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I have always felt that something was missing from my existence notwithstanding my efforts at searching….which were always in vain.

So many whys…so much emptiness…so much sorrow.

A great carnival that would turn round and round in perpetual motion… a marionette bespeaking of his improvised little theatre of the moment.

Look around… the toys that helped make me what I am_ are still there…in every corner of the room _ lying dusty and undisturbed the way they were _accustomed to the long wait…they knew I would be back someday…what are they to me today?

That lovely dust slipping through my fingers…my lifeblood of time… and dreams…

I realize it was they who summonsed me now…to sit in reflection… possibly in judgement…

How do my placid friends feel about me now?
They once had embryonic personalities_
Did they also have souls?

I abandoned them all,
But they never quite abandoned me.

_________________
Van

They never abandoned me _ Because when my mind
Connected to that room in eclipsed moments of my life...

My toys are still what and where they always were:

….gifts given for being a good boy…gifts from Santa Claus…gifts from friends who wanted to share the experience of that fabulous huge playroom… and smell the food being prepared next door on the huge old distressed round table of the kitchen.


Gifts no longer to be coveted, held, or broken_

The toys now gathered in that playroom are not dead_

But I know they will never come to life again… as once did in my eager hands …

_________________
Van

I loved a wooden two barrelled rifle… handmade for me by an older friend who knew my passion for American Western guns…the rifle that would get me through the long corridor the nights when the lights went out …freeing me from the fear of the dark…

The old RCA wind up gramophone … with the scratchy sound…




My several automobiles of the future made out of empty wooden boxes on wheels and customized with a white steering wheel…

My beautiful red bike with training wheels….


…. A die-cut pelican with coloured ink features
printed on paper and glued onto wood.

Its right-angled edges were unnaturally sharp
And its eyes were not those of a bird but had a woman’s eyelashes.

I dragged it along the Spanish tiles by a string,
turning back in sheer delight to watch its webbed feet
appearing to pedal the coloured wooden wheels
and as they turned, the brightly coloured bill
opening and closing with a hollow clap.

_________________
Van

My American military trucks and jeeps… my choo-choo train…my Gulliver and Christian Andersen books on a shelf…

My six gun belt with ‘pearl handled’ six shooters and wooden bullets…

Then there were a tin multi coloured friction locomotive… and a tin motorcycle and sidecar that you would wind up and see it run in a circle.


The benign and somehow stupid faces
Of its helmeted pilot and passenger…
How it fascinated me to see them, and exchange place with me as driver and passenger at my whim.

My bow and ‘arrows’ …my soccer ball…my swords…boxing gloves…artillery guns and toy soldiers…

Knowing my fascination with the ‘mystical’ number seven… for my 7th birthday my parents ordered a set of snow white and the seven dwarfs. And how I kept vigil for the postman.

_________________
Van

Long-abandoned toys,
Where are you now?
Who knows if you still exist and where.

Have you been buried in a landfill under wheeling gulls,
The forgotten dust of some mystery attic,
Or consigned to a string of church jumble sales?

You never abandoned me, and for that I keep these memories warm for you…forever residents of my childhood’s playroom.

_________________
Van

Sitting on a bench on an avenue of lime trees in my beloved town _ I look at women and men passing by.

I sense their destinies, their goals, their dramas, their loves, and their pain because I too have lived through those times. Life is made up of moments that, allowing for the variations, are all alike.

I see a couple passing by…. "Look," the girl says, "in the sky there are the same cloud waves as last night."

I look up _ the sky is blue and ripples seem to form the white breasts of a woman.

There comes a tall, thin guy, blondish, with his hair pulled back, Dragging a very old bike, all beat up, full of bags and backpacks. It's the same guy I saw at trade fairs 40 years ago. Yes, it's him. He has remained the same: the same striped suit, the same hollowed in face, the same hairstyle ... even the same bike ... only 40 years older...


An old lady passing with a dog on a leash. The old lady and the dog are old and fat. Good friends laughing and talking…can life stand still?

