The toy car

He was six years old. And a couple months on top of that, but he couldn't remember how many. He already knew how to count quite well, but he had never been interested in his exact age.

He was on top of a chair, on the tips of his toes, with a stick in his hand, and was trying to reach the car thrown on the dresser, one corner visible. No matter how much he stretched, he could barely touch it with the stick in his hand. How did I manage to throw it like that? he said to himself.

He had thrown it up on the dresser so the other kids wouldn't touch it, especially since they were playing in his room all the time. He threw it up there in panic because the others almost caught him when they entered his room and he had to quickly hide it. After that, he had tried his best to get it down from there, but he had never succeeded. It was very frustrating: he was the only one who knew where the toy car was, he could even see it, without the others knowing he was looking at it, but no matter what he did, he couldn't get the toy down from there.

He had received the car as a Christmas present when those people had come. He didn't really know who they were, or where they came from, but they came every year to give them presents, and that was enough for him. This year they gave him a chocolate, the car and a pair of warm socks, which he took great care of. He had been the only one who had received a car, the others had received candy, and that was because one of the girls who came with Christmas presents really liked him. She had discreetly given it to him and smiled so beautifully...

Maybe that's why he was trying so hard to get to it by himself. Because it was from the only person he had been able to bond with since he was at the orphanage. He didn't want to ask anyone for help, he felt it was his responsibility to take care of her gift to him. There's only one thing I have from her, and now I can't touch it.

He stops, suddenly. He proceeds to sit down on the chair, with his hands on his chest. He looks at the toy again. No, it's my gift from her, I don't want anyone to know about it. He looks around and catches his reflection in the mirror. He looks at how short he was next to the solid wood dresser. Then he has an idea He picks up the stick again, and reaching out one last time, gently hits the toy, moving it completely out of sight.

He puts the chair back, hides the stick, then walks to the bed, grinning. The teacher enters the room just as she was sitting down on the bed. She takes his hand and says:

 

- Let's go outside, let's play, it's sunny and beautiful.

- Yes, Mrs. Natalia.

- What were you doing there in the room?

- I was waiting to grow up.

Colors

 - You do realize you disappeared again, right?

 I had met her in the summer, when, on a visit to my cousin, he introduced me to his girlfriend. She was... special. I don't know how else to describe it. Beautiful, of medium height, slender and graceful, but without that spoiled attitude that I knew so well from my female history. As we walked in, she greeted me casually, looking straight into my eyes, then sat back and continued painting.

 I remember thinking at the time "maybe she can calm him down". I knew him well, I knew he wasn't necessarily sane in the head, and I knew the concept of a long-term relationship was completely foreign to him. I was right, they had only been together for about three weeks when he finally broke up with her, as he always did. But I kept in touch with her. I spoke with her sporadically for about two months, then we agreed to meet for a coffee. One coffee turned into two, then a movie, two dinners and a hand held.

 What I’m about to tell you now will probably seem hard to believe, but I have no reason to lie. She was indeed special, but not only in a figurative, stomach butterflies kind of way. No, she was special because every now and then, when you least expected it, she would… disappear. No, again, I'm not using figures of speech, she LITERALLY disappeared. She sometimes became invisible. She didn't go anywhere, she didn't even move sometimes, she just became completely invisible.

 Sometimes when she was alone, sometimes in public, many times when it was just us. She couldn't control the phenomenon, most of the time she didn't even realize it was happening again. She would always become visible again after a few minutes, sometimes half an hour. At first, I thought it was uber cool, I had a girlfriend with supernatural powers, but over time I understood that it wasn't so much a superpower as a natural phenomenon, part of her.

 With time I got used to it. In public, we would make up excuses like "she's in the bathroom" or "she went out to make a phone call". At home there was no need for apologies. I could feel her location, even if I couldn't see her. I knew she was there, still drawing, reading, or I could feel her gently caressing my face. We both laughed at the fact that if anyone would see me in such moments, they would surely say I was crazy and talking to myself. I nicknamed her "my (sometimes) imaginary friend".

 Here I was, looking at the wall in my kitchen, knowing she was there.

- You do realize you disappeared again, right?

 I was staring into her eyes. I knew they were there, even though I couldn't see them. She had been in the kitchen for two minutes watching me cook, when POOF, she had vanished it again.

