Dear __________________, I hope this letter finds you well, as ever. I want to share something with you. Going through ______________’s house’s rooms I found this box. It appears to be a collection of letters a young man called Juvenal wrote to a lady called Melissa. They corresponded often, it seems. The relationship between Juvenal and Melissa was that of ___________________________________________________________________. This letters were written in the period between ___________ and ___________ of ______ when Juvenal left to seclude himself in a house in _________________ to isolate himself and focus on a project he was working on. Apparently he was trying to ________ _______________________________________________________________________, I could only find Juvenal’s batch, I have no idea where Melissa’s can be, we’ll have to imagine what she said in return to this fellow, the adventures he narrates are so breathtaking, I put myself in his shoes when I was reading them and quite frankly I don’t know how he did it, and I think Melissa’s accounts must have been just equally fulfilling, otherwise he probably would have bored and stop writing to her altogether, wouldn’t he? I really liked what Juvenal said about ________________________________________, you know? And I thought you’d like it as well, that’s why I’m sending them to you, I am so interested in your opinion. I hope to see you soon so we can discuss these letters, I have a weird feeling, I have a sense as if they were written for us just as well as for Melissa. Maybe you and I could imagine Melissa’s letters and write them in return to the Juvenal letters we already have, wouldn’t it be fun? __________________, -‐______________________.
melissa &
juvenal
To Irene, The Empress.
I Dear Melissa, You must know I'm alright. The house is everything it should be, with the clumps of trees around it and the geese and the goats. If you look through the window of the second floor you can see the horses at a fair distance. As I walked through the door I sawr a game rabbit laying next to the threshold and the black one came over me from behind. We went then for a walk. I am sure glad he is a friendly dog, for otherwise he would throw me into the lake in every rant of joyful running he catches. I would like to be able to leap it through, as a will-‐o'-‐the-‐wisp. I thought I saw one the other night. But I might as well just be bored. I am hungry now. I hope to hear all your news soon. Love, -‐Juvenal.
II Dear Melissa, I haven't seen anyone since I arrived. I'ved a chance to breath. To sleep. Last night it was raining no end. I took the chance and slept. There's not much to eat, so I have to be creative and work with what I have. I cooked the game the black one brought. I made rabbit with mushrooms in anise sauce. Anise grows green all around the pond. I may venture to the nearest store midweek to buy foods. Everything is miles away dear. I am so far away. It gets me out of context. Puts me in a new one. Context is all we ever need to understand ourselves and each other dear. I can now see things so differently. The rain unsettled the water of the pond and I took a dive this afternoon. It was an adventure in its own right. I ventured into the unknown in a way. I felt constant tickles on my legs and it could have been anything from bubbles to a water snake. Or maybe that ol will-‐o'-‐the-‐wisp? God I'm stubborn. Anyways I rather not know. I can only tell you I shall chisel my thoughts on water into the whole thing. I am so alone. There's not a soul in miles around. Although that is the charm and the primordial reason why I came here, to be lone and be able to focus, I start to understand why people invent phantoms. They are necessary. Even tho I am alone, I can feel strangely accompanied. I may not renounce to my attempts to catch that ignis fatuus after all. Love and many kisses, -‐Juvenal.
III Dear Melissa, As midweek came I ran out of goods and I tied my belt and put on my gloves and decided to go searching for the nearest store. How do I love the road Melissa, after this few days of silent confinement being in movement appeared to me like I was hearing polyrhythmic harps all over my big ears. After a while I found it and it turned out to be plain odd. There were everything from medicine to food, there were rhinoceros' skin shoes, bone sculptures, musical instruments, smoking pipes, water, weapons, hunting equipment, and everything in between. I immediately ran to the book shelf and hoarded my share. I got one about the future and what kind of animals will live in this earth when we humans are long gone, another about real and imagined ones mixed as a whole, I must tell you the barriers between one another are blurry and hard to distinguish. And I bought another one, also about zoology. The whole place was scented by the spiced strange flowers they offered at the entrance. I remembered my beloved carved bone pen that I bought at St. John, I'd like to have it sent over. There were also clothing that matches the environment and I bought some that suits me, you know, in green. If you think you know how odd this place was I shall tell you about the clerk. I didn't get his name. He is tall and has a straight nose. The mouth very thin. I asked him if he knew the surroundings and he ceremoniously nodded. I asked him if he knew any local legends and he shrugged. I asked him a lot of questions he wouldn't answer as if they paid him to keep some sort of mystery and when I finally asked him if he had any advise for me as to how to take care of myself around here, he, in front of a counter that went floor to ceiling full of silver fox fur, amulets, will-‐o'-‐the-‐wisp and every mythical creature lures, giraffe food, alive chameleons, tortoise eggs and survival guides to strange wild life encounters answered: -‐No. Sorry. And I thought: I wonder who loves you. There's always someone out there hidden, who desperately love each individual. And it makes me wonder who they are. And it makes me wanna meet them. I would like to tell them so, that I know what they are going through, and I respect them, and I am with them.
