Relativity I.

We were outside. Time was seemingly running out. Yet the sky was still lit and the night was far. There were two identical drinks on the table, both spiced with the taste of bittersweet alcohol. Rays of sun struggled through the narrow reflective ducts, casting her shadow on the table. The image could have been still, captured on black and white film, yet her hair would still shine with red tonalities and her smile would atone for the monochromatic nature of the place we were in. We laughed, we drank. It seemed hypocritical, knowing that we couldn’t pay. Two women, in a woven scenario, filled with secondary characters that played no role whatsoever in their lives. 

Three women walked in, searching, scanning, in a synchronized disorientation or uncertainty, shifting gazes, maybe even searching for familiar faces. I stood up, in awe of their presence in a location so desolate to our world. Chit-chat. Gossip. Women being women, standing then sitting, sipping then drinking, smiling then laughing. We talked about the world, the night, the summer and the exams before it. We talked about how human nature is quite particular in itself, how a person that was once themselves had lost their way through their adaptation to the wrong society. Natural selection. I thought that was funny. How can someone become the very thing they resent? How can we become the very thing we’re afraid of? Greetings, kisses and then goodbyes. Benevolent promises of seeing each other once again that would remain unfulfilled without the intervention of chance. 

A man walks in. The money. He sits, we talk about ignorant and irrelevant details of our lives. Superficial to some standards. Yet enjoyable for the time being. 

A waiter. Impatient behind his irregular uniform, masking it with the question of the bill. To stay or to leave, to pay or to steal. Later we would have been gone. The bill would have been taken care of by the gentleman who had previously entered, so unbothered with the life he was living. We would have had encounters with several unfamiliar faces, connected to one or some or all of us. A journey in itself. 

The chapel above casting the remembrance of god and sin through our skin, maintained its consistency, leading us into the light, through open passageways and cobbled surfaces. The drinks, both identical, both spiced with that bittersweet alcohol, had had an effect, yet not the one expected, or desired, or longed for. The women, us, made our entrance once again, leaving the man behind. He came, he paid, he waited - a slave to the wiles of a real woman. We walked away, sharing lurid and intrusive thoughts about the three women, the gossip, the waiting man and the rest of our hidebound world. The bathroom was occupied by yet another woman, a fat and unkempt woman, rigidly built with scars of her disgusting features. She was young, yet the weight of our problems seemed to be attached to her abdomen, fluctuating with her every step, reinventing the movements of wild tides and unpredictable storms of the sea. No putrid smell. Surprising. 

We merged into a tight space, limited by the margins and edges of rotting and stained tiled walls. We shared secrets, of love and life, of intimacy and hygiene, of makeup and identities we could achieve through such transformations. Like sisters. We became satisfied by our reflections in dim lighting, the expressions our faces seemed to be conveying were increasingly pleasant, indicating our return to the waiting man.

(Violeta Banica)