Tention within tenses

It was presented to me as a gift, although it did not look like one. You walked me into a room with mysterious words. “This is our future!” You sounded excited, and it almost made me forget how the last several months felt. A little too glad to be able to hold your hand again, and following you with my eyes closed, I realised how much I trust you. Then you gently remove your fingers from my palm and move to the side. I can hear you breathing for some time, but then, your presence blends into the rest of the distant noises. Standing still with my eyelids blocking the view, waiting for a signal. But it never comes - the room is silent, and so are you. Another chunk of time dressed like an eternity passes before I look around. Only a little is visible from the dar scenery, but I know you aren’t there. As I slowly move around, feeling the wall, I stumble over a switch. Uncertain, whether you would allow that – if that was a part of the plan - I press it and watch the blinds rolling up. Slightly confused by the intensity of the outside world, I now identify the silhouettes as they gain the much needed third dimension.

I have spent much time in this room. Remained willingly, although I liked to pretend that you kept me hostage. Frankly, I have never lived better. The things you have done for me! I couldn’t have asked for more, yet I did – and even then found a way, how to play the victim. With those thoughts and similar fueling the anticipation, I reach for the closest object. They are all the same; boxes wrapped in brown paper. Suspiciously plain and unimaginative for a person like you, though together they almost compose an art piece. There are so many of them. Climbing over the sofa and underneath the table as well as sitting by the window. I wait with my fingers slightly underneath the edge of the paper, listening to the muffled buzz around us. The house is mostly quiet. None of the neighbours is home, and you too are motionless. I am overwhelmed and want to run away as I always do. However, following your example, I defy my hesitation and quickly dig through the layers of paper, finding my way in.

Shouldn’t be surprised how much you know me still, I stay stunned, processing the injected memory. The memory of our future. Exactly, what you promised to me, and I jumped in before thinking. The life we placed in the clouds above the bed we should not have shared. There is the house we built together. It is big, yet not obnoxious. Fairly modern without the pretence of unhealthy minimalism. It didn’t take long to visualise everything. We built it over a bag of cookies we both regretted eating. It was meant to be a house and home. But I always knew it wasn’t going to be big enough for both of us. There could have never been enough space to accommodate the wreck of our relationship was predetermined to be. Your projection is standing on one of the terraces, refusing to look at me. At the same time, the smaller image of myself is walking in circles in the kitchen behind you. Captivated, I watch how we stay close yet refuse to come to direct contact. It hurts.

A single picture. Away from the boxes. I am back in the bed, and your corpse is there next to me. It is as quiet as I learned to be when sharing the space with you become uncomfortable. One picture above us flickering through scenes like a broken movie tape. Some are real, some we created together, a few of them have gone through much faster, and others seem to be barely moving. The house is growing into a story while I mindlessly open one box after another, finding more pieces of the puzzle I should have completed months ago. The gate opens, unveiling your car and face that has decided to leave me for good. Yet you are still standing on the terrace, and your imagination builds another project that I will insert myself in. Another joy that I am a part of from now on, whether you like it or not. You continue with all your routines, and so do I. Both accompanied by many of our variations swirling around doing what we wish to do instead. Two of them are on the top of the house engaged in an argument that could also be a love game. I see my different self on the other side of the flat roof, looking down on the road while tilting towards the edge. Meanwhile, a version of you is cheering me up from a nearby window. But the most interesting is the figure barely noticeable between all the reflections of the windshield. You are still waiting for the gate to fully open, but the car is now clearly visible. An SUV you wanted me to own. Distracted by the noise, the image crumbles, and your pale face vanishes from the pillow next to me. I am back, sitting next to the pile of cardboard, listening to your car leaving the real driveway. After an ungraceful race to the window, I watch you disappear behind the corner in a vehicle that changes colours under the sun. An object capable of more adaptation than myself. I wait for a while before going back to the collapsing fortress of boxes and the cynical storyteller the bed turned into.

This time we are in the car together. It doesn’t take long to identify the memory we never created. The trip we sketched and put aside. We never went. Despite that, I see the first buildings not far from us, and the sign on the side of the road shortly welcomes us to Berlin. My objective is clear at first, but the contours of the admired museum are difficult to find in the shadow of the thick air in the cabin. Questioning why we decided to go, what was I expecting to change, what did you imagine the journey would look like. Instead of appreciating the architecture, we are drowning in the desire to be happy, buried under our own failed attempts, clueless whom to blame. I want to blame you and worry at the same time that you would accept the rotten deal if I present it right. That’s how you are to me. Perhaps it is the devotion that scares me. Perhaps, even that is a justification of a person in denial.

More torn paper and the scene continues to sprawl above me. The vision we built is everywhere I can see. More rooms in the house, so we never meet, a growing number of ourselves trying to escape prison but wish could stay. Silent dinners and photos of us that scream for help. No matter how much I talk to myself gradually, I witness more and more of my explanations turning into cowardly excuses. Everything ties together in a monumental knot dividing the table. It was there from the very beginning. When we sat on the floor of an unfurnished studio apartment and under the window of a single bedroom flat. It has always been there, always hungry. However, you found your way to me despite it, discovering what nobody else had before. Maybe that’s what discouraged you.

A paper cut marks my finger when trying to open the last box. It is empty. All of them were. As empty as my sentences depicting what happened between us. It was great, then better and then it couldn’t go any further. Through time I have always been telling myself my intentions were genuine. When did it start to hurt? My voice floods the building. Crying for help, sorry for myself and embarrassed, I wish you came again to help. But you are gone. Forced to run from a place that belongs to you merely to be away from me. My lamentations die after a while, and silence again coats the interior. I didn’t know how much I hurt you. I am sorry.