Damned Words

Candlelight

It was someone drowning. Who was going to say it! Now that I know, I see it, but ... Who would have imagined it! Looking at it in the calm of silence, in the light of the dancing candle; it looks very clear. The light of my candle, takes everything out to view. It looks like a doll that dilates, grows and then contracts. From very close, we saw some sparks of water, something that stirred, shadows, splashes, movement. Plash !, Plash! Too close. We were too close. You know, details are lost, you can't see properly. It could be assumed that they were jumping fish, tangled trunks, or river waves, anything. My light brought me the omen. It was late, twelve o'clock at night, and I had had nightmares. I took the picture for having it for later. Don't you know how to take pictures of the omens? Well, look at it, here I have it, sometimes it costs me too. What... don't you see it? I do it with these eyes, where the cyclones have gone out. I focus, shoot, record, interpret, exclusively with my eyes. I turned on my light in the middle of insomnia to scare off the bats and to help me paint my picture.
You don't understand me, but bats are annoying to live, as well as those auguries and residual events. We retreat a little farer to see better, perhaps, we moved too far. Haven't you done it? One walks away, puts distance in between, and sees better. Say that to me, that even I have put miles interspersed to understand. Separated, we saw the river, great, bright. The shores appeared, the trees, part of the landscape with the silver snake lying, where a point was moving.
Was it possible to imagine? It was impressive, I say the stamp in the light; shaking, although, the full view would be better. From a distance you see things that, closer, we confused. I already told you. I remember that the breeze invited me to move further away. The breeze that now scares my candlelight; that it shakes itself. The flame of delirium! I am sorry to see it, bowed, twisted, scared, fast, and always fragile; as a rising hope, as is the illusions of war; about changing the world.
From there the point was almost unseen. Only the landscape, the blue running water, was maybe running for help. How to know! Like... in the photo, the picture of living nature, of colors, was drawn. It was an immense river, with islands inside. We even saw clouds, birds flying. A colored, splendid image; where it could have been seen, in case of approaching, of wanting to see it, a human figure that revolved, sank and went out desperate. A being that plunged into fear, drowned in water. It comforts me to know that it was only fear of death, that it was hardly fear of the abyss of the unknown. My candlelight also reveals your fears; the breeze is the worst of your fears, do you know?
It reminds me of my fears from when I was a child; when I feared death. I putted an hourglass on my table. I saw the grains fall like volatile time’s fragments. Merge into the past, to let it going, the irreversible film reel where there would be fewer and fewer frames to pass.
Obviously, Sir! before the guerrilla. I inspected the unpublished tape, grouped, folded into consecutively scattered images, which would melt the course of the weeks; they leave, consumed, shattered; Just like the edges of my candle collapse, letting the light float in a puddle of liquid. It is a friendly liquid. It let the light living, reflect on the flat surface of melted sperm. It laughs, moves flirtatiously, is pleased to share its happiness, sing it, give it away. Ignore that bliss is ephemeral, you should know. It hurts to see it to giving; innocent. Dilapidate its joy, like once we squandered what we should take care of. The peaceful routine of being clean is invaluable. I have to go to the bathroom. To take a Breathe, recompose me. No, let's finish it. Anyway, in short, everything is ephemeral, like the light of my candle. Right now, I saw it jumping, shaking; get restless like a fearful little bird, for a simple breath of the blessed air. Look at it, how childish! I am touched to see its childish fears; that will leave, it will not suffer about it, the same way I stopped having the fear because of I was going to die.
It passed without I know; Inadvertently, I think it was the custom of bullets. Already by then I had stopped suffering many things. Among them, the habit of believing in what the papers and people say. I want to teach my candle, to suggest not to fear the unknown more than the known. My poor candlelight does not know that the air he fears is also what gives its life. I sinned because of the same.
I left the weapons, because I already feared the weapons. The dilemma that the defending weapons they are the same killing weapons. I was told once:
"In these corners, it is dangerous to go armed, but it is more dangerous to go unarmed." How? What ... Who told me? I will tell you. My candlelight reflected its figurine in the barrel of my gun. It glided through the cold black steel, walked playfully, determined to ignore the aggressive breeze that made it fear; it is already past.
