The eyes of eons. [Slow Editing]

Chapter 5

I stood with my travel bag outside the storage facility. The move was over for now and I had nowhere to hurry. It was still pleasant early fall wind. I calmed myself down by pulling with my nose a gust of a warm breeze. Which way to go? I had no particular direction. I turned my head to the left...some people were walking, to the right...the same picture. I concentrated very hard trying to make a decision and a tiny, barely visible noise started calling me. I grabbed my luggage and followed that sound. I was getting crazy, now definitely. The melody seemed nothing like in my dream, it was soft, tender, lightweight, as thin as air. I wasn’t watching the streets and signs, only my feet were moving. 

Beep...Beep..Beep...The music has stopped. 

     I looked up and saw already familiar picture. It was weird to find myself at the same spot like two years ago. “Déjà vu.” I snorted and patted the bull’s head. “Déjà vu.”     

     It was almost a lunchtime. My stomach rumbled, but in my throat I had a lump simmering my appetite down. I sat in a small park on the same bench like two years ago and began my meditation. 

      I had no thoughts twisting on my mind, it was more like a reviewing of all my deeds during my short and uneventful New York life. How much I could do and how much I didn’t do. 

     Soon, I wanted to go. I got up, though my legs refused to transport me anywhere. I returned on my seat and as if under the spell drifted again into the daydreaming. This time I recalled one Christmas Eve in particular. Grandpa Alexandre was still alive. I was nine and Valeria was seven. She looked cute wearing a hair band over her bright red curls. I remember in detail her red curls because exactly the day after that, Roberta cut them off. Valeria was playing with the candles and burned the bottom of her pretty locks. It was a huge tragedy. For a year kids at school had been calling her a Billy-boy. Every day she was coming back home in tears and she never got her curls back. Her hair outgrew again, but straight, and the color become different, of a lighter copper shade. 

     As a Christmas gift for us, grandpa curved out of the wood two little birds. I painted my bird in green color and Billy painted hers in white. After her hair was chopped off, I gave her my toy to sooth her sufferings. She was happy to receive the second bird, but she didn’t understand how much the bird meant to me. In a week I’ve found it in a trashcan, broken. It wounded me deeply. I don’t think I forgave her for that, however, when the first time she came back from school sobbing, it somehow melted my anger. Eventually I just stopped thinking about my hurt. Now, I know that it was just Billy. She was stubborn like a mule but kindhearted.

     “Are you waiting for someone?” I lifted my head and saw a man with bright blue eyes, it was all I could understand about him that second.

     “No,” I shook my head and pulled my luggage closer. I guessed that it blocked half a bench for other people to take a seat. “No, I'm not,” I peeked both sides and realized that he had more than enough places around, after what I focused my stare at his face again. He was handsome, strikingly handsome, with full lips and perfectly chunked cheekbones, mid-dark hair, cut out chin. He looked his early thirties, dressed well, with style, but casual and without screaming pieces.

     “Well, it happened so that I've passed here three times already. At eleven then at two and now it’s five, and you are still here.”

     “Five?” I raised my eyebrows in surprise. I’ve lost track of time. It was five o’clock.

     “Five,” he confirmed with a nod.

     “I’ve been daydreaming,” I gave him a weak smile and stirred to get up. All my body woke up from doze and now blood began chasing the cells by my bloodstream making it hurt everywhere. “Ouch,” I moaned in a low voice.