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Creative Nonfiction Speculative Romance

Are you coming home tonight? She would pass right in front of me, without even listening my words. Her words, a castle of cards. She’d say that she’s sorry, but then doesn’t even want to stop and talk. To not mention when she said that she fully devoted her life for me. A perfect Geisha full of lies. That’s her play: construct castles of illusions, sing her victim songs, enchant her preys. Kamala, with her art of persuasion; she was out in the streets homeless and I gave her everything: an apartment where to sleep, cook and shower; a job, where to gain some dignity and money for her freedom; my love, putting at risk my family being her lover. On her side, what did she have to lose? Nothing.

The thing is that she’s that kind of woman who takes what she needs for survival, with all her jolly cards and bluffs for deception; then, when tired of her play, spreads her wings and disappears silently.

           Kamala “Are you coming home tonight?” Are you mocking me? Do you even realize the weight words carry? What underlies this semantical interaction of words? What is their foundation? Meaning, what are the subterranean sentiments and feelings that make you, lawyer Lear, express such words? “Home” you dare to say, when it’s nothing but the apartment where you receive your clients. There’s a kitchen where I cook and clean dishes for you! And a small room, where even in sex it’s all self-referential – all about your pleasure. And you call that being “home”? That’s a prison.

Pettifogger! All you can see is the facts, but not only. Facts twisted and loaded to your own favour. How I desire that you could know how I feel when you juggle with your rhetorical moves. That if I were to express my feelings, in a logical form, they’d appear ridiculous. Sentiments are lively and alwaysmoving. Unlike a chess game, the game of sentiments is played on a board made of grey and contradicting squares; where a piece is standing both on a black and white foundation. Fragility! Contradiction! Vagueness! And the lightness of knowing that A is not equal to A! Persuade a lawyer to believe this, who rests in consolation with philological-anthropomorphic facts – believing those to be the Truth. It’s nothing but a convention. And what are the motives, meaning again, the sentiments that raised such illusory stipulations? Morality, morality, morality – of making One Truth (the factual) prevail over others (as emotions). What is it if not a form of power? Brought to such extent that, in fact, even makes this egoistic manipulator on the side of Justice.

Digression God is Justice, says the devoted Catholic – but what if that were nothing but a projection of one’s own desire, grounded on one’s own needs? Of someone who suffered of injustice, and thus created her own God? Wouldn’t that be pathetic? I let you, spectators, to judge.

Justice, says the lawyer, instead, is the most lay, anthropomorphic form of bringing equality, of satisfying that violent instinct of revenge that would regress down to infinity. Thus, Justice is the concrete limit that ceases the violence across generations. What if this convention were to collapse? And who’s idealist and loves fables, perhaps, for having suffered too much in this Earth, has created her own world of fairies with a – not a loving God, let’s suspend that for now – but, a God turned into an accountant who takes note of good and evil, makes a balance of the record of one’s own life, then suddenly turns into a moralist who judges and with his magical wand punishes the evil and gives merits to the good. Justice is an art of creation, where the creator is a Human.

Ironic how the idealists even create hell – because, they are the ones in need of a Hell! The point of even having to represent it, with majestic paintings filled with revengeful flames burning bodies of the hatred. In contrast to the “evil,” the idealist moralists congratulate themselves for their good actions, for having helped the weak – and today, boasting about their tolerance about everything – creating a paradise where all sit in circle, in act of devotion, around the Rose benevolence of Mother Mary. This is delirium!

Kamala, doesn’t believe in all this. She suffers of the unattainability of an ideal stable floor on which to rest, though, she doesn’t make out of this lack an ideal Eden. End of digression.

Lear, as most, cannot see beyond representations. Not even of his own, which renders him blind towards himself. I don’t believe in marriage! I believe in Equilibrium. Says the lawyer, with his woodworm on “equilibrium.” Between two people there eventually arrives a moment of inertia, in which things are tolerated because founded upon love. Jealousy is accepted, but when love ceases the jealous turns into a monster! If there’s no equilibrium there is nothing. Kamala wanted to create disequilibrium, but first made me fall into her illusion. Instead of harpy promises, I’d prefer a prostitute, where you know that you just fuck and that’s it.

Lear, my dear Lear…why are so you frustrated? You’d be indifferent if you didn’t care. I’m not saying of Kamala, that’s superficial. What I’m referring to is your sentiments, the ones you don’t like to listen, but that never abandoned you – your grey shades that haunt you. Here’s an example: that you’d want someone’s devotion to be eternal. Yet, at the same time, you want the adolescent, erotic and passionate love. Two stages that cannot coincide, though contained in human nature. And, alas, you can feel the contrast! You go mad, throwing all your papers in the air – when you think you’re alone, your Stoic mask falls – and you even started drinking wine. In fact, a promise cannot be said once and for all.

Second digression. A contract serves as the symbolic renovator of a promise: it’s the generator of an impression that has the function of contrasting external impressions that can undermine the promise. The contract revokes the promise, reinforced by the social event – hence, a community – etc.

Lear desires full devotion, the constancy of the promise, without any allegiance – without any contract. Yet, his sentiments, which go beyond, or rather, are primordial with respect to facts, tend towards such principles of union. Is this the reason why, concealed relations are destined to end in tragedy? And, is this lawyer, perhaps, more devoted than what he thinks to be?

