Viento

Hace mucho tiempo, cuando los dioses caminaban por la tierra y los hombres se arrastraban entre ellos, existió un ser cuya belleza era envidiada y codiciada por todos. Los hombres lloraban al verlo atravesar el cielo con vuelo presto y silencioso, las mujeres admiraban perplejas la complejidad de una incomprensible maravilla y los niños, sabios e inocentes, se limitaban a saludar y sonreír, como si toda la belleza del mundo habitara en sus ojos y aquel pájaro de plumas brillantes no fuera más que otra faceta de un universo todavía por descubrir.

Muchos eran los que hablaban del color de su reflejo, del tacto de sus plumas, del sabor de su canto. Las madres explicaban a sus hijos historias de como aquel pájaro del color del cielo iba a visitarles cada noche para velar por ellos, para protegerles de la oscuridad y los monstruos que habitan la razón. Los padres hablaban de como los dioses habían renegado de aquel ser a causa de su incomprensible belleza y de como ahora vagaba libre por el cielo, dejando una estela de brillo y color a su paso. Los niños, llenos de excitación y júbilo, señalaban al cielo cada vez que el viento traía consigo una melodía desconocida, preguntándose entre susurros si aquella misteriosa canción pertenecía o no a ese pájaro que todos conocían pero en realidad nadie había visto jamás.

Lo cierto era que nadie sabía nada. Todo eran historias, matices torcidos de un mito atrapado en una botella, fragmentos de un cuento sin principio ni final que, con el tiempo, la gente y las generaciones habían aprendido a creer. Oh no, no es que el pájaro no existiera o su belleza fuera menor a la que las leyendas narraban. Nada de eso. El pájaro existía, sí, y su belleza era tal que cada vez que sus plumas del color del sol cortaban el cielo hasta los propios dioses callaban. Lo cierto es que el pájaro existió.

Pero no eran pedazos de luz lo que dejaba a su paso, ni era protección lo que había venido a traer. En realidad, el pájaro no llevaba consigo más que una profunda e insondable tristeza. Los ríos de brillo que teñían el cielo tras su estela no eran sino la marca de sus lágrimas al pasar sobre un mundo que no comprendía y que no podía entenderle.

Porque el pájaro estaba solo. Al principio, había intentado refugiarse en el canto de sus semejantes, encontrar cobijo bajo unas alas que no eran las suyas. Pero toda aceptación duraba hasta que la magnitud de su inalcanzable belleza acababa por distanciarle y separarle de aquellos a quienes, por el más efímero de los instantes, había llegado a considerar su hogar.

De modo que el pájaro vagaba sin rumbo por el atardecer, buscando aquello que no había logrado encontrar en la mañana, para luego zambullirse de lleno en las llamas de un crepúsculo prematuro cuyos colores no ofrecían más que preguntas a respuestas que jamás habían sido formuladas.

 

Un día, el pájaro se cansó de estar solo y decidió buscar consuelo en la sabiduría de los dioses. Harto de buscar, de vagar, de no encontrar, el pájaro se acercó a los dioses y preguntó:

“¿Por qué estoy solo? ¿Es que acaso no existe nadie como yo?”

Y los dioses respondieron:

“Tu existencia es para también para nosotros un misterio. No sabemos qué eres. No sabemos de dónde procedes. No sabemos nada.”

El pájaro meditó esa respuesta durante varias épocas, hasta que dio de nuevo con la pregunta adecuada y se la presentó de nuevo a los dioses:

“¿Podéis crear un compañero para mí?”

Ante esta pregunta inesperada, los dioses se retiraron a deliberar y, tras varias épocas más, dieron con una respuesta:

“Podemos crear un compañero para ti. Podemos proporcionarte un acompañante. Podemos acabar con tu soledad. Pero no lo haremos. Tu belleza es un bien demasiado preciado y único como para ser recreado. Darte un compañero sería destruir aquello que te hace único, que te hace bello. De modo que no lo haremos.”

