Acoustic darkness

While Diego waited, his anatomy insistently pumped memories through his veins that continually and aggressively impacted his heart and brain. He was nostalgic, lost in the deathly white of the room's walls as an incandescent light fiercely illuminated the waiting room. Every time he heard a sound across the aisle, he sat up in the seat waiting for someone to approach the room and provide an answer, although that answer could only come from the lips of one person and he was no longer present.

The hands of the clock, which rang sharply from the top of the wall, seemed to discover time, making it deadly, precise, elusive and omnipotent. Time was running its course despite the fact that since he had arrived it seemed to have frozen; Two hours didn't seem like much when you shut yourself in your own thoughts in a static room, but inviolable time designates an eternity that cannot be returned.

His reddened sclerae and the shadows under his eyes denoted not only that the man was exhausted but that he had not slept and had cried. Since the call he received the night before, his whole life had been altered, he fell apart in an instant, like those towers of cards that with a slight blow of the wind crumble his structure leaving a vast shapeless pile on its base.

It was Monday, everything had happened on Sunday. What if everything could be changed? In his mind he did, he changed the past, it seemed possible. What if he hadn't answered the call, would it have made a difference? No, in reality it does not work like that, the time continues its firm and continuous course, and probably if he had not answered the call, only the moment in which he had heard the news would have changed.

That Monday he should have gotten a response that would change his life. He had everything planned to ask the big question, he had even prepared a short speech and memorized it the previous afternoon, he had bought blue roses, a bottle of champagne, he had even downloaded that cloying song that talked about cats and unicorns weaving a thread for the eternity.

But instead, when he picked up the phone half asleep on Sunday night, he discovered, in a brief moment, what loneliness is. An agonizing moment that makes you understand that time is inevitable and irreversible and that living is only a reflection of a passing moment that enters with the first ray of light in the morning and disappears with the unbreakable arrival of a farewell. He understood that time is an accurate stab to the heart that breaks the senses, a sudden shot to the brain that crumbles logic and reason. The seconds were reflected in memories, in diluted moments of contact between their bodies. He discovered that the sweat on his back would never again adhere to his chest, he understood that he would never again feel the hot air escaping from his lungs, or the scent of his skin, or the steam of body rubbing.

That Sunday morning began without being able to avoid it and now Diego understood that he would like to repeat that dawn, change the farewell, avoid the last hug that marked his departure, destroy that ritual that started the fearsome time, because it is true, even if just a second elapsed time prevents you from returning, even for a second, or even for an entire century. The time that elapses dies within itself, and dilutes any hope of closeness, that last hug became the last and true one and that's how he discovered that he was trapped in himself and that was the same as being trapped in solitude.

The sound of the stretcher wheels moving his boyfriend's body made him react. He rose to meet him but the medical examiner warned him to stay away. He was petrified when he discovered the silhouette of Alex, his life partner, hidden under a white blanket, not like while sleeping, it was not like that, it was different, strange, absent, distant, painful, final. He only detailed his bare inert left hand on the stretcher, his ring finger still bare, it was inevitable not to cry. His heart was broken. What would have he answered? He asked himself once again. He saw the gurney move with his dead body, he saw them cross the threshold, he watched them until the door closed.

He waited a couple of hours in silence, sitting, holding his legs until the doctor left the place. He couldn't contain himself, waited for the man in white to walk away, and then entered the room after forcing the lock.

He crossed the morgue like someone trying not to collapse in the middle of a binge. He glimpsed the corpse, - "Corpse!" he was alive yesterday - He thought. Where did his essence go, how is the vitality extracted from a body so perfect, beautiful, kind, full of life?

He felt chills when he saw him naked on that cold and illuminated table, surrounded by a pile of surgical utensils. They still didn't suture his body. Still, Diego ran to his side and with glassy eyes felt terrified to see his insides. He touched his body without hesitation, and just like that he felt the cold of death, the emptiness of the soul.

He looked up at his closed eyelids, stroked his motionless chest along the edges of the open wound and stopped on above, right where his heart should be; it was like touching ice. He thought about what would have happened if he knew that his death would occur in a traffic accident after leaving his home that Sunday morning, what if he woke up again and it was Sunday? He would force him to stay home, but it was not possible.

He cried. What else could he do? He kissed his lips and his warm tears soaked the lips of the deceased. It was the end.

That image would accompany him forever and the unspoken question would never find an answer. He took the ring out of his pocket, knelt down while kissing his hand, Diego noticed that Alex’ nails had turned purple. There was blood on the table, he remembered that he had only seen him bleed once when he fell from the bed while they were playing on it. He never thought of seeing him like that, unarmed, as if he were a toy that has to be removed without any purpose.

He focused on the most beautiful memory he had of him. He recited the words he had memorized, recited them in a subtle whisper that drowned in tears and broke with pain.

"Since your gaze reflected my eyes I got lost in time, it is you while you are still you and I will be me while you allow me to be. Would you marry me for the rest of each forever we could get?"

The silence opened itself a space between the hum of the fans and the vibration of the refrigerators, revealing a dense acoustic darkness. There was no answer.