"And it came to me then. That we were wonderful traveling companions but in the end no more than lonely lumps of metal in their own separate orbits. From far off they look like beautiful shooting stars, but in reality they're nothing more than prisons, where each of us is locked up alone, going nowhere. When the orbits of these two satellites of ours happened to cross paths, we could be together. Maybe even open our hearts to each other. But that was only for the briefest moment. In the next instant we'd be in absolute solitude. Until we burned up and became nothing." -
Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart)
You stay inside your heated house, under a furry blanket with a cuppa in your hand, Ruby and the Romantics promising you your day will come. All that warmth does nothing for the ice in your soul, the frequent sips of scalding Oolong does not seep inside by the osmosis you hoped would happen.
You step outside in the white cold and run till the wind stings your face like shards of ice, your breath ragged, your fingers frozen, the tips blue and all your blood drained from your body to pump somewhere about in your legs. You meet people on the streets to whom the cold means nothing. They like it, they glow. The cold envelops you, in a white misty bubble that comes out of your mouth and nose and at the same time seems to cover you entirely, cutting you off from the mundane, from the normal, from life in fact till all you have is your body, that thin layer of veined, bluish skin between the ice and your soul. And then it rips into your clothes, into that flimsy, black sweater that had been a gift on a warmer winter, many years ago, into your chest, ribcage, heart. The ice enters to meet your soul-ice like blood-brothers, intertwining into a glorious shapeless sculpture, diamond-like in its hardness and you run. To the cadence of the happy voices of blurry -faced passers-by in bright coats and boots hurrying to homes of fireplaces and Christmas lights and dogs and friends and lovers.
You realize the ice was meant to be there, that this was the natural state, that this was how it had been all along and how it would be and that any other state was an abnormality, that warmth was an anomaly and would soon be corrected.
Why did you get confused along the way? Did someone tell you otherwise and you, in a naive moment, believed it? Did your soul-ice melt in a fleeting moment of love, hearing the lilt and throb of a voice and you thought the thaw would last forever? That the soul ice-creature had finally turned to the soul-Samsa it was meant to be? Maybe.
You pass shops on the way, selling everything conceivable, necessities you had never realized were indeed necessary, the frosted glasses also reflecting beautiful people in their own orbits which would never collide with yours. Which, of course, sets you thinking of all the orbits which have collided with yours and the strangeness and spark and impact of the collisions. Memory thaws your soul-ice again and you start feeling the cold. You remember someone telling you the cold isn't good for you. And chocolates and wine and loud music and computer games and caffeine and sunshine and pavements. Someone else that they weren't good for you. Between the things that aren't meant for you and those that aren't good for you, you have, throughout your life-path, been giving up things that make you burn and giddy and heady and lovely and warm. Till you settle on your meant-to-be-reached, steady-state of soul-ice. And henceforth, you never feel cold, never unhappy, never unsatisfied unless of course some accidental collision with a rogue shooting star out of it's orbit and into yours burns the way through that ice and gives you memories warm enough to defrost that soul-ice long enough for you to enjoy your Oolong and ponder it's strength. And have some left over to feel a Thelonius Monk song.
Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart)
You stay inside your heated house, under a furry blanket with a cuppa in your hand, Ruby and the Romantics promising you your day will come. All that warmth does nothing for the ice in your soul, the frequent sips of scalding Oolong does not seep inside by the osmosis you hoped would happen.
You step outside in the white cold and run till the wind stings your face like shards of ice, your breath ragged, your fingers frozen, the tips blue and all your blood drained from your body to pump somewhere about in your legs. You meet people on the streets to whom the cold means nothing. They like it, they glow. The cold envelops you, in a white misty bubble that comes out of your mouth and nose and at the same time seems to cover you entirely, cutting you off from the mundane, from the normal, from life in fact till all you have is your body, that thin layer of veined, bluish skin between the ice and your soul. And then it rips into your clothes, into that flimsy, black sweater that had been a gift on a warmer winter, many years ago, into your chest, ribcage, heart. The ice enters to meet your soul-ice like blood-brothers, intertwining into a glorious shapeless sculpture, diamond-like in its hardness and you run. To the cadence of the happy voices of blurry -faced passers-by in bright coats and boots hurrying to homes of fireplaces and Christmas lights and dogs and friends and lovers.
You realize the ice was meant to be there, that this was the natural state, that this was how it had been all along and how it would be and that any other state was an abnormality, that warmth was an anomaly and would soon be corrected.
Why did you get confused along the way? Did someone tell you otherwise and you, in a naive moment, believed it? Did your soul-ice melt in a fleeting moment of love, hearing the lilt and throb of a voice and you thought the thaw would last forever? That the soul ice-creature had finally turned to the soul-Samsa it was meant to be? Maybe.
You pass shops on the way, selling everything conceivable, necessities you had never realized were indeed necessary, the frosted glasses also reflecting beautiful people in their own orbits which would never collide with yours. Which, of course, sets you thinking of all the orbits which have collided with yours and the strangeness and spark and impact of the collisions. Memory thaws your soul-ice again and you start feeling the cold. You remember someone telling you the cold isn't good for you. And chocolates and wine and loud music and computer games and caffeine and sunshine and pavements. Someone else that they weren't good for you. Between the things that aren't meant for you and those that aren't good for you, you have, throughout your life-path, been giving up things that make you burn and giddy and heady and lovely and warm. Till you settle on your meant-to-be-reached, steady-state of soul-ice. And henceforth, you never feel cold, never unhappy, never unsatisfied unless of course some accidental collision with a rogue shooting star out of it's orbit and into yours burns the way through that ice and gives you memories warm enough to defrost that soul-ice long enough for you to enjoy your Oolong and ponder it's strength. And have some left over to feel a Thelonius Monk song.
