She was a mess

She didn’t even want to go out that night. She didn’t want to put up with her friends laughing so loud her ears ringed, she didn’t want to hear any jokes or smile.

She looked at herself in the mirror; her big round eyes staring lifelessly back at her, her pale lips shivering ever so slightly.

“You’ve got to pull yourself together” she whispered to herself as she failed to put on some make up. She was empty; just a big blank space walking around and not interacting with the world at all. Everything changed and evolved around her, but she was stuck in a limbo, dead with a beating heart.

She rushed out of the bathroom and opened her closet, trying to pick a dress that would at least make her look a bit better. As the doors opened, a puff of air hit her in the face with the intensity of a thousand slaps. That scent, that feeling. How did it still linger around there after all this time? Like a curse that just wouldn’t leave her be, the burden came back to her all at once and left her speechless.  She covered her mouth with both hands and began to tremble like a baby.

Her phone rang. And it kept ringing, and ringing and ringing.

She was still crying when she heard three knocks on her door.

“Are you there? We need to leave right now! Why won’t you pick up the phone?”

They were here. She stumbled until she reached the sink and washed her face with freezing water. She was a mess: puffy red eyes, surrounded by big black rings of fucked up eyeliner, lips bleeding from biting them too hard.

She was the ugliest person in the world, the least desirable, the worst thing to ever have existed, and she knew it, she knew it too well. She was aware that she would never be happy, because she simply didn’t deserve it.  She got dressed whilst still pondering all of this, and rushed to open the door.

They gave her a pitiful smile, that smile that made her shrink up a bit every time. She was just getting tinier, disappearing.

“It’s okay, let’s go” she mumbled, trying to get her wet red locks to stop sticking into the side of her face.

It’s funny, because getting some fresh air was actually making her feel better, she was lighter on her feet, and the breeze messed up her hair a bit, but it was okay. She smiled for a little while and the neon lights made her white dress glisten in a dreamlike way.

They were just running on the streets. She followed, her heart beating, blood pumping to every part of her body, her cheeks turning red and her laugh sounding as sharp and innocent as a bell. Her scars didn’t hurt anymore, they faded away, they just became lines, then spots, then freckles.

They ended up in a bar, her heart was beating as fast as a hummingbird can move his tiny wings. She followed them to the bar, gasping for air and giggling like a child.

“What can I get you?”

Then she froze.

Those hands, she knew those hands. The hands that were offering her friends drinks were those hands. She recognized every single inch of them: the hairs, the spots, the rings… the tattoo.

Her heart kept beating just as fast, as she shrank once again, as the freckles became spots became lines became scars, as her white dress stopped reflecting the light, as her hair began to stick to the sides of her head. Everything went silent, her eyes fixated on those hands, not wanting to look up, not wanting to face him.

“Are you okay?” she heard faintly.

Nod. Smile. Drink.

She could feel them on her hips, she could feel them caressing her hair, and she could feel them holding her.

I love you. Drink. Keep drinking. Smile.

She felt the black rings around her eyes get bigger and bigger, covering her whole body, dragging her down, not letting her breathe. But those hands pulled her up, those hands were saving her once again.

When they got up and started walking away she dared to glance at him.

His eyes were watery, his lips curled, his hair messy.

She loved him so much it was destroying her.

She smiled and walked away.

Untitled

Approximately at 4 p.m. of a sunny afternoon in a little farmer town of Arizona the cameras begin to roll. Roll, like they have been doing for months, their lenses capturing thousands and thousands of specifically planned seconds. The trailers parked on the side of the road which, much to the dismay of the few inhabitants of the area, had been closed so nothing could interfere with the shooting.

Everyone’s hands in the air, like little roofs, trying to cover their eyes from the devastating sun and the sandy dust that rises from the ground every time the wind blows ever so slightly. In front of the reflectors, with all the crew staring at them methodically, awaiting the order of the director, the actors stand confidently, even though many are whispering that from the mouth of the best paid actor in Hollywood emerges the bitter aroma of Whiskey mixed with tobacco. The graceful and stunning young starlet everyone’s been talking about is by his side, with a nervous tic on her right eye, constantly twitching and getting worse by the second, mostly given to the stress of being on set.