I decided to stop dragging the past. My naive candlelight has no past. That can be a benefit, even more if you have a life full of scars. Surely you will understand me. I like to see it calm, to shine serenely; stretch thin as in an attempt to reach the unattainable. In the middle of the incandescent puddle that is its own result.
Do you see what I say? Me too, I believed I was imperturbable, courageous; while carrying my thinness, with my insignificance of a mortal aliened, planning a future, probably unattainable, that floated in a sea of abstract purposes; just equally hot and it was my corresponding consequence. It's true, officer, it has nothing to do with it. We are not talking about that, however, yes, it has to do. That night, shattered in conjecture, I was stubborn with insomnia. My candlelight put in front of me the relaxing image of a paradisiacal panorama, to help me, give me peace.
I grabbed the picture grateful, without thinking, without detailing the tiny object that turned in the fast channel. What could I think about it! We discover when we want to discover.
How did I see it? If...do I believe in premonitions? Can I be accused of such a thing? I already explained to you. By the other hand, the premonitions can help us, if we want to understand, allowing you to move forward or backward, it is the only way. Move forward or backward what? Look, I'm going to tell you.
In a moment, imagining what might come from looking at the gun so much, I saw that I gave me a shot to myself. Why? It's long to say it now. I just tell you that I saw that. Then, it was twelve o'clock in my watch. The sound woke my wife, my children, who ran terrified to where I was with a pierced forehead, dripping my brains.
They got me up, shouted, tried to revive me. They grabbed my watch, which showed ten past twelve. I felt the sorrow of abandoning them, I heard my predecessors warning me that I could not leave just like that, that I was not allowed to leave these defenseless people unprotected. Then I got back, I placed my watch's hands in the previous hour; at twelve. It was an early morning, when I didn't have the light of my candle. Things returned to their place. It was twelve o'clock again; I was sitting at my desk with the gun aside. Do you get it? I commented that it is long to explain. I would have taken a shot for being a fool, letting myself be fooled by the story that the dead of war don't weigh.
I loved Alfrelio's son. If I imagined it, I would have told him. My children and their boy grew up together. The boy one evening of those that I sit to contemplate my light had told me:
"You are going to catch fire, you and all your old papers."
"How could I Imagine? How would I know about the boy and his trip to the river! The little dark spot was Alfrelio's son. I told him and also told him about the photo, but he saw nothing when I showed it to him. He didn't even see the picture."
"You don't see it either, instead, you say I'm guilty. What the hell guilty am I? The documents you show me, which is what declared who the hell knows; gossips."
The light of my candle says that they want to entangle and involve me. I do not understand what reasons there may be. And ... according to you, you don't talk about Alfrelio's son, but about the other despicable. The degenerate stood in front me to explain.
What happens is that I was not going to believe another of his tricks. Let me turn it on again. The light of my candle goes out whenever I speak of the unhappy. The convict hooked a lie to the preceding one.
His boasting of connoisseur stunk. Deception, lies, he did nothing different. He said he was going with Alfrelio's son to the river. I had the idea of going after them, because I imagined something was going up.
I thought to ask to my light, but as I say, it goes out every time we talk about that miserable being. Alfrelio's boy had asked me for the gun, I didn't ask him what for.
I didn't even know about that woman.
Yes, it's true. She had been my wife, that is, not my wife; we spent some years together. She wanted to have a child, but ... she was like a little girl.
I should take care of her. She boosted me with her happiness; she didn't think it was ephemeral. We plan to have a son. We thought to see him to grow.
I was strong, full of dreams, convinced that I could reach the unattainable; to get a little land, have a house for both of us. I left the guerrilla. Maybe they wouldn't ask me for anything, I wanted to live in peace. With my job, I would buy a little land. I told her the truth; that I had been in the war, that, I had a hanging past, a dead family. She gave me encouragement, told me that about her, she had neither past, nor family. She had only me. It's finally over. Forget it, I explained, about the scars.
Some time passed and she linked up with Alfrelio's son. I never told him. The boy was in love. I spoke with my light, I told it and it understood me.
You ... have surely felt on occasion, warmed by that damn fever that separates us from the good judgment. In the flame of my bad nights, I contemplated the youthful face that now did not belong to me anymore, that I was going to respect, to let her having the life that she really should have.
