me - not anymore. You ran your hand through my hair, and then traced the contour of my face. A tear fell from your eye, and though I tried to catch it, it fell through my hand. Yours lingered in my face for long moments, and then you gave me one final graven kiss. 

I am fading now, going on to that undiscovered country. But I will find you. I will. Wait for me. I will wait for you. Forever.

As you left the church, you noticed that it had gotten much colder. The sky was slate grey, and it had started raining. No, it wasn't rain. You looked up, and a snowflake fell and it felt like a kiss.

Day Two hundred and thirty five - Aperlae

We met thirteen centuries ago, when you came in from the sea. You were from an island to the west of my village, and one day when we were both very small, the fishermen brought you to us - they had found you floating in the sea. I watched you from afar as they laid your soaked body on the rushes. The fishermen said you were good as dead, they should have left you there amidst the waves. It was my mother who rushed to you, and smothered you in warm woolen blankets. All the while you slept, and my mother stormed off to keep The Mothers and Grandmothers at bay - oh, they really didn't like you at all, did they? Called you a bad omen. A portent of tragedies to come. But fierce was she, and fiercer were you - she managed to abate the mistrust the others showed, and you fought through the fevers and the bad dreams.

Not long after you'd woken up for the first time since arriving here, and after you'd eaten halfway through our stores, you disappeared. No one knew where you were, we just assumed you'd left. Maybe you wanted to brave that sea that brought you here, hoping that you'd be borne back home. I prayed you didn't do like the elders do, after they lived a long life and wade into the sea, to be carried by the undertow. Some weeks later, though, not very far from where we'd first seen you, I found you, sitting by the shore, the waves ebbing to and fro calmly. I sat down by your side, and we stayed there in sacred silence. 

Hours passed, and as night fell you finally spoke. You asked me if I had a name. I replied, 'Well, my mother calls me Pistis', to which you chuckled heartily - something I had not yet seen. Your whole body shook with glee, and then you said 'What kind of name is that?', and I don't know, I had never thought about my name before. It's what people called me, that's all. But... then I remembered something my mother told me once. 'My father', I explained, 'was a soldier, and when they passed by here, he and my mother met. My mother said they fell in love as soon as they saw each other. But they didn't speak the same language. Though they tried, they just couldn't fully communicate with one another, and soon after he had to leave. He left me in her belly and a word in my mother's lips. I think it meant 'faith' in his language. Faith that he would one day come back. To her. To us.'

That left you feeling pensive and somewhat sad, and we lapsed into silence again. After some minutes, you broke it, and asked me where my father was. I shrugged, and said he was probably since dead in some battlefield or the other. I had never cried about him, though my mother often did. She still hoped to see him coming down the hill where they saw each other last. But I was crying now, and your hands reached out to my face and you wiped away all my tears. You told me you didn't remember your name. That you'd forgotten everything when you were lost at sea. And I told you that we would find the right name for you. It was late now, and I had to go back. I knew I would be worrying my mother by staying out so late. I asked you if you wanted to come home with me. My mother wouldn't mind, but you said no. 'Can I come back tomorrow?', I asked, my heart pounding against my chest. 'Would you mind if I visited?'. 'Always', you said, 'come back always'.

I can't remember how I got home, my head swam with thoughts and images of you. I recall my mother serving us supper, and she asked me where I had been, but what my reply might have been I could not guess. I wanted to sleep, to dream of you, and then to wake again and rush to you. Sleep, though, did not come neither easy nor quickly, and those long waking hours seemed to stretch into infinity. I wondered how you were, and what you had eaten for supper, and where you slept. We couldn't spare much, for winter would soon be at our doorstep, but I decided to take some food with me the next day.

And the next day... the next day I didn't find you there. My heart sank. Had you left for good? Had I scared you away? Had something happened to you? I sat by where we'd been, lost in thought. A part of me imagined that I would never see you again. And then... then I hear your voice, calling out to me from a distance. You were running towards me, something that I couldn't make out what it was jangling about in your hands as you ran, your voice shrill in the air. 'PISTIS', you bellowed, 'PISTIS! - LOOK WHAT I GOT FOR US!'. As you approached, I saw that you had somehow wrangled a pair of crabs, maybe from the nearby rocks, though one of them seemed to be somewhat on the smashed side, and maybe missing a limb or two. 'Crabs!', I cried out, and at this you stopped abruptly and a quizzical look crossed your face. So close to me, and yet so distant, you asked 'What do you mean?'. I was confused, what did I mean by what? You asked me what I'd called the crabs, and I said '...crabs? Are they not crabs?' 

Again the laughter, and this time mine joined yours. 'Is that what they're called?', you asked. And I nodded yes. 'I mean, everyone says they're crabs, so I always called them crabs.'. You stood there looking at me as I spoke, and your head nodded in agreement. 'Crabs...', you intoned in a sing-song voice, '...yes, let's call them crabs!'. I noticed then that you had some blood around your lips, and your right thumb was swollen. I inquired at once what happened, worried to my core. You lifted the mauled crab proudly, said that it had pinched your finger and in retribution you had smashed it against the rocks. 'And look at this', you said, lifting your upper lip to reveal a missing tooth on the side, 'I tried to bite it but my tooth fell!' - and I... I knew that I would have to be by your side for as long as I lived. Even at that young age I knew. I already knew.