- Oh, this happens more and more often, she answers me in a concerned voice.

She pauses slightly, then continues.

- I wanted to tell you something important.

I stop fidgeting and turn to her and say, with a grin on my face:

- You'll be gone for a few minutes, I know!

We both laugh.

- In the winter I am going back to Greece. And I don't know when I'll be back.

I knew she was only here for a scholarship, so I wasn't surprised by the first part. But the second one, yes.

- I'd normally ask why you don't know when you're coming back, but I know you better than that. Are you sure?

- Yes, I'm leaving in November.

I felt her hug me, I hugged her too, we stayed like that for a few minutes.

- What a pity, you are so beautiful… when you’re visible.

She chuckles, buried in my shoulder blade.

- I will take your book with me, Tudor. And know that I'm leaving with one more color on my palette.

- I have never been associated with a color. If you decide to show up again, you know where to find me, right?

- Yes...

 I feel the pepper from my cooking crawling up my nose, so I sneeze loudly. I open my eyes and see her in front of me, as beautiful and serene as ever.

 - You will love what I’m cooking, I guarantee you, I tell her, turning to the stove. I was hoping she hadn't noticed my shaky voice.

She caresses my back and then says to me, before leaving the room:

- I'm at the desk, drawing. And I can't wait to taste the food.

 As I continued cooking, I thought about her words. "Know that I'm leaving with one more color on my palette." Hmm. I hope it's a shade of green.

The dancer and the bird

She danced. When she was sad, she danced. When she was excited, she danced. It was her center. From the dance she reached out into the world, only to come back to its safety. 

She danced. She danced like there was no tomorrow. "But there really is no tomorrow, you silly bird", she would say. And she was right, she was always right. I would wake up the next day and it would still be today. "Maybe it's better that tomorrow never comes, because tomorrow I'll lose her," I found myself thinking.

But then she danced some more. She danced so well, the floor didn't even feel her presence. She danced so honestly, so complete, I could never fully watch her. It felt like I was desecrating a holy ritual. Whenever I watched her dance, I felt like I was a prepubescent boy looking through a keyhole at some forbidden act, I felt like the things that I saw weren't meant for a mortal's eyes.

She danced not as a form of expressing herself. No, it was more than that. When she danced, she WAS dance. It wasn't a self, performing a set of movements in a space, it was the dance itself, manifesting in front of my eyes in the only form I could understand.

And she never really stopped dancing. Not even when doing normal stuff, like reading a magazine. Her every movement was fluid, like some new, never-before seen experimental act. Her eyes danced on the pages. Her curls danced with her, like an aura surrounding an alien entity. 

She felt alien to me. Not because she spoke another language and not even because she came from a place further away than even my imagination could reach. No, she was an alien to me because she could dispel all my worries with one smile. She could shine light on a darkness I thought was eternally with me. And she could do it naturally, like it was her meaning all along.

She would talk to me for hours, and her thoughts danced with mine as her words danced on the tip of her tongue. I was sipping every word that came out of her mouth like water by a poor soul stuck in the desert.

I sometimes caught myself staring at her in a crowd, at concerts. She would sometimes notice my stare before I could, and she would then stare back, without flinching. We were both like moths under a light, caught in each other's stare.

Watching her dance made me wonder if I could have been as fluent as her if I learned how to move like that at a young age. "it's never too late to start dancing", she'd say with a light smile on her face. "Oh, but it is," I'd reply, stretching my old wings in the evening breeze. "An old bird like me, dancing, would be an offense to this beautiful art".

But she was right. She always was, because her dancing always pointed her towards the truth. And the truth was that it's not about the dance, the result. It's about dancing as an action. I would never be able to jump like her,  only to land like a feather back down. I wouldn't even be able to spin around without getting dizzy. But dancing would eventually free me from the cage I built myself. And I was too afraid to be free again.

My heart danced when she embraced me. She would hug me and stay there, tucked on my chest, for as long as I wanted to hold her, like she didn't need anything else. And my heart slowly began dancing to the warmth of her proximity, as if she was singing a silent tune with the right chords.

I, for a fleeting moment, was a fixed point around which the tiny dancer chose to float and twirl. She was actually a time traveler, I realized. She would always keep herself and whoever was near her in a state of "today". As soon as she danced away, tomorrow would come.

It's tomorrow now, dançarina. And you’re still on my mind.