SURREAL ADVENTURES FROM THE SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS

Sunday, February 8, 2009

The asteroid and the small blue planet

I left Ed’s house as soon as I recovered from my stress episode. That same day, the ghost driver took me home in his black Bentley and I went back to my usual routine. Neither trace of egocentric businessmen nor funny little ways: Big Cheese and colleagues acted as if nothing had ever happened.

I recovered my regular pattern of life and … it was hard. It was sad, too. Sad as the ghost of the melting snowflakes on the window glass; sad as the last minute of my sweet childish dreams, from which I had to wake up abruptly without having found my own paradise.

It was already tough and annoying to be back to normal mode in Dumbass. I was used to put up with the irritatingly demanding Big Cheese and Big Shot men; with all those old stick-in-the-muds who looked down on me; with the guys from the Unions taking snapshots of my car and tracing me all over the place; with my old story of suffering from loneliness and melancholy; but I was simply not used to go without Ed. And until that day, I never realised it would hurt like hell.

I e-mailed him the day I left, just to thank him for everything he did for me. I expected some kind of prompt reply, but he never answered.

Easily hurt, but not easily discouraged, I tried to reach him on his cell phone. My faith in him was strong as a rock, so I kept insisting. But he neither returned my calls nor the text messages I sent.

The feeling that things had certainly slowed down, rather cooled down between us since Christmas, had been going round and round in my head. And I soon started carrying that devastating feeling of rejection around in my stomach like a painful, heavy burden; too heavy for me.

I allowed some days, but I didn’t hear from him.

I dared phone his secretary –the hyperintelligent pandimensional shrew who hated me so much-. She said he was busy. She didn’t even bother to say she’d give him the message. Why would she.

I knew he was okay because that excruciatingly long week I saw his picture appear twice in the papers and my wild imagination immediately started creating all kinds of emotional disasters and betrayals.

I missed him madly. And what was worse, from my emotional reaction I realised I had completely fallen for him. But my irrational mind stubbornly refused to process that feeling. I was going insane, restless, nervous and hesitant.

After eight unbearable nights of quiet suffering, helplessly hoping, I totally lost it and decided to drive to his house. It was almost midnight, but the gates of his mansion were still open. I parked my car in the gardens. The ghost butler opened the door and greeted me before I even rang the doorbell.

- Good evening Ms Qinan, it’s nice to see you again. –he smiled-
- God evening, Stoicescu. Nice to see you too. Is Mr. Davies in? –I asked-
- Yes, Ms Qinan. Lord Davies has just arrived from a long trip. Please, follow me to the study. –he answered solemnly-
- No worries, I know the way.

The butler bowed elegantly and left. Lord Davies, he said. For gawd’s sake. Yes, he was a real Lord: the title was bestowed on him by the king Clovis III (also known as ‘the King who lost Orsinia’). But as a plebeian working class princess, these aristocratic pedigree legends were really not my scene.

I walked to the study, and there he was, knee deep in work, writing under the faint light of a small lamp. He lifted his gaze from the papers and smiled at me.

- Oh, Leni… what a nice surprise! Come in, please. I’m just back from a business trip to Zantland. What brings you here so late, sweety? Is everything ok?

I ran to him and held him tight. The strain I had been standing during his absence seemed to vanish.

- Wow… this is what I call a warm welcome –he whispered, as he stroke my hair-
- This longing for you has made me very sad. Why didn’t you answer to my phone calls, e-mails and SMS? I hate you! –I said, holding him tighter-
- Aww… I’ve been very busy, love. I apologize for not being able to devote more time to you lately, but believe me, I simply couldn’t…
- I hate you
– I protested weakly-
- You’re angry as a bag of wasps but you don’t hate me. –he said quietly-
- Yes I hate you! And I can’t get to sleep. –I said-

He laughed loudly. I expected he would prescribe me a sleeping pill or a hot glass of milk, but he gave me the most amazing answer instead:

- Then stay with me tonight, Leni. I know how to help you sleep and feel better. –he smiled at me- How does that grab you?
- I still hate you
. –I said, still upset-
- Let’s make a deal, then, so that you can stop hating me.
- What deal?
- I’ll tell you a story. If I can make you smile, you stay with me tonight. Ok?
- Hm… don’t muddle me.
- I would never do that, silly. Just let me wipe that sorrow off your face. I can’t do with sad gals. I truly apologize.
- Ok. Go on.
- Let’s see… when I feel bluesy, just like you do now, I like to dream that I fly through the first warm winds in the early spring, when the sun rises and the morning fogs dissapear over the meadows. I could be a humble water drop too, flowing in a small river in the mountains, falling over the pebbles, sitting on a rock covered with moss and for a while after, falling on the ground. Sometimes I even dream I’m an asteroid. Oh have I ever told you the story of my happy encounter with a small blue planet?
- No
–I answered -
- Hm... let me take my fountain pen and tell you the story.

He drew in the air a big shiny ball that grew in the shape of an asteroid; then, a group of small colourful planets at a considerable distance and said:

- Once upon a time, and a very good time it was, I was an asteroid in the endless width of the universe. I flew on my own for a million years. My life was a boring uninterrupted flow of energy and speed through the vault of heaven. Nothing ever happened to me. But a few million years ago, I saw a multicolour planetary system on my way. It was the first time that I could see something so wonderful since the Big Bang, when I was born. As you can imagine, I couldn’t resist the temptation. So I slightly changed my route and approached it. There was a bright yellow star in the middle of them –let’s call it ‘sun’- and some funny small balls –let’s call them ‘planets’- orbiting around it. As an asteroid, I had been observing these planets from afar and I desperately wanted to become a part of their harmonic movement and their peaceful cosmic dance.

He stoped for a while, as the heavenly bodies revolved around the sun and the asteroid approached them.

- I felt the irresistible desire to meet that system and become a part of it: that ignited the senses that gave a meaning to my long existence. So I brought my trajectory closer and spotted that lovely small blue planet. By the way, it was almost as blue as your shirt and your mood. So I quickly changed my flying path in the direction of that little beautiful blue sphere, that modified the orbit slightly, turning round to face me. That was certainly a good sign. I flew at incredible speed towards the little blue planet, feeling a strong and intense desire to reach it, and I realized that my efforts were successful: I hit that blue beauty, and we collided with the most genuine, warm feeling of happiness. There was an incredible release of energy in the firmament when that happened. Fireballs and shooting stars were propeled in all directions and a spray of shining lights filled the sky when the small blue planet and I reached our melting point.

As you can imagine, Ed's story brought a big smile to my face.

- Now Leni, the moral of the tale is this: everything is relative. That wonderful instant of happiness and burning passion was also the end of the dinosaurs; but that’s another story.

I couldn’t help but smile again, looking at him and at the wonderful motion picture displayed in the air showing repeatedly the shiny cosmic collision.

- And now that I can see this beautiful smile of yours, keep your promise and stay with me tonight –he said-


Of course, I kept my promise and stayed with him that night. We happily collided with the most genuine, warm feeling of happiness. There was an incredible release of energy when that happened. Fireballs and shooting stars were propeled in all directions and a spray of shining lights filled the room when we reached our melting point.

Some say happiness is,
a warm gun,
the greatest aim in life,
opium for the poor,
an ephemeral illusion,
the overexpression of hormones and neurotransmitters.

To me it's the wonderful feeling of loving and being loved. Especially after colliding with an asteroid.


Thanks to A. for sharing some of his wonderful ideas, which made possible this story.

13 comments:

moonlover said...

Lovely! dear Leni :o)

Realy a great story,
making us dream!
Love is and always will be the strenght to go on.

thank you,
a moon kiss ;^)

Grass said...

Whoever this A is, he must be a poet and a lover in one. Those words about happiness are beautiful.. I liked the way you've compared the collision of heavenly bodies to reaching heaven (and thus happiness) through making love. Amazing.