El pájaro, cansado y perplejo ante la cruel respuesta de unos dioses ahora ajenos, se echó a llorar.

“Si no me dais lo que busco, esconderé mi canto bajo las piedras, ocultaré mis plumas bajo las estrellas y guardaré mi estela entre las olas del mar, de modo que nadie podrá volver a verme jamás y será como mi belleza jamás hubiera existido.”

Los dioses, temiendo que el pájaro cumpliera con su amenaza y desapareciera del mundo para siempre accedieron a su petición. Usando tres de sus lágrimas, crearon tres copias, puras y prístinas de un color más blanco que la propia luz, y los dejaron para vagar libres.

 

Al principio todo fue bien. El pájaro, contento de tener alguien con quien compartir su mundo, voló alto y les mostró a sus hijos el color de la aurora, el sonido del viento peinando una tierra descuidada, los reflejos de un sol amarillo en un millar de sombras sin dueño. Durante un tiempo, todo fue bien. Los hijos compartían la alegría de su padre y todos se alimentaban del amor del otro. Pero un día, mientras el pájaro observaba a sus hijos cantar, descubrió en sus ojos un brillo apagado e inerte, el reflejo de una luz que no les pertenecía y que jamás había sido suya.

Fue en ese momento cuando el pájaro entendió. Los dioses le habían engañado. No le habían proporcionado compañeros. No le habían dado hijos. Todo lo que los dioses habían hecho había sido crear reflejos sin matices, copias planas y vacías de sí mismo.

Triste y cansado, el pájaro decidió descansar y buscó refugio en el abismo más profundo que pudo encontrar, allí donde ni siquiera la luz del sol podía alcanzar y el sonido se ahogaba en su propia desesperación. Durante varias épocas permaneció alejado del mundo, arropado por el frío calor de unas plumas cuya perfección cada vez le costaba más soportar.

Alejado de todo y de todos, el pájaro tomó una decisión. En la oscuridad, allí donde sólo sus plumas iluminaban el rostro blanco y puro de sus crías vacías y perfectas, el pájaro supo que debía morir. Sabía que los dioses jamás le permitirían marcharse de este mundo, pues eran demasiado egoístas para permitir que su belleza se extinguiera, de modo que el pájaro esperó y esperó hasta que los dioses estuvieron de nuevo enfrascados en uno de sus absurdos conflictos y entonces actuó.

Cuando el pájaro estuvo seguro de que nadie le molestaría, miró a sus tres crías a los ojos y, una por una, les ordenó que devoraran su cuerpo, que consumieran su mente, que extinguieran la llama que brillaba en cada una de sus plumas. Las crías, obedientes y confusas, accedieron a sus deseos, pues el pájaro era su madre, su padre, y todo lo bueno que habían conocido.

Con cada bocado, soles enteros se extinguían, realidades completas desaparecían y una nueva lágrima se vertía. Pero el pájaro no lloraba de dolor, ni de rabia, ni de tristeza. Lloraba de felicidad. Porque sabía que, una vez su cuerpo hubiera desaparecido y sus recuerdos se hubieran extinguido, una vez su mente se hubiera disipado, sus crías serían libres de vivir una vida que a él le había sido negada. Una vida en compañía.

Cuando todo acabó, las tres crías se miraron a los ojos y encontraron en ellos un reflejo extraño y ajeno, brillante y templado. El reflejo de la vida. Descubrieron que sus plumas habían cambiado, que su canto era ahora libre y que la luz de su estela era ahora real. Pues ahora eran hermanos, y como hermanos se querían y se tenían los unos a los otros.

