The QuaranTEENS

The end of confinement allows us to physically find people we could not have had in the previous period. Even if you communicate with them through the ticket of technological means it is different to have the person in front of you.

In some reunion situation it may be strange to have the impression that the time elapsed has changed something between two people. By bringing them closer together because the separation is great and you realize how important it is to this person, or an indifference in the distance time that you could not explain.

The time that has passed makes us change our relationship into something different, we may also want to be forgiven for something produced as a bad farce, seeing in some people tried to continue despite all this joke that lasts for months because the person is “too” nice.

All this time far apart has brought us in some ways much closer to each other, because we never know until when we can continue to talk with that person.

The containment ended two days ago now, but of course everything did not return as before. The security rules are still in place and surely for a good time. What could be more normal after all to avoid an epidemic recovery, and a new containment.

Nothing will be like it was before, even when things have calmed down and a vaccine has been found.

This pandemic taught us to pay more attention to our hygiene by washing our hands more frequently (French being known for not really paying attention by washing our hands before meals and others), or even certain will perhaps avoid do the kisses to greet.

Have you noticed how people look at you when you are not wearing a mask, when it is not mandatory on the street but only in spaces with number influences. When you are alone on the sidewalk you meet a person a lot you look at you with an air or you have done something wrong.

Lots of things are changing, and nothing will really be the same, even if it is what we want.

Writing is all I’m doing right now, talking to some people too. But the rest of the time my mind is so overwhelmed that writing is the only way to calm it down. To be able to have the clear ideas, and to follow my underived thinking completely off my limits, to actually stay alive.

Here’s one of them.

He was smiling, that handsome man. He was young, and certainly had dreams full of his head. But he wasn’t smiling because he was happy. No, he wasn’t, he had misplaced his dreams in his shopping for pain. The pain had caught up with him by his dreams. He was not even strong enough to flee his nightmares. He was a broken man. But I would have loved to look like him so much. He was strong, gifted, tall. No physics but soul. Yes, he had a great soul that fascinated me. His frail hands could have killed anyone.

He was a good, fair, loyal being. But no one wanted to taste his righteousness and he had no one to be loyal to. He only had me and he didn’t even know. I remained his shadow, I was like the smile around his lips almost invisible, but present. He made me taste love, a new love, slow, sweet, sweet. But he didn’t know. He made me taste the hatred that had recently invaded me, the hatred that led me to want the death of his oppressors.

He wandered the streets like me in my thoughts. He was always there, everywhere I saw him. But he never spoke. No, he never opened his mouth. Finally, he avoided this drama.

He had blond hair, a beautiful ashen blond, and strands that always fall in front of his eyes. Even today, I don’t know the color of it. Maybe green like emerald? Jade? Blue like sea-aigue? Cobalt? Maybe even red like blood? I don’t know. I only know that I would have killed a thousand times to glimpse even a piece of his eyes, and a thousand times again to see a glimmer of hope shining there. But his eyes were more hidden than justice in this world.

He stole the smile from the stars and hung it around his lips. I imagined his beautiful white and regular teeth under his fine lips, but the truth is that I knew only of my bitter ignorance. I prayed for Love in the rain, to see him laugh one day, but this moment never came. So I kept watching it, every day, every moment of my life. I was watching over him, I hope to one day drive out his demons, who were haunting his thoughts like mine, I wanted to kill those kids who put him down as they had done with me. We were the same.

And that day, I followed him to the end of the world, because I was no longer alone. I saw Him looking at the city from the top of the cliff. The sun started to get tired of us and it was shedding in the daylight. I sat behind that tree, and looked at it with my eyes whose color I don’t know. I was staring at him, standing still, saying that this would stop the time. That was not the case. But I saw him turning his head in my direction, slowly, very slowly, and incredibly gentle. Her lips stirred. They had fangs as canines, and his teeth were white. Yes, his teeth were as sharp as blades, they could have shredded the necks of all the bullies of this world, they could have bleached all the idiots. They could’ve done so much. He was so beautiful. And he talked to me.

“Thank you”

And for a moment I suffocated. Not understanding. Her hair was getting lost in the wind. His body was floating in the air. Just before gravity catches up with him.

He jumped. And he was looking at me again.

