Happy birthday

As my birthday party approached, I, on another endeavour to re-write history, and following the long-drawn plans for this year, took my departure.

Another night, another train to Victoria Land.

It was the dawn of yesterday, slowly crawling in as I ran in despair, being the last passenger to board, it seemed.

Another welcome greeting, accompanied by the insisting sensation of having just reached home. Nevermind that in there I would actually emulate proper life for the following few days or so.

With a bit of overloaded schedule, my schemes were scratched and, for whateve reason and whichever means, mid-time shenanigans struggled in, something I knew very well back then that I would eventually regret.

As I tried hard to conciliate all the plans, having to meet all the appointments and the familiar demands, I joyfully took my strolls around the skyscrapers, feeling the uncannily warm – but always so present – embrace given by town around me.

Eyes after eyes, mile after mile, I kept my own fight for freedom.

And then I aged.

Happy birthday, I heard and read.

Receiving the most unexpected, exquisite and, well, weirdest well wishes, I recreated myself into an older individual, a matured fighter.

And found it. The blueprint of my innermost desires, painted on such a beautiful work of art, discretely exposed at the Le Velvet gallery, St. Mercy Street, no number.

That was when I took the day off.

A stop by the Brooklyn Bridge, to have a cup of coffee so as to revamp my energies.

I was blind.

As in Saramago's "Blindness", a milky white was all there was to see.

The unexpected – but long desired – happened.

It was dark for all accounts. I was still only seeing white.

Oh, the overrated art galleries. They only expose a partial view of reality, made up by the most insane so-called artist.

Thou art insane! Thou recreatest the artist's reality by thy shallow untrained eyes!

My eyes would not follow, though. Their vision was blurry and misty. Indistinctive shades of colours before them, as its commanding mind was, still, drowned in the milky whiteness it had been condemned to.

I took the humanoid art piece's hand and wondered – how long will I have to live on emulated layers of faux reality for?

My heart felt close to the impending revelation.

As I let go of that hand, I knew.

You will be missed.

Happy birthday, I heard.

'Twas thy present.

Few minutes of candies and flowers.

Few minutes of reality.

For nothing else thou deservest.

Days flew by.

Another dawning, another trip southways.

The so expected day took place, when I could finally take possession of the destiny's pen and draw another day.

I moved my spectacles and took another breath. The clock on the wall was ticking furiously, but hardly represented any harm, while I was trying and analyse, meticulously, every piece that was presented me.

Leaving the place, I felt hopeful, but still a bit sorry and uncertain.

This would make such a perfect birthday present!

As good received as I felt, there is still something to hope for.

History is flowing. I reach for it.

And have even more hope.

Yet again, shall we hope

X

The twentieth-fourth dilemma

It has been a week or two. Plus a fews days. Well. It has been a little longer than usual. Many things have happened since, actually - what, yes, will be the subject of another encounter.

But, yeah, you are right, my friend. I once again aged.

Amidst some of the craziest times of the winter, in the height of a very eventful week, between a step out of two onto my future, I reached another milestone, so to speak, becoming a proud 24 years old citizen.

I recall back in my childhood finding 24 years old's to be rather aged people, who lived way ahead in the adulthood, while, yes, sporting out the glory of the - matured - youth.

I now look at myself and still see the same child back from those days - and, no, I am not talking about genetics or remarkably good skin.

It is, perhaps, the very wrongful impression of oneself, caused by the unnoticed passing of the years when it comes to one's own figure.
A lot of wrinkles it will take, I reckon, for me to realize how time has flown and hit me.

Looking around, all of my friends have become adults. They have their worries, their struggles, even their own family in some cases, regardless possibly being well incipient when it comes to building their own life. They are surely young, all right, but not the immature, puerile, spoiled infant the mirror insists showing me and who I do not feel like letting go of.

While I step into the middle of this third decade of mine, this Peter Pan dilemma keeps annoying me, alongside the subtle realizing that, indeed, some things may be just slipping through my hands.

Still, no much is lost, I think.

Putting aside all these mazy thoughts I myself cannot quite get straight, it is a new personal year dawning, and it does inspire me hope and excitement.
24 has always been, somehow, a milestone (and now using the term in its proper meaning) in my view. Maybe it has pointed somewhere as the location of some treasure or some candies, something of that sort. It just feels… interesting.