I upended the small package I had brought with me on the sand : some vegetables, apples, mushrooms and some dried meat. While you picked the crabs apart, I lit a fire and we sat by it, roasting the food over the flames. Night came far too soon, and again I asked you if you wanted to come with me. Again you declined. But as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, you started to venture into the village again. The Mothers and the Grandmothers still shunned you, though my mother loved you with all her heart. You had changed, and grown, and you had something mysterious about you - almost divine. It was the fishermen first who started to pay tribute to you : they'd leave a portion of their catch for you. Then others joined. The smith made sure to forge you a sword and shield. The masons and the carpenters built you a hovel. Children looked at you in awe, though you were not much older than them. Our spearmen asked you for their blessing, for as we worshipped the gods of old, we saw in you the potent spirit of our mother, the great queen Diana.

But you were not a goddess to me, or the child of one. You were whispering to my heart the same song mine sang, and which was now complete. And I knew that our destinies were bound forever. We never knew your age, but you seemed to be close to mine - and the arrival of your womanhood confirmed it. It's now my sixteenth birthday, ten full years since first I saw you. You still didn't have a name, you were still looking for the right one. That was ok - I knew only that to me your name was love. We sat down on the beach where we had spent all these years together, and we lay together close on the warm sand. 'One day soon', you said, 'we will be here with our daughter and we will show her what you showed me once, and then every year after that, when winter comes. She shall see the Pleiades shine in the night sky, and then she too, shall be here with her children and we will be by their side.'

No words need break the silence that enveloped us, a cloak of love pulling us closer. The twilit sky gave away to dusk, and then to night. Amidst the christening stars that illuminated us, we joined our lives, our souls entwined like vein upon the white sands of Aperlae.

Day Two hundred and thirty four - Big big love (fig.1)

This being a review of an album that came out almost twenty years ago, namely in 2008, and in which the post's title isn't present. No, in it you can find another version called 'Big big love (fig.2)', which is the same song, really, only with better production values. But I prefer the rawer version found in the 'Mathletics' E.P. - which leads me to the review proper.

Who : Foals

Album name : Antidotes

Formed : 2005

From : Oxford, England

What do they play : Indie rock / dance-punk / post-punk revival / math rock (at least according to Wikipedia)

Release date : March 24 2008

Well, if you were there, then in the really early 00's you might have experienced what was then called the 'post-punk revival'. A number of mostly NYC based bands came on the scene with big, energetic guitar-driven sounds, recalling somewhat the energy of that post-punk period that gave us bands like Joy Division, The Sound, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smiths and so many others. This new era was spearheaded by the likes of Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Strokes - all bands that sounded completely different from one another, but you could clearly see where they drank deeply for inspiration. I mention these bands as a preamble to the next part of this era - one that was set circa '04, and that for me lasted well into 2011, at the very least.

It was in that '04 era that bands like Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand, Editors, and Interpol again - they released their sophomore album that year - fully started to enter my playlists. Back then I had a MP3 that could fit maybe a couple dozen songs, and those bands made up for most of that space. About a year or so later I'd start to DJ in clubs here and there, and my sets started including more and more songs from this genre. There were a few blogs where I could download all the new bands, and my ever growing digital music collection meant that pretty soon I'd have to have a dedicated hard-drive just for music. Foals came to my attention in early '08 when I listened to the song 'Cassius' - the very first time I heard the song I burst out laughing without really knowing why. And then  I saw the video for it, which made me laugh even more. It's strange, quirky, odd... and I remember talking to this guy I knew back then who was a musician and he was telling me how Foals were his new favourite band. The way they used odd time signatures, he said, was astounding. I nodded in agreement, having no idea what he meant by that. Sure, they sounded different, I just didn't know that people were downright calling them odd.

Look, I know nothing about music, about the composing of it and of the playing of it. I just listen to it and like it or don't like it. That's all. These things have a tendency of flying over my head. I have no idea what a time signature is - and that has no impact in my enjoyment of music at all. But I certainly knew that Foals were pretty odd sounding, which I loved. I eagerly awaited 'Antidotes', and when I got it - I'd even buy it on vinyl, which was then sold off a few years later when I got rid of my second vinyl collection - and God, I loved it. I listened to it to death. Well, most of it anyway.

You see, the problem with albums being so front-loaded is that there is a real risk of the latter half being less played, or even mostly ignored. And goddamn, the first five tracks here are absolutely killer : 'The French Open', 'Cassius', 'Red Socks Pugie', 'Olympic Airways' and 'Electric Bloom' are almost all of my favourite songs of theirs. I still have them on my playlist that I listen to when I go to the gym. Then come two songs that, while not being clunkers by any means, I could do without - 'Balloons' and 'Heavy Water'. They're not bad songs, no, they just never clicked with me as much. And not even the mighty 'Two Steps Twice' was enough to make me want to listen to the full album for the longest time.

And how wrong I was, because the last few songs have become my favourites too. Now, I returned to this album about a month or so ago, after many years of being away from it. I can't tell you exactly why, what spurred me to do it, maybe it was my subconscious telling me that now was the time. And while it has been an absolute joy to listen to the songs I know like the back of my hand, man oh man was I blown away by how amazingly good the last bit was - the bit I hadn't gone to in a long time. 'Big big love (fig.2)' and 'Tron' have become daily listens for me, even if in between there's 'Like swimming' which is just OK and really just a bridge between both songs.

Listening to this record from one end to the other made me think of summer '08 when I moved to London. In the weekend after me and Sil got there, they were playing a festival right next to where we lived in Mile End, at the verdant Victoria Park. We could have gone, but I declined. I have this irrational fear of being terribly disappointed by bands that I adore when they play live and a few times in the past I even bought tickets to go see bands I really wanted to see, and when I get there, that fear just overtakes me and I end up not going to the gig.

