We made it to the one-bedroom rental that late afternoon without issue. I thought so. Perspective is a lens with many filters.
After a mild train ride from Milan's airport, my pockets filled with nuts and bottled water I felt, once again, on the edge of existence. It had been a long time. One falls into a routine that leads to other routines that, eventually, through the exponentially of love and responsibility, codify you into a malaised pillar of somebody's kid.
The smell of sea salt and exhaust was ripe in the air. I had never seen sunshine like that. My father came to mind. He loved to fish and taught me how to gut them. I tried not to imagine him dying in a beautiful place like that; in a place where nobody in town knew him but he knew himself.
I said hello to the train conductor and they barely gave me a nod. There was no history between us other than their own with who they saw me as. To me, they, the conductor, were the first of their kind; like Darwin on the Galapagos. Their annoyed glint, their tired eye bags, their noncommital guidance. Their belittlement was my nirvana.
Imagine being the first to see nature's creation, while simultaneously not knowing if you were and wanting to reach back to the muted past to validate your discovery.
Mankind is nothing but a series of reaching back, pulling forward, and settling down; happiness is ******.
Before at the bus terminal after arriving from Milan, I kept complaining about wanting to take the ferry for the experience but you told me (you still tell me) it was all part of the experience. The idea of moments became still then and, sorry to delve into metaphor, but like a slug across a windowpane or a car crash at dawn or the birth of your 4th child and how that one never once cried, you remember the intricacies of life's offerings rather than its "normalities".
I will never forget you taking me with the windows open to the view of never-ending mountains, a cool wind on our skin.
We must define the line of the bubble we are all - for better or worse and ultimately distance us - in. I wrote this down as an old fisherman, their pole and tackle tucked between their legs, half-dozed as our bus narrowly slammed against the rock wall separating us both from certain death. The bus driver, from what I could see, was entirely indifferent to his or our mortality. It was just another Tuesday. Perhaps he was thinking about what could have been done differently with his time. Or maybe, he was thinking about what he would be doing differently, tomorrow. There is always tomorrow. Action, in the non-contextual sense, is relative anyway.
You asked me if we were going to be ok and I told you of course. Why? you proceeded. Because people in love rarely die tragically. Why? you asked again. Because they were in love when they did.
You scoffed, slipped on your sunglasses, and asked for some water.