Los pájaros, nacidos de nuevo, lloraron durante días y noches, lamentando el vacío que su madre, su padre y todo lo bueno que habían conocido había dejado en su pecho. Pero aquel vacío no estaba vacío del todo, pues retumbaba con un eco extraño que ninguno de los tres supo reconocer hasta que los sollozos cesaron y los vacíos de su pecho se unieron para dar forma a un canto lejano y distante, el canto de una madre, de un padre y de todo lo bueno que habían conocido.

Perplejos, asustados, los pájaros llegaron a la conclusión de que no habían sido abandonados, de que todavía quedaba esperanza, que sólo tenían que salir a buscarla para encontrarla. De modo que, en un pacto de solemnidad, los pájaros acordaron salir en busca de su madre, su padre y todo lo bueno que habían conocido y decidieron que cada uno de ellos buscaría en el rincón más lejano.

Y así fue como uno de ellos decidió adentrarse en el alba, fundiendo sus plumas del color del sol con la mañana, buscando una madre. Como otro surcó las olas de la tarde, rozando con sus plumas rosadas el mar del atardecer, buscando un padre. Como el tercero decidió perderse en el crepúsculo, donde cada día era devorado y vuelto a expulsar, buscando todo lo bueno que habían conocido.

Cuenta la leyenda que, cuando llega la noche, los pájaros se reúnen una vez más y se ocultan tras la oscuridad del cielo para llorar juntos, y que cada estrella en el firmamento es una lágrima caída por cada día que pasa en el que los pájaros no encuentran una madre, un padre, y todo lo bueno que una vez conocieron.

Light and Wave

“Could you please stop doing that?” she complained, her feet half-buried in the wet sand.

With a waving of his hand, he released the tides and the tranquil waters came to crash gently against her pale ankles.

“Thank you” she said mockingly, and went back to play with the waves.

It had been a while since they had last visited that beach. It was one of their earliest memories, almost as old as their tree, but for some reason both of them had forgotten about its existence until that morning. Still, the place had not forsaken them, and as soon as they had walked within the boundaries of that distant shore, the white sands welcomed them, as if only an instant had passed, as if the waves and the tide had been waiting for them to return ever since they had left.

Perhaps they had been waiting. Perhaps the gentle breeze and the distant cries of seagulls were just that, a welcome, the relief of a creation being acknowledged by its creators.

They didn’t know and they couldn’t know for sure. In some ways, in many ways, that world was still a mystery to them, as much as they were to it.

“You lost again” he said as just another wavelet found its way between her bare feet.

~Idiot, she sent through her mind-touch (which meant she wasn’t angry yet but would soon be if he kept teasing her that way).

He smiled and turned to his old notebook.

It was a simple game indeed. She had tried to teach him many times, and every single one of those times they had ended up quarreling.

“You are doing it wrong!” she would always say.

“Why, because I’m winning?”

“No, because you are thinking!”

And then she would turn and, facing the sea, she would wait for the next wave to break before jumping once again.

Gracious, her feet would take off just as the thin sheet of water that had been a wave spread under her. For a moment, she would stand there, frozen in mid-air, a breathing statue waiting for the right time to come back to life, until the sea claimed its waters back and her feet, still dry, touched land again.

“See?”

“But that’s what I’ve been doing all the time!” he would complain.

“No it’s not! You calculate the speed of the water, the direction of the wind, the humidity in the air, the friction of your feet against the sand and then perform the most perfect jump your calculations allow you to. You cheat!”

“And isn’t that the whole point of the game? To make the most perfect jump? To never touch the water? To never lose?” At this point, his voice always adopted that rational tone he employed every time he knew (or he thought he knew) he was right.

“No boy, this is not about winning or losing, not even about making the perfect jump, as you put it. It’s about reacting, letting your body and your instincts take over you without knowing or even caring whether your feet will end up getting wet or not.”

And then, seeing how pointless it all had been, seeing in the deep of his eyes how incomprehensible that notion was for him, she would finally add with a sad smile:

“But I guess that’s your problem, right? You can’t stop knowing. You can’t stop thinking.”

