There was nothing
motivating Bruno after his stay in Banderleng; a small field far from the city
that Bruno and his family used to go to rest the mind, the body and sometimes
to take distance from the noisy crowd of Cleighton Cark. He had planned all
year to make a trip to Bahia de los Santos, a small town located in the west of
the country. In Bahia, Bruno had a first cousin who had long time ago become
independent. Whenever Bruno considered that he needed to take a "break
from his family" he would go to
Bahia to his cousin's house because his cousin worked most of the time and at
the time they were together, his cousin was not very talkative but shut-in.
Bruno
had named his cousin's house after "the refuge" since it was the only
place where he felt comfortable to reconnect with himself and with a little
peace without having to follow a conversation with feigned interest or respond
uncomfortable and trivial questions that did not interest him at all.
‘Hey there, Simon!’
Bruno greeted his cousin when he opened the door of
his house.
‘Hi, cousin!’ – said
Simon. – ‘You arrived earlier than expected.’
‘I took a taxi from the
terminal. It sicks me to have to takea bus. And I hate
to be all squeezed with
bags and people pushing you aside, belching you in
your face, spitting you
when sneezing or not covering their
mouths when
yawning.’
‘It's okay. Come in!
Make yourself at home - said Simon. ‘And
be
welcome.Let me carry
those bags for you’
‘No, no. Not heavy.
Besides, I brought over just what I’m gonna need to
get by for a few days.
I don’t want to be a nuisance’
‘But you don’t bother
me at all, dude- his cousin protested a little irritated
by the comment- We are
family, right?
‘That it seems. Mind if
I take the usual room?’
‘All yours’
‘Awesome!’
Bruno dropped the bags
in a corner of the small guest room, lay down on bed looking up and closed his
eyes for a moment. The room smelled confinement and humidity. It was likely
Simon would never open the windows to air out the room or he would not have
time for that or lacked will to do it. Bruno fell asleep in a matter of
seconds. A faint smile appeared on the corner of his mouth; he was having a
dream. His best friend, Juan Pablo Hussen, was putting his school things away
in his racksack as the bell had rung and all students were hurrying to run away
from school to their houses. For some reason, Bruno had been placed in the back
of the room away from his best friend. The strangest thing was that ten years
ago Bruno had finished high school and that Juan Pablo had met him in college
when they were both doing their degree in Chemistry. They both got along well
from the first day of class and since then, they had done everything together;
going out to nightclubs, walking around downtown, going to church or preparing
for the final tests. In the dream, however, his friend (they were once friends
too), Juan Pablo had simply put his school things away and left without waiting
up for him, his best friend, Bruno. Bruno tried to reach him out but Juan Pablo
walked on long strides and the wave of scattered students blocked the way to
the outside that prevented him from reaching out his friend. Bruno's heart
sank. Had he felt like crying? As a matter of fact, Juan Pablo no longer had
time for trivialities like a friendship with Bruno. His friend was lost in the
crowd quickly while Bruno stood near the railing, that led directly to the ground
floor, stunned and a tear thread about to slip down his cheek. Why was his
friend acting so indifferently?
Bruno woke up
frightened; he was bathed in sweat and his heart was beating at a slightly
irregular rhythm as if it were going to stop working at such force of impact it
beat. He took a look the clock on the bedside table and it read six thirty in
the afternoon. He quickly got up from bed and went in the bathroom to rinse his
face. For a minute or so, he gazed at himself in the worn mirror hanging from a
nail on the wall. He looked at every inch of his body and, when his gaze met
the one of the guy looking back at him from the other side of the mirror, he
remained inert for a minute; in his head Juan Pablo still appeared sneaking into
the crowd without him. Why did it have to happen right now? Why Juan Pablo?
They had not seen each other for eight years, and Bruno knew nothing about the
boy's current life except that he was now living with his girlfriend and that
could no longer remember his name. He hit the wall hard; his knuckles had gone
purple. He did not feel the pain of the impact of his fist against the wall
until his anger just diminished. His cousin knocked on the door to ask him if
he was okay and Bruno told him that a couple of his hygiene belongings had
fallen onto the floor and that it was nothing. His cousin did not insist and
left.
‘CALM DOWN, BRUNO’ he
yelled furiously, his face red in anger. ‘CALM DOWN YOU FUCKING PRICK’
He had lowered the
voice down so as to avoid dragging his cousin back in the bathroom asking what
was wrong with him; but nonetheless his voice full of anger came out of his
mouth with as much violence as sadness Bruno had inside himself.
‘You knew you suck at
keeping a friendship. You knew that IDIOT would be “IDIOTIZED” at the first skirt lifted, legs fully exposed. That's
the way people like to be. And if you thought your "little buddy" was
the exception’ he went on ‘you
thought it so wrong, pal. Horribly WRONG. Your friend changed your friendship
for that moron’s girly love and now you are the leftovers and the last resort
of those who want to use you when they feel like it…
He stopped talking. He
knew that when the wave of slights was unleashed it was difficult to stop it.
He stopped for a moment and thought about it twice before doing something he
might regret doing. He looked at himself in the mirror, washed his face again
and noticed how the fury on his face framed his cheeks and eyes. His lips
trembled but he was determined not to give in to his rage and slights he had on
the tip of his tongue but that he had decided to drown, at least for the time
being. Then Bruno left the bathroom, went into his cousin's guest room, grabbed
a sweater and walked out quickly.
‘Be right back’ said
Bruno to his cousin casually.
‘Got it’ responded his
cousin who was now in the dining room reading a comic by Spider-man.