As you can see, this was no real review, just an excuse to rant for a bit. Foals is a band that I haven't followed for a good while now, though I loved their second album. Everything I heard from them since has kinda left me cold. I liked some of their third record, especially the song 'You don't have my number', but pretty much most of it was forgettable. Still, this is a top notch record, which maybe if it had a couple more classics, would have been a desert island disc.

I'll give it a not inconsiderable 9 out of 10.

Day Two hundred and thirty three - Who will love me now?

 You are my desire, I set you free.

Day Two hundred and thirty two - Everything is wrong

I don't understand numbers. My mind can't process them - never could. I managed the first few years of school by the skin of my teeth, and then when letters and other strange symbols got thrown into, pun intended, the equation - I completely lost it. My mother paid for a private tutor - but I could never understand what she tried to explain. I couldn't wrap my head around what were probably the simplest of concepts.

But God do I wish I could have gotten numbers, I really do. I would have loved to understand Chaos theory and the notion of attractors, especially those of the strange variety. I would have loved to have looked at my copy of 'The Elements of Euclid' and understood the geometry therein, and not seen just lines that make close to no sense to me. I can't though, and it's not like I'm such a huge understander of words either. Oh, I like them all right, and sometimes I think I do clever things with them.

Case in point, back when I had patience and time and will to be in social media constantly, sometimes I'd post what I thought was a witty turn of phrase along the lines of : 'The strange dichotomy of regretting so very little, yet feeling sorry for so very much'. And usually there would always be a pretty girl liking or commenting or messaging me, and this always made me feel rather erudite. Though of course I wasn't, it was just a trite thought - though in my heart of hearts I really did think it. 

Chaos theory, yeah? The whole butterfly effect thing? Bloody hell, how could I have believed I regretted so very little? I shouldn't have returned to social media. I don't even know why I did - I can't think of one single valid reason for it. It wasn't even as if I was bored or needed something else to waste my time. I could've picked up another project altogether instead of telling the story of my life - shit, I could've written every day about a different album I love, though I'm pretty sure a number of bands would be getting multiple entries. I could have done it all so much differently. Because if I had I wouldn't have caused pain or grief or invited havoc into the lives of others. That is what I regret : that my actions would come to cause said grief, even if inadvertently so. 

That I do regret. I ought to have known better. I should've thought well ahead. But I chose to flap my wings and the system was disturbed. But there is much that I do not regret about all this. That I never will regret. It's given me a newfound impetus for myself. There were things I had thought lost in a fire of old, but those embers yield promise. I am rising. By God, I am rising.

Day Two hundred and thirty one - Transatlanticism

I recently read something somewhere - something along the lines of 'a true love story never ends'. That got me thinking. Does it never end? I used to think so. I used to think a lot of things about these matters that I don't necessarily think anymore, and I don't think it's because I've outgrown those ideas, really, but rather because I've been so disillusioned for such a long time now that I can't afford to think about them at all.

I was born with the wrong kind of heart, and with the wrong kind of brain. I feel way too much, and overthink even more. And I grew up reading whatever came my way, I read everything I could - and though I understood very little of much I read, I understood love. I understood burning, fierce unrequited love. I believed - with all my heart - that there would be someone, somewhere who would be the love of my life. I wanted to get married and have a family since I was very young : my wee self pictured me spending my life with my love and our children. So, as I grew up, and started to realize that maybe finding someone wasn't that easy, I felt that when that happened it had to mean that I had found the love of my life. 

And of course - my first girlfriend, with whom I was together for close to eight years and had a son, wasn't the love of my life. I am incredibly grateful that we met each other and had some good times together, but maybe our relationship could have been cut short by a couple of years and none of us would have complained. But you spend so long with someone, and when that story ends, there's a huge part of you that desperately wants to connect again. You want to feel that you're still worthy of affection. Of love. Obviously, what happens is that you mistake lust for love, you mistake a crush for love, you mistake passion for love. You mistake something you don't give for something that is not given. And these things happen, it's part of the process. They make you grow, and make you understand what to do, and what you want. They can also make you colder and distant, too. They can become a pattern - one so empty that you no longer believe in romance or intimacy.

There is a long line in my life from childhood until the moment I started questioning my notions of true love. I made a compromise with myself when I was about 26 or 27 that there would be no such thing as the love of my life, because I wouldn't be the same person throughout my life. So there would - maybe - be the love of that particular time of my life. That made sense to me. However - this was a thought process that went through the mind of someone who still thought that love alone could solve any problem, that love by itself was enough to salvage any relationship. And it would take the breakdown of my relationship with Silvia to realize that love is just part of an engine - not the whole of it. If the other parts of the engine - which are just as vital - don't function properly, or are neglected, or just aren't there anymore, then you're on the road to entropy. I had left our relationship feeling empty, and unable to believe in love again. My mind had started equating love with pain, with suffering. That's not how I had ever thought love would feel like. And so, by the time I was about 34 I already found myself on my way out of all this. Nothing made sense. Nothing worked. I didn't feel I was on the same page as others. I dichotomized myself into someone that wanted and someone that didn't want. The former was strong, but the latter would speak louder.

The last thing I had ever hoped was to one day find the love of my life - especially when I wasn't looking. Neither for her, nor for anyone else. I wasn't prepared for that to happen - what I was prepared was for the pattern that had become my relationships to continue until I gave up altogether. But not with her, no - It didn't even cross that Sofia and I would ever be in a relationship. No matter how many times I say this, that first time we were together , the thought that she might even be remotely interested in me was not one I could even entertain. She had this aura about her of being unattainable, unreachable : the most perfect jewel that no mortal eye was worthy of seeing. To this day, I can't fathom what she ever saw in me.

