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He came in from the cold, his skin as thin as paper, his head covered with angel hair, arms and legs carried by the wind.
It was around five in the afternoon, exactly five weeks previously, on the fifth day of a cold month. The weak, low-hanging sun had spotted him first, following him all the way to the seat he took at a long oval table, not far from where I was warming my hands around a mug of hot chocolate, my fingers sticky from the cream. Seeing his face turned the chocolate cold. Frozen hands. You could see his veins, his muscles, his bones, his tissue, his structure; you could see what was inside him.
I stared into a face I knew so well that was simultaneously completely and utterly unknown to me. A face like my own.
He put the bag of colours he was carrying on the table. He stretched out a hand to me. It was weak and warm. Ants. I could feel his blood streaming. “How do you do?” A glass shattered into a thousand pieces. I could not let go of his hand; the ants building a bridge between his and mine. “Listen,” he said, the sound of a fallen glass hanging in the air behind us, still tangible. The moment the sound was gone, he asked: “Where did that sound go to?”
I started warming my hands again: sip of chocolate; cream in a two-day beard. I read some headlines that didn’t make sense, trying to regain my own space. His eyes were inside me, watching me from a position I could not occupy. I surrendered to his eyes.
He told me his life story, his words pale and crispy, coming without a hitch. His story was too long to fit one life; his experiences too diverse to fit one man; his adventures too grandiose to fit one time. Centuries passed like the watery reflection of a lantern in a black canal.
The moment he finished his story, he turned into a child and showed me the colours in his bag. There was no room in his excitement to ask questions. Dozens of leaves were spread out on the long, stained, wooden café table, forming a Matisse pattern. He giggled. His blood turned a deeper red. “They have all fallen, fallen softly to the ground.” He clustered the colours; red, orange and yellow dominated. He spoke to me through the colours of the leaves, telling me that he had had to return from the world the sound of the falling glass had gone to, and that his return had to do with solving one question. The colours were clear about that: paper man was a man with a quest.
tagged: God colours blood stars heaven spaciousness
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 Photo: André Platteel
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He says he has conquered thirteen thousand feathered animals. His words are like birds. I cannot really catch them.
“She is falling. Softly. She loves me. But something says she does not.”
I believe him; I believe that he has fought thirteen thousand feathered animals.
He’s not wearing any shoes. His big toe is thick and blue, as is his ankle. Little scratches here and there. His sweater and trousers are dirty. His face decorated with small scars, from fighting. And feathers in his hair. I envision thirteen thousand feathered animals in a battle with this bare-footed man.
“I had to escape you know; they were after me.”
He sees my questions building, but pretends not to. Salty air hangs in the street.
“If she really asks me to go, I will leave. And I will never come back begging for her love. But she does not tell me to leave. Instead she sends me fighting feathered animals. Look.”
His blond hair is reaching out to the sky. He conjures without hands; a high black hat is lifted from his head, a hat that was not there a second ago; a bird escapes. Not the white pigeon one would expect - just a bird; grey, small and with a funny beak. Not long ago I had dinner with this man. I know him for quite a while. This man is a professional in his discipline, and well respected too.
“When you don’t wear shoes everybody thinks you’re a homeless person. One guy gave me some money, but I have enough of that. I want nothing but her love. For the first time I feel ground.” He stamps his foot.
“Now I understand why God asked Moses to take off his shoes, since he was on Holy Ground. This is Holy Ground.” He stamps again. “And it has never been different.”
His voice becomes stronger.
People walking past are staring at us. Among them are people that I recognise and who I am sure also recognise him. I see them thinking: Has this man gone crazy?
“How many times have I been killed the last seventy-two hours in the chambers of love’s desire? How many times?” He raises his hands heroically. Every second I expect the scenery to collapse. And for the audience to applaud. But he’s not playing a role; I have never seen his eyes so deep and bright.
“I am not a crazy man.” He is clear, he reads minds. “I am hyper. Yes. So, I might look like a crazy man. But that is because all the craziness of the past decades has hit the surface of my system. What have I been doing? First working my butt off to gain more knowledge. But what have I learned? And what has work done for me but enable me to buy something I thought I needed. There was no time for love. There was time for girlfriends, and all that stuff - but no time for love.” + more
tagged: animals love consciousness movement blood doubt Shakespeare mountains
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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Although he had stood in front of the mirror probably a million times over the past decades, he had never before seen the little boy inside his heart. It happened by coincidence: he was walking in a shopping street, passed a window and suddenly clearly saw something inside him. At first he thought it was his reflection and that of something else coming together in the window. But the moment he saw the image he also became conscious: he felt the boy inside his heart.
Although he felt the little boy, he didn’t feel he was discovering something he had known was there all his life, something that was suddenly and finally revealed to him. He didn’t know the little boy; had never seen him before. He was not shocked to see him inside him; it just felt as if his world had become utterly new, in less time than time can measure.
He knew it by his breath.
He thought of his breath as a fresh meadow in Spring, blossoming grass telling the animals it’s time to come home again.
It was as if his heart had opened and he himself had just walked in.
He knew how it felt when his heart opened slowly, like a flower. He had known love. But inside his heart now was not a lover but a little boy. And his heart was opening not because he wanted to give it to a lover: there was someone in his heart already.
He moved closer to the window and saw how the little boy had found a small but perfect space inside his heart. The little boy was part of its flesh and blood. It felt so completely strange and so natural. He knew things were about to change for him. Everything always changes, so why not his heart, why not his breath?
He had walked away from the window; people had passed him, one of them almost bumping into him, he had closed his jacket; he had crossed his arms high, protecting the area around his heart. He didn’t want anybody else to see the little boy he, himself, had only just discovered. What he had found was too precious to show to anyone else at this stage.
When he arrived home he undressed and walked to the mirror. He stared at himself, met his naked reflection and saw two people. He had never before experienced his nakedness from within.
tagged: otherness image consciousness fear Spring flower blood change gravity darkness brightness heart knowing earth irony experience
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 Photo: Annemarieke van Drimmelen
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