Art by Ramon Sierra (Cocor)
(Rejoice, for the hour is at hand.)
If you asked me a simple question, one as trivial as ‘how do you sleep?’, I would probably answer in a drawn-out fashion. I believe that there are beautiful minute details in absolutely everything a person can do – no matter how inconsequential – and that the most luscious and painfully wonderful of these are what make up the human form.
So how do I sleep? One of the ways involves lying atop my bed on a hot summer night, feeling the bedding wrinkle and fold beneath my sticky skin. I’ll often find myself staring up at the stucco ceiling, admiring the perfectly formed shape of the number one egotistically imprinted there, borne from my desk chair’s shadow.
I sleep by returning the burning gazes of glowing red eyes situated around my desk: One set gives the time, reminding me that I should have crawled into bed a few hours earlier, while a cyclopean dot reminds me that I left the computer running. If anything, they only serve to make the room even hotter – all of them searing, unblinking.
I escape to the backs of my eyelids, where darkness prevails – where honesty reigns.
This is how I sleep: I sleep by thinking about her, always her, with her large, sparkling black eyes and her flowing, sparkling black hair, like the rarest obsidian forever hidden away in the deepest recesses of the darkest cave. But I would never allow her to slip away into oblivion, oh no: she is eternally entangled in the painstakingly cultivated rose garden of my mind, a special place I created solely for her. She is all that I think about; she is all that I live for.
I place my hand on my damp chest and sigh longingly – lustfully. Doomed to be a lost romantic, I take particular notice of how physically alone I am. My imagination, however, stumbles upon a compromise: by kissing the humid air before me, I can taste the very light of her soul, lingering as though an afterthought. It dances sweetly and electrically on my tongue, igniting my burning passion for her until my body can barely contain it.
Her phantom fingers then trace the outline of my skin.
And I sleep soundly.
Despite any opposing allusions that may occur, I am a typical community college student. While some of us act tough, others act meek, and the rest are merely sociable. Our personalities are as interchangeable as our daily schedules, taken from assembly lines long ago.
Only one exquisite exception arises like the rarest flower in bloom and that is, of course, her.
She is beyond all of us: she is a phantom angel caught between planes. For the mere knowledge of her flawless existence I bend my knee at her service and place my flaming sword at her feet. From this position I dare not gaze into her bright, alluring eyes, for I have only the utmost and resoundingly profound respect for the princess residing over the territory of my soul, my queen of passion.
I am a typical community college student. I study hard like everyone else and, like everyone else, am completely bored by it. It’s not as though I lack an appreciation for being educated, however – far from it. But how can I truly focus; truly lose myself in my studies; if I have already everlastingly lost myself in her presence?
I watch her carefully from my perch on the oaken desk, smelling the chalk as white dust particles dance in the air before me. She stands with her friends by the window, and I find a nautical metaphor in the reflection of the glass: a revelation of transcendental steamboats sailing the sky.
I can hear the Morse code sing-along of birds as well as the noisy pepper-grinding of cicadas; but beyond all of this simple, admitted beauty, a far more enticing sound springs to my ears, like cherry blossoms in bloom: the fragile and saccharine notes of her voice, lined in conversational melody. If Beethoven were law, she’d plead the 9th.
As though a deliberate attempt by Mother Nature to break the spell, a sudden breeze enters the room through an opened window, playfully touching her hair like the curious hands of an anemic child. With the breeze comes the faintness of her scent.
And I close my eyes, forgetting myself.
The sky has become the grey of artificial coal. Rain drips from the fat, all-encompassing clouds in childish sobs, intermingling with spittle and darkening the world below.
I had intended to visit my friend in his foul-smelling apartment building but quickly took notice of her standing idly by a bus stop, lacking but a spotlight.
I stand spying her through the yellowed glass of the stairway where I stubbornly maintain my position. She stands with her purse hanging casually over her slender shoulder and holds the leather strap from time to time with a protective hand. Her red and white shirt stripes her like a candy cane, revealing the lithe skin of her gingerly sunned arms.
I take closer inspection of her perfect form – particularly her breasts, which are like two land mines awaiting detonation. Her hips are just as subtle; just as dangerous.
And her soft, naturally smooth legs, revealed in lascivious teases beneath her immaterial skirt.
I soon realise how much I’m sweating. The humid air is overwhelming, like a thousand faceless men breathing onto my body from every conceivable angle. I sweat profusely and she sweats just as well; however more womanly; more perfect; more her. I yearn to become intoxicated by this sweet perfume forming in faint droplets upon her supple body.
She absently brushes damp strands of hair away from her face, revealing the visage of an angel.
Aching, trembling, I finally decide to abandon my friend and confront her. I set a rhythmic pace as I drop down the stairs, escaping the stench of cow and rushing towards the miraculous scent of her body.
At long last I burst through Heaven’s door, exiting Hell. A lone finger breaches her pink, perfect lips and then retreats when she notices me. I cross at a stroll, greeting her as smoothly as I am capable, suppressing my heart’s thunderous palpations as best as I can.
Hello, perfection. Hello, beautiful angel. Hello.