A Love In Dark Times

-wait and now what?

1 ask you Mike, now what?

that's what I'm asking you Mike, now what?

-'m affraid to read those letters and find something I don't like.

-if you want to keep them forever, you'll have the hope and you'll be spared the reactions to the contents that are deposited in them.

“It's just that we never exchanged letters with me, so maybe there was another third party, or who knows what he might find.

“If there was another one, all the better, that would give you another chance to be free, if I were you I would have shaved that money from that narc, because as far as I can see you don't trust her, surely you've noticed some of her moves.

“It may be old Richard, although I don't trust her, I love her and how can I trust her blindly, if she lives with someone else how can I explain it? I know that I should forget her, that it would be better to put an end to this unhealthy relationship, that in a few years I'll know that all the time I spent with her was a huge waste, to turn the page writing a dry “end”, witho dedications, biographies or appendices, look while you were telling me this story of hell, I was living mine, wanting to fill these sheets of coloured paper with flames, crumple them up, crumple all their memories into those pieces and watch them burn at the stake, be the inquisition of the past and look to the future as a blank papyrus where I can paint a new story, leaving this mess behind, Id really like to go to sleep and wake up without remembering it.

Wait Mike, you can do that at any time, however, you can't be left wondering about the contents of those letters, let's rez one, any random one.

Its alright old Richard, I'll read this one, look it's a kind of poem, it goes like this:

“I miss you without you being mine,

I watch you in my dreams,

I caress you in my memories,

In my moments of loneliness,

In the face of my owner

I draw your face with kisses

In my heart I feel your touch

I don’t know at what moment everything got complicated

I'm drowning in rage, in courage

Of haste or uncertainty,

The purity lost

Or the poverty that stalked

My decisions today punish me

But they are my decisions

I can’t take them back

Without destroying myself

For it will rain blood

From my suit

For my family

it will be infamy

it's all done

Even if I'm a battered man

Remember that I am yours.

Even if I don't contribute to you

And you are what I want

My first man”

you realise Mike, that message is for you, you told me you were her first man.

Well old Richard, that's what she told me, although I don't know, since she was my first woman and I haven't really been with another one, I might have been taken in by her words.

“You see, you don't trust her, I don't know why you persist in continuing with this, it's as if you were cutting the wound, preventing it from closing, knowing that it's hurting you.

-old Richard, doubt keeps us alert to lies, you can't jump head first into a river without first exploring its bottom, it can have sharp rocks, and you can't trust people blindly, even my mother betrayed my father, when my father was working an we were studying she would go into the milkman to milk him.

Yes, that's why the milkmen are famous, I had a friend who was a milkman and he used to proclaim that his product was miraculous, thanks to this a brunette couple had a blond child, he looked more like my friend than the parents because the pregnant woman only consumed his milk, it must be that she consumed it before the pregnancy.

-old Richard, how can I trust women if my mother made my father the laughing stock of the neighbourhood, everyone knew that when he went out another one came in, and when my father was sent on holiday, my mother became hysterica This almost caused my father to invent something to do that would keep him away from the house in his moments of leisure, and he found it in the bars, next to these bottles and card games, where he met Mrs. Liliana, who had been a wid for more than ten years and who was also a drinker, first they forged a drinking friendship, like ours, and then an overflowing love blossomed, which led them to go into the gnawed sheets of a cheap residence, where they gave free reir to their passion, she breaking her mourning and my father his marriage vows, while my mother was playing around with her intruder, whom we came to call cousin Jaime, even my father knew him as such and often bumped into him on his arrival without paying much attention to him, as he was carrying his own sins, after spending his money and energy with the widow. So a few months went by between my mother's desire for my father to delay his arrival and the increasingly forced excuses that justified his long absences, until it so happened that my father had a work trip on a weekend, so cousin Jaime convinced my mother to go on a pilgrimage to a spa town, thus leaving us with a procuress aunt, with such luck that they chose the same adventure hotel and the two couples met face to face, My father fled from my mother's sha claws that threatened to tear him apart, the widow seemed to become dust like her husband and cousin Jaime got into tt role of companion to check out my father's adventures, in the end the peaceful trip ended with the widow on the run, my parents on the verge of divorce and cousin Jaime who tried to mediate to avoid the separation, I remember how he advis him to get my mother back, I remember how I advised him to get my mother back, it was obvious that he didn’t want to b a regular, but a substitute, he wanted to eat and not maintain, my mother cried, playing the betrayed, the martyr when sf was the one who caused all the drama, she was the spark of dynamite, she even ran Dofia Liliana around the neighbourhood with the knife to chop the food, fortunately the widow was pushed to flee for sin, in the end my father af a thousand scoldings and forgiveness, he reconciled with my mother, despite receiving constant reproaches, the cousin seemed to live there more than any of us, until one day the brazenness and confidence won them over, my father came home from work early, passing by the bar despite the constant calls from his cronies, he bought a beautiful bouquet of roses, to want to fix things, overcome the problems and start all over again, the neighbours when they saw him filled the wind with murmurs, leaving their houses as if a public figure was arriving; my mum forced us to go out and play in the street with our friends, my dad gave us money to buy something at the shop, wanting us to go away. He opened the door very happily, imagining grabbing mum from behind, covering her eyes and surprising her with the roses, so he walked softly without making the slightest noise, he didn't even breathe, just like the neighbours who were crouching in front of the house, He entered the room and the surprise was for him, he saw how the bodies vibrated washed with sweat, the moans were covered by music from an old radio and the reaction of his anger was to destroy the roses on his back, accompanied by insults, he cried maybe because of the betrayal or to see how stupid he was; he considered himself to b the unfaithful billy goat and he turned out to be the billy goat. The cousin escaped from his hands, helped by the blows and insults of my mother who reproached him that the fault of everything was the lack of attention of my father, that I cannot corroborate or deny, my father although he worked a lot, arrived home, had dinner, watched a little television, above all the news, which I disliked that he took away the cartoons, to see massacres and disasters, between allegations the intruder slipped through the door leaving wrapped in a sheet, while in the street he slipped out amidst the jeers and jeers of the neighbourhood, he was stoned and even the damned person who took the sheet off and had to run naked, showing his shame, that's why to this day my parents sleep separately, I don't understand why they still live together if they only talk to each other to insult each other, they say it's something of their religion, a dogma that if they separate th 20 to hell when they already live in one, I don't think it's worse to be tormented by eternal flames, than by the chatter of woman.

Mike, 50 from that trauma you derive your distrust of women and you also lock yourself in a circle of wanting something that you know may not be worth it.

How can a woman who left me for someone else be worth it?

“What if she was forced, if her parents kicked her out of the house and this narc seduced her with his capital, there can b many answers.

-old Richard, what if when she found out about her pregnancy she preferred to give herself into the arms of a man who, with that economic capacity, would give shape to her dreams that her son was threatening to deform.

“In that case, Mike would say she made a better decision than having an abortion, that's a point for her.

-1 don't know at what point it would be more humane or intelligent to take the life of an unborn child than to condemn it to a life of suffering.

That's a lousy point, old Mike, life is made up of moments, bad or good, that's where we have to try to form them good, avoiding the second ones and when the inevitable ones happen, face them and overcome them, it's not fair that another person, and more so a mother, decides to end the life of a living being in formation, for me abortion is an aberration without justification.

“That's your way of thinking, old Richard, however, many women decide to do it, guided by their predicaments, fortunatel my beloved didn't do it, she gave the opportunity to give birth to this baby that could be mine.

“there is no excuse, for the one who uses it.

Better old Richard, keep telling the story, you still have a lot of things to solve, just like me.