After that, she would turn and face the horizon (which after that kind of argument was usually a colour between a stormy grey and a dying twilight) and resume her game as if nothing had ever happened.

In the end, they reached some kind of silent agreement, a wordless pact according to which she was allowed to play with the waves mostly undisturbed while he waited for her on the blanket scribbling on his old notebook.

He had tried to understand her game many times. He had analyzed the rules, or rather the lack of them, from every imaginable point of view but had failed miserably to grasp its purpose. Did it have any purpose at all? What was the point of deliberately letting luck and chance decide the outcome of anything at all when they could level entire continents and extinguish suns with the blink of an eye? For life’s sake, they were Gods! They were supposed to know everything, to think everything!

Sometimes, as he observed the lines of her shape getting ready to react, he thought he understood. There was something in that reckless abandon of hers, in the way she let her small body talk to the waves. Sometimes, he thought he could hear the waters talking back to her, silent, welcoming, caring. Sometimes, in that brief moment of absence in which her heartbeat almost came to a halt, he thought he understood.

But then, when the waves broke to drops and the drops turned to foam in a pattern so perfect and predictable, he remembered how pointless it all was and turned to his old notebook, where everything was orderly and clear.

From time to time, when words got stuck in his head, he liked to watch her play. Although he knew he’d never be able to understand the purpose of such a pointless game, he had to admit (at least to himself) that there was something soothing, almost relaxing, in watching her play.

It was in one of these pauses that he discovered a different way of enjoying her game. Like every god, he had learnt to appreciate the delights of destruction, the bitter sweetness in the undoing of things made to last, even if that thing was briefer than a heartbeat.

He looked at her, a dark shade against the dim light of a dying afternoon, and closed his notebook. He had to wait until the precise moment, or it wouldn’t work. Too soon and she would realize. Too late, and it wouldn’t matter. So he stared at her and, as she started the small ritualistic movements that would take her towards that careless state in which nothing mattered, he let his influence creep freely over the sands, towards the sea, an unseen breath of sheer will and silent determination sweeping and expanding.

Still sitting on the blanket, he let his mind mix with the waters, feeling every single little drop of blue, lost and alone in that vastness that was the sea. He mounted the waves, rushing, staring, studying, waiting for the precise moment to act.

He waited as her concentration built up, careless and unaware, pure wild intuition following the trail of some unconscious pattern. Watching her from both shore and sea he wondered once more at the way she let her mind commune with the elements. It was as if she was the face of a many-sided coin, ready to flip and reveal a new, previously unknown aspect at any instant.

He listened as probabilities around her started to fix, knowing that the moment was close, looking for that exact split second in which her feet left the ground and time almost ceased to be.

And there it was, shining bright like a tiny flame in the fiercest of voids, alone but not scared, completely vulnerable and exposed.

Now, he thought, and the world stood still.

A surge of pure warning gushed from her, piercing his mind, bending his shields.

He knew he shouldn’t. He knew he mustn’t.

But still, what if…?

He released the tides and all around her turned into chaos. A towering wave the shape of a wall swallowed her shape in a furious confusion of sound and foam, chewing her body with watery jaws.

When the full realization of what he had done hit him, he stood up and ran towards the shore, leaving a trail of white dust in his wake.

He waved his hand in a quick swipe and the whole sea retreated into itself, a quiet barrier of quivering waters shining in the distance.

Panting, he scanned the seabed with a single, wide glance. With a gesture of his finger, he forced the whole world into silence and listened, searching for her heartbeat. He searched through the countless tiny souls of mice and men, among the tired heartbeats of the exiled gods, in the vastness and the roots of their old tree and found nothing.

He tried to reach her through their mind-touch, lowering all his shields, shattering barriers he had spent so much time raising, almost exposing his very core to the world, just to find the slightest clue of her presence.

Nothing. No trace, not even the distant echo of her, or an afterimage. No hint or trail for him to follow.

