The Imaginary Life

The Beach

If not now, then when?

I'd promised myself I wouldn't go back over your photos or e-mails but, since I don't mind going back on my word, today I did something much worse. I looked for that video we shot at the beach and played it on my TV so that the images flooded the living room. I turned off the lights and hit play.

It's a beach in Asturias. The sky is a little cloudy, and the sea is choppy. You start recording, and the camera pans from the mountains to the shore. You can be heard breathing. My voice can be heard, calling to you from afar:

"Beto, come! Look how high the waves are!"

You turn the camera on me. Over my bikini, I'm wearing a long-sleeved white shirt that's too big for me since it's yours.

"Don't get too close, Nata; the sea is pretty rough!"

"Come, hurry! Hurry!"

"OK, but don't get too close! Stay where you are. I'm on my way!"

You break into a run, the camera pointing toward me, and the picture goes haywire.

"It's amazing," you say when you catch up. "Look at the waves breaking."

You zoom in on the sea.

"Isn't it? Doesn't it blow your mind?"

The camera pans out.

"Don't get any closer, Nata...."

"I'm just going to dip my feet in, it'll be fine....Hey! Look! Seagulls! Look how many there are! There must be more than a hundred. Over there on the shore, cool as ever, as if we didn't exist....Watch how they scatter when I run over!"

"Ha! Hang on; I want to record it properly!"

"Hold on, hold on, I'll just put my hair up..." I approach the camera. My ugly mug fills the entire screen as I fasten on a hairpin. I make dumb faces. "There we go! Do I look pretty like this?"

"I'll say!"

I kiss the lens without quite touching it.

"Is the video turning out OK?"

"A little all over the place but whatever!"

"Hey, it's better that way, just like life. It's better when it's all over the place! Check out the seagulls! I want to get around like that too...." I sprint toward the seagulls, my arms outstretched as if I were flying. "Look at me flying, Beto. Look at me flying!"

The seagulls take to the air as soon as I'm among them, but for a few seconds, my arms in your white sleeves blend in with their wings.

The video comes to an end, and the screen fades to black.

My living room goes completely dark.

And completely empty.

I'm still in Asturias.

"You're as mad as a hatter, Nata. Come on, put your pants on; you'll catch cold."

You turn off the camera and put it back in your backpack. I reach you. "Oh damn, my feet are wet and we don't have a towel....No, not with your sweater you idiot, it'll get covered in sand!"

"That's all right, we'll dry it off later. I don't want you to catch a cold. Come over here and sit with me. The sun'll go down soon...."

"OK."

I put my pants on and huddle into your chest. You wrap your arms around my waist.

"Look how beautiful the light is and how blue the sea is getting...."

"When I was little," you say, your chin resting on my shoulder, "I loved to come down to this beach and stay here by myself until after it got dark...."

"Doing What?"

"Nothing much...taking it easy...thinking."

"About what?"

"Nothing...stuff."

"What sort of stuff?"

"I thought that one day I'd get a boat and cross the oceans. I'd sail the seas and stop off for a while in one place, and then another, and another, and so on...Always on the move, getting to know new places and new people. No house, no school, no one to tell me off, no homework to do..."

"And where would you stop?"

"The beaches of Brazil, then Uruguay, and after that Río de la Plata..."

"All Alone?"

"Sure. The thought still crosses my mind every now and then."

"It'd be cool, eh? No clients, no campaigns, no alarm clock ringing, no invoices..."

"Exactly. Why don't we do it, Nata? We could quit our jobs, sell your place and mine, and hit the road. We could leave empty-handed, no money, on an adventure..."

"Sure, and I can take a dip in the sea every now and then and shake myself dry the way ducks do. Brrrr...Just like that."

"Ha, ha, you've lost it. I mean it, Nata. I don't like life here; it bores me. It bores me to work every hour God gives us just to make money to buy stuff. It bores me to think that that's our idea of making it. I don't want to live in a world like this, where everything seems to be laid out and ordered with no room for spontaneity. That's not the freedom I dreamed of. Freedom is something else."

"But for that, you have to change the world."

"Well let's change it then! I refuse to conform to the world in which I was raised.

I don't want us to find ourselves slumped on the sofa, wondering who we are because we no longer recognize ourselves. I'd die if that were ever to happen to us. The afternoons on the sofa watching TV and saying nothing because we have nothing to say to each other—that would be the death of me. I don't want to have sex just because it's expected, to have kids because it's expected, to go on vacation because it's expected, or anything else because it's expected. That way points to death, Nata, and I want life. I want a boat. A boat means freedom."

"And why are you telling me all this?"

"Because I know you understand me. I never thought I would meet anyone who gets who I am, but then you came along and I knew, I knew you were the one. I can't put my finger on it, but I knew the very first time I set eyes on you. It's as if a fairy had crept up and whispered in my ear: 'She's the one.'"

"Beto..."

"Yes?"

"How come a fairy told you this when there's no such thing?"

"Sure there is, silly. One of these days you'll come across one...."

"That's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible in this world, Nata. Well, only one thing is impossible..."

"What's that?"

"That I should ever stop loving you."

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Woah....Its getting deep! lol
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