In front of the apartment building where I came out from, the trees seemed to guard our feelings and the street with quite a lot of cars heading toward the train station, or to the park. The clean asphalt, lot of green like in the provincial towns at the end of the earth, and it takes less than two minutes to get to the park... It is only now that my intuitions and reason and all others tell me, consciously or not, that the past is simultaneous with the future, and the present is just a transition between these two, which does not exist.
Looking at the park and its alleys, I see the present in the same way as everyone thinks the present would be. The park, the alleys, the trees and grass, many of them the same as in the past, maybe just the benches had been repainted and the shrubs dressed more than before. What I see though as a present, is the future/past of my youth, it is the evolution of this park subsequent to my childhood, it is what I see now from what it was, it is the present/past of my reality and the future of past reality, just as you and my children will reflect my future while I will be nonexistence. Apparently, there is nothing special in seeing your future/past in the present that you live. Just as I look now at the same realities of another time, but after 40 years, namely my future and that of the reality of my universe from 40 years ago, and it is neither easy nor simple to understand the paradox of this simultaneity or of the Reality Itself.
On a street always covered by the tree shades for a few hundred yards, there is the entrance to the park, where we would spent every day of our holidays, except for the days when we used to go fishing or playing football: same entry, but more civilized and less natural than ever.
I entered into the park that I had not seen for such a long time, I almost did not recognize it, especially after people had broken the universal order for their own limited order, and I felt as if I breathed another air, different feelings, but the same existence. After taking a few steps on a path, I sit on a bench, maybe a bench of my memories or my past present’s memories, or the same bench that I will find in my future present. Next to me, the old Monument of Heroes, not very artistic or much impressive, but my feelings bind me to it. Our spirits have so many memories together that I cannot ever say that a flower, a sign, a stone or an animal do not have their own spirit. If you do not feel these connections, this is just a weakness of yours, just another limit. The monument seems to check time and space against the rectangular directions of the park’s alleys that it watches like a guardian of its time and space.
I feel like I sat on the same bench when I was still a high school student... silence, as if the Earth had sunk into the ocean of the Universe Itself, and only its waters comfort your body with a neutrality hard to describe. Few people, few children, few high school students, I could say they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. For a moment, my eyes are caught by a crack in the asphalt, where the grass was trying its best to come to light in a desperate struggle for existence. I look up, surprised, when my class colleague and friend is talking to me:
“Did you send that note?”
“Of course I did.”
I always write love letters and notes for dates on the behalf of a colleague that he is madly in love with, he loves her and, at this age, love is blind. I like this colleague too, but he is my friend and, moreover, I am a bit more rational, less instinctive and perhaps more of a coward. The gossips of my small provincial town maybe scare me, they make me pay attention to what I say and to the ones I go out with, especially the girls whom occasionally I take for a walk. My friend smiles satisfied. Like me and like most kids of this age, he always likes to show his physique well shaped at the gym, but I like to show the spirit that I have shaped in classrooms or by so many readings. We make a few more steps together discussing about normal issues for our age; in the park—the same universal peace and silence. We split up after we say goodbye to each other.
He died long time ago at an early age and almost crazy, of cancer; there was no trace left over from his optimism.
Down the alley—somewhere in front of us, flowerbeds and blossoming chestnut trees— my friend goes towards his house, towards his destiny maybe and I, alone now, try to walk with my thoughts.
The guard, a man limping because of a wound in his youth, (he had fought in the war), who almost every night tries to catch us when we play over the flowerbeds and climb nearly every tree around, now goes about his business somewhere. Fortunately for us and to his regular distress and misery, night is our friend and covert, not to talk about the noise, and we sometimes even turn on a transistor radio, which is the pride of the neighborhood and especially our joy, because it belongs to my elder brother. We turn up the music and listen to it along with the whole park and, maybe, with the surrounding houses as well, in a silence of nature that rings into our ears, and we do not know anymore if it is from the cassette player or from the silence of nature. A seemingly deranged nature, an unknown cosmic order that some call chaos, others system, just like us—those noisy kids—each evening until late at night. I do not know what it will happen if the guard finds out that we are the ones who always tease him at night and, during the day, we walk calmly past him; or maybe he knows and that is why he enjoys our innocent game.
