For a mere few seconds the jellyfish-like exterior reacted to my fingers by creating ripples, starting from my index as the epicenter and spreading evenly in circles. It was almost as if breathing, a thin layer of muscle moving rhythmically to intake life, to experience being me in that odd moment like exchanging bodies within a single touch. I lit up a hookah and through that eerie blue smoke I stared back at the now motionless nucleus, fascinated by the prospect of what genesis would arise from that silent spinning cauldron. It grew within me, from the center in between my stomach and my liver, like an up lifting cello concerto in E minor, steadily, building up then exploding with such shear intensity that I started crying. I realized in that moment that I watched my own birth, the journey that started at the root of the tree of life. I was me, and you and all of us, and I was seeing through the eyes of millions and had a million pair of hands to grasp reality in a million breaths.
I laid next to you on our bed, half covered by the white sheets, and I stroked your cheek lightly, you opened your eyes and I gaze inside for that full blown second to look for the mechanism that made you tick. All I could see was blue smoke… The lights went out.
I was staring at the alarm clock that sat on my night stand as if at six o’clock sharp it would spring legs, arms and a tiny little head and start to dance while singing. I put my hand on the stop button before it could become the reason for the usual morning havoc. The sheets were ruffled after not so much of a good night sleep and so was my hair considering the reflection on my reading glasses. But after all, how accurate could that be, it was always all over the place. I smiled and with a good reason, my mind still drifting off at the thought of your touch on my skin… I bit my lower lip and looked to see if you were still asleep, and so you were. After nudging away the temptation of mercilessly changing that with a well positioned pillow, I changed strategies and decided it’s best you got a good rest. So I kissed the back of your neck as softly as I could, an action that triggered the butterfly effect, and walked away into the balcony hoping for a invigorating breath of cool air. It was raining but I didn’t back away, I let the lashes strip me down to my soul.
Once I compared you with a good book, one you don’t want to take your hands and your eyes off, but today I realized that’s because you’re a never ending story, one in which I play a big part.
I was dripping wet as I emerged from the shower and went straight for the kitchen where I grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper before I sat at the table. The message was finished shortly after that, and my plan could finally start to unravel, at least I hoped everything would go accordingly. Half an hour later and I closed the door smoothly behind me, taking with me only the umbrella.
While I was still full of wanderlust, I was no longer restful. There would be anywhere and anywhere would be there, as long as my heart was with me.
The gallery was full of strangers lurking about, people of high interest with a pure passion of being seen rather than see. I was wearing a long, black dress for the occasion and tried to avoid having to shake hands with everybody or explain what concepts were behind my photographs by hiding in the dark room. It was my special place where I could be alone only with my work, and still never feel lonely, I had all their stories to get submerged into. Some of them I never exposed, my selfishness showing through that; I wouldn’t want them to be spoiled by being looked at and analyzed with unworthy eyes. I had fresh prints put up to dry, a new black and white collection, scenes representative for the human concept of trial and error. I have seen a place where death and forgetfulness thrived, but even under those ruins a spark of life was gleaming where man had abandoned all hope and left. Clothes left to dry in the timeless wind hanged onto wires in front of opened windows. The air had no taste or odor, the city’s eyelids were closed and it was weeping silently. The silence was almost deafening, a mute echo of a communist spring. Those images said more than all the words could say, it was almost unbearable to be human and part of the mistake.
