SOMEBODY IS MISSING

At first was only sounds of unborn babies dissolving in silence and a red electric carpet that kept your feet warm from a natural blood bath.
Blood turns cold when it dries but only a few people know that.
A bubble gum machine gun for children under three to kill their fears it would be the best gift for humanity.

My skin was not my skin anymore so i could see under it; orange muscles glitering in the dark with the warm brightness of a halogen stove, red and blue veins reveling beneath it. The blood traveled to the heart with the power of ten drunk horses following the flow of a double crossed destiny and an ego centric madman.

There was no frustration in words but the ability to speak was lost due to technical inconveniences. Red Green Blue composed a symphony for lonely people all in one box. I see you see me through a glass and although all the bridges were cut we could still make connections following the rail pathway in the room. Walking blindly, touching walls trying not grasp the reality of a four wall dimension.

My head was not my head anymore so I could look through it.

04. The year after

It was a few days after 2009 New Years Eve, the year she tried to kill herself when she made this picture.

Taken a few days after the first attempt it was nothing more than a scary picture that she managed to upload holding her laptop's boyfriend close to the bedroom window, just to catch the weak wireless signal from the neighbour's wi-fi.

With fuzzy eyes from the medication she had to take afterwards could not focus really well. She looked deadly thin something that added an extra haunting layer to this damned photograph as well.

Ironically enough at exactly that time a lot of people described her as irresistible pretty. She also played her game in that with her own unique ways. Spreading charming smiles of manufactured happiness with eyes wide open to the dark side. 

As she had nearly survived whatever that was that dragged her so low she was heading to my successful graduation days from a prestigious art college.

As all people trying to get over depression she soon became more selfish than she ever was in her life just to dive back to her guilts an to involuntary altruism later on.

Unable to hang out with people as often and honest as she used too, for the simple fact that never before the 'how are you question' hurt her so badly along with her razor-blade scars, her hurricane like personality felt oppressed again. 

The memories of those days are covered within a thick cotton  clouds, excessive sleep episodes, an unfitted relationship that never suited her way too well, some minor affairs before and after it and the fuzzy feel in her body members from Prozac.

As she was studying abroad, six months after her graduation, under confusing circumstances, she fled back to my home country together with her beloved siamese cat in a basket.

Her stuff arrived within a few days by TNT post in big brown paper boxes and odd sized packets wrapped in bubble foil and gaff tape. 

Her family, an awkward  mix of diverse personalities, copped unusually well with the fast that their eldest daughter attempted to stop her life in the age of twenty seven and a half as they simply embraced her with their warmth and a deep denial to all the unpleasantries involved.

More or less she was nor the first nor the last one in the large spectrum of this adams family pantheon that she had a tendency to be self-destructive by any means.

Her birthday a few days afterwards was not something to remember. That day kind of announced the new great grey era in her life. The dull full time job Monday to Friday from 10-6 in an advertising company, a tiny apartment of her own and a semi major web addiction became her daily bread.

She always believed in the kindness of stranger maybe because she was kind enough to them first and surprisingly she never lost her faith in that later in life as she develop ed a nice clean cut habit of sleeping semi randomly with some of them.

The clock that was almost right made its point again as it was about time to go to work. A cup of tea, a freshly made orange juice, greenish toothpaste flavor and an after taste of menthol from 20mg prozac quickly swallowed with a glass of water. 

......)*!*(......

03. A Break

-I am taking a cigarette break, he briefly announced as soon as he stepped into the busy kitchen.

Everybody looked so absorbed by their duties so that he managed to get away avoiding any possible questions from his colleagues. In fact he was not even a smoker. But nobody knew or cared if he was or wasn’t one anyhow.

He was a just week there and he did not had any intentions to stay longer than that either. He never felt like a natural born waiter. Not that someone is particularly designed for that job but it seems that a lot of people manage quite well to take orders, deliver trays and smile at the same times something that John himself had found incompatible.

He was rather forgetful, relatively clumsy and absolutely incapable of performing any facial expression including smiling. He always looked kind of blunt, so that he could manage to stay in the shadow, without ever been noticed. The very few people that gave him a single look,excluding his mother, had described him as; a long thin man with a glass gaze of an unfathomable value like his entire diet was based on antidepressants.

As it was indeed. His appetite was already poor when he started taking those little green and white pills a month ago on doctor’s orders, even though he was never diagnosed with any kind of depression. In fact they were just the standard medication you probably get prescribed after been found inside the gas oven of your own apartment and repeatedly refuse to talk about it.

The fruits of a slightly more careful medical examination could brought in light some not so deep cuts a bit over his wrists and minor liver damage from several overdoses of paracetamol.

