Eternal dream (Final)

Posted on 9 December, 202019 October, 2022 Posted in short storyTagged death, desert, dreams, ending, happy, holiday, journey, life, love, reencarnation, romance, sand, short story, Story, together1 Comment

Alfonso stops by the door of the quick-stop, he stops because of the reflection in the glass of the door. His long, white, gray hair, and his long, singeing beard.

Who am I?

A question with no answer. The golden, cracked skin, dry lips, characteristics that do not correspond to any glimmer of unity inside the observer.

Dry lips…

The sentence reminds him of something he cannot remember, a faceless nostalgia and a breeze of anguish. He enters the store without answering the question and walks through the aisles full of candy, full of sweet jellybean vapors, and vibrant colors that fill him with wistfulness. Walking down the aisle at the end, Alfonso finds himself facing the row of refrigerators, he stares at a bottle of mineral water for some time, the shape of the bottle reminds him of something he cannot realize, a diffuse memory that leads him to open the door and take the bottle in his hands. The cold escaping from the refrigerator’s interior relaxes him, and it leads him to take a deep breath. The woman at the cash register has been looking at him for a while and takes this opportunity to make her move. Alfonso expected this but he downplays the issue, preferring to open the bottle and take a big sip of water.

Hey, what are you doing!

Alfonso stops, the woman approaches him, and brings a red blanket, one that she had kept for the cold, she uses it to cover the body of the old naked man she has found in the corridor of the refrigerators. Alfonso thanks her, but she has not finished, she asks him to pay for the water before consuming it. Alfonso listens carefully and then puts his hands in his pockets, but he has no pants. The woman gets angry and asks him to leave the store, to take the water away but not to continue to mess the floor with sand, points to Alfonso’s dirty feet, feet with which he has painted a trail of sand everywhere he has stepped. Alfonso walks towards the exit, and passes by the woman’s side, she backs up when she sees the depth of his eyes, where she finds the glow of the stars. Alfonso is happy to see her, he remembers her from before, and although he doesn’t know when, he bids her farewell with reverence.

As he walks through the door of the quick-stop, Alfonso sees the next object that catches his eye, an empty gas can, next to the gas pump hose. With eyes full of tears, a smile on his face, and arms raised to the sky in an attempt to embrace the sun, Alfonso celebrates the discovery. He doesn’t know why, he doesn’t remember, but that canister fills his heart with joy, an intense joy that drives him to run to the pump to get it and insert the nozzle of the pump inside of it. Alfonso presses the trigger and the gasoline pours inside. And just then, the bathroom door at the side of the quick-stop hits the frame, announcing the arrival of a man on the scene. It’s a burly guy wearing a trucker’s cap on his head.

Hey! Hey, you! Are you going to pay for that?

Surprised by the statement, but even more surprised to see the face of the person who is questioning him, Alfonso kicks on the floor with joy. He thanks the heavens for Pedro, who continues to approach Alfonso and fails to understand anything of what is happening.

Did I miss anything? You’re going to pay, right?

Alfonso panics, he grabs the canister with both hands and runs out of the place, releasing the nozzle, which continues to expel gasoline and spills it on the floor. Alfonso hugs the canister tightly as he runs away from the station and into the road and the desert. Pedro runs in pursuit but stops at the pump to stop the gasoline from pouring onto the ground uncontrollably. This gives enough time for Alfonso to reach a considerable distance, insurmountable assumes Pedro, in the midst of the embracing heat of noon, so he desists to go in pursuit of that naked old man with a canister.

Alfonso keeps running non-stop, he doesn’t give himself time to look back for even one moment. He doesn’t run because he is being chased, he runs because he knows he still has time, although he doesn’t remember what for. And he runs until his legs ask for a break, until the sun lies down on the horizon once again. It is then that his guts rumble.

This is the joy of life.

When was the last time he ate? Blind confidence leads him to go into the dunes of the desert and to wait in silence. And then, between the lines described in the sand, a circular movement, like a whip drawing outlines on the ground, revealing the movement of a snake emerging from the depths. Alfonso observes it and without even thinking about it, he throws himself towards it, hunger drives him, instinct drives him, and love for the imperishable time drives him to pursue it a long way, leaving the canister behind.

Because, what will become of the can without someone to carry it?

