August 2017 – Wakeup.Mau

I’ m late, but you didn’t know I was coming to see you so I don’t think you’ll mind. That face you make, I guess you weren’t expecting visitors today. I thought about buying you some flowers outside, but the old ladies that sell flowers weren’t there, no old ladies, no flowers. Why did I write you a goodbye letter? that’s a good question you know, I bet if we talk about it for a while I can explain more or less why it’s better to start by saying goodbye than to start by saying hello or to end by saying goodbye.

I suppose life doesn’t change much until it changes radically, or perhaps the subtle changes of everyday life go unnoticed until they become part of the fabric of life, at which point the changed appears as the everyday and you get the impression that nothing has really changed. Other times life really changes and there is nothing we can do about it. Well yes, sometimes it is good that life changes, but I’ m referring to those moments we could have avoided, moments that form bad memories, the stuff of self flagellating nightmares and anthropomorphic beings passing through the twilight. Good is last night I woke up suddenly and the door was open, I stood for a while waiting for the monster of my dreams to come and greet me. I think I’m getting off the point, well let me know if it happens again.

The thing is when I left today in the morning I was thinking that I had it hard so far and then I realized that I was just in the tutorial of life, I had not even passed the first stage and I was already losing. In the end I had to jump over the hole, not try to understand it, but well, I lost about three lives in that. I think I should have paid more attention when they told me “drink the milk” or “if you get up there you can fall”, you know, those phrases that make you burst inside when you hear them but that you remember with an echo of sarcasm when you bury your feet in the mud.

The thing is, we were talking about leaving saying goodbye, like when you meet the love of your life and you cuddle up to her lips, you know, when you’re drunk on her candy smell and those light trails follow you around. Then you have to rub your eyes a few times to get the idea that you are really living in a dream. When that happens you say goodbye first, I think it’s the only possibility to live in a fairy tale, like “together forever”, even if the last thing you do is to greet each other, holding hands and looking at the sun lost in the horizon of the last day.

Take as an example a street musician that I saw a couple of times playing on the street, he had special powers, I’m not lying to you. He could play the guitar with his legs, partly because he had arms on his legs and vice versa, he played better than Van Halen. I liked his repertoire anyway, what caught my attention was that he started the show asking for coins from the audience, unlike most street artists who save this rite for the end of the presentation. And well, the surrounding liquor stores are also grateful for this virtuous circle of music, okay, but let me say something about prejudices, they work, okay? This is how they work, you use them for everything, everything is a prejudice. Simple, you no longer have to spend hours, days, weeks, months and years looking at the stars for answers, remember, everything is a prejudice. I guess that’s another reason to start by saying goodbye, you can start by screwing up.

I always remember the day I met you, I was resting and I could hear your voice, like a small glow in the void, as I approached I could see that it was actually the sunlight entering through an opening between the curtains. That warm softness of reddish ashes rising along with the autumn wind, the one that likes to dance with dry leaves on the ground. You looked like an angel when you entered the room, with that fuzzy halo around you, although it took me a while to understand the things you were saying to me. To be honest when I saw you I was scared shitless, you don’t see things like that every day.

I understand, what you wanted me to do was to keep talking about the ashes in the wind and all that, you’re romantic huh? but wait, autumn is over and winter will follow. You see, that’s starting by saying goodbye, ruining everything at the beginning, I mean the first thing that came to my mind was your dismembered body on the side of the street, with that crimson stain and the pink tints on the edges. The whole thing takes on a bluish color as the sky clouds over and it makes me want to puke, but I hold it in.

How did I get there so fast? Well it wasn’t far, I parked out front and got out to look when I noticed the group of pigeons that came down from the ledges of the buildings to flutter around you. Wait, don’t go assuming it was me driving the car that hit you, I’m telling you I arrived at the crime scene past eleven in the morning. It’s hot in here, I’m going to open a window, do you want a drink? the thing is that you were already dead and I suffered a lot before I could accept it. At the beginning I felt you like a black stain, like the mark that fire leaves on the walls. It seemed to me that you flooded the diffuse shadows of the afternoon with a mute and spectral cold, with the passage of time I ended up making friends with the ghosts.

But well, I guess that’s all I wanted to say, maybe it was better to start by saying goodbye, because I really like you and I don’t want to spend my life suffering your loss. I understand that no matter what you think or say, there’s no way this is going to work. So forget all that stuff about starting by saying goodbye, we’re just letting go.