Or, to be realistic, he just wants a bird inside his cage. His tiny precious treasure, hidden from the rest of the world. Staying on this line: perhaps, this is the same exact instinct of the devoted husband who’s only protected by social conventions – a family, a ring, a promise, a religion, a wedding, etc.

End of second digression.

A bitch doesn’t open anything but her legs. That’s perfect because allows Lear to keep closed and concealed his crucible of passions. The Harpy, instead, with her claws, would silently penetrate into the red, thick, and fleshy heart. Squeeze it, and drop by drop make it go crazy.

Crazy as the five floors to reach Lear’s office, devoid of an elevator. Arrived at his floor, one had to cross the whole long hallway, where at its bottom, on the left side, was his studium. Decorating the long hallway are reproductions of Van Gogh and Klimt – a solitary landscape, and a spiral of women all mixed together creating a ball of orgy. Pictures of porticos and pointed arches – of Bologna and Gallipoli – being extensions of the long hallway. Three dry, dusty bonsai trees in front of a window – one crafted in sokan style, a mother holding close her son. Aloe and some erected snakelike Laurentii. The inside of the office was decorated with Louis xv furniture: a yellow console with arabesque paintings of flowers, with attached a standing mirror and a table holding two red resin elephants with their trunks looking towards each other, instead of the door.

Behind the lawyer’s chair a pastoral painting with two ladies, naked footed, holding hands to a young baby. Another pastoral painting, but with only the view of two large spits of yellow and green. From the window, only roofs and short chimneys – and an unexpected black (from the dark sun) pelican seen from far away, flying, slowly.

Spirit conversing with Lear. Black and white… back to that dilemma. Lawyer Lear, what do you think. Which model resembles more reality? The clear and distinct chess-board or the contradicting and confusing one, with squares half black and half white, or squares that appear black when white? We surely live on the same board – assuming there is an objective reality upon which conjectures are constructed. Change the rules and you get different games: on the same board, you can choose between a game of chess or checkers. Checkers is boring. I wouldn’t be able to lead that life. It’d be as castrating myself to one uniformity. All the world would be seen in conformity to one ideal – variance would depend upon position. And… upon the vertical dominator who can move freely wherever he desires.

A spider constructs his web, which becomes – voluntarily or not – his home and trap for possible victims. The victim gets caught, as the spider is just enjoying itself: one dies, the other joys. The spider can passively gaze and contemplate its intelligence – it’s the art of enjoying one’s own self, in solitude: as when drops of rain rest on the geometric threads that hold the reflections of the spider, that spider becomes the centre of his solipsistic universe. As a promise, the function of a web is to manifest its potency overtime. In human relations, either there are invisible webs or tangible chains, as rings.

You, Lear, are mad because you want to possess me, the beautiful seductive Kamala. I know your moves, I know how to dance and swing through your words. I know how to hypnotize you. We play on the same board and same rules. Yet, just like water, I’m free to slip away whenever I want, fooling you that I were your prey. In front of that mirror, on the black long ebony table, you just saw your reflections – you got distracted, and instead of seeing me, you represented your desires. How funny! You even thought to dominate as a lion; whereas, I’d gaze, with serpent eyes, as yours were in ecstasy. Or you’d even believe that I’d conform and crystallize entirely onto your own shape and customs.

Sure, in life, you’d conceal your weakness with several tricks: sky blue aviator glasses, snake boots, red necktie on a white button down shirt. Artistic posture, composed, and loud in manners, to grab attention as with your noisy Fat Boy. But your silk didn’t work with me and now you’re frustrated for your impotency! The only thing that you can see. As when you’d yell like crazy when you’d lose a game of chess sitting on the toilet pot, you’re now yelling under your skin for how now I’m gone. The phantasm alone can’t do the business. Appearance versus reality, which one wins?

Silently, as the spider injects its venom on a big noisy mosquito, you’re in checkmate.

Kamala, who knows about the variegated nature of the pieces of the world, tells stories to each one of these – different stories according to what pleases their ears.

Lear, who mastered the art of words, wasn’t even able to hold his prey near him. Rather, she responded with lethal silence. To find his equilibrium, as a desperate coward, he started persuading people in believing his reality of the facts: that Kamala escaped because she’s crazy, that she’s masochist and loves to suffer harming herself, that her act of leaving was extremely violent and unjustified.

Lear would focus on one word, extend it to such point of making it mean it’s opposite original signification – from words that were offensive in sentiment, to words that were kind and benevolent by reason. But he forgot one principle that dominates in human passions: that sympathy is strongest with those one spends most time with. His intellect would get offended, but he’d offend the passions. The devoted bishop, would listen both sides – naturally be biased by those who suffer and are weak – though claiming to be impartial. His job is to be a confessor and preach his catholic, meaning, universal morals to the world. But his world, is cut in half just as his vision which can only see one side of the board - though without even realizing this.

You can’t take side by sentiment! That’s irrational. Just because you like or dislike someone cannot be the justification for your taking position. And reason? Why shall reason be the ultimate judge? When in facts, the golden flower of reason is antinomy. Equilibrium: black is white, as white is black – along and across all shades of grey.


July 29, 2021 23:20

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