Alfonso manages to find the snake, grabs it by the tail, and strongly whips it against the ground until life escapes from it. When the killing is over, He says goodbye to the snake, thanks the universe for providing it, takes off his red cloak, and places it on the ground, to deposit the snake’s body there. A furtive look at the canister, arranged on the side of the road, reveals that the object in question is not in its position; a young man has taken it and is carrying it. Alfonso covers the cloth in the sand and gets up as fast as his old body can move, he hurries to hunt down the intruder, catches him, and throws himself at him, managing to knock him down without much difficulty. The canister returns to his hands and Alfonso stays looking at this young man for a while.

The young man spends the afternoon begging Alfonso to lend him the gasoline, he needs it to rescue a woman stranded in the middle of the desert. Words that unleash a series of diffuse, unconnected, but strangely familiar memories in Alfonso. One specific word echoes in his memory.

Amelia.

Alfonso remembers meeting someone with that name, a powerful feeling brings him back to the desert sands but also to the deceitfulness of its surroundings. He prefers not to say anything, he is not sure of these memories, of the story that they link, and for sure that saying things without being sure is a bad idea, he thinks to himself.

Night falls on Alfonso and on the young man, a fire is lit in the dark, and the flames dance to the rhythm of the night winds. Millions of years still unprocessed in his mind, Alfonso does not manage to stay long in the present and with the young man. Even so, he makes the greatest effort to pay attention to the words he speaks, an interrogation about matters whose answer he does not possess. Questions about origins, about destinies, but Alfonso does not manage to position himself in the arrow of time, he prefers not to say more, loses interest in the conversation, and soon falls into a deep sleep.

The space is occupied, how to enter?

Among the veils of dreams, a car appears in the middle of the road, a woman opens up whole, her skin falls on the passenger seat, a flower emerges, a thorny rose, the stems grow and the thorns occupy the cabin of the vehicle.

Alfonso opens his eyes in fear, the young man takes the canister, tries to snatch it from his hands, and forces him to stand up and fight, but why fight?

Better to let go.

Alfonso reflects as he lets go of the canister, his body now moves thanks to the strength of the young man, the thrust pushes him towards the flames with the canister following him. The touch of the fire and the explosion, as intense as sunlight, envelops him in flames. Alfonso bears the pain in silence, lets himself be burned, and embraces the flames like old friends who come to guide him, angels who come down from the sky to illuminate the path. The fire is extinguished after a while, Alfonso’s body stiff, his eyes lost in the blink of the stars that receive him once more and beyond, beyond the most extensive and darkest depth, he knows that everything will start again.

The first rays of the sun timidly illuminate the contour of the desert and tickle Alfonso’s charred fingers. He agonizes, it is difficult for him to breathe, every breath burns him inside, every exhalation as if it were nails in his chest. He remains still, almost does not feel anything, does not feel the movement of the sand around him, does not feel those beings that return to the surface hungry, in search of food, and that find him lying down, helpless. There will be two, then three, and soon more than twenty snakes sliding through the sand toward the burnt body. The feast begins. Teeth like fine needles tearing the flesh until they are satiated. The snakes finish eating the flesh and return to the sand. Later, a couple of vultures circles the sky over the charred body, taking their time before descending. A peck and another piece of meat get separated from the bone. The vultures devour every muscle with surgical precision, including the eyes and guts. Then, they return to the skies and get lost on the horizon. After a while, a family of beetles makes its way through the sand, reaches the immobile body, and take their share. The days pass and only bones remain.

