a man who wished he were a rock

Under a big rock, beneath its heavy shadow, John used to sit... John who always dreamed of being an astronaut, not really because he loved that, but because Jessica, the love of his life, once said she wanted to marry one of those "space men" how simple dreams can be..

john never really asked himself why he loved Jessica, the thin girl, not too tall and not too short, with that childish soul and small dreams that fit so well with those born in a faraway village, far from anything modern. She had heard endless stories about astronauts from her cousin who worked in a far city. that cousin John hated, not because he worked in the city, but because he saw in him a real threat to his love for Jessica. she loved when he came to visit the village, not for who he was, or for the gifts he brought, but for those other things the stories, the tales about the city, the people, the roads, the cars... she used to listen and let her mind wander far away, so far, that when he left, she felt an emptiness inside her. she missed those stories. he was like a strange and beautiful world to her. and John, he always noticed that, with sadness and jealousy burning inside, but what could he really do? except burn quietly..

every time Jessica’s cousin came to visit, John would go and sit under that big rock again. I’m not talking here about Zarathustra’s cave or some search for truth. John’s retreat was different, it wasn’t about finding meaning or meditating on life, it was just sadness and anger over a loss he thought was coming, or maybe he only imagined it..

Jessica, during those days, would forget John, forget the people, forget the whole village. her body was there, yes, but her mind and her soul were miles and miles away..

when the cousin left, and John’s return, which meant nothing, Jessica went back to her usual life again, working on the land, helping at home, waiting for the next visit. John could see in her eyes a thousand stories and dreams, but what killed him was knowing he wasn’t even a small part in any of them, not even a side character in her imagination. he saw how she stopped caring about him, and as she grew older, she drifted further away. the boy was about to explode inside..

one night, as usual, John went to her house, had dinner with them, talked and smiled like always. when he left, he looked at Jessica the way Baggio once looked at the ground after missing that cursed penalty... and that was the last time his eyes met hers..

in the end, John’s eyes were saying, I’m not Sisyphus anymore. I left that damn rock where it is. there’s no point in pushing it again..

and I, the one writing these lines, wish my own Jessica could read them and feel John’s burning inside. but my Jessica wouldn’t care anyway. she would probably think it’s just a barbecue, like the great Russian Dostoevsky once said..

Maybe the reason for that is that my Jessica never really looked at me, not even back in our childhood at elementary school. Back then I didn’t understand what those feelings meant since I was just a kid. I just looked at her differently, she was simply more beautiful than everyone, more accepted than everyone, she was perfect in a very simple way. That’s love, it makes you love yourself through the other person, because everything we do is somehow for ourselves, we do it all for our own sake. John loved Jessica because he saw his own happiness with her.

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