Second Stage

The Story:

When was the last time that I felt freedom? Eider thought with a taste of honey. That afternoon a peacefulMona Lisa-like expression had taken over her face. She felt she was no longer the same, like she had shed a layer of skin.

After finishing a long study session in archeology, a sensation of loneliness covered in dust asphyxiated her. She decided to accompany to a friend out. That´s when she met him.

He was handsome but natural and wise without university pretensions. He talked to her about history about political movements and struggles, about art, ancient global crises, about musicians and poets who stood for peace and faith. He was a kind of “shaman” from another hemisphere.

Their youthful gazes, searching for empathy, crossed in the typical beach bar; later they witnessed an improvised concert of timbals that seemed to announce something. They became like soul mates breathing fresh air into eacothers´souls.

A few tequilas, cigarettes and from caress to caress, the universal laws of attraction did the rest. Their bodies loved, he pushed her into the sand as if to remember her imprint. They had fired an important cartridge from the arsenal that was their lives and neither would ever be able to forget this moment.

How to forget?

Nahuel was tall, dark hair, with silver highlights in his temples and grooves in his face. An interesting man, eventhough his back was hunched making him appear olderthan he was.

«Maybe for being so tall, you have this habit of hunching over?» somebody said « It´s nothing physical » experts opined.

He smiled and accepted the unsolicited opinions. When he consulted doctors it was because his wife insisted. His wife had been attracted by his appearance, his elegance, the way he expressed himself.

But... since he come back from Europe where he had attended a writers congress, he was not the same anymore. He began to dress carelessly, more informally. His behavior had changed too: more cheerful, but always absent. This metamorphosis worried his wife. When they spoke about it, Nahuel, with a melancholic look and ironic smile, denied that anything had happened. He just sighed.

«Eider» - he said absentmindedly, remembering the young girl who he had met in Europe. «¿What?» His wife asked.

«Nothing». he sighed.

Since he had come back from the trip, he routinely went to walk on the beach. «It is the best medicine for my back» he said sarcastically. He knew that his misaligned posture was due to the heavy weight he felt on his shoulders since he had returned frm across the sea.

Tonight the thickness of the air forebshadowed a coming storm. The waves crashed down violently on the sand, erasing every imprint.

At dawn, everything changed.

At first the wind came, rushing, burning, a hurricane? Then the rain came. At first it was gentle, but it turned irascible and intense by the end of the day. Wind and water formed an alliance to punish two opposite sides of the same sea. Such fury had never been seen before. Eider barred doors and windows and waited for the end of the storm. Nine days and nine nights locked in the house, the provisions of the pantry were dosified, and she began to lose the sense of time. She was alone, with no more light than that of the candles, without the slightest opening to the outside, frightened by the threat of flying objects and projectiles that collided against the...

• ¡Mum!

• Um… Yes… ¿What do you want?
• Enma is making faces at me.
• Well, stop fighting, weren´t you already in bed?
• Tell Enma not to make faces.
• And you give me back my Ipod. It´s not my fault that you lost yours.
• Come on, ok now. Enma, stop teasing your brother and you give her back her ipod. And to sleep both of you, tomorrow there will be no one who can get you out of bed.

• Let's see where was I … eh, ah,yes.

flying objects and projectiles that collided against the walls of the house. At dawn on the tenth day the calm returned. Eider opened a window cautiously. At first she didn´t react. She thought that was the effect of having been in isolation for so long. She believed that she was dreaming. The window of the living room,which before had faced northward towards the mountains, was now facing south, towards the sea. She ran downstairs to see the effects of the storm. But nothing scared her, she never liked the ivy on the wall around the house.. The wind and water had taken away the dust, the flies, the ivy and the wall itself... the past has been robbed. She challenged the horizon, the sea was not the end. There were ship. One could cross. Turning back was not an option. The storm had moved things around, putting them back in place. It made possible...

• Hi Darling, how are you doing? Are the Children sleeping? Have you had dinner?
• Yes, yes, hi… yes to everything.
• What are you doing on the computer?
• uh, well , nothing, just playing around a bit.
• Yeah, yeah, but, what was that colorful thing? It looks funny. Why did you shut it without letting me see?
• Well…it ... it´s a game.
• A game?
• Yes. A video-game of these virtual worlds to play online. Like “Second Life” Do you know what it is?
• No idea.
• So…, you create a character, an avatar. You give it a name, you give it a personality, appearance, age, profession ... it could be real or made-up, whatever you want. After you do things, you accumulate experiences with the resources and life points to move up levels. You can get skills that are what give you the ability to carry out everything you can imagine. I'm already at level 4!
• Well, good. By the way, I'm busy tomorrow, don't wait for me to eat. And at night too I will come too late. Well, what were you saying about that game? What´s t good for?
• Well you get involved with other residents and interact with them in situations that sometimes become real. They say that sometimes virtual reality can become real reality...
• Interesting. Let´s see if I have time to prune the ivy off the wall this weekend. And what were you saying? Something about, inter ... something...
• Ah…, nothing. Forget it …

May 2012

To the muralims project in North Adams – Massachussets (EEUU)

Eva Amezgaray – Lupe Serrano – Begoña Vicente