And we had what we had, our story was what it was. I'm glad we got to live those few months we had together. I lived something I never experienced again, and I never will. And I... given the chance to go back? I would do it again. And again. And again. 

You know, as I get older I find it an increasingly rewarding thing to be as honest as possible with myself. I lied to myself so much. I will not do it again. Even if I have to finally acknowledge that maybe sometimes the love of your life isn't the one you'll spend the rest of your days with, even if I have to publicly admit that I will live with this love forever inside my heart, though I must do it alone. I've been so afraid for more than a decade, afraid and ashamed and exhausted, but I am not going to feel any of that anymore. Here I find myself going back to Dickens again, and this time I have it right, it is from 'A Tale of Two Cities'. It's the closing lines - 'It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.'

I'm glad I found the love of my life, once upon a time. I'm glad I lived it, even if all too briefly. I am glad I feel it still - love edifies, it soothes, it makes you more and better, and never lesser. 

It's ok if real life isn't like fiction promised, it's ok if it's not like the movies or like the books or like all those TV shows. Maybe there is no such thing as a happy ending, maybe there is a quiet resignation to one's fate, to one's choices. Maybe that's a crucial part of being a grown up, realizing that at some point in your life you'll have to content yourself with 'good enough' because there is no such thing as 'perfect' or 'ideal'. Maybe it's accepting that eventually you have to move past this feeling and make do with what you have.

Maybe. That's a lesson that I can never hope to learn, though. I'll see you in the next life.

Day Two hundred and thirty - Alleine zu zweit

Today's post has been challenging. It has been a couple of paragraphs, it has been hundreds of words, it's a three thousand word plus document, it has been a single line. I've written, I've deleted, I gave up on what I wanted to write, I went back to it. For the first time since I started writing regularly again, I'm afraid about what I write here. I'm fearful about the impact of my words. And these are not thoughts that crossed my mind when I returned to my blog. I did this fully expecting never to be read by a living soul. 

I want to disappear. To be somewhere far from here. Off the grid, disconnected, away. From all. From everything. From everyone. That way I wouldn't be able to hurt anyone but myself. I've given up on so much already, what's one more abandoned project in the vast collection of discarded endeavours I started? No one would miss me. No one would miss my words.

You can't see me. You can't see my face. You can't see my trembling hands as I write. When  I tell you to love him and not me, I do so with tears running down my face. Every single word in those sentences hurt, like a dagger being plunged deep in my heart. But I say them. I say them. I say them though I cry, and I hurt. I say them though... No. I will never be a memory.

I am all those memories. I am all those moments. I am all that was and all that never was. Everything and nothing. Everything.

Everything.

Everything.

So much of what I hoped and dreamed.

Our hearts beating as one, to the melody of love.

Forever entwined in soul and body.

I love you more than any man. 

Always and all ways. Forever and for ever. World without end.

You were everything. You are everything. And though we are bound to be forever apart, you are the love of my life. You always will be.

Day Two hundred and twenty nine - I let love in

This was my story, even if partially so. It comes soon to an end. A strange thing this : when everything you hold dear and love the most is taken from you, the threat of being erased from existence becomes something to be yearned for.

Time, it seems, grows short. Not that I need steeling my resolve for this, but I must cling onto whatever courage I possess still. I fear lingering further may yet cause my determination to waver.

I am indebted to you, even through all these tragedies I wrote to you. That all of this turned out to have never been, made it no less real for me, because for me they were as true as the universe itself. Earlier I wrote of what you meant to me and what you inspired me to do. Understand that all the choices pertaining these events were mine and mine alone. I was the one who was foolish enough to meddle with things that had better, perhaps, never been tampered with. But I have failed to mention one thing, and that always, all ways, and forever, and for ever, world without end, even when the times were darkest, I knew I could fall back to one of your books, and find some peace there. In all the words you wrote, in all the characters you dreamed of, the underlying and neverending notion of optimism and gratitude for the simplest things in life always struck me as something to strive for. That, no matter how dark the night before, the coming morrow could bring a new hope, a new chance for light to shine, is what always kept me going. These notions - and so many more - were made self evident on your characters, and it seems to me that you actively sought for their own well-being, and maybe because you yourself had not experienced one such instance, all of them were given happy endings. Or what seemed like happy endings, anyway. Maybe for some it was an ambiguous ending, that I chose to interpret as something better. But still. Still. That you wrote so enthusiastically about the virtues of love and kindness, that you espoused your thoughts into words of sheer brilliance, that you stood out like a beacon of the brightest light when all about you reveled in the darkest writings... you brought me much and more than I ever dreamed of. You and your words gave me everything that I am. And knowing what I know from your own biography, knowing that you yourself never put yourself in one of your character's shoes, I beg you to do so. Write a character that is you, let him become your avatar, and write for him, for true, all that you dream of for yourself, but keep to you at all times, let him have the life and love that you only dream of, and then make it come true.

Infuse this character with all that makes you good and true, make the words that bring him to life to be born from your very core. And never - I beg of you - never lose sight of hope.

If you can glean anything from this, may it be that so very often, hope can be only a quiet calling away.

As these last few words ebb away from me, I feel spent, as if I have no more inside. And I do not, in truth. The envelope will soon be sealed and then thrown inside one of your quaint mailboxes. I will never know if you read this. But I will depart from this plane of existence with hope in my heart. And not just for you and for me. Hope for us all. And really, when one lives one's life with hope and kindness and love in one's heart, how else can you go if not in absolute peace?

I leave you, for all time.

