Talent Borrows

“I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”

- Albert Camus

I still remember that night, a mixture of lightheaded elation followed by crushing dread. Three nights into my career as an EMT, my first genuine emergency – a car crash.

 I remember the adrenaline-fueled giddiness of speeding through the sparse Perth traffic, feeling on the edge of something momentous and life changing, as I watched the red and blue pulse of the Ambulance lights shimmering against the window.

 Sometimes I can still hear the echo of the brief siren bursts as we raced through red traffic lights.

I remember the crash scene and the way my stomach dropped. The way I suddenly didn’t feel real. Like someone else was controlling my body and I was forced to watch, powerless. I thought of how I felt watching my brother play videos games when we were growing up, and I remember feeling stupid that I would think of something so trivial as the victim lay prone on the road, groaning.

 I remember the crunch of walking over glass, and the way the fuel on the road made it look like the asphalt itself was sweating in the heat.

 I remember the car, twisted and inhuman. Barely recognisable.

I remember the blood.

I remember crouching down by the victim and cradling her in my arms. The way she felt hot and heavy, as I pulled her close and told her she was going to make it – she was going to be okay. I remember the lies tasted bitter in my mouth, like coffee.

 I remember how she clung to me, clutching my jacket collar so tight I could feel her willing some force to trade our places. I remember her eyes locked with mine, shimmering in the red and blue pulse of the lights, a mixture of disbelief and desperation.

 And she whispered just to me, over and over again, “I’m not ready...I’m not ready…“

 I remember the way her body, one moment tight with will, went suddenly slack, her grip on my collar loosening.

rapturous. I am all these things at once, and cannot add up the sum."

 ~C.G. Jung

 That was a scary ride! To be woken up by the sound and the heat and then to fall…and be left out there, no protection, no shield, no warning. If she had not seen me and helped me I´d probably be roadkill, or hurt, or lost and hungry.

Now she has me in her house. Apparently she has decided she likes me and wants me to stay. I am learning to trust her. It is very difficult. I have been very distant from people, I do not know how to relate, how to approach, how to know when it is too much or not enough. But then, she seems to like me anyway, like I am. The things you do for love, for family…to belong.

“I am a collection of dismantled almosts.”

- Anne Sexton

The cool night air wisped in through the open window and bristled Felix's skin. He shivered as the hairs on his arm raised in a subconscious effort to keep him warm. He listened to the sounds of the city street several floors below his apartment, the impatient blaring of car horns and the muttering of irritated people, waiting for his roommate to get home.

  He could feel the chasm of loneliness inside him. It felt so physical that he imagined an autopsy being done on him. The coroner would open him up and find only a yawning black hole where his heart and other vital organs used to be. He smirked at the melodramatic thought.

  He checked his phone for signs of life. No emails, no Facebook messages, no Twitter replies or retweets. He checked Google Chat; no-one was online. He thumbed through his Instagram feed, double-tapping some pictures of winter in Europe.

  He made himself get up, and paced around the apartment, before turning on the kettle.

  He wanted to have a coffee, but he knew he would be up all night if he did. He stared at the coffee and at the Milo. This was the crossroads of his night. That realisation was depressing enough that he piled the Milo high, then added two teaspoons of sugar.

  With his mug in hand, he sat back down in his chair and picked up his phone. No emails, no Facebook messages, no Twitter replies. Nobody on Google Chat. No new Instagram photos.

  He opened Vine, in spite of himself. At first he looked at new Vines, watching them loop several times before moving on to the next one. Before long, he had opened his own profile page and was looking back over his old posts.

  Friends and family looped in front of him on the screen. Birthday parties and the going away speeches of workmates. And then a single Vine of Emma laying in bed, laughing hysterically. Felix watched the Vine on loop and when the screen dimmed, he stroked it, stroked where Emma's face was, and the screen lit back up.

“Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda.

We sat in the park breathing cool air over hot coffee. The laughter of children in the playground punctured the hum of surrounding traffic sporadically.

   She stared at me and tilted her head like I was a puzzle. I asked what she was thinking and she sighed. “You’re not perfect for me,” she said, with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “You’re just the closest person I’ve met in a long time.”

   We were both silent again.

   I watched her coldly check the time. Finish her coffee. Watched her watch the children on the swings.

These are the days that must happen to you.

Walt Whitman “Song of the Open Road”

    All big cities betray their inhabitants like this: just when they think they have become extras, anonymous faces in the crowd, unavoidable meetings will sneak up in unexpected corners.   He saw her bag fall to the ground. She was not paying attention and as usual she was carrying more than she could handle (even though she would never admit to it). He ran after her and picked up the bag. He called her name and waited for her to acknowledge him. He handed the purse over to her. She turned towards him and they looked into each other’s eyes and smiled. She thanked him politely and they went along living their lives.

***

Her shoulders felt sore from the weight, a slightly uncomfortable burn like sensation, but she had arranged things so she could walk and get there in time. She was walking fast when she heard his voice calling her. The same comforting tone, the one she could pick out every time she heard it. Had she imagined that? Was that voice in her head? She took a breath to regroup and stopped and spun. It was him. They looked into each other´s eyes. She remembered him laughing out loud, the only time he cooked for her and his eternal silences. He didn’t say anything; she wasn’t expecting him to. They both smiled.. She managed to get a “thank you” out and remembered she had just a few moments left she was not going to be late for her date with destiny. 

"If music be the food of love, play on."

William Shakespeare

  Never having giving it much thought, something he had heard once lingered within him “music is the greatest form of magic”. Every day he got up, did what he had to do and then went to bed. Years went by unnoticed and without any sign of change until he heard her song. Suddenly in front of him there was another world, a new dimension, a different language (and the diverse conceptions it implied)…a new multitude of rhythms. There was not only magic to be found, there were also miracles.   

“Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form.”

—     Vladimir Nabakov

“Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature.”

— Salvador Dali

  He was not really surprised by waking up to find nothing was in the same place as the night before, the week before, the year before. It felt like going through a loophole. It was him who was inside out now, not the world around. He was experiencing everything backwards, first internally and then those sensations were expanding. He understood it was time to let things out and create. His time to absorb like a sponge period was over. She watched him and saw the whole thought process reflected on his face, and when he was ready to tell her, she looked at him, ran her fingers through his hair and kissed him: she already knew.

  I just hope that one day—preferably when we’re both blind drunk—we can talk about it.

J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey 

  She had said security is not a pre-requisite for trust. He felt all the blood rush to his head and almost fainted, funny how words could do that to him. She brought out in him that awareness for what was left unsaid. She was able to do it; she would do what he would never be able to do. They didn’t care; they would always get each other, they would constantly meet. Next time it would be the other one taking their turn.