He looked at me as his body, having failed to defy gravity as no one had, crashed to the ground. He was still staring at me, as I guessed the inside of his body imploding in shock. Her eyes remained open, her body laid like a doll of rag swung on the floor by a child tired of her hobby. He had jumped, looking at me, and had not even left me a drop of blood.

He had gray eyes.

At this time it is essential to stay at home to limit the spread of the disease, but for everyone it is very complicated.

Indeed, since the beginning of confinement I have seen through my window many people still come out, some family of my residence constantly in the course of the building in which I live to talk, play, bask in the sun, to the point where even people outside the residence come and go to talk with others. Of course, all this without complying with the instructions given by the government.

But when you think about it, you don’t say that staying locked up at home can drive some people crazy, especially the people alone or inadequately surrounded.

All of this because of the boredom, the feeling of turning round, the activities that we do have the long time, we do nothing anymore has the force of not knowing what to do, to end up in an impression of emptiness in our mind, all that we seek to do from then on serves only tried to fill this void in us.

From that moment on, the occupation search force, we do things that we would have tried without all that.

I’ve been writing a lot of short stories in the last few years, but I’ve been getting over it recently, and here’s one of them:

You wake up in the middle of the night. You’re half in the woods and your vision is pretty blurry. You lie on your back in bed. The only problem is that you can’t move. Actually, your body is paralyzed from head to toe. Only your eyeballs still have the ability to make movements. A little panicked, you try to raise one of your arms as your first reflex. Of course it is unsuccessful. Still, you try again and again. You’re starting to feel a little tiredness in your muscles. You’ve never had this experience before. You feel like hundreds of pounds lean against your body, which prevents any movement. The cold begins to make your skin shiver. You feel like your window has remained open while you remember closing it the day before. Fear is all at once. Stress also goes up, it gives a mixture of panic and terror. Without shouting beware, something gently blows against your ear. You can feel his icy breath running through your spine, while the sound of his wrecked breath reaches your ears. You panic even more, but you’re here, lying down, can’t do anything at all. Caught in fear, you try to wander around the room with your eyes when suddenly a dark and blurred humanoid face leans towards your gaze. You then spread your eyes and your breath accelerates. You feel like you’re suffocating. This face is slowly approaching. You see almost nothing as you are in the dark, but your eyes have had time to get used to the dark. The figure comes to rest and you feel his penetrating gaze staring at you with intensity. Fear transcends you, you close your eyelids strongly and pray in your head that it all stops. And here you have a light. “Why don’t I call for help?” do you think? You hear some noise coming from the next room. With a lot of difficulty, you’re trying to turn your head towards this one. During this moment, your neck refuses to follow the movement, but you decide to force the price of hearing the bones of it crack one by one, as if they were breaking. Happy that you finally managed to move a little, you opened your mouth gently. You feel that time is slowing and that this world is only a nightmare.
Open-mouthed, you shout with all your strength, calling for pitifully help. But all this in vain… no sound comes out of your throat. You feel helpless, helpless and this thing above you that always sets you without moving… You’d like to cry, but let’s cry the tears that won’t come out. At this moment, your greatest fear is to die or stay stuck in this position in the face of this morbid silhouette.

Eventually, you close your eyes again because fatigue will soon invade you. The next day you wake up sweaty. What happened? Did this really happen? Well, yes, all this is beautiful happened well… a sleep paralysis. Between awakening and sleep, at the mercy of the unhealthy spirit that lurks in your room, the worst scare often becomes reality.

Will you wake up before it’s too late?

If you’re like me, constantly thinking, even though it may end up hurting, then in this period of containment this thinking has to come to a head.

Thought of everything and nothing at the same time, the thing that does what we are today.

In the past and present, see our future: question yourself.

We think about how we behaved, and how we should have reacted instead, when nothing can be changed from the past. We remember the momentous moments that made us suffer or laugh in the shine. You can imagine what you would do in that moment, which is what you could see, what you would talk about, movement, speech and gesture. Part of the things that we are to the people around us, and that is part of us in personality, even though it is a façade to protect us. 

In this reflection we can understand a little more what we consider to be instinctive in our behavior. Understand that we could change to a better version of ourselves, seeing how many times we have hurt the people around us family, friends, strangers.

Would my question really be better if we thought about that for you?