Day Two hundred and twenty eight - Francesca

And I would give anything to change all this. I would. I would. But the numbers do not, unfortunately, lie. For these past many years I have been doing all the math I could muster, all the calculations, running all the numbers. My problem here is that there are too many variables. An infinite number of them, or so it seems. No matter how much I adapt my figures, no matter the projections I manage to come up with, there just seems to be no way for me to change what was into what should be. No matter how much I exert my mind thinking of what to change, and when to change, nothing seems to translate into a viable reality. In every other instance, every other instance that differs from my prime reality, the one where there came that calling that moved me to Sofia, and then moved us to Forever, it seems that I either coloured my stomach yellow, and walked away from what should have been my greatest of joys, or maybe it was her who did not call after me, or maybe on that day she read her book elsewhere, and maybe saw someone else reading, and that someone else became me, while never being me. Maybe it was me who, taking a left turn instead of a right, wound up going the longer way, and by the time I got there she was gone. I don't know. I don't know. I'll never know.

All I know is that I am one offense shy of final erasure. And now, with a sense of clarity that had been long absent, my final solution appears at last.

I know full well that my previous attempt to reach you turned out with disastrous results. One of my many errors in judgement was assuming I would be leaving no trace, that the energy expended could not be easily pinpointed to, and that was one of the mistakes I made, that ultimately led me here. But I also know one thing : we, as a society, this vast world over, have become overly dependant on technology, and so great were the strides taken into its perfection, that the analog has all but been forgotten. And so that is my weapon. I can't change my future, and nor can you, I can't change what never was, but maybe I can help you change what yet may be.

And so I write to you, pen on paper, and so I lay these lines so that you know, so that you know of what was, of what stopped being, of what will be, of what may never be. I strode these streets of mine, streets that I know you once walked yourself, and one day I found, etched in an aging bronze plaque fixed on the outside of a crumbling building, words that told of your living there in a certain year. At once I knew when to go. What to do. What to say.

Day Two hundred and twenty seven - (I'll love you) Till the end of the world

As I was rising from the wooden chair, thinking that the ordeal was all but over, a door opened in eery silence, and from it came them both, Sofia and our daughter. I gasped at the sight of them, knowing not whether to cry or to laugh or to run to them. I stood where I was, unable to move. It was as if an invisible cage had been raised around me, closed tight about me, and I could not begin to move. I looked at them as they crossed the courtroom, right to the middle of it, where they stood ever so near to me, ever so distant from me. I saw them standing atop some sort of platform, an obvious mechanical construction, and in surmounting horror I started recognizing some of the work there - far surpassing my own, but still clearly mine. I couldn't understand what was happening.

We stood all of us, accuser and accused, my wife and my daughter, in that room where punishment was meted out. The judge carried out the sentence, intoning gravely my charges and the measure of my condemnation. I gazed intently at Sofia and Forever. The words stopped, the machines whirred into a silent frenzy, I saw chronal energy being channeled into the flux capacitor that harnesses the sands of time themselves, and just like that, they had never been. Sofia had never been mine, Forever had never been mine, we had never been us, and I had to live with the memories of them, years of laughter and joy and memories and moments that never and always were. I have forever now to remember Forever. I have an eternity of longing for Sofia. I have never as the one constant in my life now.

It's important you know this, it's important you understand this. I had a wife, and I had a daughter. They were named Sofia and Forever. Sometimes I think that if I say or write their names often enough, if I remember as vividly as I possibly can, then I can make them real again. But I know I can't. I can't . I've learned now that the past can't be easily tampered with. Not unless you're with them, and I am branded a chrono-criminal, moreso after attempting to go back again just to keep all this from happening, to keep me from going back and writing you in the first place, to keep me from experimenting, to keep me from being me. But it never worked, never ever. I was caught time and time again and again, and whatever pity the Time Authority took on me, readily waned. I was ordered with a cease and desist notice from all chronal activities, threatened with excision from reality should I attempt any further incursions in time.

I was broken, broken beyond repair, broken beyond measure, after all this. Alas, I did not yet know what broken meant. I saw them again, you see? I saw Sofia first, one day as I was ambling aimlessly through these streets, and I mindlessly walked into someone. She was drinking some beverage - something of the coffee variety - and my bumping into her caused it to spill over her perfect white blouse. Her eyes moved from the growing coffee stain on her shirt, and met mine, mine who were fixed upon her. She smiled that smile I had seen so many times before, a smile that at once absolved of any guilt regarding the incident, and swiftly moved on, happy to go on her way, walking forever away from me. And yet, there came a calling, a softly calling issued from my lips, a calling filled with such sorrowful longing, 'Sofia...', it whispered. But she did not hear it, so soft that it was, and she did not know me in the slightest; in her eyes I saw no hint of recognition, I was just another no-one, and no more than that. And then, some time later, I saw Forever. Returning home one early afternoon, I noticed that just across the street a rental unit was unloading its contents, and a family was moving in. Taking in the scene, I noticed the very young parents - in their mid-twenties, or so it seemed to me, being talked out of helping with the moving, and then, just as the mother turned to face my side of the road, I saw her, my Forever that never was, running towards her, and with one swift move, she scooped the child up, and held her close to her. A slight drizzle fell from the sky, it was like the very city cried in time with my soul. Cursed, for bringing about all this, twice so for always remembering and never forgetting, and thrice yet for destiny to remind me of this immense loss so.