What have I done?

Blink. A tremor in the distance. Waters quivering, coming to life. Sudden motion.

For a moment he stood there, motionless, thoughtless, speechless, watching as the waves rushed towards him with borrowed rage; a huge, massive barrier of hungry waters stretching towards the margins of the world, threatening to swallow everything in its wake.

As he tried to stop its seemingly unstoppable advance, he realized it was too late. There was no thought these waters would obey, no command they would kneel down to. It was as if every single drop had suddenly regained a consciousness they had been denied long ago, as if they had been woken up from an ancient slumber, ready to take revenge on those who had imprisoned them in their unconscious sleep.

He knew he should be afraid. He could remember the last time the elements had rebelled against them, how utterly devastating the fight had been and how they had almost lost themselves to a world they had just started to tame.

Yet there he was, watching instead of running, awe-struck as the raging waters swallowed the sun and came closer and closer. There was no time to think, no time to react, no room to-

Suddenly, abruptly, the waters came to a halt.

He tried to move, but he couldn’t. He tried to think, but he couldn’t. It was as if something, someone had taken hold of his heartbeat, pinning him down in that spot, forcing him to stand there and watch as the waters, now quiet and still, finally settled down and the world was plunged into silence once again.

There was something there, moving beneath the very surface, something great and dark, hidden among the layers of crystal-like substance; a presence, calculating, estimating, analyzing.

And all he could do was look at his own reflection. He was trapped, a helpless prey caught in amber, unable to move, to run, to speak.

In the silence of the world, under the eyes of that unknown will, he heard the rumour of their old tree, faint and reassuring. He knew it would only take a few moments to get his heartbeat back, to re-synchronize and have his powers back. But for the first time since he could remember, he didn’t want to do that. He didn’t want to be in control, he didn’t want to know or to think. He didn’t know what was going to happen next and he didn’t want to know.

Uncertainty. That was the word.

The mirror broke with the sound of a thousand shrieks and he was stricken by an unseen force. He fell down, slowly, as if the air around him had suddenly got thicker. For an instant, he had the feeling that he was being gently pushed down, as if the presence in the mirror, now freed, wanted him to witness its arrival.

Shiny little particles of water floated in mid-air, frozen in a trajectory they would never be able to complete. It was only a crack, a ragged hole of clear sky against the dark background of a liquid wall. Pulsing white light poured through the breach, long thin needles of clarity piercing the dark waters.

As he finally fell down, he could glimpse a dark spot inside the cascade of sunlight, growing, increasing in size until it detached from the brightness and became a fully formed human shape.

She approached him with slow, heavy steps, as if time had ceased to matter, as if nothing mattered anymore.

“You are powerless” she said, looking down at him, wet hair hanging down the sides of her inscrutable face.

~And what are you going to do? he sent, still unable to move or speak.

She moved her hand, ever so slightly, and the world around them burst into chaos. A tempest of water and foam raged above them, behind them, around them, until silence swallowed all sound and every tiny little particle of water and light froze in place.

Without taking her eyes of his, she blinked, just once, and the whole sea started to fall on them like a cloudless rain.

Silence followed.

Monastery of Silence

~Truth.

~Truth?

~Yes, truth.

They were sitting on their favourite bench in the gardens of an old monastery. The place was as silent as it had been the first time they had found it on one of their occasional wanderings.

They had been visiting one of the most populated memory cores they had discovered up until that moment. That core in particular had adopted the shape of a pre-industrial crowded city. It was a place full of people and smells and noises. Beggars, priests, noblemen; the highest and the lowest mixed up, living in a perpetual state of chaos, a city inhabiting its citizens. Always in motion, ever on the brink of change, but not quite.

At first, they enjoyed it. They bathed on the pungent smells, they soared the screeching noises, they searched and found themselves in a toothless smile, a tired glance, a manic laugh; ever moving from one body to another, leaping from one soul to the next, until the presence of the city became too big and complete and their heartbeats too distant and faint and they had to run away.