And Alfonso? Where is he? Alfonso is in the snakes that roam the desert, he is in the vultures that sail the skies, and he is in the beetles that bury themselves in the earth. But Alfonso wants to free himself, the desire to return to that place that he hardly remembers anymore, that place that keeps calling him, persists like the light of the stars. With great effort he manages to free himself from the flesh that imprisons him, helped by the fact that it almost disintegrates in the stomach of the beings that fed on him. One last effort and his soul separates entirely from the material, then he falls, falls as he has fallen before, as the stars collapse and separate in spite of all efforts to endure. But Alfonso does not want to be part of the history of the universe; his desire is to return to his memories, to retain them. And every time the galaxies collapse and everything begins again, he returns, countless times and under a thousand forms. In the beginning, it is difficult for him, he can only be a geometrical figure, he is a triangle embedded in a grain of sand, he is a cube, traveling in a beam of light, between the reflections of the dunes and the sun. A car passes by the road, thundering music throws waves through the air, changing the nature of all things, even of himself and now Alfonso is part of a song, a specific strophe “stay with her”, “stay with her” is repeated like a mantra throughout the song and someone listens, but the sound waves last as long as a blink of an eye and that is not enough for Alfonso. Again at the end of the universe and back again. This time as a drop of rain that falls in spring at the beginning of his life and then is taken, encapsulated in a bottle of water. The same drop that slips gracefully through a woman’s lips and manages to calm her nervousness in a tense situation, Alfonso remembers the happiness, but he wants more, he is not satisfied. This time he is a fly that is born on the putrid flesh of a corpse, as soon as his eyes meet the rays of the sun, his adventure through the air begins. He flaps his wings in search of an aroma that he can barely perceive, which is only an illusion at the beginning, but which, with each movement, grows in intensity. After having lost half of his life on the journey, the fly finds the origin of the aroma that drives him forward. The turbulence of the wind prevents him from advancing, it moves him in all directions. But the fly does not let himself be intimidated; he has been a man, has taken a life, has been robbed of his life, and has traveled this existence countless times, the wind is not a rival, it is himself in another age. This is how he lets himself go and soon finds himself in the cabin of a car, amazed by the man and the woman who now talk and laugh inside. He approaches the man and, with all his strength, shouts at him not to waste time, that destiny can be cruel in the same way that men are or have been. But the man does not listen; the fly flies through the air once more and goes around both looking for some solution. He does not find it; tired he stops at the mouth of the bottle, where he recognizes himself in the form of a drop of rain. Distraction prevents him from seeing the woman’s hand until it is too late, life is lost again. Again the end of the universe and the man returns as an animal, a fox that ventures into the desert dunes, that hunts snakes and faces vultures, that fights to stay alive long enough. Until a thundering sound changes the nature of things, “stay with me” is repeated and the fox knows that the time has come. One look is enough to change the life of the man who until then was walking the dark spaces of his own consciousness and then the epiphany, be an idea. The universe collapses and begins again, this time Alfonso is born from the vision of man, a set of synapses, of electrochemical impulses that form the powerful image of the majestic fox in the middle of the desert sands, a sticky idea that later translates into words that travel through the air and enter her ears.

I’ll take care of it, don’t worry.

XII

Amelia settles into the seat and closes her eyes, she falls into a deep sleep. It is a calm dream, like the belly of a whale, warm and protective. Through the thick mist of her restful consciousness appears the image of a man walking along the road. It is Alfonso returning with the can of gasoline in his hands. Amelia watches him from the window and smiles, their eyes meet and they recognize each other as if only minutes had passed since they last saw each other.

Maybe it was just a minute.

Alfonso arrives at the car and tells Amelia that he has found the can lying on the side of the road, which has been nothing short of a miracle. She stretches to get rid of her laziness and gets out to stretch her legs for a while. Alfonso fills the car pond with fuel, stares at Amelia, and can’t help but smile.

Something has ended.

Alfonso keeps his smile as he returns to the car.

Shall we go? Amelia asks cheerfully.

Alfonso nods, he turns the key in the ignition, and the engine starts. The car advances towards the horizon and beyond, there, where the desert ends.

Eternal dream (Part II)

Posted on 30 November, 202019 October, 2022 Posted in short storyTagged adventure, death, desert, epic, hate, journey, life, love, magic, mentor, old man, rescue, romanceLeave a comment

Hours pass and Alfonso wanders alone with the desert landscape and between thoughts. Lying down outside on the side of the car, he waits for the announced rescue that still does not materialize. The sun is lost in the horizon, and the lighter’s flame burns the tip of the fourth cigarette, Alfonso takes a big puff and exhales the smoke into the wind to stay calm, as Amelia continues to sleep. He looks to both sides of the road and measures the space separating him from civilization, a situation that reassures him. In a few words, Alfonso does not want to return to the everyday life he has built, he feels trapped in it, squeezed to the last drop of novelty that he could find in the same streets he has walked all his life, in the same living spaces, in the same people with whom he has shared his life. Put it this way, it’s not so bad to be stranded in the middle of the road next to this woman he knows nothing about. Night finally falls in the desert and the cold forces Alfonso to return to the interior of the car, where Amelia sleeps still, surely she was tired after walking who knows for how long through the desert. Alfonso settles into his seat and closes his eyes. It takes him a long time to fall asleep, but he succeeds.