Day Two hundred and twenty six - In dreams

All the while, I was composing those very thoughts I had set aside for you, and the more I wrote, meshing the speech of my day with that of yours - I do apologize for failing to swiftly master your own dialect -, the more eager I found myself to send you this message. So eager, in fact, that I rushed into a decision. You see, everything is energy. No matter what its state, no matter what type it is, it's all connected. And I knew that, given time, I'd figure a way to succesfully combine chronal energy with the information energy behind the electronic message. It would take some weeks, maybe months, of calculations, of coming up with a number of different algorithms, not leaving an iota to chance. But I could not - would not - wait any further. And so, having written my electronic missive to you. I gambled on a jump even further back in time, to a time I knew you were still around, and once there, it was child's play to log on to something called a laptop, create an account on a dedicated server, and type, actually type, with my fingers, my message. After a few moments, and feeling grateful and elated, I clicked the send button. Not knowing whether or not you would ever read the message, I still hoped that somehow you did, and that somehow it would be enough for things to work out for the best for you. I could, maybe, guide you towards something you never had, so that maybe, you too, could have something resembling a happy ending.

I missed Sofia and Forever terribly, then. I truly did. I decided to jump back to my time, and once there, to hold them close and tight against me. I needed their presence about me, needed their warmth and laughter. Moreso than I ever needed before, I found myself needing them then. I primed the controls, and in the time it takes for a snowflake to melt when it lands on your hand, I was home again.

I wasn't home again. Where I was, I could not imagine. But I had come back to a world that was somehow different to my own, a world darker, greyer, bleaker. It seemed to me to be colder, even, devoid of humanity and its warmth. This I gathered but seconds after my arrival. No sooner had I scanned the skies - no skies of mine were ever this slate-grey - than I was apprehended by two sinister, hulking figures. They told me they were the police, and that I had been charged with time-crime.

To this much I will attest : I scarcely remember what happened between that moment, that of my arrest, and the moment where I was summarily accused, judged, and condemned. It all happened so fast. So fast. I remember sitting in a chair, a wooden, simple chair, behind a wooden desk no less ordinary, with no counsel there to take my case, and hearing the words come out from the judge's mouth. I had been condemned for a Chronal disturbance of the second order, and having no pressing and prior records, I would be very lucky to get away with a very compassionate punishment, that of familial retcon. These words meant nothing to me. I felt that somehow all the effort I had made to learn the words of your times had somehow clouded my own ability to comprehend those of mine, but these were not words I had ever heard of, or even read of. The judge told me they were being lenient on me, after all I was the one who had successfully discovered the art of time-travelling. As such, I would be allowed to live out the days of my life I had still left, periodically checking in with an assigned representative of the Chronal Courts. In a state of disbelief, still I found a mild relief at these news. I supposed that travelling through time could have some unforeseen consequences, so that's why I was always especially careful. I understood a period of time would be needed in order to adapt myself to this new world, but at least I still had Sofia and Forever.

And then they made them never.

Day Two hundred and twenty five - You love me

But I have been getting ahead of myself. I must tell you, if I write with a sense of urgency, it's because it is urgent I speak to you, it's mandatory these words finally reach you across the void of space and time. You don't need to know my name, nor where I am from. Know only that when I am from, things are very different from your own times. Reading on your era, it strikes me as a sort of golden age, though you yourself may not perceive it so. Know that some decades after your demise, a breakthrough in terms of time-travel has been made. A foolhardy scientist, with too much free time in his hands, started radical experiments on his own, with no supervision or oversight. These first few experiments were kept to himself, he made no mention of them to anyone at work, nor to the higher-ups at the corporation he worked for. He thought it best to keep it somewhat controlled. And so, he thought, he held the keys to forever safely in his own hands. And that was that, for a while longer.

Now, Sofia and me, we were happy then. We were the happiest souls alive, or so it seemed to us, and it wasn't long after we'd been living together that accommodations had to be made for a third. We awaited the arrival with eagerness - but with a heavy heart, too, for we knew what kind of world we were living in, and to raise a child in an era so fraught with injustices, with so much rampant misery and unemployment and violence, would be a hardy task. But ours was a commitment that was not merely temporary, ours was a commitment that was forever. And thus, when our daughter was born, we named her so : Forever.

And if only I knew then...

I owe you much, you see. I had been reading your body of work for years on end, and no other author made such an impact on me. Your work inspired me to read up and study so many other things, I devoted myself to learning the sciences because of your books, I felt myself so connected to your characters. I met Sofia, ultimately, because I was reading one of your books. An idea grew inside me, just like a seed had been planted in the depths of my brain, an idea born out of gratitude. I wanted to thank you. I wanted to somehow tell you, 'thank you. for this. for her. for them both. for Sofia. for Forever.'

So I researched, and let me tell you, in my times research is a complicated effort. Much of the information that was once extant was lost in a purge from a few decades back that incurred in the erasure of almost all of the digital records. Knowing that my chances of finding anything pertaining to you were very slim, I took a gamble : I jumped to the time before the erasure, and in the greatest of all stealths, I found something called an e-mail address. Jotting down this precious info in my hardbound ledger, I jumped back to my own era. For a number of weeks, I composed my ideas for the message I intended to write. Two things, then, became readily apparent : on one hand, and knowing that our own technology was far beyond that of your era, I had to find a way to send you an e-mail, from me now to you then. On the other hand I also understood that there could - and probably would - be an issue whereby I could not be able to easily make myself understandable to you. I hope you can understand that by now, our language has changed greatly, and so I undertook some further reading, in order to get acquainted with a number of what are seemingly archaisms to me, but to you is no more than your current speech. So I decided to pursue this avenue for a while, reading up on the times that were - fortunately for us, the purge I spoke of affected only the digital domains, all that was physical record remained intact, and this task I took to with unending delight.