He was not about to discuss that to anybody anyhow. John in fact never talked unless it was absolutely necessary and even then without any signs of pleasure. His entire vocabulary consisted by some “yes, no, I don’t know, I really don’t, maybe, I am tired, can we skip that, I ‘d rather not to, I am bored, sorry” in random order.

In contradiction of his verbal manners his best friend was an extremely talkative and expressive girl that lived in the other end of town. They had met once in a flight to Lisbon and since then they had developed a strange kind of friendship that occasionally brought them in the same bed without clothes.

Most of the times as they helped themselves to find their stuff back they were avoiding to look at each others face. Mechanically they would sit at the kitchen table of John’s house drinking some cold coffee (the remaining of what a few hours earlier was a full warm pot), looking at old kitchen clock, fragments of frozen times.

Skipping all the pretences they could both admit it was out of mutual attraction and affection. But as the last few months miss young Adeline became the wife of a well known business man things got a bit perplexed and then they had decided not to see each other for a while.

Anyhow a couple of weeks after the wedding Adeline had mysteriously disappeared from her husband’s villa in South France, living no traces behind her than a hand written note with only the word: 'Whatever'. John haven't heard a thing since then too and deep inside was a bit worried but way to self absorbed to notice.

____

He was now walking to the parking lot almost determined to leave his job. The monstrosity of that couple and their child had upset him. The woman’s nose was big and pointy. As she was screaming she looked like a mad witch. Her husband on the other hand gave the impression of a savage, despite his expensive clothes. His beard had food chumps, his veins were pumping almost out of his skin and his eyes were red from the wine.

The young boy screaming for some ice cream almost looked like an angel comparing to his parents.

He sat down with his head between his knees to relax. After a few minutes the cold night breeze and the quietness of his surroundings seemed to take effect on him. He looked around to the empty parking lot. The few cars that where parked there tonight were ridiculously expensive.


To hell with this job murmured as he crossed the parking lot and start walking home.

____

_

03. A Break

-I am taking a cigarette break, he briefly announced as soon as he stepped into the busy kitchen.

Everybody looked so absorbed by their duties so that he managed to get away avoiding any possible questions from his colleagues. In fact he was not even a smoker. But nobody knew or cared if he was or wasn’t one anyhow.

He was a just week there and he did not had any intentions to stay longer than that either. He never felt like a natural born waiter. Not that someone is particularly designed for that job but it seems that a lot of people manage quite well to take orders, deliver trays and smile at the same times something that John himself had found incompatible.

He was rather forgetful, relatively clumsy and absolutely incapable of performing any facial expression including smiling. He always looked kind of blunt, so that he could manage to stay in the shadow, without ever been noticed. The very few people that gave him a single look,excluding his mother, had described him as; a long thin man with a glass gaze of an unfathomable value like his entire diet was based on antidepressants.

As it was indeed. His appetite was already poor when he started taking those little green and white pills a month ago on doctor’s orders, even though he was never diagnosed with any kind of depression. In fact they were just the standard medication you probably get prescribed after been found inside the gas oven of your own apartment and repeatedly refuse to talk about it.

The fruits of a slightly more careful medical examination could brought in light some not so deep cuts a bit over his wrists and minor liver damage from several overdoses of paracetamol.

He was not about to discuss that to anybody anyhow. John in fact never talked unless it was absolutely necessary and even then without any signs of pleasure. His entire vocabulary consisted by some “yes, no, I don’t know, I really don’t, maybe, I am tired, can we skip that, I ‘d rather not to, I am bored, sorry” in random order.

In contradiction of his verbal manners his best friend was an extremely talkative and expressive girl that lived in the other end of town. They had met once in a flight to Lisbon and since then they had developed a strange kind of friendship that occasionally brought them in the same bed without clothes.

Most of the times as they helped themselves to find their stuff back they were avoiding to look at each others face. Mechanically they would sit at the kitchen table of John’s house drinking some cold coffee (the remaining of what a few hours earlier was a full warm pot), looking at old kitchen clock, fragments of frozen times.

Skipping all the pretences they could both admit it was out of mutual attraction and affection. But as the last few months miss young Adeline became the wife of a well known business man things got a bit perplexed and then they had decided not to see each other for a while.

Anyhow a couple of weeks after the wedding Adeline had mysteriously disappeared from her husband’s villa in South France, living no traces behind her than a hand written note with only the word: 'Whatever'. John haven't heard a thing since then too and deep inside was a bit worried but way to self absorbed to notice.

____

He was now walking to the parking lot almost determined to leave his job. The monstrosity of that couple and their child had upset him. The woman’s nose was big and pointy. As she was screaming she looked like a mad witch. Her husband on the other hand gave the impression of a savage, despite his expensive clothes. His beard had food chumps, his veins were pumping almost out of his skin and his eyes were red from the wine.

The young boy screaming for some ice cream almost looked like an angel comparing to his parents.