The church that Bruno
was heading to was about twenty-five minutes from his cousin's house. It was
very brief but enough time he’d have out to be all by himself while he thought
and looked at the nature that kept him calm and far from his truculent
thoughts.
Bruno was not a
practiser; He did not like to go to the church much even though he considered
himself a Catholic. On many occasions, when he felt angry like he was now or
shaken by his deep sorrows, he went to church. There was silence and he found
the peace he could not find anywhere else. He sat on one of the benches in the
back of the small church and let things take their course…
Next, he felt something
like relief, peace and the desire to cry, all these emotions combined at the
same time. He contemplated one of the statues of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus
child and next, a tear slid down his cheek.
"Hold
me, mother. Hold me tight the way you hold your Son, Jesus. I don’t like this
world," he thought.
Then a young priest
approached him and asked Bruno if he could sit next to him. Bruno recognized
that he was the parish priest of the church because of the clothing.
‘Go ahead, father. Do
sit down’
The priest (who must
not have been more than thirty years old, according to Bruno's calculation) sat
next to him.
‘Our father will always
have a place for us’ said the father. His voice conveyed peace and serenity; it
was as if a song came from the deepest of his mouth.
‘Yes, I appreciate your
words very much’
Bruno's voice came out
sharp and cold from his mouth. He stood up to leave but the young priest
intercepted him; he had said something that Bruno was touched by so intensely.
‘Crying is not a sin. When
you cry, he cries long with you. When you suffer, he suffers along with you. But
you never suffer a storm all by yoursel. Never without him’
‘You are very kind but
I don’t really feel like talking.’
‘Sometimes it's good to
talk, boy. What is your name?’
‘Bruno’
‘You are not from
around here, are you?’
‘No’
‘That I assumed. I’d
never seen you around before.’
‘I was ‘bout to leave,
anyway, father. Don’t wanna make you waste your time on me.’
‘Having a talk is not
wasting time’, said the priest calmly.’It's like when you empty a container
because it's full. You see, when you load a container with water that is
already full, the water starts to fall down the side because it is a container
and can not receive more water than it already has. Think that our body is like
a container and that the sorrows, miseries and pains we carry, sometimes fill
up our whole body and when our body can not receive more emotions, we get sick,
we are down, we no longer feel like living or we just abandon ourselves’.
Bruno did not want to
cry. He really hated crying in front of other people and what’s more, if those
people were complete strangers. But he could not help it. Not anymore. He had
not been far from breaking crying before the young priest approached. And the
words that he issued, had only been the trigger to release the whirlwind of
emotions he had been repressing for a long time.
‘It’s okay’ said the
priest again calmly.’ Let yourself be invaded. And let go of that grief that
overwhelms you, boy. Just let it go...’
It was not necessary
for the young priest to finish saying what he intended to; two threads of tears
had slid down his red cheeks. Bruno lowered his head and could not resist it
anymore. It was in vain to continue containing what it was for then
irrepressible. It was difficult for him to breathe; it was not him but his own
impulse and pride deciding finally to give in. Bruno was now crying. The young
priest patted him on the back and then said:
‘It
is not the time, yet’
Bruno raised his head
and looked astonished at the priest. He was flabbergasted at the illogical and
superfluous comment the priest had said. What did he mean by “it is not the time yet”. Did the priest
think Bruno would continue to flee? Then, at last he understood. He knew
exactly what he meant.
‘Thank you for
listening to me, father. Guess I gotta got now.’
Bruno wiped his tears
off with the sleeve of his T-shirt and walked quickly through the main door of
the small church. He walked about a kilometer; he was crying and cursing very
loudly. The echo of his voice reproduced again and again making it clear that
this was not a dream nor part of something he was imagining. Bruno was alone,
shouting, insulting and giving in to his anger. He kept walking and then
stopped stood when he saw a small lake. Bruno took off his shoes and dropped
them somewhere near. He approached little by little to the shore of the small
lake and it was then when the words of the young priest echoed in his memory.
‘It is not the time,
yet’
He wiped his tears off
once more with the dry sleeve of the shirt that had not been used yet. He let
himself be dragged away by the peace of those still waters that awaited him
affably. He walked up stealthily as he became convinced the decision he had
made several days ago was complete madness and that it had only been the result
of an impulse and a wrong decision.
‘It
is not the time, yet’ repeated the boy. He went deeper into
the depths of the small lake and let himself be enveloped by its calm water. He
went to the surface and dripped the water off his hair. He looked up and saw a
clear and effusive sky.
‘IT’S
NOT THE MOMENT, YET" "IT'S NOT THE MOMENT, YET" "IT'S NOT
THE MOMENT, YET’ it kept going.
‘Then it is not’ he
said to himself and considered once again verdict he had concluded.
They would try to persuade
him. They would say he just wanted to get attention. They would treat him as if
he was insane. Or they may be after him all the time, tracking down his steps
wherever he decided to go and taking away his privacy. He could not give a sign
of what he intended to do. That is why he had fled. He needed to be at ease
with his own choice.
But that was not how
that should be. It was not the time or the way out of it. Bruno had changed his
mind and decided that it was best to let the course of time lead him and not
Bruno lead the time. But under no circumstances would he talk about the
decision he had made. He would never dare to he wanted to commit suicide at
sea. His deepest wish was to die in the depth of the sea.
END
“HOPE
IS LIKE THE FLAME OF A CANDLE. IF YOU DO NOT WATCH IT, IT MIGHT TURN OFF. AND
IF IT IS TURNED OFF, THERE WILL BE ONLY DARKNESS"
Original title; "El lago de todas las penas"
Original title; "El lago de todas las penas"
Please, do share my literary works if you have enjoyed them as much as I did creating them.