Day Two hundred and twenty four - In a dream

 'I want you to know this : Sofia and me, we had a daughter. It's important you know and understand this. We had a daughter, and we named her Forever. I daresay no child was loved more than Forever was, cliché though it may be. I know these are things all loving parents say, but still. She was so loved, so wanted, so cherished. We named her Forever. And then she became Never.

You know, I always struggle with beginnings : it takes me a good long while for things to become natural, and that's why I have always had issues with opening myself up, I've always had trouble letting someone come close to me. Sometimes, it took me months or even years before I could manage to show some parts of me. And in the meantime, in the meantime I always, always, hope that I do just enough for people to stay and love me.

But they never did. I realize now, as I've been realizing for many a year now, that what I gave - or could give - mas never enough, and it's understandable, people want more, they need more, they desire more; the last thing one actually wants is for yet another factor of instability, and so the leaving bit became easier to bear, and to understand.

So I withdrew, eventually. I distanced myself from many, from all, from everything. I restricted human interaction to a bare minimum, engaging my co-workers only when needed, and then, only for work related matters. Outside work, I kept strictly to myself. Safer that way. Painful that way, too.

I found great solace in the most mundane things, in the quiet moments spent underneath a summer's shade, the sweltering heat kept momentarily at bay 'neath the boughs above me, or when, sitting in a rock by the sea, I'd stare at the infinite horizon for hours on end, my ears fixed upon the rhythm eternal of the crashing waves. I found myself reading ever more and more, and then writing down my thoughts; knowing no other companion but myself, I wrote for myself, and to myself. It was as if I was telling myself : 'Here's your story, who you are, who you would like to be, what you dream of, what you miss, what you would enjoy if only...'

An unexpected thing, one afternoon : I had found myself quietly loitering by a tree I know of old, in one of the city's gardens, and just having finished reading one of your books - 'The Love Song That Flew Over Mountains & Sailed Over Heartaches' - I heaved myself up, and lost in thoughts, almost slumbering, nearly lumbering, my gaze fell on a rare and radiant jewel but a short distance from me, looking at me, smiling at me. I will confess to feeling flushed, and as a strange shyness gripped me, I could only turn my face, and walk away; certainly, thought I, the stare was not directed at me, nor was the smile intended for me. And yet, there came a calling, a calling from the quietest and softest voice I'd ever heard, a calling that beckoned me closer, ever so like a siren's call, a calling asking me if I had liked the book. And that was how Sofia and I met.

Day Two hundred and twenty three - This is your life

I set out to write down the story of my life when I started these regular posts, and I went in knowing that it would always be somewhat incomplete, not only because I don't remember everything and also because there are some stories that I chose to omit. That choice will be explained in one of the last posts I write this year. Throughout these months I've managed to steadily tell that story, but I've been derailed as of late. If I'm honest, I can't even remember the last post I wrote about this particular subject matter. 

But I do know where I was in the timeline - it would be sometime during 2020-2021. I have been finding it hard how to break down each individual year into worthwhile entries, because - truth be told - nothing relevant has happened to me in that time frame. The only thing of real note, I'd say, was how I went from having zero cats to now having four cats. It began with just the one, then some time later her sister came to live with us, and what an adventure that was - she ran away from home, and was missing for a few months. In the meantime we'd lost hope of ever finding her again, and my son brought us another cat - a male one this time. Not long after that we heard that some people in the neighborhood had found our runaway cat. So for a little while we had three cats - but close to the end of 2021 the one that had run away fell suddenly ill, and though we rushed her to the vet, she sadly passed away a couple of days later. It completely broke my heart, because I was the one who had to give the go ahead for the euthanasia. Then, either just before the end of that year or early 2022, my son brought us the male cat's sister - and it's been the three of them up until this week, when my son gave us a tiny little kitten, which we are still nursing and trying to make sure that he stays in good health.

When it comes to work, every day is exactly like the day before, my personal life - hah! what life, really? - hasn't changed one iota since before the pandemic even began. And these past four years were mainly going to work, then getting drunk after work, and then rinse and repeat. I can't tell a single day apart, let alone an entire year. And that's mostly out of choice - somewhere along the way I made the clear and conscious decision to refrain from participating in life altogether. I knew - deep down, I knew - that the best thing I could do both for me and for everyone else was to keep myself even more to myself. My space became even more of a haven, and nothing has really been different these past few years. But is this everything? Well, no. There are more stories. But I have told all I have to tell, at least for the moment. 

Day Two hundred and twenty two - Kathy's song (come lie next to me)

Her name had been burned into my very imagination for years - ever since I was a child, I'd wanted to know more about her and her life. But no one knew much about her - not only had she been mostly reclusive for a large part of her life, there are no interviews on record, nothing that could shed any light into the mystery of her life. Everyone knew her to the writer's muse, to whom he dedicated his entire body of work. But this elusive creature was seldom seen, though now and again someone with snap a picture of her. 

And as with everything that tries its hardest to remain out of sight, and out of mind, eventually people started to forget about her. Though some... some still remembered. Some still wondered. Some still sought out her story. I am one such soul, my curiosity and my devotion to the myth of her never having wavered. I waited years and years for this day, toiled long and hard to get to where I am now. The timing of everything had to be impeccable. Nothing could be left to chance.

I made my way to a data center that day, one I knew was lacking in security. I could attempt a secure, encrypted connection there, and if everything went according to plan, I'd do it undetected. It was a gamble, to be sure, one that could come to cost me dearly, but it's something that I know deep in my heart I must do.

Some time back, I'd come across a classified piece of information. Something, I think, I was never meant to know. But also something that I jumped at with great enthusiasm. Somewhere in the city lies a depository of information that has been locked away from the public eye. There are many, many stories and secrets there, but they were not meant to be accessed. The city doesn't want its denizens to know. But I must know, I must.... even if that costs me my life.

