LETTERS TO MARÍA: LETTER THREE

LETTER THREE

JANUARY 20^TH

Maria:

I woke up still dreaming of you. All the past was only a nightmare, you were sitting at the coffee table next to the window, drinking your morning coffee. Still in robe and with your favorite book in hand, the one they brought you from Paris. You smiled at me, I observed you, immobile. Then you talked without saying anything and  I woke up for real. Alone, over the dirty bed and holding on to the coat you left behind. I sat on the edge of the bed and cried for a while; it’s an ingrained habit I have.

Today I did something different. I took a shower and I even shaved. Went to the Newspaper office and had so much pending work that it  was able to keep me away from your memory for about … half an hour. Real torture was trying to hold my eager desire of blow my head off and end it.

It was even harder when off from work I ran into an open balcony door  in San Javier’s plaza, playing The Clock, your favorite song. There I did felt like dying and as the song itself says “my life is turning off”. It made me hear you inside my mind, almost as if you were in front of me. You’re gone forever, without your love am; in fact nothing.

I almost died today Maria. I almost killed myself. So many memories, as junk I have cluttered there in my room. All the house plants have died and  I wanted to die with them. I am a coward even for that, maybe not a coward but I have sloth, yes sloth. Dying requires a huge effort and strength that I don’t have, maybe one of these days. If I was able to shower there’s a high chance I would find strength enough to kill myself.

Today after staying still for an hour in San Javier drowned in echoes of The Clock, I managed to start walking by the street and shivering in cold. Night arrived to cover me while I was distracted. I ran into the fountain where you waited for me every Sunday. I even smiled. You looked so beautiful in your blue dress, it made your eyes even brighter and when we danced it floated like a boat. I   don’t forget how everyone stared at us when we walked holding hands.  You were so much, so amazing and I was no more than a rat. As if a moth fell in love with a peacock. We were as the pigeon sleeping in the crow’s nest in San Juan’s gazebo, as impossible, as unlikely.

Today I got back home Maria, again without you. The clock didn’t stop. As the crow to the pigeon, the failures of being me lead you to fly new skies.

Juan