Mumbling and Rambling To Tell a Story

Did you already read Hans Christian Andersen? Or Oscar Wilde? Maybe you venture yourself by reading Clarice Lispector or, perhaps, Gabriel García Marquez. If you read any of the books from Marion Zimmer Bradley congratulations. She was ingenious and I’m still trying to buy three of her amazing and difficult to find books.

Anyways… If you are familiar with one of the texts, don’t expect too much from me. I am far, so far away from their talent. They were brilliant, and I sometimes think they received a gift from the heavens. Their soul will never be forgotten because the simple paper absorbed it. All the emotions, the thoughts, the burning desire of being free… all was kept in which and everyone of their books, filled with the words they wrote.

The printed book with it black ink allowed the writers to shown themselves, without mask, without clothes.

Wish I could do that. I only did it once, but I’m still, almost and easily forgettable. Unlike a few friends of mine that seem to be a well born prodigy.

For those who have writing skills I’m sorry if my story doesn’t touch your heart, caress your mind or please you eyes. But I beg you: don’t blame me for trying. For those who don’t recognize any of the writers, by gods! Still keep reading my text for if, by a long and distant shot in the pouring rain, you like it, try to gain culture by reading these incredible icons.

I would like to initiate my story with the good old “once upon a time”, but that would be making myself equal and alike the Brothers Grimm. Or I can create a character intriguing and seduction, but I could risk be taken as a pushover and according to Alexander Dumas I don’t have the abilities to create such a character because I didn’t live long enough to know the men; I don’t have the age of an inventor so I should limited myself to tell what I saw.

I would like to tear the page where this phrase is written by its contents, but the expression is beautiful and I’d had to cut the first page of his most famous book or burn every example in the whole world. That’d be insane, and I haven’t come to this point of delusion yet.

Which reminds me: read, if you like, Fahrenheit 451 – not Michael Moore’s video – from Ray Bradbury, his futurist vision in 1950 was fantastic. Tragic story about burning books and society brainwash.

Forgive me, I’m mumbling a lot. I think I get this spirit from sombrous Mr. Poe. His sentences and paragraphs were enormous. And frequently made no sense with the real point of his tale. I’m supposed to tell you a story and I intend to do it, sorry if you had to endure this so far. Let me begin finally.

This story is about a girl, a simple and ordinary girl. The one thing peculiar was that at the age of eleven, she didn’t fancy herself with dresses and silver jewelry to await her gorgeous prince. At that age she read books. Tons of them.

You see, she was, as some would say, a bookworm. And addicted for words and passionate of worlds; she believed she’d be dead if she spent too long of a time away from her books.

This was the main reason for, if one try, always find her in a library with a book under her arm. Tough hidden herself in rooms with nothing but the solitude she never had felt alone. She met different places, different people, different ages… it was hard to be boring. But in remotes times, she feels the silence, so she goes to the outside world.

In the real world she had friends in her neighborhood and school; she played a lot with them when little. She still knows most of them and they chatted everyday. But when, sometimes she opens a book in front of them, they feel neglected. They think she was making a choice of somehow, and they were her second option of entertainment.

Little did they know that she kept doing this for sharing with her friends, her pleasure, and rejoiced from both, the well come company from friends and the beauty of the delicate letters on the paper.

And poor little thing! Sensing their somewhat annoyance she step away from them every so often and lock herself away.

They worried about her for a few time, as any friend would be. They say she was secluding herself from social life, from them, but they didn’t exactly enjoyed her outburst of emotion; according to them, it looked false. And oh how it hurts to listen to that! Why couldn’t they understand that she simply finds difficult to expose her feelings? Was so hard to understand that she couldn’t expose them? Even if she wanted, she too feels it was a fake lie. Nevertheless if she couldn’t show it truthfully, she wouldn’t show it at all.

Simple as that. Two plus two is four; sometimes five… And for that reason, and that reason alone, she was out with them for social gathering – like her sociology teacher says, she was borne to live in society. But what’s the point? The books were a lot better than her life experiences. She has wronged in that question as she realized their jokes and her laughing.

They came at the age of thirteen and the reticent girl who rarely shows was there; she was free… The girl who would die to save the books has grown, it seems the spell was broken, but she has yet to let go of her unique world.