The next day, he wakes up with a sore neck, probably because of hanging from the seat for most of the night. He thinks he should have worn a sweatshirt as a pillow, but he didn’t dare to copy Amelia. He prefers to open the door and stretch out outside, letting the annoyance dry out in the sun. The morning wind receives him fresh, enough to not make such a fuss about the fact that the people from the gas station haven’t shown up yet. Alfonso hoped they would show up during the night. Nothing to do and Amelia still sleeping in the co-pilot’s seat…

Will she ever wake up?

At midday, Alfonso has already made more than a few laps around the car, he has walked to the limit of the road and the desert, he has taken the sand in his hands, which has slipped away from his fingers completely, he has remembered the fox that influenced him the day before.

And Amelia continues sleeping in the same position.

Alfonso despairs; at least eighteen hours have passed since she fell asleep. Has something happened to her? He doesn’t know and it takes a long time before he dares to check. It occurs to him to move her from her position to try to wake her up. Perhaps she will be angry, but at least he will know that she is okay. He does so, he moves her from one side to another with delicacy, nothing. Then with strength, back and forth, he says her name, shouts her name.

Nothing.

Fear takes hold of Alfonso. Convinced that something bad is happening, he takes the bottle and pours what is left of the water over Amelia’s face, but she still does not wake up. No more water and his companion unconscious, Alfonso nervously meditates on the situation, which takes an even darker turn when he notices that the phone has lost all of its battery life. Unable to ask for help, all lines of thought lead him to the same conclusion…

the only solution is to venture into the desert in search of help.

After more than a day of waiting, the arrival of external help seems to him to be an illusory idea. To remain waiting could mean not only his own death due to lack of water but also the death of Amelia. A continuously evolving horrifying situation keeps him sited in front of the steering wheel, and it occurs to him to hit the handle to get even with destiny for his present predicament. Already with sore arms, he decides to open the door and walk away.

The desert receives him imposing and eternal.

III

One step after another, Alfonso walks through the empty road. His mind clings to the previous vision of the tireless gaze of that little fox in the desert dunes, to the misadventures of Amelia, who walked for God knows how many hours through the same desert.

Can he make it too? Can he survive this?

He supposes that there’s no other option than to walk until finding civilization or until fainting from the heat. Yet the situation presents itself as strangely amusing. He feels alive, honest, whole, with a valid mission, with a different objective than the monotonous necessity of simply remaining alive. The sun crosses the horizon with the passing of the hours, the motion tampers the incandescent pale tone that does not give truce to the traveler, light paints now the land with orange tones, then reddish, then shades of purple that make the trip more bearable. At sunset, Alfonso gets out of juice, it’s the tired legs, the feverish forehead, and the dry throat that doesn’t allow him to breathe with the same ease. At the same time, he can’t stop walking, he doesn’t want to, and he assumes that if he stops he won’t move again for a long time, so it’s better to keep going.

The night almost falls completely over him when a new vision appears in his path, this is the third one. It’s kinda a Miracle, there’s a gas can left alone on the side of the road. A mirage? No, it’s really there. Alfonso presses on and walks the stretch to this marvelous vision and finds the gas can, he notices that it is almost completely full of gasoline, enough to give new life to the car, to take Amelia to a hospital even. However, as soon as Alfonso takes the can in his hands, a hidden figure emerges from the shadows of the almost night and throws itself at Alfonso, knocking him down. It’s an old man completely naked, with long filthy gray hair and a pronounced beard of the same color. Alfonso turns and raises from the sands to face this old man, in doing so he notices that the eyes of the stranger shine in pale bright, as intensely as the stars in the sky; this vision amazes him enough to discard any hostile posture. And with those shining eyes, the old man does not stop observing Alfonso, almost without blinking, while picking up the gas can from the sand. Alfonso cleans his clothes fast and goes to the old man at once, seeing he’s about to leave. He tells him about the car stranded in the middle of the desert and the woman he had to leave behind to find a solution. However, after the story is over, the old man does not change his attitude; the gas can belongs to him and he has no intention of sharing it. Alfonso reluctantly accepts and sits down by the side of the road, while the old man ventures a little further into the desert. It really has been a long day walking and the night has fallen on the desert, to continue advancing in these conditions does not seem a good idea.

While Alfonso is lost in thought, the old man gathers some branches and with a bit of gasoline, he prepares to light a fire, his hands descend towards the place where his pockets use to be.

Where are my pants?