“Action!” the director cries, sitting on an extremely uncomfortable chair, with his name embroidered on its back.

And then everything is transformed, the tic disappears and the woman on the verge of a mental breakdown turns into an innocent girl from Kansas, who aspires to escape from her little town; whilst the guy who’s still suffering from a horrible hangover becomes his boyfriend, a simple construction worker, who is begging her to stay.

They begin to argue and tussle for a bit, until she’s left shivering and on the verge of tears.

“This piece of shit town is my whole world, it’s fascinating and beautiful, but only if you are in it”. The director lip syncs to the lines, knowing them by heart, the same sentences he had written and the characters he had ideated so long ago.

His glassy eyes observe everything from his chair: how their lips meet, how their bodies touch each other, how their hands caress their hair. His heart beats slowly, even if he doesn’t even remember he still has one. His mind hesitantly ponders when was the last time somebody had kissed him because they wanted to, because of love or a simple rush. He doesn’t know the answer to that question.  His hands intertwine slyly over his lap and he begins to rub the back of his hand with his fingertips, imagining someone else is doing it. A chill runs down his spine, under his heavy denim shirt he regrets wearing so damn much.

“Cut… take a break”

She begins shivering once again, her tiny feet running clumsily towards her trailer, her door shutting closed violently. He sighs, clearly annoyed, heading to the table on the opposite extreme of the set, where a bottle of the most expensive scotch the crew had been able to find rests. All the voices begin to be heard again, small talk blending with the desert breeze, getting lost under a rock or over a handful of dust.

The director gets up, and with feet as heavy as an anvil, begins to wander along the side of the road, his mind working nonstop like the cogs of a Swiss watch. His life was full of irony, almost like a cheesy and badly written story. Thousands had payed to see his films, hear his stories, sigh dreamingly with every kiss, every embrace. Nevertheless, he failed to love someone, or even worse, he failed to be loved. His mind worked out delicious and intricate tales that he would never be able to live.

He is an expert on a subject he knows virtually nothing about. A ton of awards embellished his shelves, prizes he had won for telling and displaying strange stories and experiences, yet he had never lived anything alike. The thought of that scares him for an instant. He had been giving instructions to actors and actresses for ages: “hold her a little tighter”, “I want you to look at him in the eyes when you say that”, “you should be laughing a little harder”; empty sentences completely meaningless, as if he were a toddler instructing a surgeon how to operate on a patient.

The dust leaves a big stain on his brand new shoes with every step he takes, and though he realizes this, he doesn’t really care. For a moment he recalls old cars of a love that has already been buried by time: a kiss on the cheek, a warm embrace and some nervous laughter. His eyes are flooding with tears, and he lets them fall into the void, until they soak even just a bit the arid ground that surrounds him.

There’s nothing he can do, he feels everyone’s eyes on the back of his head, and the intense heat finally starts to weight on his body. He feels embarrassed of himself, of his hypocrisy, his work, his cry, his dusty shoes and the crappy moving he’s shooting. An impulse takes over his body, a hidden memory, the image of a gun, a bunch of pills or a blade…and his face turning grey, and his hands giving out and his damned Oscar on ebay.

And the distant sound of a woman’s voice muttering “I love you”, and a kiss, and passionate sex on a bed of a sketchy motel, and the morning after, and someone missing, and less dollar bills on his wallet.

“Five minutes have passed” a crew member yells in the distance.

The creatures come out of the places where they’ve been hiding, and the voices start dying slowly. He turns around with his head held high and a calm look in his eyes.

And the whisky bottle is back on the table.

And the door is shut nervously.

And he sits again on his exclusive and awful chair.

And the reflectors are turned on.

And the camera begins to roll.

“Action!”

And as the world directs its eyes to the couple, his ghosts begin to rise and, as the desert dust, they become invisible yet again.

And nobody wonders what goes through his mind.