The now gone 23rd was quite an impressive period, must I note here, and this is something I only now can conclude, by being able to give it an - quite a hasty - overlook (that time will surely recreate with a more profound twist every once in a while. I know how the hands of time mould the way).
Although such year did not witness much progress in some fields, it was, all the way, the glowing arena where many dreams and wonders were witnessed, where lands were explored, where hands touched, where worlds were ruled and where stars shone, blindingly bright.
And where love exploded.
And where love murdered love.

My utter, heartfelt thankfulness to everyone involved, for as long as my memory can carry the good recollections.

Let the 24 start and see what can I make out of it.

Let us all be fresh and young.
And step forward and beyond.

My art

The leaves were starting to fall.

We were preparing to head, on a caravan, right onto the other shore, right into the core of recent history.

That was when the time bomb was set.

Suddenly, it seemed, a turning point was marked in my life this year.

A war, it is.

Let the games begin.

A candid illusion, perhaps.

The roads were unstoppable at requesting my name.

Another dawn, another waking up on a random metropolis, another hasting run to be in time or to just try and sleep amidst the noisy environment of the urban chaos.

So as to distract myself from the imploding duties burning red right around the corner, I steered to the marvellous Le Velvet art gallery, on the St. Mercy Street, no number.

Its mazy corridors, decorated with darkened yellow walls, were perfumed with a soft woodened cherry fragrance, which slowly lures the visitor into strolling its beautiful pieces of human body illustration. The noir setting and the old cabaret music played on the background completed the perfect scenario for an avoidance illusion – for a physical, sexual illusion, where all one has to do is to close their eyes and let their senses be taken aback entirely by the colours of the touch.

The mid-aged courtesan, head of the Gallery, a voluptuous woman, dressed to the occasion, lays at the end of the eastside corridor, smoking an old cigarette and drinking cheap martini, with an effusive smile stamped on her old, wrinkled face.

Facing her figure, I could not bear it, nor understand it all.

So I rushed towards her and instinctively, without taking a bow or showing any respect, I shouted:

What about the candies and the flowers, the words and the flirting?

C'est tout parfumerie! She laughed sarcastically.

I contemplated her complacent smile for a couple of seconds and then hanged my head down.

I know who you are, mon cherie, you have been circulating through my art gallery before, she said, to my surprise.

How… how come…

There is a war you are fighting back home, I know, but it is no place neither moment for such, she then moved close me and whispered, should the moment take you, mon petit garçon, you know how to behave alright.

I mumbled a few words before just concluding: I hereby declare my acceptance.

As if there was anything else one could do! She laughed, before muttering meow and vanishing into the satin curtains that surrounded her bed.

My eyes turned red.

Painting after painting, I made contact with the warmer styles of art.

State-of-the-art.

Thou art my shallowest dream.

Time ticked fast and roads kept being crossed, to several excuses and appointments, what would clearly avoid me from heading further on my personal endeavours.

On an waiting room, for example, I faced enemies and felt obviously defeated just by the simple sight.

That was hardly something to worry about at that point, I thought, "for there is no big goal to be fought after".

As the magic island was reached, that was the mantra echoing in my irresponsible mind.

It was heard, it became my destiny.

And to my misery, I became a simple tourist.

Weeks later, on a luxurious setting, I was, again, the mere visitor, knocking every door of those corridors.

The art gallery kept changing its pieces, but the admiror was, still, the same freedom fighter who hereby speaks.

On a row of shades, I was experiencing unknown inner aspects of me, never before properly explored.

Such a sense of accomplishment and self-discovery, completed with something akin to an overwhelming ego boost, tempered, however, with the worst of the timings.

Another day, another schedule to be met, more and more enemies to be fought.

And as the sweet perfume of lust vanishes away into the air – either by heavenly grace or by my subconscious mechanisms –, love reveals itself as a long past dream, that will echo in the dark of every night.

I am back home.
The time bomb is still set.
The clock keeps ticking fast, way too fast.

Routine has been a constant conflict between dreams/projects and my inner self. More to the point, I have daily been trying and pacify the conflict between the screaming future and the attention-demanding present.

I am a child after all, who need to pave his own way and, still, cannot let the youth leaves fall with the ending autumn.

A one-card player.

A single game match.

Flying around me, there is all this excessive information to be absorbed. On the technical field, this is hardly an issue - just part of the game and a struggle against the time. My deeper deals, aka the undergrounds, they are the messy piece.

Perhaps, I will only be able to step into the future once I have my present sorted.

Or – and this is the thesis I am fighting for – I need to keep striving ahead so as to smooth down the rough edges and get the issues slowly evanescing into a long past fog.

This is my fight.

This is my art.

Cheers!

X