STRANGER FEELINGS

It was a stormy day, with thunders and little balls of ice coming from the sky. Monique Fournier, 27 years old, social media manager for the sector “Gâteaux et autres Remèdes” belonged to the NhC Company of groceries, one of the most famous in France. It was 5 o’clock when she was finally going home but the storm surprised her when she was only half-way. No umbrella neither raincoat. The only reasonable thing to do was running, as fast as she could, especially because the rain was getting stronger and stronger. As she arrived home, a deep breath of consternation quickly turned into a normal breathing of confidence and security. The small flat was not at all illuminated but the flash of thunders scared her several times before she finally turned the light on. «It won’t rain all day», she told herself while preparing a hot bath, with white lemon candles, colourful towels to dry hair, chest, legs and feet (she had been always preferring to dry her body with more than one towel). The towels were everywhere on the side of the little bathroom. She thought to put up some good music, but listening to how the rain was loud, she changed her mind and rethought that probably the rain would have been the best sound to hear while immerging in the hot water. Being home, protected and with all the commodities, made the storm so fascinated as almost necessary to relax and take a break.

She huddled on the armchair with a cup of coffee, already wearing the pyjama, observing the blurred world outside the living rooms window that only a few days ago had been cleaned. The storm was getting worse than before. Monique turned the light off and rested, getting rid of all the tasks she should had discussed the day after tomorrow. She almost wished the storm would have continuing until the weekend so to catch the possibility of work remotely: it could have been amazing to finally have an excuse to remain home, vegetating somewhere on the couch or the Persian carpet, while reading, or watching TV, or searching for things from the past  to keep or to throw up. The room was wrapped in baleful black mass. Monique admitted that a weird feeling of restlessness was taking a sit in the living room. It was important to keep distracted and not to think about past outages or the black man she had dreamed throughout all her childhood.

«When it is raining, my minds tend to fly beyond time, memories arise, things to do push to be done, things that I have done (well or wrong) come back to be checked. Moreover, all the opportunities I have not caught seem to appear still possible and others I did approach were kind of losing their brightening certainty. My lucky times and my not-so-well-managed times all together in this room, sitting in circle on the carpet I am sitting too, trying to connect with my present», she tenderly whispered, as she was not alone in the room. All the things around started to appear charged of a sense of intensity and confusion. «What do I do every day? How do I live my life?», she questioned lowly as the answer would rather come from somewhere else than herself. During the last two years her life had been structured by her job; she wanted to be focused on her carrier without losing her self-care attitude. After the first introductory month in the Company, she had understood what was supposed to be her long term job was something she absolutely did not want to do for anymore. What could have been done back then? Nothing… Everyone considered being jobless after her studies and suddenly being called from a famous Company located in Paris a miracle she couldn’t reject without being punished by God. The storm created an imbalance in her mind. A grey moisture weighed upon the window and on her chest. Her job had been in her life way less than a miracle, if not its contrary.

Once in Paris, Monique had been involved in many changes: first job, new colleagues, learning Spanish to keep her job position, changing three times flat until she found one enough cheap to start saving in her bank account. She also had changed the way to dress, and she started a diet she would probably never stop. These thoughts were everywhere and nowhere cause invisible but palpable. They were coming into existence both inside and outside reality. «I have to be careful. I know the reason I concentrate more on the carrier, perhaps was a good choice: it has been told by my therapist and by my parents that working would have been my new starting point. I had low self-esteem for such a long time that I do not even remember when was the time my shyness had been gone. If I start to think back then, memories and old images will show themselves in the forms they like the most: extreme, dangerous, intense. No, I am not going to fall in my mind’s usual trap. I made good decisions in my life. Now, I will watch a movie». After a while, Monique found one weird and not-so-long French movie, never mentioned by film critics: “L'amour et l'isolement”.

The story was placed during the middle age in a small village consisted of a population comprised of mostly of farmers. The fictional characters were speaking in an ancient French dialect hardly understandable also for French. Apparently, one of the farmer was involved in an affair with a noble woman, although he was married and with four children. Even if he was in love with his wife, the noble woman succeeded to tempt him and made him addicted to her fury of love. When the husband of the noble woman found out his wife’s affair, the young farmer tried to escape. Because there was no trace of him,  the noble husband offered 5 gold coins for his head: the people of the village started to hunt him and killed his family to make him appearing. Too late, he was already far away from the village. In the end, with nothing than regrets, the man managed to find a small island and keep on living with only pain and regrets.

Reflection and consciousness: depth. She had been searching probably for depth while watching the movie. «It’s only 8 o’clock, I will put on the kettle» she thought and she moved to the kitchen, living all the fantasies she was playing with in the living room. While waiting for the tea to be ready, she had almost an epiphany: not so many books had been brought to Paris except to big books, which were standing in front of her. The books reminded her how rushing her move to Paris had been. «You will start the day after tomorrow» a woman voice told her one day, and after five minutes her suitcase was standing in the middle of her bedroom, half empty. There was no space for books but, after a few weeks her mother had thought to send her a couple of books; one of them was a collection by a local painter,  Pierre Francoise Dubois very concerned about the village he has lived all his life in (same village Monique have been growing up and her parents were still living). On the cover there was a canvas showing her village in its ancient and characteristic form that it has kept all along through history. Located on top of a field, surrounded by a seductive atmosphere made with different gradation of red and blue, around ten small but refined houses were standing under a gloomy light. Dubois used painting techniques depending on the weather. The play of light on the bottom of the field, then a dark and shadowy atmosphere around the houses but bright and colourful brush strokes on the edges of the canvas.

A fragile sadness came unexpectedly. “I wish I was there, on the warm stone path that does not seem real but taken from a Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale’s illustration. An imaginary vision that belongs to my emotional memory, passing through my dreams and idealistic beliefs.” A huge sense of transformation and metamorphosis had seized time and space. Feel there, feel here, feel somewhere else. A passion sometimes, if not always, can be the only reason to do something. Achieving a balance and leave it out, distributing a jar of flavours touch, which can bring oneself and absorb completely a subject. She had been thinking all afternoon, living strong emotions, revoking them, accepting all their forms. The image of the wide green shining garden at her parents’ place, with wood benches and tables, birds singing and natural calmness all around. Life there was simple: life there was moving in accordance with nature, spontaneously, remaining coherent with one’s own mind and spirit. Thinking with body and mind together, moving inside the space and inside the self-globe: digging, spreading, exploring the corners of soul and conscience, listening to the interior voice of the inner self. She had been feeling distant from her previous life because so many changes had been happening all at once. Distance was like a box, with everything inside but empty such as the blank spaces students have to fill during a school test. «I would like to write on the blank spaces all the things that I miss and bring them back. My thoughts would change if the past tells me something I have not noticed. Emotionally I feel sorry for myself and for what I have left back. Paris gave me a new life but without emotions. My emotions came from the past and made a bridge to reach the present time». When she heard the rain was over, she disconnected from the process of remembering.

A full silence filled the empty room.