I muse_
I stopped living the life, the loves, friendships, relationships, struggles, businesses. All this is too difficult and even dangerous. I've tried everything: love with many women, friendship with many people and many jobs, travels, adventures ... Now I have arrived at an age where you have many memories to recant, as a collector. Now I have the experience and what's ahead?

It's past the age of illusions; I can predict exactly how it will end even before I begin any adventure.

For example, if I see a beautiful girl and I want her _ I imagine the torture of courtship, the first date that she will miss, the sleepless nights, the suffering of love ... And then finally the meetings, the sex that obliterates conscience_ and then again the repetition, boredom, home, need of money, the son, the family quarrels ... I've tried many times and seen it all. Now …. I just observe.

Now I just think. So I put my life under glass, behind the glass, I enjoy watching it, and gives me the illusion of living it again, safely and without danger.

If I could talk to the children, explain to them real life, not what they learn in school, but real life, the world as it is.

I would say to a child…you like a toy and you believe you love it for life. Then you'll meet a girl and immediately throw away the most expensive toys. You'll get lost for a woman to live the illusion that she is a goddess, then a mistress, then a partner, then friend, then an enemy...


I would say more to a child….you will know friendship; you will sacrifice for a friend who will take advantage of you, betray you and speak evil of you.

You will make many sacrifices in pursuit of money, position, and career and after you will realize that youth has fled and time has passed….you will no longer be who you think you are.

The money always comes too late, it comes when you become old, you have health problems and then you do not care anymore. At that time you will only fear death, because you saw so many men and women whom you knew and some you saw _ talked to - every day and they are now dead, gone forever, not knowing where.

More people pass by and I observe them from my bench in deep thought. The boy on roller skates who wants to get there first_, two lovers who chat telling their secrets_ a man in overalls with a tool box …who has just finished working _ he seems to be in his early thirties….

and I think…the age of thirty is symbolic for the passing of youth - or the passing of innocence.

> So once I was a child with burning desires
with hopes and dreams of what was to come.
So I have lost some faith but still there are fires
deep inside that I must drench to numb.

Once I was strong, and filled with visions.
With life ahead I set my aims.

Then things went wrong.
Now my ambitions have turned to smiles conserved in frames.

I am sitting numb while dusk is falling. Alone I whisper my "goodnight"

Turning away, when sleep is calling, from all the people passing by... <

My life under glass.

_________________
Van

It is always at night. I have no words to describe its contours, the angles where colors disappear and emotions breathe deeply. Flashing emotions as I retire in my secret space and have a listen to only the fleeting sighs of my heart.

All is still inside and out, my cat coiled at my feet, a moon beam peeking at my window, distant sounds of a mournful train whistle upon the soul.

This is of my nights when I grapple at the last vanishing of the senses but bounce back fully capable of thoughts of life. The night as an animal that doesn’t know its own name and neither the name of its master.

So we sit together listening to the rustle of deep thoughts pursuing one another without answers in ambiguity. I don’t know the answers, but I like the questions.

And the lights and colors I suddenly imagine nudging at my eyes.
What will I do tomorrow if the today burdens me with necessities?

I need a long night to harvest the plain making ready my arms and legs to bolt at first sight of an anxious predator knowing that it will be the sudden dawn that will awaken me_

It seems there is never enough time to rest continuously and it feels as a slow consumption.

I seek familiar metal in the dark, which which is now part of me, the glass feels cold, I clear the fog from my eyes and turn on a friendly light.

The room I know seems brand new and I marvel at my recollection of physical and emotional distances of life beckoning.

Should I lay my head on the pillow to rest and scatter any inquietude? But a last wish of looking at the remainder of the day and ‘an order’ to recount and narrate.

And so I palm a tower of metal and turn on my computer, a robot that really cares for me, as if it had human qualities.

I listen to its rapid rolling _ an immobile boat restless within this silence of mine. I caress the keyboard keys, almost invisible and I let my words and thoughts flow rapidly, stopping only when a shiver rises from my feet and is absorbed in the heat of my legs that twitch the swiveling chair.

A random shooting star of musical whispers, the words are called and they ‘arrange’ on the screen as if they knew their place.