It was going to be another name from the past, but I as tell you, I had to do without the past; I had no choice. On a night of rage I burned it, burned it mercilessly, burned the old past and I was about to burn the future because of the fucking uncertainty of what was to come.
The light of my candle consumed it, without suspecting that not only me would know that the bastard would violated the little girl. Gossip ran through the entire town, without my knowing. I knew the night I turned on my light, like every night. It may be difficult to understand. I turned it on, pushed it away from the breeze she fears.
Only then did it speak to me.
I say to talk, because it is a way of saying.
What it did was to make me understand that the belly she carried was not from Alfrelio's son, but from the other bastard. It revealed to me what the whole town already commented; that the evildoer had violated her, a day when the poor woman was alone, trying to survive, trying to rebuild her life, to keep up with the miserable money she got from selling used clothes.
From wandering around so much, the son lost him. Alfrelito didn't love her anymore, because of the comments. What could you understand! Those who live without hardship do not know.
Don't believe me; ask to the candle's light! Know about what it is to live from the charity of those who do not care. By the way, I should also ask you, why do it waited until the fatal night of my nightmare to let me know. I painted the picture naively. I did not notice the small dark spot that was moving. I could never know who it was. I do not want to ask my light, because the light of my candle, everything clears up without preambles. Of course, I could guess. You maybe already did. You already deduced that if the one who stood in front of me, next to the boat, where the oars were still there, was the shameless guy… you can imagine who was drowning in the river.
My candlelight tried to let me know. Approaching me, moving away, putting it in my sight, but I didn't understand.
Notice, that not even now you understand me. You may understand me better if I tell you that the moment I reached them, that...I saw him with the gun he had lent to Alfrelio's son ... I told him it was dangerous to be armed. I told you; I don't like guns. I hate them for the grudges of war. The motherfucker knew it. I told him it was dangerous to be armed. He scoffed, pointed at me and said that in those far places, it was dangerous to go armed and more dangerous to go unarmed, in lands where a shot was not going to be heard. That I was a nosy and a cuckold in love with the pity whore. That he was going to make me pay what they didn't make me pay when I left the guerrillas.
I didn't let him say anything more. I grabbed a stake and hit him until he released her. Although he had the courage to try to deceive me, to stand in front of me and try to invent the lie he was going to tell me.
That Alfrelio's son had taken him there to kill him. That he finally was able to take out the Alfrelio son's gun and let him to go. If I knew, I would have asked him, who was the one who was drowning in the river.
I had almost lowered my anger. I was going to let him going, when he began to comment about the girl, he came up with the story that he raped her because she liked that, that it was a pity whore.
I grabbed the stake and hit enough until he dropped the gun, nor did he have the courage to shoot. I was going to shoot and remove definitely such a disgusting bugger, but as I say I do not like weapons and my gun does not get muddy of whatever crap. “If you kill one with a shot”, said an ancestor, “it should be worthwhile to spend a shot on him”.
And my predecessors were generous people; they didn't think it, to spend shots. “If someone knocks on your door”, said another, “if you can't invite him to dinner, don't open the door”. With you, I opened it because there is plenty for both of us.
See who my people were. The light of my candle and I, we remember them. It tells me that... one of my grandparents told it, that he was going to have a son, that was going to have a son, and that the son of the son's son was going to stop in jail.
If it was me, he should clarify that it was for killing a son of a bitch who deserved it. Now, take this fucking gun and throw it away, the iron doesn't burn with fire.
We can't burn it with the fire of my candle.
Although, it is good to say, that it has been enough to burn so many other things that I am eternally grateful. Moreover, I have changed my mind. The shooting to my self was a stupid bad night, and my watch broke, so I could not be able get back. The other, the hourglass remain forgotten in the room of useless junk.
The aforesaid hooligan's matter, with that other mentioned paper, I recommend stopping believing in people and papers; they have the same origin and the same end.
In the photo, looking at it in detail, nothing is seen. The diffuse spot that you said, that in my foolish remorse looked like a human figure, could be dirt on the table, and by the way, it did not move, was false perception.
If you find that poor woman, tell her to sleep peacefully.
I can go with you, to lock me in jail, or... if not, just turn off the candle and go by the same way you came. I have done some work for you.