A Heartbreaking Tale of Parallel Love
One muggy, abnormally hot day in September, she woke up and just knew. From this day forward her life was about to change completely.
Her bed, with its 500 thread count cotton-linen sheets was so comfortable it kept clawing her back in, begging her to stay just a few more minutes. “No,” she thought, “today is the start of everything. I’m determined. I refuse to be afraid.” She could kiss those sheets goodbye. Where she was going, in her next life, they wouldn’t be needed.
She slowly placed her bare feet on the hardwood floors and groggily shuffled to the kitchen. Her trusty espresso maker was sitting, waiting for her. If it could talk it would have a deep, drawling voice like Javier Bardem but with an Italian accent. “An Italian espresso machine can’t have a Spanish accent,” she thought.
“Buongiorno signorina!” it would brightly say. “Cosa gradisce oggi?” What would you like today?
The young woman, pensively cocked her head to one side, savouring the life-changing decision she had just made, a lock of golden hair sweeping across her forehead. “Mmmh a soy cappuccino with a dash of cinnamon on top. Yes, that’s exactly what I want,” she mused. How she could think of something as menial as the type of drink she wanted at that moment was beyond her. But taking small decisions like this helped her mind begin processing the next steps.
She pulled her silk kimono tighter around her waist. The fabric brushed softly over her hazelnut skin, the rich hue earned after a few weeks vacationing in the Canary Islands. Her fingers reached for the porcelain espresso cups and her favorite cappuccino mug, the handmade turquoise one that had the imprints of the artists’ hands as he or she molded it. “I’m going to have to take this with me,” she thought.
Before anything was going to happen she needed a jolt of caffeine in her system. Just the thought of their secret, intimate, impossibly possible plan made her eyes open just a bit wider bringing into focus all the familiar details of her kitchen. A warm buzz tickled her body.
“What exactly did I agree to,” she wondered as she stood perched on one foot in a semi-balanced yoga position waiting for the steam to get nice and hot. “I must be losing my mind. But it feels right, oh so right. I must do this.”
Soy cappuccino in hand, she gracefully half-pranced, half-glided down the stairs to her study. Flipping open her Macbook while sipping from her turquoise mug she started typing in destinations: Montreux, Bruges, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Gothenburg, Malmö, Helsinki…
“Hmmmm, might as well add Hamburg on the list,” she decided as she kept clicking through Google Maps. It was a diabolic plan, a crazy plan, an unthinkable absurdity at this stage in her life. It was a plan she was supposed to have made fifteen years ago, but at the time, didn’t have the courage. “Now I’m ready,” she decided. “It’s now or never.” No one knew of this scheme… except for one person. A very special person.
He twisted and turned for a good hour before finally giving in. Swinging his long, muscular legs off the platform bed, not even bothering to feel for his slippers, he wandered into the kitchen prying open the fridge and reaching for a cold beer. A million thoughts raced through his head. He plopped down on the couch, the same couch where she had been laying just a few nights before, sprawled out in that incredibly provocative way every woman manages to do instinctively, with nothing but the raucous, sexy notes of “Exile on Main Street” caressing her naked body.
He shook his head as he chugged back a long gulp of Peroni. “I must be losing my mind,” he thought. “This will never work out.” But a little voice whispered, “What do you care? Make it happen. Just fucking go for it, man.” He wanted more. He needed more. Of her.
If this plan was going to work he had to start organizing. Grabbing his phone he started randomly searching various websites looking for the right size, a model that wasn’t too old, not too many kilometers, something that could be gutted. “No, it needs to be bigger, under 10,000 euro,” he thought, flipping through various pages. With all the work that had to be done on it he would need at least another 15,000 euro to outfit it properly.
“Whoa, wait, this looks perfect,” he said out loud stopping on a large, white Volkswagen passenger van. He started scrolling through the details. Diesel engine, that’s good, better mileage. Up to 924 kg load capacity — it will be able to hold the extra weight of a kitchenette, double bed, equipment, solar panels. ABS breaks, hatchback — has to be hatchback, easier for sliding storage shelves and table. The only downside, he would have to pick up the vehicle in the Netherlands. “Consider it done.”
“I can’t wait to show this to…,” his thoughts were interrupted by Jagger, his grossly overweight tabby cat who in that instant pounced on his lap knocking his phone out of his hands onto the floor. Prrrrrrhhh. He snuggled up right on the man’s lean stomach like it was the most natural thing to do at that moment at 4:50 am. He chuckled, “Jagger, you always have a way of making your entrance at the most inopportune times.”
He ran his fingers down Jagger’s arching back to the tip of his striped tail. “So you think it’s a good idea, huh,” he inquired the feline who just gazed back up at him, continuing to purr with his yellow eyes half closed with contentment for the early morning cuddle fest. “I take that as a ‘yes’,” he smiled. “I won’t tell her quite yet. I don’t want to jinx it.”
How absurd. He wasn’t even sure when he was going to see her next. Here they were, planning this grande, on-the-road escape for an undetermined amount of time and he didn’t even know if he would have the possibility of seeing her this week let alone running away with her for months on end.
All he longed for was to run his fingers along her baby-soft skin and reveal his important discovery, the first, concrete step that would turn their dream into a reality. He imagined the scene as they lay on that couch together, right where he was sitting now, with Joni Mitchell’s soothing, crystal voice ringing in the background…
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet.
“Leave it to destiny,” he thought.
He picked up his Fender acoustic, the one his dad had given him for his birthday ten years ago, and started absent-mindedly strumming. It was a good five minutes before he realized he was playing the cords to “Case of you.”
