For Centuries - Season 1 [Completed]

Episode 21

"Gymnopédie n°1", Erik Satie

I was spending my days with Aidan. The 852-years-old vampire did not fear the sunlight any longer, as it was generally the case for his kind after several centuries. Thus we enjoyed the city during long walks, rain or shine. Sometimes we talked and sometimes we stayed silent.

I showed him the location of the first house I inhabited in Paris, near what is now the Pantheon. And he told me stories about people he had painted in these streets. He was still very secretive about most of his past, but I must confess that so was I. It was not that I did not want to tell him certain things but I thought it was not the time yet.

We often stayed at his studio in the morning and I could watch him paint for hours. He worked on an abstract image in different shades of blue, and every hour spent added a new light on the canvas as an ever-changing sky. Sometimes, at the end of the day, we would go to my apartment and I would read to him. On the third or fourth day we spent together, he opened the piano in my living room. "Would you play something for me?" He asked.

"What do you want to hear?"

He smiled. "Whatever you like."

I sat at the piano and played the first "Gymnopédie" by Erik Satie. It reminded me of a time that once was but it had also the power to create a true instant of infinity, in the experience of an emotion.

After a few seconds, Aidan sat on the bench by my side, listening to the music. When I finished the  piece, we looked at each other.

He put my hand on his head and opened his mind to me, as I had done for him before. He showed me things he had loved during his lifetime. A particular musical note that felt like home to him; the texture of a painting in different lights; some words by poets he thought could understand his life without knowing anything about it.  He showed me landscapes he had seen or imagined, with snow-capped mountains and forests so alive they seemed enchanted. He showed me the depth of the night, his solitude, and his pain. And finally, he showed images of me, singing at The Pearl. It was almost hard to recognize myself in the way he was seeing me but I felt his joy and his fear.