Font of the mirror

Page 2

The silent rays of the sun through the clouded skies were too eager to ignore. So the day had to begin.

You see dear reader, I was always a follower of the night. I say "The night" because we've gotten really close. As far as I can remember night has always accompanied me better than anything else. You see the energetic morning and afternoon seems forced to me. People do things because they have to not because they want to, in the most cases, or so I believe. It is almost as if night was created to just to wait for the forcible morning; horrible don't you agree?

I feel as if unmasked under the shades of the night, so much that I almost forget to even be sad. I am truly free. But how can I forget the moon? The one who spent sleepless nights right next to me? Long lost, and yet resting beside me still. I have no way of reaching that far, so I let the smoke carry what I cannot say — it rises, it thins, it is gone before it arrives. I send it anyway. The night would not be so beautiful without it don't you agree?

Well the eager morning had to begin now.

Bramwell was already living the morning, for it was not a forceful one. You see, dear reader, the weekend tends to be the gift the weekdays cannot give. People are livelier than they have any right to be, as though this were the long-awaited holiday — one that ends in two days, and leaves behind the hope of resting again in a week.

He had been ready since the early hours, so he tidied what little there was to tidy and decided to go for a walk. The weather seemed kind today. It shone his way a little brighter than before.

The pavement was greeting me as I was walking to the meeting spot of ideas. "Looking as good as ever" it said, and so the damaged brick wall agreed. I've gotten to know them quite a bit for looking up was a hard task to do.

Though I must say, it made rather a funny picture — this hunched man in a full suit on a long-awaited sunny day.

You see, we all have some ritual we perform each morning before the day is allowed to begin. For some it is music, or writing, or company, or coffee. For him it was the park — the bench nearest the fountain, where he would sit as though the water pouring from it had something to tell him.

Somewhere behind him, he heard a voice say something extraordinary.

"Hello."

Bramwell's heart closed around the last hope he had been carrying, and squeezed.

The park — all its bright chaos, the glare coming off the fountain — became louder than he could bear. The sun was too insistent. The wind carried the idea of a breeze without ever becoming one.

He could not sit through it. He turned.

Only to find the word had not been meant for him.

His hand, which had been reaching for something clear to hold, went to his pocket instead. The cigarette lit itself. He inhaled the fear straight back in.

I think we all get these moments.

The fountain became the main entertainment for his ears once again. Though it started to look a little too nostalgic now. As if he realized that water that flows in it is somehow connected to the path.

The rush-y hands started to calm down upon as if they realized they are now holding the enemy of the air.

There in the park, besides the fountain of pure excitement, Bramwell seemed to always look at the plane that was resting in the end of the park, The plane I mean the London plane tree, He would contest it in staring as if looking into the mirror for longer than he wanted to.

Maybe he even wanted to.

You know that moment when life is built around the scents you have left behind rather than the ones you have yet to breathe? If I had to explain Bramwell, that would certainly be the second or third line. Though there would not be much more to say.

Bramwell was the kind of man who remembered. He lived his memories over and over again, disguising the small pleasure he found in them as a duty not to forget the things that had built him. He carried them like a rotten trophy whose origin he had long since forgotten.

The eager morning made a soft departure.

Bramwell walked towards a familiar destination, though the pavement no longer seemed familiar with him. The walls appeared to insist that he become a different man before he reached the end of the street.

He was walking the road to work.

He worked at a publishing house, where he was trusted with everyone's words except his own. He was not a writer by profession. Bramwell spent his days correcting invoices, filing correspondence, checking proofs, and carrying other people's words from one desk to another.

He was always surrounded by the art of words, yet none of it belonged to him.

His own writing remained private.

Almost shameful.

Though that was not his final destination. He was looking for Wardour Street, filled with the hurried movements of people who always seemed to be rushing nowhere.

The funny thing about Bramwell was that he actually liked being around people, though not in the way one might expect. He liked to observe them. To learn them. Their habits, their pauses, the small changes in their faces when they lied or wanted something.

It was this habit that had made him rather well-spoken. He knew what people liked to hear because he had spent so long listening to what they refused to say.

People were not particularly fond of him anyway.

And so the crowded street greeted him—full of people, conversations, automobiles, lights... yet none of it belonged to him. This is the kind of freedom that reminds one of the glory of the night: he was unnoticed.

He sat down in the park, though his mind seemed more occupied than before. He began studying the double braid that ran neatly along the outer seam of his trousers, as though he had not seen it a million times already. Somehow, this behaviour felt justified.

He observed so intently that one could say he was looking at himself from a third-person view.

This place was part of one of his oldest traditions.

Time slowed, as though the thing he had been waiting for was finally about to reveal itself. The swollen clouds, once overlooked by the sun, seemed to gather their strength again. The longer he waited, the heavier they became.

The plane trees stood like quiet spies of Bramwell's existence, daring him not to do anything he would not like being observed doing. Even the collar he had worn since morning began to feel tight, as though it were the collar's fault rather than his own stillness.

The cheerful lights along the park paths were no longer comfort but necessity—something for his eyes to rest on so they would not fully register the emptiness of what he was trying to see.

He kept waiting, as if waiting itself could eventually take form and arrive in place of what he expected.

Then the minute hand moved.

Bramwell let out a quiet breath of relief. He had waited long enough now for leaving not to resemble surrender.

Another loss.

The weather was not much of a friend to me today either. The walk back, now justified by the hour, felt as heavy as the thought of having gone there at all.

Though, not too much on that.

Bramwell was getting hungry.

So he decided to walk to the Lyons Corner House. It was not a random choice — I loved the music they played there; somehow it made me feel more alive.

The whole picture was bright — floors upon floors of it, shining through the small chatter of people, filled out by the orchestra. All of it lit for the arrivals, and none of it for the people making the food.

Everything there was instant. He did not have to choose.

He did not taste it. He felt nothing at all until one mouthful was bad enough to pull him back into his body, even for a second.

The meat did it.

But it is always like this, dear reader. The walk there was the better part. He had never once arrived anywhere and found it worth the going, and still he went.

Bramwell was not a bad-looking man. He was always charming — maybe for the wrong people, or so I like to think. Even here he seemed out of place, for by his appearance he was not a man who ought to have been alone.

The minute hand moved again.

Hunger was no longer a matter for the day. He decided to go home — perhaps to write some of the writing he had managed to scramble together, or perhaps to rewrite it. The walk back was rather melodramatic. The heavy swollen sky broke once more, as though Bramwell were the cause of its sadness. An embarrassing walk back to the known destination — but I could have sworn he did everything he could have…