Lost in thought I startle. In front of me, there appears a tall girl with blue eyes, like a symbol of beauty and love, or perhaps only in my childish mind.
“You are so beautiful.”
“And, what do you think, does this help me with anything?”
“Your face compels me; you can never go unnoticed by anyone.”
“I am so happy when you notice me, usually you forget, you are too concerned with science.”
“In my eyes you are the most beautiful.”
“And you're a liar that I like.”
That velvety skin of your cheeks, so soft that you are afraid to touch, the color that you just see and you get thrilled, and all these, if we consider only what we can see or feel, because beyond our eyes and our power to see the reality, there lies her perfection. The blush of her cheeks at every word that I feel that concerns me, that she listens to or she only supposes, this is only her human and imperfect perfection. Beyond them, there is the divine that we never know to listen to, to look at or, at least, to understand. That impetuous blood that gives color to her soul (purity at 16 years of age) seems to foretell our future and that of the generations to come, vibrating along with nature, along with my feelings or hers, or with who knows what unknown universal resonances.
I was no longer able to give her any answer. I took her hand, and we were walking along, with peace and happiness in our eyes and souls, in the park that seemed made for us. Surely, the whole town already knows about this. We hardly talked, overwhelmed by emotions and afraid to go on with our own feelings.
She has changed so much in time; my memory brings her face in front of my eyes, with wrinkles caused by aging and the difficulties of existence. She is a teacher, her husband died already, I am an engineer at retirement age, and we both have grown old.
The emotions made me startle and I look back at the blades of grass coming out from that crack in the asphalt. I am still on the same bench, living in my past present, but the illusion of going back in time disappeared just as it came; I returned to my present reality or to its illusion at least, as certainly past reality was an illusion as well. Where is the Reality Itself, where is what we lived then, what we live now? The future tells us that both will be the same after all, just an illusion that I have ever existed. Why is that reality a dream now and why will it be a dream tomorrow, why going back in time seems an absurdity? Because it is not possible, or because I understand so clearly the simultaneity of the past images and feelings that can never be separated from the present images and feelings.
It would be so irrational to love with the soul of your youth two existences: one young and beautiful, in your mind like an angel, another one with tired eyes and overwhelmed by years of hardship, both in your memory at the same time, and your rational spirit judging the two faces.
I wonder if returning in time makes you forget and lose your gained reasoning, or you come back with the same thinking and spirit as you had when you were 18. Then why come back anymore to repeat the same mistakes, since anyway you cannot have your reasoning from then and from now, neither the form nor the spirit? It would be a tragedy to love the face from the past, but see the face from the present for all of us. There is no return in time that could make those connections, even if a return were possible. I, for one, never want to go back, I want to stay with my memories, moreover, sometimes I even refuse to see my friends, in order not to see their change in my eye and vice versa. Would the universe in which you live be able to return along with you, or just you alone? How to reconcile these opposites, these changes, it would be so absurd that it scares me, even if anyway, everything is just absurd, but this is more absurd than the absurd itself.
I get up and leave, letting behind the present/past and my return in time, better to forget there was any at all, and to keep what no one can ever take from me: the illusion that there was a young man, as I used to be, and never the way I am. Some are transformed by age and troubles, others deformed by the loss of their humanity, others live with the pessimism of an upcoming nonexistence and others are simply gone. My eyes no longer have the energy of the past and cannot see things clearly, maybe only my reasoning and spirit would try to see in the fog the reality that I have never found. The return to the past as well as the departure into the future, these two I offer as presents to whoever wishes. I remain with my present/past and the present/future I am heading for.
