Making Choices In Bed

A Short Story about Art, Love and Ceiling Fans

By: André Teixeira

We were in bed at the time. He was sitting, with his sweaty back against the head of the bed. As usual, he was smoking a cigarette, a cheap one from a cheap brand. He always did like to smoke after sex. He said it calmed him, made him think. He had always been one to think deep thoughts. Smoke and the smell of tobacco filled the air. I was laying down, with my arms behind my head, looking at the ceiling fan’s slow movements. It moved slowly, but inexorably, like a force of nature. It was battling the smoke, trying to throw it out, but was losing. It would always lose, but it still moved, without stopping, like it knew that there was no hope to defeat that obnoxious enemy but it still had to try. I always admired that fan. I was thinking about its troubles when he spoke. “I’m moving to the Capital.”, he said. I reflected on that for a moment. He was, above all, a serious man. He wouldn’t say such a thing if he wasn’t sure, of if there was still any way to dissuade him. So I tried to remain calm, and simply asked “Why?”. He took a deep smoke before answering. “As you know, I’ve always wanted to work on Art. I never knew on what kind of Art, exactly. Was my mind filled with sculptures, cinematography, prose and rhyme, still pictures made of polygons or paint? I could never answer this question. All I knew was that I wanted to contribute to this world’s beauty. Beauty just like yours.”

I stayed silent. I knew this very well. We had talked about Art many times, about its many forms, its definition. I remember one time that we tried to achieve a perfect definition of the term over a cup of coffee. I said that Art was something that was inherently beautiful, something that possessed the objective quality of beauty, and that humans merely recognised that quality in different amounts. It made sense, considering some people considered natural rock formations or pretty meadows as Art. He disagreed. He said Art was something that was both objective and subjective, something that was already there and also something that had to be recognized, but that it had one major requirement. It had to have been created by a human, with an intention and a purpose. He said only that which was made by a human hand with the intention of producing beauty and bringing something to this world that wasn’t already there was Art. He said there could be no Art without Humanity. That the greatest paintings of the Renaissance were Art even if people didn’t recognized them as such, but that they would not be Art if there were no humans to think about them. In the end we agreed that a perfect definition could not be reached. It was still a wonderful coffee break.

As I recalled this conversation, he continued. “However, I feared I could never manage to do that. I dropped out of high school and started working to support my siblings. Even if I didn’t, Art Colleges charge incredibly high fees nowadays, and you are not guaranteed to find a paying job even after you graduate. So I tried to get this dream of mine out of my head. I would paint sometimes, with tools a friend lend me, and give it to people important to me. I would take pictures with my salvaged old camera. I would imagine interesting scenarios for a play, all while moving boxes back at the store.” I still had the first picture he took of me. It was snowing, and I had just finished buying his Christmas gift. I was smiling, happy in the moment. My smile was forever frozen in that frame, together with those unfortunate snowflakes captured by the lenses. Why unfortunate, you may ask. Well, they will never reach the floor and turn into water. Such is their purpose, and we robbed them of it. They were frozen in time, forever. Just like my smile.

“Things remained like that for a long time. But yesterday I had an offer. A company from the Capital. They offered me a full time job, very well paid too. At least for someone like me. My siblings would be able to live in a better flat, and afford better clothes. It involves photography and visual design. It seemed like a dream come true. I had to give an answer there and then.” I sighed. I knew where this was going. I mean, how I could not. He was going to follow his dream. He should do it. He should go for it, grab the opportunity. Exactly as he did. Exactly as I feared he would do one day. “How did you get the offer?”, I asked in a neutral tone. “I was in the train station delivering some boxes of goods. There were two photographers there, trying to shoot some pictures of the passengers and incoming trains. I sneaked a peek at their cameras, and saw that they weren’t managing that well. So I just went by and suggested that they moved to behind the red bench near the end of the platform. You remember the one, right? Well, the main photographer, a man with a small beard and a thick scarf, asked me why they should move to that specific spot. I said that whenever I came to the station, I would sit on that bench and observer the people running from one place to another, wandering around, busy with their lives, and yet oblivious to the fact that everybody else was doing the same. I said that if they wanted to capture a scenic picture that would be the spot where they could capture the most emotion in a single shot. At least in my opinion. The man went to the bench, looked around, took a picture and invited me for coffee. We talked for a while after that, and he made me the offer. I took it. But you already know that.” I did know that. He was never afraid of taking long leaps. Unlike me. “What does this spell for us, then? Is it over? You know I can’t leave this place. I have too much going for me here, I have a job, friends. Also, I don’t want to leave. I’m afraid. I would have to start from scratch there. With nothing but the clothes in my back. You know I don’t have much money. It could take weeks to find a job, months even. And we would have to move in together. What exactly am I to you? Are you ready for such a step? For such responsibility?” I let it all out in a flux of words. In retrospective, I must have sounded quite spiteful, infantile, even. But he understood what I meant. He always did. Just like I understood him. We worked well like that. He looked at me with his warm brown eyes and said, “I am. I can take on that burden. You always took my burdens for me. My pains, my addictions. My past. When I rambled, you listened. When I drank, you drank with me. When I fell, you helped me up. You’re my partner. So if that is your wish, I shall take on everything. So decide. You know where to find me when you reach a decision. I’ll be leaving after tomorrow.” There was much I could have said. I could have said that he always helped me up too. That his family meant more to me than my own. That when we drank together I wasn’t drinking because of him. I could have said a lot more, but I didn’t.

He got dressed and exited the room, still with a smoke between his lips. He didn’t look back. He was strong like that. Or so it seemed to others. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to look at me, that he wasn’t afraid to leave me. It was just that he had decided not to look. And he always did what he decided to do. Before me I had two paths. Two realities, two futures. I could not foresee one or the other. I could not know what infortunes laid ahead, what sorrow and what happiness. And yet I had to make a choice. We all do, all the time. Life is made of choices. Conditioned by a great many factors, true, but choices nonetheless. You have only yourself to blame if you choose wrongly. I once asked him what he thought constituted a good choice. He thought for a while, and said “One you don’t regret making. Whatever the result.” So I stood up, alone in that room with the ceiling fan, and I made my choice. Who knows what would have happened had I chosen differently. Maybe it would have been better. Maybe it wouldn’t. Who knows? I still look back to that moment, even nowadays. Even though all this time has passed. I think about it, and ask myself, do I regret that choice? And as my lips spell ‘No’ slowly, I know I made a choice I can live with. A good choice, as he would say. And that is the only thing anyone can ask for.