Of course you know which item I bought from that counter. Excitedly yours, -‐Juvenal.
IV Dear Melissa, My workday began with the crow of the rooster. There wasn't even daylight yet. Have you felt that feeling? You are excited not long awake, you're having your breakfast and you know that is day already but there is no light. And the sun isn't even up and you feel it should be out already you have begun your day so how come it hasn't? That's how I felt. Everything was set and I had the lure in my pocket. You won't believe it. Of all things. It was perfume. Perfume of the oddest kind. I would not be able to describe it to you. It came in a large, round bottle with a long neck, like the ones you'd see at an alchemist laboratory and it had a lid attached with a metallic device. It came with a little Bunsen flame and a base. I had to set it up outside, under a tree with nothing but green grass at a 50 yard radius. The instructions were very complex and very clear, as in most invocations if it it didn't work out, one is to blame. As the equipment was set, under the tree, with nothing but green grass at a 50 yard radius, the Bunsen flame on and the perfume above, with the sun shining I was to eat a tablespoon of honey and sing. Drawing a circle I was to walk and sing three times around the tree. Each hour. For how long? Who knew. Till it worked. If it didn't it would be my fault and I would never know what I did wrong, for there are so many details! I could be there forever. It was a gamble, it was a gamble. But it was a gamble worth gambling. Wouldn’t you agree? I ask only for courtesy Melissa dear, you know I don’t really care. The instructions of the lure didn't specify if I was allowed to be dressed or have anything at all with me. I then risked having my books and my bone carved pen with me. It has arrived. I am writing this letter with it. I read all through my wait. I almost missed the singing hours a few times my readings were so pleasing. Turns out one of the animal books is mostly chromes divided in three parts. And you can mix the animals at your leisure. And you can imagine, the sounds they would make. The other one explains in detail how the future animals will be and why. It gives you an insight of how people think the future world will be. 'This animal will have a mouth like this because it will eat that' and so on and so forth. I cannot help but laugh sometimes. These people are sometimes so imaginative.
The other one is in French. The illustrations are stunning. The attention to detail is magnificent. And I must tell you, we are included. There's a vast entry on human beings. It must be so easy to be alive, as a human, today. There are so many of us. We live through so much and yet we remain alive. Maybe if it was hard natural selection would have been off with us a long time ago. I was so happy enjoying my intellectual unfolding that little did I know what was approaching. Because it did, work, Melissa. It did, work. Fast like a rushing arrow on fire it crossed the skies. The sound of it’s rush took me by surprise and I rose and I threw my book to the ground. It crashed against the phial and in a millisecond it found it’s way in. The Bunsen flame blew itself off and the perfume in the vessel evaporated in one fell swoop of fumes as the mere ignis fatuus I thought I saw the other day came inside it, sealing the cork and the metallic device with a crisp sound. On from that point there was no sound at all. The fire that it was seemed to be the result of the combustion of every sound miles around. It was like having wax earbuds on, or being submerged in a pool, have you ever experienced that feeling? Everything felt confusing, clumsy and dream-‐like, I found it hard to believe I was at all awake, as a feeling of drowsiness came over me and I was seeing in front of me, as clear as one sees the trees or the walls of a house, the mythical creature I had so enthusiastically been dreaming to know. For a moment I wondered if so many readings about animals had affected me and thrown me into a delirious slumber. They didn’t. There are moments like these in life. Aren’t there? You are living dream-‐like situations but you know you are well awake. Later on, even remembering you will doubt your own mind. The will-‐o’-‐the-‐wisp was fascinating in it’s structure, it was like a tiny person but it was quite see-‐through. It had only one leg that could be compared to a sirens’s tail for it was so diffuse, it merged with the sphere of gas and golden light that surrounded it. It was a magnificent sight to behold. And moreover a feeling to feel. It was as if a little part of the sun was visiting. I looked at it straight in the eye and it looked at me straight in the eye in return. There was a sort of confusion in it’s eyes as if glass was an entirely foreign material to it. I analysed it for a short period of time, only to grasp it’s image. It was so magnificent and miraculous. I am not mental, Melissa. These things do exist.
