Flëur

"Without you, my whole work is meaningless. Music and poetry, sound of rain and singing of birds." On the streets worn down from the spring's swelter, the sky was covered up by dark, dense clouds. The room smelled of oil paint, old books and the inexpressible bitterness of shed and unshed tears. It was stuffy and quiet, despite someone's cries penetrating into the studio through the closed window. With amateurish, yet almost smooth brush strokes, Romano was drawing out the vague lines of the first things that came into his exhausted mind: orange elephants, yellow lizards, red turtles, pink snakes, peach-colored crocodiles... He didn't have even the slightest clue what sense and purpose his doing served, nor why he acquired that studio at all, because he didn't paint often, anyway. But something was attracting, calling, pushing his restless heart to this place, each time the darkness consisting of his own feelings and thoughts was obscuring everything surrounding him. Or when his imagination, awakened by an ethereal fit of inspiration, began projecting one image after another, each of them more interesting and colorful than the previous one. A shelter for the heart. A grave of ideas. This small room was his world, his personal heaven and hell, at whose door he left everything behind he didn't want to know nor see. Everything that caused nothing but repulsion and the wish to bury himself deeper into the crumbly soil of his consciousness, under the roots of the olive tree of unfulfilled dreams... A shelter for the heart – a grave of ideas. A place the older Vargas brother called to himself the tenement of his personal demons, where at the same time he was also trying to hide from them. To lose himself in this smell of paint that had eaten itself into the plain walls, among the lines of the half-forgotten art books, in the dusty cupboards' warm wood... in the lifeless marble eyes of the Great Caesar, who observed everything tirelessly. The sky grew even darker and the first thunder already knocked on the window, muffling the crowd's noise. An illusive awakening, two steps back, an unseeing glance at the canvas, a rotation something like ninety degrees to the right, more steps – an impeccable and heavy consciousness, like the discharged spirit of the universe. Romano allowed the invisible wanderer to enter, who as thanks began to blow up the semi-transparent curtains like the ghostlike flags of a long fallen empire. People hurried home like ants and everything froze, awaiting nature's scandal. It was time to turn on the artificial light to replace the now resting sun... But the older Vargas brother stayed where he was. Why should he care about the coarsened mortal's sky, if the clouds on his life's canvas had changed their colors and fallen off the path of rationality a long time ago? Why should he care about mortals in general, if every single one of his own wishes and thoughts had turned into a mythical siren?.. "I wonder what that idiot Antonio is doing right now." Like syrup, this question, which wasn't even looking for a clear answer, spread on the surface of his mind's walls. But then again, why should Romano care about the "idiot Antonio" who didn't mean "absolutely anything" to him? Why did he suddenly remember that guy's existence at all?.. The older Vargas already wanted to laugh it off or begin swearing like he always did, but... he couldn't. No, God Almighty knew that he did care about the "idiot Antonio" after all. Although he wasn't his top priority, of course, but the second or third one for sure... the fifth one out of eleven. The seventh out of seven. Just after point zero. ... And again, an invisible abyss broke open between the deathlike and immortal city and his (un)beloved studio, separating the one from the other like an imaginary fence. The curtains stopped moving, but the presence of the already gone wanderer could still be felt psychically and physically. With the help of the switch, Romano breathed life into the glassy pear, looking around the room at his previous works. Everything was like from a half-forgotten dream; golden, immense flatlands, loud waterfalls, high, pointed mountains, broad rivers covered by ice... They had names, sounding insanely similar to that of the "idiot Antonio", who the older Vargas brother (seemingly) didn't care about at all. "I won't show them to anyone anyway." And again, the already memorized vinyl disc in his mind began to play, like it had been doing constantly throughout several centuries. "I'm not better than my brother anyway, and not better than anyone of them... I won't be able to bring HIM back from the dead, and it's not like he'll be proud of me anyway... I won't ever be able to reach the needed level and never be good enough anyway... I won't ever tell Antonio anyway that he's the only one who I could let into this studio, apart