Rotten
Autor: Gandiini ™ | Publicado: 2014-09-11T18:08:00-03:00



Nick woke up, but wished he hadn’t to. With his
eyelids weighing a ton each, he dragged himself to the shower. At the mirror,
he saw a strange staring back at him. He was not that young anymore, but it
seemed he had aged a couple decades since he went to bed last night.

At his twenties, he was a kind of an exception:
had never smoked, drank very little, not so fond of the trashy-junky-food. Even
though it seemed that, despite his face conserved the resembling of his early
adolescence, the rest of the body was slowly rotting.

One day, a backache as if he had been ran over
by a herd of elephants; on the following, breathlessness as if there was
someone pulling the air out of his lungs with a vacuum cleaner. That morning,
the coughing.



A cup of coffee, boiled eggs and bread for
breakfast. In a cough attack, he spills the coffee onto himself. Damn. Give up
breakfast, head to work.



6:30AM a small group of people wait at the bust
stop. All them, looking tired and anxious for the arrival of their buses. A
relief his one got there first, crowded as usual – in the meantime, he wonders
if it would be worthy to wait for the next one. Better not, you can never
predict when and if the next one is really coming: to manage to get a bus in
the morning, is much like bet and win the lottery-.

He enters, there’s hardly a space for him to
hold on to. Another cough attack takes over him. Shit. Shit. Shit. STOP IT!
Take a time, breath deep. He can sense people looking, discreetly at him.
Someone opens the window somewhere near him. “Better let the fresh air breeze
come in...” – says someone else.



Among a battle of breathe – non breath, he gets
to work. “You look terrible”, says July. July is one of his closest friends
there, pretty much like a fate-given-second-mother. “I missed you! How about
all those tests, any conclusion?” he replies. July’s had been sick for a couple
of days, an unexplainable body aches. Perhaps she was rotting, also. “None”,
she replied, and continued: “But I’d rather be here than lay useless down in my
bed at home. At least there’s laughter.” Both agrees and laugh. July is a woman
at her sixties, a kind-hearted, easy-going madam, somewhat avant-garde for the
same of her age.



The day went on and it felt like the world was
sat upon his shoulder. 05:00PM, time to run to the college. The willing of
going home took over him, fiercely, and he almost gives in, but gathered his
entire disposition and headed to class.



First day class in the semester, friend’s
re-meeting. A festival of ‘I missed you’s,
popping like popcorns in the fire. Boring class. Something regarding philosophy
and citizenship, or something like, he was mind-wandering. It has been a long
since he had talk to his wolf. He was
in a long-distance relationship, from a month ago on and so far, happiness was the
keyword between them.

End of class; write down themes for a survey to
be presented in the next few weeks: ‘something-like-arism’.
“No problem, I can double check with peers later.” He heads to home, half
tired, half happy, for some reason. Nick loves the night, as if he could
achieve an internal peace in the silence of the streets, the yellow light
coming from the streetlamps.

He gets home and caresses the dog. Perhaps, the
only one that celebrates his arrivals, and stares heartily sad when he leaves.
“Hi buddy, how’ve you been?”- Some licks and a tail-weaving are the answers,
what means it’s all ok.



The exhaustion seems to have got to its climax.
He can hardly move to the shower. But first, a peep on the kitchen: rice,
beans, steak and salad for dinner. Very well. He turns on Wi-Fi’s cellphone and
goes to the shower. As the water drops fall on his body, the notifications
pop-up in the phone. It sounds like they’re competing for the noisiest one.
Usually, he turns his attention to the phone, but not this evening.



Again another coughing. Long. Strong. From the
deepest place of his body, like the earthquakes that trembles the earth’s
surface. Spit it. Dark-brown, as if there was mud itself coming out of his
lungs. Again. Same color. Breath. Breath. BREATH! Can’t give in to coughing, he
knows well where this path usually ends. He spits again. Close his eyes to
concentrate on breathing and don’t see the red spot that was pulled out from
his body.

Funny taste. Like iron, you know. It’s sweet,
strong, sickening and bitter, somewhat. He’s felt this way before once or
twice. Ended up in the hospital in the first. It’s coming. Even before he turns
his head down, the flow of a red river invades his throat and escapes through
mouth. Water becomes red, vivid red, just like the Nile when Mose touched it
with his stick. It clearers, dissolves, goes down the drain. Finally, it stops.



Nick turns
off the shower, bathroom feels like the sky itself, or some hollowed place
elsewhere, fully covered in fog. Mirror. The same strange stares back, this
time, slightly older than in the morning. Don’t feel like eating. Goes straight
to bed. But before, a brief chat with his wolfy.
“How was your day?” and all that stuff. Feels tired, says goodbye and “luv ya”. Turns off the phone.



Laid in bed, Nick contemplates the roof until the sweet Nyx
and Hypnos comes to kiss his face and take him into a journey of dreams.
Empting his mind, like the drain of a pool that pulls the water out, he
concentrates on the emptiness, in the absence. Then, thinks about the future.
His future. Career. Relationship. Personal issues. Health. Life.



“I wonder how would be like to be a tree in the winter.
Fully naked and with the cold licking your skin every day”. Beautiful image, he
thinks, but there’s no snow in the winter where he lives. At most, the trees
get all destitute from their leaves, somewhat bended, ugly and distorted. It’s
not that they only have this appearance in the winter: it’s more like they’ve
always been this way in the inside, but the difference is the cover given by
summer and spring.

He’s been feeling like a tree, lately. The feeling of being
stuck, a decorative background element with briefs episodes of relevance.
Feeling like a tree. In this Fall-to-Winter moments: the crudeness and reality
of the life being exposed, little by little; a slow-motion strip tease,
conducted by Nature.

“I’m rotting”. Body, soul, everything. Despite the young
age, it seemed that the time of his winter had arrived. Smile. He thinks about
the tiny sparkle of hope and joy that has been growing recently. Well, there
isn’t such a thing like a phoenix-like tree, but there will also have another
spring to follow this winter, afterwards.