They named that place Chaos, and swore to each other never to return.

The monastery had been hiding in a small mountain range next to Chaos. They had found it almost by chance, if such a thing existed in their world.

~You once asked me how I would define the world if I could only use one word, and that’s my answer. Truth. His thoughts echoed in her mind as clear and close as if they had been uttered.

To an external observer, they would have looked like a young couple sitting on a bench under an old pine tree, lost amidst the silence, not minding each other.

~That’s rather a vague answer, she sent back. Truth can mean everything or nothing at all.

They lost themselves in the silence of the monastery for a while.

It hadn’t been a conscious decision for them to use their mind-touch. As soon as they stepped into the gardens of the monastery they immediately understood why they had been drawn to that place.

The transition had been smoother than dawn. At that moment, they both had felt it, had been aware of it, but as they walked among the bushes and the trees, as they approached the old silent building, they forgot how to talk, how to speak, and they suddenly realised that words were forbidden in that sacred place.

It’s not that they couldn’t speak. That was their world after all, and they knew that they could choose to speak if they so wished, but they also knew that, as soon as they had crossed the unseen boundaries of the monastery, words had turned into meaningless blurbs of sound, careless and irrelevant, obscure references to meanings far beyond the surface of their thoughts.

~That’s precisely my point, he signalled, breaking the static of their mind-touch. Truth, or rather the absence of it, defines not only my world, but everyone’s.

She glanced at him sceptically, raising an eyebrow. She was used to this kind of categorical claims but still, his sometimes utter lack of humility never failed to surprise her… or amuse her.

~Enlighten me, she sent mockingly.

He moved, ever so slightly, and his distant expression turned into a more focused one. She watched him as he rearranged himself on the bench, turning his body towards hers, fractionally, almost imperceptibly, just like every time he was about to say something momentous (or something he had been rehearsing in his head, as she had learnt to notice).

~Take for instance the people at Chaos. They live their lives in constant motion, a perpetual process of change that never ends. Their lives are like the water-flow of a thousand rivers, only their rivers are birthless and purposeless, furious streams of raging waters preying upon one another. His thoughts flowed in an orderly row with the clarity and certainty he always tried to convey in his discourses. Each of his words was limited and constrained by its own distinct shape, instilling his speech with a rationality he sometimes lacked.

In the inner layers of her mind, she laughed secretly at that. After countless conversations, voiced and silent, he still felt the need to modulate the tone of his voice, to carefully choose every word, as if the wrong choice could destroy any possibility of communication.

Perhaps it could.

She turned her gaze towards the old monastery and, signalling the precise amount of eagerness, urged him to continue.

Dreams Of The Sleepless

“Where do we go when we sleep?”

“We simply disappear.”

“And where do we go?”

“I’m not sure. In fact, I don’t think we actually go anywhere. We simply cease to be.”

“Would you go after me if I disappeared?”

She was lying on the blanket, staring at him with sleepy eyes. Her voice sounded far, as if she was already drifting in her sleep and hadn’t realised yet. Tired beams of sunlight came down through the thick foliage of their tree, drawing patterns and white shades on her oblivious shape.

He was sitting next to her, watching the clouds pass by through the narrow spaces between the branches and the leaves. From time to time, he turned to an old notebook and wrote something down, as if the cracks in the clouds held the answer to some unuttered question.

“I wouldn’t. We would disappear together.”

She sat up, suddenly woken up by the gravitas of his words. She looked deep into his eyes, trying to peer into the impenetrable mask that bore his gaze.

For the briefest of instants, the shadow of a smile danced on his lips.

“You lying bastard” she smiled back “you would probably start taking notes in that old notebook of yours while I vanish in my sleep.”

They remained silent for a while, reading each other’s eyes.

“Perhaps” he finally said.

He closed his notebook and lay next to her.