A Mere Reflection

Tears and Rain

Ages went by as he picked the phone and dialed her number. A moment felt as a lifetime when he heard the phone being picked up. That sound was the saddest sound he heard, yet the most pleasant. It was not her voice, nor anything she said. That sound of silence was all that roamed the air.

Words found no passage to follow. All he ever thought about saying a million times vanished in the field of unnecessary confusion. Each word could've been silly and childish at that timeless moment, so he spoke nothing. Nothing can take away his pain anymore. He knew that in his depth. But what can heal a broken-hearted man? A man filled with blindness and hate? "Love," they said, "it is the answer to everything." But no love can save him now. No touch can cure that sad, sad blind man.

"The things that I want." He found out that there is nothing more that can satisfy him. "Tears and rain are all I need. Tears and rain". It seemed as the sky cried when it heard that mournful voice of his. But what sorrow can't give pleasure? When it digs too deep inside to create a hole wide and empty. A gap to be refilled with all the things a man can choose, or to be left vacuous as a scar, something to remind us of everything we did wrong while we walked that short path of life, and the things we could have done better. A scar that manifests itself as a wish for a return, to the past, to that specific moment, to erase it, to make that choice we always thought about and wondered what could have changed if we made it instead. Oh, how great the need for that miracle to be possible in times like these! Still, you can feel the pain behind it. The suffering of a man who is desperate enough to wish for the impossible, just to make one different move. Yes, sorrow can delve a hole, but sometimes it creates a grave, to bury us in it while we wait for the other to come. Because a man can die twice in his life, both deaths are as deadly, both are as hurtful, but only in one, you might find peace.

She finally spoke. "Hello, you okay?". 

"Okay?" "The irony of that word; okay." he thought, "What is okay? What can make everything okay? What can take it all back and let the rivers continue their flow? Nothing, no sorry can help now. No love can take us back again, for we have wronged that holy mother. We have wronged everything we touched. But why I still want you? Why have I called you? Is there anything more to say? Why are you still stuck in my head when that hard truth is all I see, all I hear? If only... If only."

Something made him talk, his thoughts found a way to reach out to her so she can listen."I wish I can take it all back, to continue that path we were going through. How can I be okay without you? I want you to come back, the same way we were before. I need you, but it's not love that I need. Love, is merely an illusion, it's a mistake. We people tend to think of it as what any feeling of euphoria we get when we are with someone, it makes us selfish and self-centered. We like to own each other under its name. We are criminals for tarnishing that sublime word for our sick, twisted purposes."

"My God!" she screamed when she heard a voice coming from the other side of the phone, it made her scared even though she could not recognize what was it. She stopped him "What was that voice?"

"I don't know, I didn't hear anything. Maybe it came from the bar next to me. I'm sorry, I'm a little muddled."

"Okay, forget about the voice, just speak what you wanted to speak."

"I just wanted to say... I loved you, that is a fact. I just wanted you to be mine, just to make sure you will never leave. I deceived you and myself, and tried to convince everything that we are made for each other. But that was not the love I thought it was, only a fool's paradise. The truth is, I didn't want anything but to spend my whole miserable life with you. Not on the same bed, nor in the same house; only in my mind. That is the love I seek, I already found it in your lies, but I messed it up, I screwed up, I know that...." He stopped again, his words has been invaded by a wave of thoughts and questions, they had power over him, and the ability to freeze time and control it. "Can you really forgive? Can you really forget? Can you really return again? Can everything be erased? Can we move on? Have I been talking too much? How much time did pass? I should say something...."

Her voice interrupted him again. But what can she say more? Are there enough words to stop the pain? Is there any way to end the bleeding of these two hearts? Can the alluvion of tears and rain dry out?

"Are you here? Why are you not answering?"

"I'm sorry, I got lost in my thoughts. I..."

"Please answer me, I'm worried sick"

"I told you I... why are you acting like this? Can you hear me?" something felt weird. He noticed people were surrounding him, staring with a pale, feeble look. He screamed at them with fear "What is going on? What do you want?" but none of them answered. He left the phone hanging and started to turn around scared that they might hurt him, and then tried to escape when he saw a man with a blue suit and a dull face running towards him.

She heard screaming and crying coming from his side. "Hello!" the man said, "is there anyone on the phone?"

"Who is this?"

"This is the police. I am sorry ma'am, the man you were talking to has been found dead, he shot himself in the head. We are taking him to... Hello? Ma'am? Ma'am, are you still on the line?"

But there was no answer, she hanged up. The voice of the man fell heavy on her, like a rock falling from the 7th sky, that knocked her on the ground without leaving any power to stand up again or to stay aware of the world. She started crying like she never cried before, the way a newborn child cries when his eyes first meet the world, as if it realized what the rest of its life will look like. There was nothing left, nothing but a sound that holds the most painful story, and the most sorrowful truth. The sound of silence they call it, but it speaks more than any sound, more 

than any words could ever say.

He looked down at himself, and saw the black blood covering his visage, hiding the mask of tears and pain. Memories of everything he lived and faced rushed inside his head, and went to be forgotten forever. Love, life, death, all seemed to fade away into a dark tunnel, to leave nothing behind but a body and a lost soul, and too many unanswered questions.