I successfully procured an encrypted passkey that would circumvent the security systems that are set up. I pondered for a long time about the wisdom of such a move, though I knew I was fated to do it. Now is the time. Now is the moment of ultimate truth. I'm sitting looking at a screen in a darkened room. No sounds but the soft whirs of the computer can be heard. 

I hear a voice in my head : 

'Initiate access procedures'

- passkey in hand, I insert it into the slot.

...........

- stored in the passkey are digital renders of another set of optics, it scans them, not mine.

'Retinal scan complete' 

...........

'Please enter your digital access code'

...........

- the passkey has a button, and when I press it it runs a code through the security system.

'Access granted'

I search through countless databases, searching for very specific keywords. For what seems like an eternity, I get no hits. I start searching with different patterns, and eventually I find something - one file. That's it. That's all there is. But it's locked behind a firewall so strong that to overcome it I have to do something truly desperate. But I had accepted my fate when I decided to do this. I do down this deep well, and open up my mind to the source of all.

...........

'Connecting to neural net'

...........

It's there, in all its glory. The great secret behind the mystery that drove me here. With a trepidation, I open the file. It's a digital audio file, and when I play it, I hear it. I hear her song. It would be the last thing I'd ever hear.

Day Two hundred and twenty one - Ordinary day

It's my birthday today, and it's actually a day that I don't really celebrate. The last time I maybe tried to do something special for my birthday was back in 2008, when Silvia and I met up with Catherine in London, but that was on the back of a year where I'd been sober for the whole time, on account of being so hungover on my birthday in 2007 that I decided not to drink for a full year. So what did I do in 2008? I drank myself stupid, was hungover the next day, decided I wouldn't drink for another three years - but a few days later I was downing beers like a champ.

A thing I remember really well from my 2007 birthday was that I decided to go the movies while dead hungover, and I saw a movie that to this day I still have not figured out whether it was one of the best or one of the worst movies I've ever seen - a flick called 'Body Rice', that tells the story of some German delinquents kids that were sent to Portugal as part of some sort of social rehabilitation program. It was weird, and disturbing, and I haven't dared to watch it again since.

A story I guess I never told - at least here - was of my 2009 birthday. That might have been the one where I started to stop caring about the whole thing anyway. I'd made friends with a girl I met at work - she was a customer at the mobile phone store I worked at - and we graduated from online friends mostly to going out together here and there. But we were just friends - though we were both in long distance relationships, there was never anything - or even remotely close - between us. So around my birthday she asks me if I want to go out for a walk with her, and then we could have dinner together. There was a Chinese place in Angel that she really wanted to take me to. I said sure, and on my birthday I met up with her on the south bank - only to find out that she wasn't alone. She had, in fact, a gaggle of friends with her, none of which I knew. And it's not like I was expecting something else than what we had planned to happen, but goddamn - I wasn't expecting strangers. That day seemed to go on and on endlessly, and I was too dumb or too chicken to come up with some excuse and make like the flash. No, I stayed there, I felt awful and excluded the whole time, and then  I said something so monumentally stupid that everyone there thought me an ignoramus. I guess the conversation revolved around dreams, and I blurted out the name of a Queensryche song - 'I dream in infrared'. So they asked me how I knew I dreamt in infrared, what with them being actual scientists and being naturally curious as to why I would make such a claim. Whatever it was I replied, I made sure that I never spoke again that night.

Birthdays? Bah humbug, who needs birthdays?

Day Two hundred and twenty - Seelenschmerz

There's a dream I have - not very often, but sometimes, and it's recurring enough for me to mostly remember the gist of it - where I, but not the me from now and rather an older version of myself, find myself in an impossible city - most often It's Geneva, but sometimes it's Warsaw. Earlier in the blog's life I chanced a few posts at describing these impossible cities that litter my dreams, but Geneva and Warsaw I never got to write about them. Maybe I'll soon do that. Especially because Geneva can be tied to another nameless, impossible city I dream of every now and again.

But in these dreams I am somewhat older. Though now I find myself closer and closer to that age. There, I am in my early to mid-fifties, and I am healthy and svelte. I wouldn't be able to say just what brings me to these cities - though there's a part of me that often daydreams about living abroad again, and maybe that influences my subconscious somehow. There is a common thread to these dreams, though : I always run into someone from my past, and we spend a long while talking. Sometimes when I dream of Geneva, I dream of Silvia, because we lived there - she still does. In the Warsaw that only exists in my mind, all tall buildings with a very odd style of architecture I run into Sofia, who gives me very detailed explanations about the city. 

There's not much to these dreams, really - there's just two people randomly running into each other, most often going for a walk through the endlessly winding streets of the city. We talk, we leave in good terms. As in real life, so too in dreams : what once was can't now ever be again.

I like this version of me, though. I wish I could run into him in my dreams and talk to him. Ask him what was he did that brought him the peace I sense emanating from within him. I wish we could sit down - just the two of us - and find it in ourselves to forgive us for everything. Maybe we need forgiving from not being able to move on. Because some people do. Some people move on. But not us.

As I age, I find myself increasingly content with things. I had to learn do do with just a little, or just enough. Then I had to learn how to do without - but that one was never, ever easy. It's like you're shown a glimpse of heaven, and the riches that await you just beyond those pearly gates, but then they are shut for you, and you come crashing down. But the falls no longer scare me, and nor do they intimidate me. I know I'm not strong in any definition of the word, but what I do have left of me still is resilient enough to pick myself up again and again, though it gets harder every single time. Maybe that's my way of moving on. To where, I don't know.