Over The Horizon

Chapter II

While I write, in the imagination of a story I was once told, the sound of the waves angrily breaks the silence near the Mediterranean coast I remember growing up in. Here I see it, after closing my eyes for an instant, a storm, the beginning of a dangerous summer.
A sailing boat is fighting against the sea, all alone in a land made of water, blinded by nature. There's no fear to feel, only the sweet flavour of adventure.
There's a man on board, dressed as a normal sailor. He looks worried, just worried: there's still no time to fear. Who fears the sea is a dead man.
This figure I'm analyzing with such attention knows many things. He knows the sea is unpredictable, just like the human mind. He thinks even when the waves don't stop reversing on the boat; he's getting hit by them, water running over him. His hair is wet, completely wet.
Another figure comes into the scene from inside the boat. The other doesn't look at his companion, and this is why no one knows what his expression might be.
The new figure is almost absent in the scene. And it continues like this, with the sea as their only voice, until someone laughs.
«We must return to the harbor» says one of the two. The laughter stops.
It's right, it's true: the other agrees, takes a step back, and he's already lost in the water.

There's a young woman in Rome, the long hair and a dress that looks like an old sack. She is tall when she wears heels, she is pretty when she forgets about washing her face. Lost in a luxurious hall, at the hotel she has worked in for the past five years, that girl with the old sack and the perfect hair is me. I'm a story without a start and a life without a real conclusion.
I'm talking to a woman who is my boss but who I normally talk to as a friend. Her name is the first you will read in these pages: she's Diana, with sparkling green eyes.
She says: «It's been five years you have worked for us, and I thank you for all your hard work. Everyone here will miss you. Ah! Time has passed away so fast, hasn't it?»
I say, deleting the enthusiasm I felt in her voice: «Yes... But I know time is the same for everyone, at least. We'll age together and no matter what, even if we are apart. This is the best gift time decided to give us, it's awful integrity »
Again, she speaks. «Don't worry, we will keep in touch, right?»
I reply with a yes, it's inevitable, that's what she desires the most. It's incredible to think how many people have this constant fear of losing someone and aren't really aware of it.
«I will return in September and everything will go back to how it was.» I could promise her; I don't. That's how I end the phrase.
«You didn't tell me why you decided to return to that place.»
I take my luggage, a very deep breath, and tell her: «It's my father's death anniversary. And it's very soon.»
I can immediately see her smile when she wishes me good luck. The truth to be told, I only sense the deepest emotions when I think about a certain situation after some time, remembering everything that happened in my head. Reality always seems colder, heartless, the obvious ambition of the devil.

My car is parked just outside the hotel, between two red vehicles I never saw before.
I find myself running away from a destiny I had written for myself, all made out of loneliness and regrets, bridges and second chances.
It's the decision of going away what surprises me the most, more than my return. When I left my home, broken and mourning, I felt the need of never coming back. I expected these five years to bring something at my door, but there still was nothing, no stories to write, nothing was enough. The importance laid in waiting, and I did, but the door never opened.

I can understand why my life has always been a long, eternal, unbearable wait: it's because of what my father used to tell me when I first started showing some interest in writing and in the idea of becoming someone who just spends their morning thinking and using their mind to put what they feel and see down in paper in the easiest way possible.
He used to tell me I should focus on the present, on studying and on preparing for my future. Meditating about a life I could only dream was all I could do.
In other words, according to his thoughts, I had to wait for an opportunity that never came.