Hmmm, being a geologist, the death of the dinosaur over the beauty the collision has represented is like looking at another perspective of extinction. After all, without the collision, human being wouldn't have thrived (as if we need velociraptors to hunt and kills us down when we already have the goverment to do that now, hehehe).. Things indeed happen for a reason (and mostly, they are good ones!)

Great entry sis, as usual!


xxxx

Megan said...

Marvelous and definitely worth the wait! Wherever do you find all your lovely images, by the way?

Anonymous said...

Hi Leni,

You really made me smile. Don’t hate Ed, he’s a good storyteller and I bet you’ll have a lot of fun if you keep him!

And for Pete’s sake, stop being silly. If he said he was very busy, it meant he was VERY BUSY. Don’t get paranoid, ok?

Leni Qinan said...

Dearest Moon,

You see what you make me write with your challenges? LOL.

Some people say money and sex rule the world, but I think it’s love most times what makes the world go on. Call me romantic, but I think you are too.

Big beijo for you. ;)

Leni Qinan said...

Dear Grass,

Yes, A is an amazing friend with whom I’ve written some stuff. His wild imagination and generosity helped me write this post, so the creative work is not 100% mine: he allowed me to use the idea of the asteroid collision. Hence, the mention. He sometimes pops in and leaves a message in this blog, but he’s a bit shy and normally very busy and can’t be here as much as I’d like.

My sweet sis, from the second part of your comment I can see that you’re a geologist 24/7, hahaha. I don’t know if it’s good that an asteroid finished the dinosaurs –as your brilliantly point out, the predators saga never ends-

Big hug!

Leni Qinan said...

Hi Megan! Thanks!

Where do I get the images? It’s a great deal of googling after writing and finding the music, dear. Then my poor little brain needs a whole week to recover.

XXX.

Leni Qinan said...

Hi Max, and I’m glad I made you smile.

I’m not getting paranoid, dear. Least of all silly. When you really long to be with someone, it’s quite hard to go without communicating. I think you can always find a minute to send an SMS/email/phone if you’re really interested.
You should know this.

And now, YOU stop being silly, LOL.

Soup Waiter said...

I bought a drum kit at the weekend and my girlfriend said "wtf?" and then I told her how much it cost and she said "ok, we're even" (because of something she bought before).

And then I remembered I'm going to see Sisters of Mercy with Dude #1 in two weeks. I'm on a roll.

Leni Qinan said...

Hi JJ! Long time no see!

It’s a give and take, basically.
But you’re not even anymore: Wait and see when you tell her you’re going to see Sisters of Mercy (with Dude#1!!!) in two weeks.
Love is such a beautiful thing.

Take care and buy her some aspirins if you play your drums loud. ;)

Fernando said...

Que bien escribes, LeTi. De verdad. Eres una genia. (qué políticamente correcto me estoy volviendo).

Un beso.

El rodaballo existe.

Leni Qinan said...

Hombre Fernan! Bienvenido a la civilización! Gracias mil por el piropo. La verdad es que no me importa ser un genio o una genia –como le decía a un exnovio mío que llevaba gafas: ‘tú es que me miras con cuatro ojos’, jajaja-.

El rodaballo existe? Luego, piensa ¿no? A ver si con el buen tiempo nos lo podemos comer.

Ánimo, y espero que pronto salga el sol para que puedas salir con el Stay Calm por esos mares de Dios.

Bss mil.

Leni Qinan said...

TRANSLATION FERNANDO/LENI:

Fernando said:

You really do write nicely, Leni. You’re a genius woman –I’m becoming so politically correct-

Kiss.

The turbot exists.


Leni said:

Wow Fernan! Welcome to the civilisation! Thanks a lot, I feel flattered. To be honest, I don’t mind being a genius or a genius woman –as I said to an exbf of mine, who wore glasses: ‘you look too kindly on me, four eyes!’ hahaha-

The turbot exists? Then it thinks, right? Let’s hope that when the good weather comes we can have one for lunch.

Chin up, and I really hope we get some nice weather soon, so that you can sail the Stay Calm across the seas!

Thousand XXX.