After so many years, the park has changed too, people have changed the cosmic order, but just for now and only illusory, because the changes will not last forever, every second everything changes still. A well-maintained hedge reigns all over, resembling pretty much a palace garden, maybe beautiful for those who do not have memories, but a disaster for me; they cut my memories with it and, moreover, I cannot pass to the flowerbeds that we and others had trampled under foot so often.
Looking at the park and its alleys, I see the present in the same way as everyone thinks the present would be. The park, the alleys, the trees and grass, many of them the same as in the past, maybe just the benches had been repainted and the shrubs dressed more than before. What I see though as a present, is the future/past of my youth, it is the evolution of this park subsequent to my childhood, it is what I see now from what it was, it is the present/past of my reality and the future of past reality, just as you and my children will reflect my future while I will be nonexistence. Apparently, there is nothing special in seeing your future/past in the present that you live. Just as I look now at the same realities of another time, but after 40 years, namely my future and that of the reality of my universe from 40 years ago, and it is neither easy nor simple to understand the paradox of this simultaneity or of the Reality Itself.
On a street always covered by the tree shades for a few hundred yards, there is the entrance to the park, where we would spent every day of our holidays, except for the days when we used to go fishing or playing football: same entry, but more civilized and less natural than ever.
I entered into the park that I had not seen for such a long time, I almost did not recognize it, especially after people had broken the universal order for their own limited order, and I felt as if I breathed another air, different feelings, but the same existence. After taking a few steps on a path, I sit on a bench, maybe a bench of my memories or my past present’s memories, or the same bench that I will find in my future present. Next to me, the old Monument of Heroes, not very artistic or much impressive, but my feelings bind me to it. Our spirits have so many memories together that I cannot ever say that a flower, a sign, a stone or an animal do not have their own spirit. If you do not feel these connections, this is just a weakness of yours, just another limit. The monument seems to check time and space against the rectangular directions of the park’s alleys that it watches like a guardian of its time and space.
I feel like I sat on the same bench when I was still a high school student... silence, as if the Earth had sunk into the ocean of the Universe Itself, and only its waters comfort your body with a neutrality hard to describe. Few people, few children, few high school students, I could say they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. For a moment, my eyes are caught by a crack in the asphalt, where the grass was trying its best to come to light in a desperate struggle for existence. I look up, surprised, when my class colleague and friend is talking to me:
“Did you send that note?”
“Of course I did.”
I always write love letters and notes for dates on the behalf of a colleague that he is madly in love with, he loves her and, at this age, love is blind. I like this colleague too, but he is my friend and, moreover, I am a bit more rational, less instinctive and perhaps more of a coward. The gossips of my small provincial town maybe scare me, they make me pay attention to what I say and to the ones I go out with, especially the girls whom occasionally I take for a walk. My friend smiles satisfied. Like me and like most kids of this age, he always likes to show his physique well shaped at the gym, but I like to show the spirit that I have shaped in classrooms or by so many readings. We make a few more steps together discussing about normal issues for our age; in the park—the same universal peace and silence. We split up after we say goodbye to each other.
He died long time ago at an early age and almost crazy, of cancer; there was no trace left over from his optimism.
Down the alley—somewhere in front of us, flowerbeds and blossoming chestnut trees— my friend goes towards his house, towards his destiny maybe and I, alone now, try to walk with my thoughts.
The guard, a man limping because of a wound in his youth, (he had fought in the war), who almost every night tries to catch us when we play over the flowerbeds and climb nearly every tree around, now goes about his business somewhere. Fortunately for us and to his regular distress and misery, night is our friend and covert, not to talk about the noise, and we sometimes even turn on a transistor radio, which is the pride of the neighborhood and especially our joy, because it belongs to my elder brother. We turn up the music and listen to it along with the whole park and, maybe, with the surrounding houses as well, in a silence of nature that rings into our ears, and we do not know anymore if it is from the cassette player or from the silence of nature. A seemingly deranged nature, an unknown cosmic order that some call chaos, others system, just like us—those noisy kids—each evening until late at night. I do not know what it will happen if the guard finds out that we are the ones who always tease him at night and, during the day, we walk calmly past him; or maybe he knows and that is why he enjoys our innocent game.
