Blackout

Some things are obvious. Some changes are obvious. I've been watching it for a while, aware of the subtle shifts, of the quiet movement that your steps have been taking. Slowly but steadily. It doesn't come as a surprise for me to see, now that you've dropped the way of subtlety, where are you heading to. Maybe it was not entirely your choice. Maybe it had to be that way. But you've chosen nonetheless, and as you did, so shall I.

This lady is so going to make me fry fifty bucks.

2010

I look around and realise that 2010 is being rather a rough year on relationships. Forgive me the euphemism - 2010 is being a bitch on relationships. So the few of you boys and girls who are still managing to keep your beloved ones - lock them in your bedroom somewhere, and do not let them out until January 1st, 2011. Of course, not everything is bad news. The summer has come at last - this ain't exactly a good new for me, as I care little about summer anyway, but I understand most people love it - and with a little luck we won't have any rain at all until the end of September (yeah, right). Portugal football team trampled North Korea, something both unexpected and uncalled for, but also rather beautiful and fun. Within one month, more or less, I'll be back on videogames at last (unless Blizzard fucks up and delays Starcraft II yet again). The National's gig is three weeks away. Radiohead are hopefully releasing a new album by the end of the year. And on August 2nd, Arcade Fire are releasing their third album, The Suburbs, and they promised to come for a gig in Portugal until the end of the year. So it doesn't look that bad after all, if we forget the love thing for just a bit.

Notes from the chaos

Knowing that we fucked up might be the possible atonement, but it's not a good atonement - if such a thing is to exist.

Everyone is constantly changing. The thing is, such changes are usually slow. They take time. But sometimes we do change fast and in unexpected ways, towards unexpected goals. I see that in someone that is dear to me. And I see that in myself - a deep change that I would never thought to be possible, not in my most strange dreams.

There are things though that do not change, as much as we'd like them to.

I still think that it was the greatest opportunity of my life, the most shining smile it ever cast upon me. And I know that I've wasted it. Any other consideration on the subject - the realm of possibilities, the realm of emotions, the pieces that fitted together or broke each other - became redundant when the door was closed.

In the meanwhile, we paint the truth in bright or dark colours, as it suits us better.

We are accidents waiting, waiting to happen

On shows

You are right, in a way, but what you said would be true for at least ninety-nine percent of the television shows nowadays. Unless we're talking about Lost, that shows some promise while starting to soon become lost into its very own maze (it's hard not to make the joke). The original CSI, for example, with its two spin-offs, well, what to say? It's the same formula repeated ad aeternum. Same for The Sex and the City, if you add some futility and a considerable amount of delusions of grandeur. Or Desperate Housewives. Or NCIS. Or E.R.. Or Dexter. Even great series like X-Files or The Simpsons fall into the old boring spin cycle rather quickly - although The Simpsons are rather hectic, to be honest (which is good).

Nowadays, my favourite TV shows are House and Bones, and mostly for one reason: the cast. Bones has, in my opinion, the best cast in a TV show nowadays - there is pure chemical reactions in there, everything just falls into place perfectly. And House, well, House has House, arguably the most interesting character in TV in the last decade (not that I've followed that much, truth be told). Of course, I have two additional reasons to watch the show - Olivia Wilde and Jennifer Morrison (Lisa Edelstein is not really my type) -, but still: the show works. It's rather well written - not a masterpiece, by any means, but solid enough. It includes a lot of medical jargon without boring ourselves to death. It has decent character development. It has dull moments, yes - I remember the "villain" in the third season, and it was really a pain in the ass to watch -, but it also has many witty moments. And humour. Sounds good enough for me - way better than Grey's Anatomy, for which I never had the patience, or Scrubs, which not silly enough to be funny, but silly enough to be plain stupid. Oh well.

A very, very bad idea

I borrowed from one of my best friends, D., the first season of House, M.D.. It was his suggestion, and a very, very bad idea. Two days later, I'm as addicted to it as House is addicted to Vicodin. And the funny thing is, I had seen many episodes of the show before, and I knew I liked it.

When all the lights go out*

A dark room, four walls of a colour that might have been white once. A wooden wardrobe in a corner, worn out on the outside, rotting quietly. A narrow and old iron bed along the wall. No bedtable. A dusty metal chair with clothes scattered randomly over it. A desk with two halp-empty packs of cigarrettes, a dirty ashtray, a shining gasoline lighter, perhaps the only item in the room that looks new. In the wall over the desk, a small window facing the outside, a narrow alley, capturing whatever light is left of the day. There's never much light left in these days.

A man is sitting in the bed. Alone. Next to him there is an open briefcase of worn leather with papers. Drafts, unread for years, almost forgotten, never completed. Tales never told. Around him, in the bed and in the floor, pictures. Old pictures. His eyes stare at one next to the pillow, a picture showing four faces together, their laugh captured in the paper, their lips smiling, their eyes shining with joy of being together, the four of them. He cannot remember when that picture was taken. He knows that the place where it was taken no longer exists. He doesn't know where three of the people in the picture are, or what happened to them. He is the fourth. He stares at another, it shows a face. A face he ought to remember, a face staring back at him after all those years. He moves to another one. Then to the landscape behind them. A place he shall not see again with his waking eyes. His eyes stare at another picture, one of a girl with bright eyes and a wide smile. Love. Futile love. The last love, her face faded and then lost like all the faces behind him.

He doesn't know what happened. He doesn't know where the people in the pictures have gone, and why. He hasn't seen any of those faces in years. He hasn't called them. He hasn't heard anything from them, their voices lost in the void that lies beyond the door of his small room, just as that familiar landscape that has vanished as the years went by.

His eyes move to the briefcase, to the papers within. His old ideas. Ancient worlds of his own making. He doesn't know how did the ideas scattered themselves. Something happened, something he can't quite place. Something changed. He looks at his drafts. Everything used to be so natural, so simple. Then it was gone. He picks up one of the papers, wrinkled, the letters on it blurred by the time. That was a long time ago. A whole life ago. The wrinkles of his drafts are the wrinkles of his face. Eroded, worn-out, forgotten. Time heals everything, they say, but it never, ever forgives.

What changed, and when, is unknown. There must have been something, something happening at some point of his life. Some step taken, some path followed. A choice, perhaps. A wrong deed, a wrong word. A small grain of sand that had brought the cogs to a halt. He does not know. Yet that path ended up right here, with him sitting alone in a dark, dirty room, surrounded by his own ghosts. Ghosts. He doesn't mind them any more. They are the only company he has left until the day when all the lights go out.

*rewriten

Phylosophy out of a friend's messenger nickname (XXVII):

If you want a moment of happiness, go for vengeance. If you want a lifetime of happiness, go for forgiveness. Ah, if only things were that simple...