That One With the Hair…

                 That One With the Hair…

 The room is bright and astonishingly large compared to the solitary bed where my withered body lies. It has nothing in common with the previous one, which had sheltered various sufferers of different ages, competing successfully in the quantity of diseases. My son, with some hesitation, sold my unnecessary house to provide me with this equally unnecessary comfort, but his filial duty and the upbringing I had instilled in him had their say. Now I am alone, like a seashell on the bottom of the ocean, left to the ocean currents and the whims of Fate. A medical nurse comes a few times to administer the necessary medications on schedule, and an annoyed orderly enters once to change my diaper and dust off the windowsills. I feel like a cactus that doesn't even become beautiful, abandoned in the corner of a white, sterile desert. There's no expectation of returning to physical health, not even as a dream. In one word, the only way to describe the dream is "memory," whether pleasant or unpleasant. There's no middle ground. I lie in the standard position, "supine," with the feeling that the entire chronological dimension is at my disposal while the Earth rotates around its axis at 465 meters per second. Yes, time is mine, which is something, though I possess nothing else. Not that I need anything. Perhaps the orderly might have smiled a little in her permanent hatred for the world. But when looked at in pure reality, a smile probably wouldn't have changed anything in my existence, which, as I mentioned earlier, consists solely of memories. Identical, persistent, and sweet to the point of nausea, tediously resembling one another, regardless of when they visualize themselves in the tranquility of consciousness.

 Here she comes again - "That One With the Hair." Her hair, long down to her waist, chestnut-wavy, soft as baby's palms, caressing like a summer breeze in the evening. It's as if I can feel them on my wrinkled face, and my skin tingles with the desire to go back through the years to a single night. The first unforgettable night. In the past, illusions shattered like a fire whirlwind, leaving behind the defiled bed of that first wedding night. In my thoughts, it became a symbol of lost innocence, transformed as if by magic into the dark soul of vice. That place, meant to be filled with anticipation and love, was now lonely and cold, much like my heart - a forgotten glacier, its treasures frozen, their brilliance lost in a doomed wait. My libidinal fantasies, like a blazing inferno, created a satirical spectacle in a twisted frivolity, where the only participants were myself and my inner demons. These hidden desires and anxieties slithered silently behind the scenes, entering into dark, perverse roles, engaging in mad dances filled with gentle, deceptive promises. Like sinister actors, they whispered from the boundless chaos that engulfed my consciousness, and along with me, they forgot reality, stepping onto the stage of the illusory Fata Morgana.

 I watched them from the sidelines as a mad director, directing an unknown script. A solo spectator amid the vast view of my own depressive soul theater. Masked faces entangled themselves in indiscriminate, chaotic games, acting like puppet-trembling marionettes, performing their lustful roles.

 The action in this unstable spectacle never ceased. The stage of my irritable thoughts was filled with the aerial tricks of passion, stomping and swirling with relentless persistence. My mind was tired, and my soul was pressed by the thin thread of the internal struggle between reason and chaos.

 The dark theater was a chasm where sensuality and temptation were despised, colliding with conflicting, utterly meaningless motives. The podium was filled with endless dramas of lust, shooting off like fiery whirlwinds into the abyss of my existence. And so, in the moment of this spectacle in my internal nightmares, filled with comical and cruel episodes, my heart roared like the trumpet of an angry god against the tearing currents of emotions. I was a slave to my own feelings, observing the unwanted scenes, and weariness poured out like black smoke from the imaginary cauldron of an unrealized, shattered dream.

 Amidst these profound reflections, I impatiently awaited "That One With the Hair," who resembled my sweetest chimeric reveries. She always appeared as an angelic ghost, brimming with tenderness and an indefinable presence. In her moments, the whole storm of internal battles and doubts fell silent. Time stood still, leaving only her and me in this world of infinity and silence. The grotesque of the twisted theater dissolved like a phantom fog, ready to escape back to the underworld from which it had sprung. To leave only me and her. To let me experience again and again the entire sweet agony of a love's magic that happened only once for all eternity.

 Fragile and graceful, "That One With the Hair" was my salvation from the wild wasteland of mundane, boring existence. In her hands, every feeling of mine transformed into a work of art, and my spirit rose to the vastness of divine sentiments. Infinity, knowing no boundaries or limitations, where everything becomes possible, beautiful, and ecstatic.

 That One With the Hair…

 Ah, what nuances sparkled in those luxurious curls, cascading down her bare back. As if Ali Baba's treasure had woven itself into them, illuminating the darkness with the rainbow of a thousand protuberances. I caressed them with the fervor of a doomed man, even though I wasn't aware of my future fate. With every blink of her eyes, filled with constellations of tenderness, I forgot my doubts and fears. As if I were detaching from the earth and being carried away in the gentle currents of mutual affection and transcendent love.

 Until I realized that she had only been a charming, fleeting moment. The moment Faust had recognized and captured with a single gesture. Only where I didn't, for which I will always regret in the bitterness of my past inexperience. Who knows that, right? Of course, I read that "Faust" by Goethe. Even a few times, but what does it matter? Happiness is realized in the present moment, and it's so brief that perhaps only Faust from the poem managed to react appropriately. The rest of us are   left with open eyes and outstretched arms toward what has already departed forever.

 That One With the Hair...

 After her, a mega-dramatic battle began within my devastated essence. The time between my helplessness and the hope of tomorrow wove itself as a journey through the wild wasteland, where death and birth border each other. And in this window to the unknown, the storm within me raged like a fiery vortex, carrying me to unreachable spheres composed of faith and disbelief, of reason and madness. There, I collided once again with my demons, leaping out of corners like terrifying shadows, bathed in mystery and gray silence.

 In the midst of the wild wasteland of my thoughts and feelings, I sought enlightenment under the dark clouds of doubt. Questions trampled my heart like the powerful footsteps of a giant brontosaurus, leading me back to my forgotten, ancient roots. Entangled in the endless jungle of contradictions, I couldn't find the lost path to the light of reason. The immeasurable time flowed into palpable moments, and I continued to be a palette of doubts and consuming disharmony. The strange fiesta persisted tirelessly, and I wasn't just an innocent witness; I was in love with the magic of my internal labyrinthine pilgrimage. Until the body refused to travel.

 Forever...

 And now, when "That One With the Hair" visits me, whether by invitation or not, a question passes through my mind:

"When will 'That One With the Hair“ be replaced by „That One With thethe deadly one Hair?"

                                               Angel Hadjipopgeorgiev