The old man realizes he has no pants and no way to make a fire. Alfonso notices this, he approaches and lights the branches with the lighter, an object that causes the old man a lot of curiosity. The flames grow with the wind and the fire takes shape quickly. Alfonso and the old man sit by the fire and stare silently, both with the same lost gaze between the reddish crests and the small incandescent sparks that escape from the fire. Alfonso has not forgotten the gas can, he still has some hope of taking it away from the old man. He surprises himself with these conspirative thoughts, assuming they come from the desperate circumstances in which he finds himself. He decides to inquire about the old man’s motives and asks him what he is doing naked in the desert in the middle of the night. The old man scratches his chin and stays a while thinking, he seems not to remember what he is doing. After a long time, he answers that he is looking for someone he lost a long time ago. Alfonso doesn’t know if the old man is pulling his leg, so he decides to ask for more details, but he says that’s all he knows.

But I do remember I must not let go of this can of gasoline.

Alfonso responds fast to that one, noting that the old man did release the can when he found it at the side of the road. The old man goes off laughing for a long time, a long long time. Irritated, Alfonso prefers to remain silent. Then, the old man gets up and digs a hole in the sand, takes a red robe from underneath, something is wrapped inside. The old man reveals the content hidden, it is a dead snake, which he presents to Alfonso, without hiding the pride of a hunter. Alfonso doesn’t hide his disgust either, getting to watch the old man grabbing the snake by its head, cutting it off with his teeth right there, and impaling it in a stick, which then puts near the flames. The old man covers his body with the red robe and soon after, the snake is cooked. He takes it out of the fire and bites a piece, his face draws a wide smile. Could it be that he has not eaten in days? Alfonso wonders as he receives the piece of snake that the old man offers him. Both eat in silence, Alfonso says nothing, but the taste of the snake has been way less terrible than he expected. It occurs to him to tell a joke.

It seems to lack a bit of salt.

The old man can’t understand that one. Doesn’t he know what salt is? A while later, the flames lose their intensity, the old man’s eyes close and soon he falls asleep. Alfonso settles down on the sand to rest, but he cannot sleep. More time passes, the flames burn agonizingly and Alfonso opens his eyes, in front of him, the can and the old man sleeping, a unique opportunity to get the gasoline and return to Amelia. He rises carefully from the floor and takes furtive, precise steps to avoid excessive noise. He manages to get so close to the old man that he can hear his breathing. Alfonso stretches out to take the can with both hands, almost succeeding.

– But the old man wakes up suddenly.

Frightened, the old man grabs the can with strength, pushing it toward his belly. Alfonso pulls once more but does not manage to take it away from him. The old man gets up and tries to run away, but Alfonso doesn’t let go and, without wanting to, ends up pushing the old man and the gas can toward the agonizing fire.

It was just a matter of seconds for it to burn out.

The can falls first and then the old man, Alfonso cannot react, his intention is to help, but the explosion sends him flying through the air, along with a huge flame that rises in the sky, lighting up the night like the breath of a dragon. The cries of the old man wrapped in flames keep Alfonso at the limit of what he can process as reality in the making. Completely disoriented, he can only stay there by the flames until the cries stop and only the flames remain. Confused, Alfonso tries to stand up a couple of times, but he doesn’t make it, time keeps falling out of his fingers and it doesn’t stop until other hands pick him up from the floor and carry him to the back of a truck, where he is carefully laid. The doors of the truck close, and Alfonso hears the voice of two people talking. These people, fuzzy silhouettes in the darkness of the cabin, ask him questions he can’t understand or answer. Tired, he lets himself go and falls completely asleep.

The vaporous lines of mirages, which meet on the horizon of the road at noon, form Alfonso’s body, which becomes flesh, comes alive, and returns to the car in the middle of the desert. Walking he remembers the weight of noon and a bunch of foxes peep out among the dunes and receive him on his return. The vision fills him with joy, he takes the time to revere each one of the foxes and wishes them a prosperous journey, wherever they must go. Smiling, he approaches the car and Amelia, soon he will see her again. A sudden impulse leads him to run the last stretch, and yet when he arrives he does not find her. Frightened, he looks inside through the window; what he finds there presses his heart and leads him to step back. There she is, but it is not her, not the Amelia he remembers but her body as if it were deflated, like her skin and clothes without muscles or skeleton to hold them, wrinkled and piled up on the seat. The vision is like a fabric that folds back but its tones still remember what she was. And then, from the inside, from the darkness coming through the tear in the middle of the body, a red rose emerges and rises, and the stems filled with thorns that accompany it take over the entire interior space of the car until they break the windows and make Alfonso step back with blood on his hands.