Lost in thought I startle. In front of me, there appears a tall girl with blue eyes, like a symbol of beauty and love, or perhaps only in my childish mind.
“You are so beautiful.”
“And, what do you think, does this help me with anything?”
“Your face compels me; you can never go unnoticed by anyone.”
“I am so happy when you notice me, usually you forget, you are too concerned with science.”
“In my eyes you are the most beautiful.”
“And you're a liar that I like.”
That velvety skin of your cheeks, so soft that you are afraid to touch, the color that you just see and you get thrilled, and all these, if we consider only what we can see or feel, because beyond our eyes and our power to see the reality, there lies her perfection. The blush of her cheeks at every word that I feel that concerns me, that she listens to or she only supposes, this is only her human and imperfect perfection. Beyond them, there is the divine that we never know to listen to, to look at or, at least, to understand. That impetuous blood that gives color to her soul (purity at 16 years of age) seems to foretell our future and that of the generations to come, vibrating along with nature, along with my feelings or hers, or with who knows what unknown universal resonances.
I was no longer able to give her any answer. I took her hand, and we were walking along, with peace and happiness in our eyes and souls, in the park that seemed made for us. Surely, the whole town already knows about this. We hardly talked, overwhelmed by emotions and afraid to go on with our own feelings.
She has changed so much in time; my memory brings her face in front of my eyes, with wrinkles caused by aging and the difficulties of existence. She is a teacher, her husband died already, I am an engineer at retirement age, and we both have grown old.
The emotions made me startle and I look back at the blades of grass coming out from that crack in the asphalt. I am still on the same bench, living in my past present, but the illusion of going back in time disappeared just as it came; I returned to my present reality or to its illusion at least, as certainly past reality was an illusion as well. Where is the Reality Itself, where is what we lived then, what we live now? The future tells us that both will be the same after all, just an illusion that I have ever existed. Why is that reality a dream now and why will it be a dream tomorrow, why going back in time seems an absurdity? Because it is not possible, or because I understand so clearly the simultaneity of the past images and feelings that can never be separated from the present images and feelings.
It would be so irrational to love with the soul of your youth two existences: one young and beautiful, in your mind like an angel, another one with tired eyes and overwhelmed by years of hardship, both in your memory at the same time, and your rational spirit judging the two faces.
I wonder if returning in time makes you forget and lose your gained reasoning, or you come back with the same thinking and spirit as you had when you were 18. Then why come back anymore to repeat the same mistakes, since anyway you cannot have your reasoning from then and from now, neither the form nor the spirit? It would be a tragedy to love the face from the past, but see the face from the present for all of us. There is no return in time that could make those connections, even if a return were possible. I, for one, never want to go back, I want to stay with my memories, moreover, sometimes I even refuse to see my friends, in order not to see their change in my eye and vice versa. Would the universe in which you live be able to return along with you, or just you alone? How to reconcile these opposites, these changes, it would be so absurd that it scares me, even if anyway, everything is just absurd, but this is more absurd than the absurd itself.
I get up and leave, letting behind the present/past and my return in time, better to forget there was any at all, and to keep what no one can ever take from me: the illusion that there was a young man, as I used to be, and never the way I am. Some are transformed by age and troubles, others deformed by the loss of their humanity, others live with the pessimism of an upcoming nonexistence and others are simply gone. My eyes no longer have the energy of the past and cannot see things clearly, maybe only my reasoning and spirit would try to see in the fog the reality that I have never found. The return to the past as well as the departure into the future, these two I offer as presents to whoever wishes. I remain with my present/past and the present/future I am heading for.
After so many years, the park has changed too, people have changed the cosmic order, but just for now and only illusory, because the changes will not last forever, every second everything changes still. A well-maintained hedge reigns all over, resembling pretty much a palace garden, maybe beautiful for those who do not have memories, but a disaster for me; they cut my memories with it and, moreover, I cannot pass to the flowerbeds that we and others had trampled under foot so often.
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