Not knowing how the first review will be for me, when the desire of searching ebbs, I feel empty, but in a rapid ‘look back’ I recognize the pauses, the choices, wonder at the small joy that gifts a sudden word that ‘assaults’ from the bottom of my memory to complete the sentence or phrase.

I think not to be in a hurry to relive those moments in time, gifts of a mysterious giver.

There isn’t one without the other, and sadly we are never given the chance to ‘retry’ _ every one of these colors of the mind is unique because it cannot repeat, same as me.

So I accept that it is futile to try and resolve/overcome something that then will be resolved/overcome in due time.

And it is here that I return, in a solitary villa of the mind overlooking the shining sea _ memories of my beautiful Mediterranean house with my secret place always ready to welcome my human solitude upon returning from my fugacious sorties upon the world to lie down safely at rest.

Because life was not easy, if something good or bad happened, it just happened and something inside changed, making me different than before. I was used to that after all my reflections in dark corners of the mind.


The joys, great riches of life, were so impetuous and they would arrive as sudden gusts of winds that overpowered a bit and with the same impetus next vanished.

Diverse sufferings so difficult to live_ tolerating what they leave inside, the signs that with the miracle of time attenuate but remain inside the skin to surface upon mysterious callings.

I lower the eyes upon my computer table and smile. Placing it under the window was a compulsion. I knew it would be a place where I would pass many hours of my life, in writing, reading, and thinking surrounded by my world and my cyber friends that are many.

Every few minutes of inactivity or ‘nodding off’ the screen saver asserts its control. A world of vivid colors captures me. I smile and perceive the passage of time. I don’t remember having changed the image.

I was waiting for a starburst to fill the screen. With my elbows braced on the table and my chin supported by my fists, I remain hypnotized_ who in hell changed the screen saver? It must have been me after all.


Who knows for what mysterious motive, the mind absorbs certain things as opposed to others? And who knows why things really neat are the ones to forget?

The screen saver…who knows how the world would look from down there?

Here equally to all who have written and will someday write, until there is a need to recount and narrate the night.

_________________
Van

…..The real estate agent has remained silent and apart, noting the emotional disruption of the man…then with much discretion; he approaches and places a hand on his shoulders.

Clearing his throat he mutters “here, sorry, you must sign this legal document mandating the sale of this wonderful old house”….





And then the dream….

There she was….solemn, my ancient family home in all its splendor…


It was a limpid, calm afternoon; a light breeze sighed between the trees that surrounded the house…the beautiful garden at the back…

_________________
Van

And suddenly the deep of the night… A full, luminous and immovable moon, nearly nailed on a star wall, with its delicate light guiding me in the main entrance way _ and up the steps to my old front door.

After my departure I had been contacted by the new owner who, knowing of my love for my ancestral home_ said it would be a while before the house underwent any remodeling…and he had sent me the old house keys telling me to feel free to use to enter and explore every recess of my memories still locked in.


Inside fixed on a wall, was the main power switch. I tripped it…but nothing happened.


But I entered. The long entrance corridor with the various doors on its sides _ still had the numerous pictures and portraits, pertaining to grandfathers of the old family, adorning the walls.

On my shoulders I had my backpack containing objects that as a little boy had given me the courage to walk the long dark alley in the deep of the night without fearing dark shadows and strange sounds.

I remained for some second in contemplation of that ambient _then decided to begin to explore the many old rooms one by one.

_________________
Van

I noticed the corridor still had the old marbled top furniture of various ages I loved so much.

I tried to open the door which I was nearer. Nothing. The lock did not turn. I tried another. Nothing still.


I tried every door in the corridor. Did not succeed in opening any. Strange, I thought. The pistol I had in the backpack felt suddenly of great comfort…who was locking me out of my childhood memories?

But I took my flashlight out …. Midnight already had arrived a quarter ago….I did begin to make out footsteps behind the closed doors…some whispered talk…maybe best to remain still and not to turn on the flashlight.