She struggles to get to her books, once in awhile, and kept her eyes stubbornly in it, not in the dating games, nor on the boys in the party. And if she did, they make sure she would regret it.

Gossips, rumors, talks… Annoys the depths of her soul. How come she still has the nerve for listen to it, I have no idea.

She refused to experience what they offer, it’s not because she was afraid, nor it was because she felt disgusted. She felt furious only, for disrespecting her decision. She was tired, so tired of explain that she didn’t wanted to hang out with someone just because he was cute and they made a very long eye contact.

Gods! It is this hard to believe that she don’t want to date anyone even tough she dances cheek with cheek, chest to chest with the boy on her front?

She likes to dance, that’s it. But girl, sweet girl knew it wasn’t all this. Sure she likes to be embraced, but she was libresca¹. Unconsciously she made a promise, and she kept it, engorged it, dreamed and idealized it. And she suffers now with this reliance.

Her life depends on the books. She lived and died so many times when reading… She experienced the childhood, the youth, the elder-ness and even the after death, only reading… She has danced, kissed, fell in love, killed, gave birth, poisoned a king… Over and over and over.

All that she could live she lived, charming woman in a teenager’s body. And maybe that’s why she didn’t love anyone in a so crazy vicious way. Her friends didn’t understand sometimes when they say they love her and she sometimes answers ‘thanks’. It was good to her to feel accepted. She may not love anyone differently from the way she loves her family or close friends, but she could loathe someone from time to time.

It was immensely more easy to loathe: you don’t have to know the other’s opinion and you put your emotions only in a condition, a unique shape. Love was incredibly more difficult.

She grew and so did her friends, allowing now her body to process slowly what her mind already knew. And for the boy that arrives in a white horse she would simply dismiss him as she had already done to brave gentlemen before, for she already knew him, and all of them.

Her eyes would stare to the horizon, as long as they could, not really seeing something, but imagining things or thinking in the blank, which was impossible. Her thoughts she writes them down in a paper, in moments of solitude, when no one would disturb her, except she herself starts to be disturbed. Always, always in her texts she would find a flaw, not the common flaw, the one purposely settled in the middle of the story with finality, but the flaw of the reality. She couldn’t write feeling the truth on her words, and she hated it.

The difficulty of showing emotions ruins her texts, ruins her stories, ruins her life. And she didn’t know what to do anymore; it worked so well to her during all those years, and now that. She can not stand any longer the remarks of her friends, her family, strangers she only knew for a day – you should be more active, you should be more ambitious, you should talk your opinions – her mind is weary and her body exhausted.

She appreciate the value those people place on her, but she cares no more about whether or not she has a boyfriend. Shouldn’t be anyone’s trouble the fact that she didn’t have very friends, they shouldn’t mind if she doesn’t like to participate. It’s such a nuisance. The fact that everybody’s concern should make her a better person, she comprehends they worry, but she was feeling more and more distress every time she had to repeat: I know, I already know… But they don’t seem to listen.

All this argument about her person drained each and all fibers of force from her. She stayed like this person for so long that she doesn’t know really who she is. But her lethargic attitude made her apathetic to look the answer, she doesn’t care anymore, others shouldn’t as well.

Looking like that she was a mere reader, but words know how much she had suffered trying to explain things she wouldn’t show to anyone, things she prefers to keep it quiet, things that would enlighten her – and she didn’t knew yet if she want to be found by the blinding light – and give away the secrecy of the shadows.

For the most part of her time, she doesn’t like the dark of her room – she find it terrifying – but she thinks the shadows soothing, in a strange way, in her way. She finds relaxing, knowing everything is in the right place, even tough she don’t visit with frequent.

But Art has a mysterious way to interact with humans, and as a silent breeze she opens the door few have trespassed. A stirring music that enters in the ears and reach the larynx, forcing the cords to vibrate and follow it and sang; the same music that oblige her body to move, feeling its beats; a dance, the best way to expose your unconscious thoughts, and how she endure those consequences.

Repent and pleasure, for her, are always unites. Because she couldn’t have one, the other was right behind. She experiences this for so long… And for that she doesn’t like to talk about certain things – to avoid discussion – and don’t like to touch – to prevent emotions.

