Visions

After putting the pieces together, her life became a tapestry of ironies. On one side, she was a loving mother by today's standards, but on the other side, she instrumented the demise of everybody who opposed her husband.

My fear manifested in the form of a multi-headed spawn. It lived inside my closet and crawled towards me when I turned the light off. Its faces were of those who had spoken ill of my father. Envy was the spawn's driven force. Forgiving who offended my dad's memory was my only weapon.

“Oh, Edna! Whisper to me those dirty secrets that make my life seem perfect. And in turn, you may indulge in being the center of attention before being irrelevant again.” 

“We both crave for these moments of divine immortality, don't we?”

 “Most certainly, darling.”

“Laugh at life” 

“Why?” 

“Because life takes itself very seriously, and laughing piss it off.” 

“Oh, that's our defense.” 

“You got it.”

“Ladies aren't fit for the interplanetary fleet,” so they said. 

“Your heart is too frail to endure the hardships of space,” so they said in the space academy. Nowadays, she's commanding the first solo mission to Ganymede. 

Hers is a story of resilience.

My home star is now just a blinking yellow dot in the darkness of night.

My life is no more than a grain of sand in the eternity of space.

“You’re my muse, my inspiration, my darling!” 

“Are you certain that this is an abstract painting?” 

“As sure as I can be, darling.” His eyes squinted while a smile of satisfaction appeared on his face. 

“Isn’t it … amusing?” 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

He spent years fighting that illusory perception of self, by merging with the background, by trying to be invisible, but he failed every time.

Finally, he understood that the real challenge was not to get lost, but to find himself, and then he found permanent serenity.

Lazy Saturdays chewing bubble gums, the candy perfume in the air, and mean looks at horny boys became routine those days. 

Our act was well rehearsed, but my satisfaction was incomplete.

“Our top priority is climate change,” so our leaders said to gain people's support. 

Seventy years later, our cities are flooded and radioactive, and we still addicted to oil. 

Our leaders? They're safe and healthy in the new orbital city. Bastards!

The last combat was a disaster for us. The aftermath of survivors was zero. The verdict was capitulation. 

Their delegate claimed Venus as a price. Nikita opposed, infuriated; the rest of the countries agreed with disdain: better Venus than Earth.

An angel, a messenger, white as a dove, silent as a ghost, appeared next to me. “You have to retake your life,” he said to me in soundless words. 

My hearth was pounding, my hands were trembling, not only by the apparition, but rather by his missive.

Breaking with the traditional family gathering, Julio embarked on a trip to Milan, unknowing that this would be his last. 

His final text message to his mother was trivial, forgettable, and yet she treasured it as the last words of his son.

A black blizzard hit our farm in 1931, and we were unprepared. 

“Who did it?” said uncle Joe while driving. 

“It was God” replied aunt Marie with her sweet voice. 

I listened to their conversation from the back sit; I was scared. Years after, they called it the Dust Bowl.

That moonless night, I adventured too deep into the forest, poorly armed and alone, tracking a prey that was nothing but a bait. 

Fool of me for ignoring their warnings. 

The rumbling roar and the fetid stanch of the amarok anticipated the cruel truth: I was the prey. 

It wasn't difficult for the simulation of Jimi Hendrix to retake his posthumous position of the best guitar player. 

I attended the dinner through my remote avatar, this time I was a white angel, though no one seemed to care. 

The party was a success!

The next time jump took me to a time when people listened to the starts to find out if they were alone, ignoring the quiet call for help of those living on the same planet. Ironic.

Adventuring back in time even further, I saw emblems of forgotten troubadours, prophets of fallacies that never came true. This ancient culture was full of contradictions. It would take years of study for our best scholars.

“Greetings native creatures of this realm,” the alien said with a crispy voice. “We travel to distant planets to answer a capital question for our civilization: how can creatures with different sexes cohabitate?” 

Uncle Jack replied after a while: “We just need of each other, that’s it!”

His answer perplexed the visitors, who said no more and left at once.

Our story begins in a point outside space, and a time before the beginning. One morning we noticed a rainbow, a white cloud in the sky, the feeling of warm light on our hands. That marks the verge of awareness. Becoming oneself means to be fragmented, alone. And since that moment, we keep seeking to reunite. That's our struggle.