So I sat on a bench against the corridor's wall facing one of the big windows and remained there in total darkness to wait …there was some wailing and clatter now and then coming from behind the closed doors…my parents' bedroom locked still…not able to decipher the sounds…

Remembering the fear of the dark as a child when put to bed in the darkened room where I slept…

The blankets had become the barrier that divided me and it saved me … from the mysterious and infernal visitors of the darkness; the head under the sheets _eyes closed…blanket over my head…totally still…to await sleep and the dawn.

But now…. I found myself to my comfort in the darkness.

_________________
Van

It was my way to face the things. It can be understood that in remaining still in the middle of the hall …my silence and the backpack were the security blankets from that strangeness behind the locked doors.


The time passed, and my scary childhood memories assailed me. Then I thought…time to go…. And it was in that moment that things began to manifest…. I do not know how to define it well.

At first a weak person luminescence, nearly a tenuous a mist haze, kind of surreal. Then more and more dense, more and more invading.

. I noticed that it came from the left ….and without warning, from that direction, an acute sound was heard, like of a squeaking door… The corridor and its impenetrable rooms …

While I observed the luminescence, I noticed that it changed form slowly, even if I did not recognize in it a familiar semblance … It changed and it expanded, and by now it was almost to my feet.

And there _ from the left of the corridor, a most absolute and unnerving Hush …

Then something that resembled a wake of light directed slowly towards me.

_________________
Van

I quickly became aware that the pistol in my possession was worthless at that point.

But I strobed my high intensity flashlight.

The flash illuminated the surrounding ambient partially, and it seemed that the 'thing' paused some and went back the way it had come.


Must admit that in those moments I was overcome by a paralyzing feeling …but it was my old house…what could hurt me in there?

Again without warning I heard the same sound of squeaking door that I had heard before, but this time I saw two lights , short distance from one another.

Two luminous wakes, analogous to before, came down the right side of me. Feeling benevolence… I did not succeed in closing the eyes.

The wakes rotated, in a whirling dance, and for a moment, perhaps for an unconscious desire of my mind in giving them sense rationality, it seemed that the lights got confused in a kind of embrace.

Suddenly, from that luminous mass a lightning bolt of a great intensity was given off in my direction ….and caused me to lose consciousness.

_________________
Van

I must have been out the night as when I awoke all was light and resplendent…sun rays invading the corridor from the window…

I was totally perplexed…so I decided to leave…

As I left I approached people living in the adjacent habitats… and asked if anyone there was still around who might have known the house family in years past.

I remembered there was a small grocery store not far from the first floor vestibule ….no longer there…but a tall woman living in the apartment that had taken the place of the store…. identified herself as the daughter of the grocery store's owner… [Her mother] and she said she had known much of the family in 'that house' as related by her mother.

"Did your mother ever tell you of anything painful or of happiness in that house?"

_ "Well…I remember her saying the husband and wife, the owners, had once kept a long vigil on their first born who had contracted a typhoid infection coming very close to death…but had miraculously survived." And that the parents had at one point later separated with death coming to them eventually in different countries of the world, never having reconciled.

Suddenly all was clear to me…no reason for her to say more.

And as I walked away I cried.

_________________
Van

As I turn the key in the lock of the front door of my old house, I seem to hear voices of young children within. The little petulant one, the rhythmic monotonous sing song…the squeals of childhood happiness…

Upon entering I am surrounded by the thick silence of empty houses. In its depth …I am shaken by the sound of the heavy door closing at my back…like a seal…something red _ lights up in my head…like a red danger signal.

I open the shutters of the corridor's windows on the right…and the living room balcony door on the left.

Sunlight enters…the murmur of the sea on the left …and the sparkling railway tracks to the right. The sea and the railway…two almost parallel lines of travel to infinity…running at my sides…but my trip ends here.

_________________
Van

With phrases without a voice…my conscience presents me with unspeakable truths.

And quickly a bad mood seems to froth up from within my stomach. Strange.

Maybe the desperation of the years is this…an old crumbling wall….the absence of tomorrows…and this ferocious crack suddenly opening in my heart catapulting me on the abyss before me.

_________________
Van