The invitation
The invitation was on the table, peeking around the corner of a mountain made of paper that was piled next to the lava lamp. At least once a day I find dehypnotizing myself from the movement of this fluorescent globe in its never-ending rise and fall of its submerged gravity.
The blazing fire from the stove, consuming the last two logs of the garage reserve. I sat up in the armchair and began to put together a cigarette, glancing at the envelope, as if waiting for the right moment to open it and get to know the details.
Whose idea was to do a graduates reunion tonight? Christmas lights should still be warm inside the boxes.
Monday. The transition to the routine again is never easy. There are those who love their jobs and find, im the organized 9 to 5 journey, a certain calm of being inside a supporting system, that orders and frees us in a standard cycle formalized by norm. How many of my ex-classmates could be found in that group of motivated and productive citizens?
20 years since the graduation ceremony. How did they find me? What for? Who woul have remembered the face in the last seat of the last classroom row? Perhaps, no one recalls that time when, mysteriously, the capitain's car appeared bathed in white paint. I still have his image on my mind , like a child crying, curled up in a ball and babbling something about his father.
Now that I come to think about it, nostalgia invades me, and one of the few situations that could motivate me to leave my shelter in this calmed forest, with no neighbors other than birds and beavers, is to see the pathetic tantrum of the biggest bully of my generation. The son of the surgeon, who, of course, grew up to become a surgeon.
I emptied the glass of wine in one sip. I went down to the basement and underneath a tarp, behind garden machines, I found a 20-liter paint bucket, unused. I loaded the bucket into the trunk, run apstairs, took my coat, keys, and the envelop. I left the lamp on, and I took off to meet my past.
What goes around comes around, they say, but it's not about revenge, it's about karma. What they don't tell you is that in order for this to happen, sometimes life needs a little push.
What happened next? See you in my next post.