2 The Moon Upside Down #3
I thought to myself that it was impossible for anyone to be in a bad mood in such a fascinating place.
As I reflected on my thoughts, I realized that I, too, had almost always been in a bad mood when I was immersed in the daily life of the so-called civilized world.
I decided not to confide these thoughts to you, so as not to be judged strange; it would have been enough for you to simply suspect it without me confirming it.
As I watched you begin to walk back along the pier, my shadow began to follow you.
The sadness that seemed to accompany you with every step for no apparent reason was making you gloomy and pensive.
The nighttime walk along the shore seemed as if it would never end, and I was starting to feel tired.
I was about to tell you so, but inexplicably, you stopped to sit down on the sand.
I couldn’t believe you had sensed my thoughts.
Deciding to shake off the melancholy, I sat down next to you to gaze at the stars.
It was hard to tell them apart; there were so many that there wasn’t a single empty space in the night sky.
The sky didn’t seem clear, because the multitude of stars filled it like whitish dust suspended in the air.
Trying to break the awkward silence between us, you began describing the constellations, pointing out each time how differently the stars were arranged in the sky.
In the Maldives, you could see not only the stars visible in the Western Hemisphere; in fact, there were millions of them, and even the nebulae they belonged to were visible.
As I gazed out across that immense stellar universe, I noticed a completely dark corner of the sky.
Feeling as though I were looking at a black hole, I shuddered.
I closed my eyes to banish that unsettling image, but when I opened them again, I realized it was your face blocking my view of the stars.
“I wanted to see the stars in your eyes, and I must say it’s a sight of immeasurable beauty,” you told me with so much love.
I was speechless as I listened to your words; I felt myself being drawn into a whirlwind of tenderness from which I would never emerge. Thoughts flowed through my veins, and I had no intention of stopping them.
My mind was focused on my deepest desires and fears: my paradise, the starry canopy above us, the sea murmuring softly, the urge to let myself go that was overcoming my fears—of loving you and being loved, of losing you, of suffering again.
If it were all over, this time I wouldn’t be able to return to my imaginary worlds, and I would give up forever.
I tried to say something, but I couldn’t form anything coherent; it was as if my brain’s vocabulary had torn out all its pages in some kind of mad, self-destructive act.
My mind felt out of reach, and I expected my mouth to utter a hollow answering-machine message at any moment.
The only thing that made me realize I was still alive was the overwhelming desire to be there in that moment—with no more memories to torture my brain and my eyes fixed on your face in the dim light.
Your hands on me wove dreams I didn’t know existed, and your breath was instilling in me the desire to live a dream.
Together with you, I breathed in the fragrance of a magical alchemy that was transforming me into a breath of wind, a flutter of wings, a blink of an eye.
The stars began to fade, casting faint, multicolored glimmers, distorted by the sudden tears streaming down my eyelashes.
“My love, did I do something to make you sad? Why are you crying and not saying a word?” you asked me, laying your heart bare.
I ran my fingers over my cheeks to wipe away the tears and finally managed to find my voice again: “It’s my soul that’s crying, not me. It’s crying with joy because it’s realized that paradise isn’t here, but inside me… and my heart can’t contain it. I wonder how I can return to the world of humans,
how I can look my fellow humans in the face without them noticing what I’m experiencing and feeling—things they can’t even imagine. But above all, I wonder how I could not love your every gesture, your every breath, your every word—how I could ever go back to real life.”
You looked at me, moved, and in a faint whisper you managed to say: “I never would have imagined finding such sensitivity in a person, and only now do I realize how precious you are to me. I ask only that you have no fear at all, because in the real world you have me…
and I promise I’ll keep you safe from danger in our paradise, hidden away from the ungrateful and unpredictable vicissitudes of so-called civilization.”
We returned to the bungalow in silence, holding hands, careful not to step into the holes the crabs had dug at sunset in their attempt to find shelter for the night.
The setting sun on the island spurred these animals to form a sort of silent army that seemed intent on conquering the mainland, and each of them dug a sort of underground trench far from the shore, from which the moray eels would come to hunt under cover of darkness.
In front of the door, we found a large hermit crab struggling along.
It reminded me of the cars at the Civitavecchia ferry terminal bound for Tunisia, overloaded with household goods beyond imagination.
I gently lifted the poor little creature and set it down next to a palm tree, well away from the path where it would have risked being stepped on.
I was pleased to have had the chance to do my daily good deed.
Once inside the room, we went our separate ways—you to the bathroom while I took the opportunity to undress and slip into a cool, long Hello Kitty tank top, a clear sign that I needed some pampering.
Without waiting for you to return, I slipped under the sheets and turned off the light.
Moonlight filtered through the wooden shutters, and I pricked up my emotional antennae to pick up on every slightest sound.
I could hear the whistles of the fruit bats and the smacking kisses of the geckos.
Those rare manifestations of the wild were robbing me of what little sleep I had left, and I lay there staring at the ceiling of palm fronds, replaying what had happened at the beach and spinning theories about what you really thought of me.
Although I’d always been able to sense others’ thoughts to some extent, I was having quite a bit of trouble with yours.
They felt distant, and I started sweating with worry.
I got up, feeling on edge, and went outside to smoke a cigarette; the glimmer of embers that occasionally lit up the palm trees around me seemed to calm me down a little.
I peeked into the room, but you seemed to have vanished into the depths of the bathroom.
Barely suppressing a laugh at what I’d just thought, I went back inside to grab a drink from the minibar and stepped out into the darkness again, sitting down on your sun lounger.
I decided I wouldn’t fall asleep until I’d managed to talk to you; I was afraid I’d ruined everything, and I was starting to believe it.
The soft sound of footsteps convinced me to close my eyes as I waited for the inevitable.
The tsunami I’d been awaiting with trepidation and anxiety materialized as a hand caressing my face.
I grabbed hold of that lifeline and pressed it to my chest, while in a trembling voice I asked you if you were at least a little happy.
Deep down, I prayed that I wouldn’t get an answer.
You sat down next to me and, running your hands through my hair with a look of infinite love, asked me in turn, “What do you think?”
I hugged you tightly, feeling a new sensation inside me; it was something different from usual. It was a pleasant unease that was sending shivers down my spine, and to my great surprise, I began once again to feel the flow of your thoughts coursing through my entire body.
A sudden gust of wind blew in from the lagoon, where the moon was already setting.
The temperature was dropping, and it had gotten very late indeed.
Reluctantly pulling away from your warm embrace, I asked if we could go back inside; I felt like I had a fever, and perhaps the fatigue from the trip was catching up with me again.
We closed the door on paradise and slipped under the sheets. The bed was almost a king-size, but we barely took up one, with our heads on a single pillow and my arms across your chest. We lay motionless, hovering between wakefulness and sleep, until Morpheus joyfully welcomed us into his realm.