But not everyone follows her rule. In the world forever will be burglars. And what attack they make, destroying everything you have, taking everything you keep.

His terrible attitude affects her mind, his behavior provokes a blush she had never lost to come in her face. His body tempts and forces hers to succumb and his voice voices questions that she prefers escape and not hear. But his lips are demanding and his tactics subtle and even tough she read every book on her bookshelves, remember and feel millions of their phrases, she can’t say none of them, not to him.

Becomes harder and harder to think when he nuzzles her neck – sensitive part – and stops the messages the brain sends to a supposed-to-be-a-pushing-arm. He asks and she complies – almost on her own thought by now – activating skin cells, shivering because of that, and closing her eyes. It’d be only for a few moments but oh how it was hard to ignore. Lord of himself in a crowd he becomes a humble and taunting vassal in a room, and his requests didn’t change, meeting after meeting.

He couldn’t swear loyalty and duty, both of them knew it, but the incredible warmth that he spreads in her whole body with a touch is part of the bargain. She could turn him down, but the thought never completed in her mind, he doesn’t let her ever, pressing themselves in a nearby wall. He offers her a different vision of her books, the body language – effetely more understandable – he offers her interpretation to life, to write; he offers her him. And all he asks in return, his reward, is her open mind, heart and perhaps legs. Like a pirate he gains a golden coin every time she shivers and like a gambler he lost the double when aiming too high.

Fast the time goes. And the moments pass, also the hours; months later the people still surrounded her, in slow motion or fast as she wasn’t in there… They say time passes quickly when we have fun, and they say as well that time passes slow when you are bored. For her, Time is a deceiving and tricky thing that has for main clumplike the Destiny, and Destiny never liked her.

Was because of them she was like this, and because she was like this they became her rock in her way. “Tinha uma pedra no meio do caminho, no meio do caminho tinha uma pedra.”² They’d do everything in their power to injure her.

She doesn’t have the time that she had years ago, but like a jealous lover she crave her eyes in the naked beauty the books always show. It became her addiction even tough she didn’t seek for privacy – that much – to enjoy a not so secret pleasure.

Without a dense shield she feels the attack so much strong this time. She forgot what it was to be punished moved by friendship, by insane curiosity, by a will stronger than her. Must be all of her decisions the wrong one? As the years pass by, it is not your responsibilities that grown, is the time you dispose to take care of them that lessen. The chalk board on your mind remains the same size but the squares of priority gets smaller and you have to rearrange it. Time was difficult, and you could suffer under his wishes.

Without time she was bombarded by her friends, and not to long after that, she was fusilladed in a small room. She first realized the attack when the dark body covered her with it warm temperature.

She didn’t have the strength to fight more: Time was greedy too, takes all to himself, even disposition.

She was melting in his arms, marvelous feeling, and could only ask for more, the wrapped fingers entwined on his hair and the deep sigh she exhaled was his invitation. Like she was shuddering under his fingers was her soul beneath his eyes, eyes that asks too much. She wanted to say “can we talk about this later?” but the knowing laughter and the craving hands she heard and feel changed her mind.

Destiny shows its smiling face once more and this time she smiles too. Perhaps he was the dashing prince she imagined after all, the one who would make her a princess. Time and Destiny sure does funny thing with humans… So the curiosity and wish formed long time ago came true and could be finally be satisfied, for he asked and, as she wrapped her arms on his neck, she whispered her answer in his ear.

She allowed him to take her to the world even if its methods haven’t been the traditional ones. He explain her everything with his body language, been rewarded every time she dig her nails on his back and silently cries his name. He still makes her utterly mad, as her friends realized but at least she is capable to write on her own, like they always said she would.

Maybe she can create a character now, she didn’t live long enough to know the men but yet a man taught her how to live. Is the end of the story now and tough I would like to say this story is over, for the girl it just started.

……………. Jubbles clarifying…………….:

¹ I couldn’t find a word in English for this adjective. In the brazilian dictionary, ‘livresco’ is something acquire from readings, not from experience.

² A famous sentence from Carlos Drummond de Andrade, it could be translate by ‘there was a rock in the middle of the way, in the middle of the way was a rock’.