He sat down with his head between his knees to relax. After a few minutes the cold night breeze and the quietness of his surroundings seemed to take effect on him. He looked around to the empty parking lot. The few cars that where parked there tonight were ridiculously expensive.


To hell with this job murmured as he crossed the parking lot and start walking home.

____

_

02. I scream for ice cream

In broad candlelight coming from a bronze chandelier, a couple with their young son is sitting for dinner. The place is surrounded by other tables mostly filled with other couples. A young man proposes to a beautiful woman offering a diamond ring when back to our table the young boy finishes his bowl of chocolate ice cream.

⁂

-More.

-You always want more than you can have dear.

-I want more.

-Honey, explain to him why he can't have more.

-More!

-Is it really necessary to do that, I mean look, all the people from nearby tables are already staring at ours.

-MORE.

-You are his father so you can try to explain to Toby that he had more than enough.

-MOOOOORE!

-Why don't you do it?

-Because I've done it so many times before that I even start to bore myself.

-You should.

-Do find me boring?

-MOOOOOOOOORE.

-Do you really find me that boring?

-Not more than usual.

-MOOOOOOOOORE.I WANT MOOOOOOOOORE.

-Are you in a bad mood honey?

-No just the usual one.

-MOOOOOOOOORE. MOOOOOOOOORE. MOOOOOOOOORE. MOOOOOOOOORE. MOOOOOOOOORE.

-Can you make this child of yours to shut up.

-I don't think so.

-Don' make a scene.

-You are a scene off your own.

-God dammit Jules make this stop now or..

-Or I might be lucky enough you divorce me without getting bankrupt. But i keep forgetting you are a woman with needs.

-Is this really necessary?

-I guess if you fuck around like that yes it is.

-How you dare.

-Unlike you I do have a mind of my own.

-Since when? I haven't notice any brain activity during the last decade dear.

-Don't call me dear.

-Dear.

-MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOREEEEEE!

⁂

-May i get you something, sir?

Three voices shouting simultaneously:
-ICE CREAM!!!!!!

__

01. Grin and Bear It

He grasped his cigarette from the astray just to hold it an inch away from Sylvia’s eyes.

- I am quitting this shit.
- You should definitely do so, she said as she lit up hers.
They looked at each other without being able to speak for a while. After a long-suffering pause she muttered:
- It’s not working anymore for us isn’t it?
- Does it make any difference for you?
- No, not really.
- Then it’s all right. What time should I pick you up tomorrow? We are going to Martin’s house for dinner.
- Around six should be fine I think. I have some stuff to do first.
Her voice was distant so he hassled a bit. He kept looking at the ashtray till the waitress came to pick up their empty glasses.
Then, at the sound of their two glasses bouncing on each other between the waitress fingers, he asked her in a playful tone:
- What kind of stuff? Is it something I should know about?
- Well… We re going to Paris, dear. Next weekend. Everything is arranged. It’s on me this time. I meant it to be a surprise but you can always read me like a book.
- Like a book indeed. I had my suspicions long before you started obviously cheating on me but now its definite.

So who is he this time? A well-forgotten romance from high school? A colleague from the office that was transferred to France? An other sixteen-year-old boy you met online? Your previous lover?

But his last thoughts remained unspoken. His bitterness was obvious but he didn’t dare expose it. Instead he pretended that he was all the way excited about Paris. He even mentioned some good upcoming exhibitions that they should definitely visit together and later on he ordered some expensive wine to celebrate it.

Shortly after he went to the toilet. It was a long white shiny room covered with large mirrors. As soon as his eyes caught his reflection he stopped captured by his gaze.

His eyes were tired and his cheeks a bit red from the wine like a sad clown at the end of his carrier as a professional entertainer. He tried to smile but his facial characteristics refused to assist him. He tried again and this time a rather scary and grotesque expression appeared.

He looked behind him in case someone was observing him and then in a rather childish way he grinned. Still staring at the mirror he placed his fingers inside his open mouth pushing his cheeks up in a stretchy smile and stayed like this. He did not feel at all like going back inside.

- I am quitting this shit. The “her and I” kind of bullshit, drinks, dinners, a shared car, the social life of phony friends and escape from the city weekends. I am not happy. I never was and far more than certain I never will be.

With this though his whole body posture changed. His elbows touched the mirror’s marble white frame. As he was leaning closer and closer to his reflection his fingers were still stretching his mouth to some wildly supernatural grimace.

The door opened and a fat kid walked in. The boy stood by him on his toes so he could also half see himself in the mirror too. As soon as he got to see his face he formed an evil grin showing off his new teeth.

There was a pause before he and the kid returned to their tables. They occasionally gave conspiracy looks to each other like two partners in crime when they both ordered and enjoyed the desert paid by their guardians.