from Caesar and the wind. I won't... no, I absolutely don't care." On the streets worn down from the spring's swelter, the heavenly gods forgotten by everyone began to rage. A lonely single lamp was lighting up the room, it smelt of oil paint, tart bitterness and an opened bottle of red wine... A new painting – showing the sun, but not the sunset, nor the sunrise, consisting of bizarre, brutish smudges – looked foolish compared to the rest. "I'll paint over them later," received the canvas its sentence like a scaffold chopping off a head, but it soon corroded in his mind under the influence of the wine's ethanol that always made Romano a bit more soft and merciful. "I'll draw a sun like always and turn this into its reflection on the lake's surface... And here will be flowers and a forest..." Of course, they will, if the older Vargas doesn't decide later to throw out that idea, crumpling that piece of paper. Everything will, if he finally stops hiding in this place from everyone. For some reason, Romano suddenly remembered that outside his personal heaven and hell, where the seconds, hours, and minutes have already been crushed by the ponderous infinity long ago, it was still only March. That April will soon arrive and the entirety of spring as well... That behind all the pile of landscape pictures there was a self-made portrait of the Spaniard, covered by some old, dusty soft cloth. He didn't care... But did at least someone, except for Antonio, care about him? Was someone out there, except for Antonio, who didn't consider him "just his younger brother's shadow", but a unique and valuable personality? Was someone out there, except for Antonio, who really needed him and not as a source of income and raw material? Was someone out there, except for Antonio, able to take him as he was, without chasing him away, judging him and wanting him to change?.. Feliciano didn't count. Drowning in his foolish love, he no longer was seeing any life, any light beyond his precious German – who was hated by the Italian's older brother – for several decades. Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg weren't family, although they seemed like it. If they were all humans, these three would be exactly these "distant relatives" with whom his relationship would stay more or less friendly, only seeing each other almost exclusively on the most important holidays. And who was next in line of a possible "spiritual kinship"?.. The only answer was ringing, echoing silence. No one. No one... The heavy rain began to play a march with its giant raindrops, but the imaginary abyss by the window swallowed its hammering, turning it into the careful whisper of the yellowed pages. Through this rustling sound, a barely distinguishable calling and crying reached his ears, impossible to understand who it belonged to. To his heart, his soul or rather his consciousness, who had fallen apart like a puzzle and were now existing separately from each other? A little bit to each of them. To each of them and to none. A spontaneous, impalpable, ethereal rush of inspiration awakened his imagination and out of the smell of oil paint and red wine created with its help the shape of a certain someone who he would(n't) like to see the most at this moment. Romano closed his eyes and immediately felt the imaginary, calloused, warm hands of the Spaniard softly touching his cheekbones, tracing their lines with his fingertips. He wanted to welcome them, but it was in vain. The more initiative you show, the more you try to get hold of an illusion, the more fragile and vague it becomes. "I need you," the older Vargas managed to whisper, as quiet and cautiously as possible to no scare away the image, but it started to mercilessly melt away nevertheless, leaving behind only the illusory smell of the sun, of sun-tanned skin and some weak tomato aroma on his lips. "Please don't..." But it was in vain and too late. Too late and in vain. An illusive awakening, two steps forward, made out of habit, a gliding, unseeing glance at the studio's walls, a three hundred sixty-degree rotation, more steps – inside his mind, his thoughts were crowded and disgusted, just like people in the universe's stale atmosphere. Romano hurriedly put away the wine. Standing in its dark hiding-place, his fuel of stupid daydreams would wait for him, until the next time. Coldly and indifferently, he turned off the life in the solitary glassy pear, locked the studio's door, mistrustfully pulled the door handle twice and went off into the real life. The place where everything was that caused nothing but repulsion and the wish to bury himself deeper into the crumbly soil of his consciousness... Some day, the need to be in the world of made-up truths will fade, but for now, his real, honest feelings'll continue to stay buried under the roots of the olive tree of timid dreams...