I hesitated for a moment as to releasing it. You know what they say about them. There are terrible stories. But seeing his face as one sees a bee stress over not being able to cross through a glass window when for the bee, it being transparent, there’s nothing there melt my heart. I turned the lid open. I thought it would go as fast as it came with an endevilished speed, but it didn’t.On the contrary, it stayed on the flask for a moment and then it slowly emerged from it. The Bunsen flame lit itself up once more as the will-‐ o’-‐the-‐wisp hovered softly in front of me. There was no fear from any part and a sort of communication began to generate between us. It started to move and fly slowly and I knew it wanted me to follow. It made it spiritually, very clear. I walked behind it for a while and as I was deprived of the sense of hearing everything shone in a new light. We walked towards the beautiful pond and the fire floated over it. I took al my clothes off and plain nude I walked inside the cold water. I knew I could drawn but somehow, nothing really mattered. Then the will-‐o’-‐the-‐wisp took a dive itself. The water got immediately hot, but it wasn’t burning. In fact, it was, just, so. It was a fabulous sensation I cannot begin to describe. So pleasurable . I wasn’t breathing anymore but there was no pain. And then, the water started to evaporate. The whole pond evaporated at a belligerent speed and by the time I needed to inhale, my lungs filled with the fresh air, mixed with the sauna like steam. The place where the pond used to stand was now a rock formation. You should have seen it, Melissa. It was so beautiful, like a miniature city, for the first time I took conscience of what it feels like to be a giant. I took a moment to take it all in. Walking through the avenues of the organic city, naked, I saw the fire still floating in front of me. Some people would have thought it was going to drawn me as a punishment for capturing it wouldn’t they? But it was playing with me, it was now my friend I knew. So fast, I know, but so was it. And through the organic formations we walked, analysing them, contemplating them, the walls, the buildings, the treasures. It was sharing with me something I would have never discovered on my own. What kind of inhabitants would have lived here? I will never know as we humans don’t know what lives in the profundities of the deep, deep oceans where we still haven’t gone. I sort of regret not having had my bone pen and one of my books to draw the natural formations I saw down there, as they were so grand, and in a way it feels good to have an image to have to remember for the rest of my life.
I knew then it was time to go. I was so sleepy. This time I walked and the fire followed. I guided it to the house. When we were halfway we stopped a little and turned to contemplate the sight before us. A huge cloud began to form over the miniature city and including fish, jewels and all of it’s mysteries the whole pond rained down again. The water that fell in the surroundings and not in the pond fastly found it’s way back to the place where it belonged, dragging fish, jewels and mysteries along with it, and soon of the vast rain in the whole estate there was no trace. Not a drop out of place. Just a calm, sunny, green pond. I turned around and sleepily walked towards the house with a calm, warm will-‐o’-‐the wisp behind me. We entered the house together and headed for the kitchen, I had a drink and it had a teaspoon of honey and a sip of milk with ice in it. And were we refreshed! For a person living the events I just described, I was incredibly calm and took them with such normality, I think the presence of the fire had an opioid effect that clustered my consciousness like a person in a crystal cage who would be able to attest to them, and make gestures and excitedly scream: this is really outstanding! React! And everyone around would understand but nobody would do anything. Like say, you go to a party where everything is extremely pleasing but you try to act normal and not make much a fuss of it because you would like to get invited again. I acted the way I did, not because I wanted to receive the fire in my house again, but because it felt natural at the time, as I just explained. It had given me such gifts that I thought it was now time for me to show it the best of my world, so I read to it out loud the finest poetry, the most intimate passages of literature, the ones that moved me the most, to the deepest essence of my core, played it some fine music, seducing, intricate, experimental, classic, daring, spectacular, unique, and told it the funniest stories, but since there was no sound, I never knew if it received the message or just saw someone trying his best to go out of his way to please it. I don’t really know if it got the message, but I tried my best to show it with the little I had then, that there was something in here worthwhile. After showing it the best artworks that I could with the means I had for a very prolonged time, I felt tired and headed for my bed. In my proper, welcoming mattress, between lush, white, crisp cotton sheets we slept the rest of the afternoon and the whole of the night. The sensation was that embracing feeling a sauna provides, like all there is welcomes you and your whole existence, but without the suffocating feeling you get once you’ve been in it for long. By the first traces of daylight, I awoke, only to find it
lying next to me looking to me straight in the eye, right there and then it slowly took human form and for the first time since it first appeared there was sound, and I could hear it’s voice, a rather fabulous thing that I remember clearly because I made it my duty to record it faithfully in my mind. It asked me to open the window, for it was time for it to finally leave. Then it kissed me on my left cheek and as I placed my hand over the place where it’s mouth had just been, it took it’s original form once again, with my cheek covered with my left hand, as if trying to capture every molecule of heat I could manage, I walked towards the window and opened it, it then looked back at me, smiled with beautiful rows of straight white teeth and as fast as it came it went. I dragged my left hand from my cheek to my nose, the trace left was the one of the perfume, the lure. I tried to get the name of it from the clerk of the odd store but he wont say. I have since then, made it my business to find out the name and the place where they sell it so I can buy some more, for the sake of memory. I have had no success so far but I do know that, surprisingly, it’s start note is the heart note of mine. After this very brief encounter I am enriched in ways only I know, and I shall caress them and capitalise from them for the rest of my life. And after this incredible sightings I must go back to work. You know I wish I shouldn’t. But I have to. I want to be a paid consumer. Absently yours, -‐Juvenal.
V Dear Melissa, I have received all of your letters and I am sorry I have not written for a long time. The encounter that I detailed to you in my last letter shook me to the core and made me question everything I know for sure. But alas, it has also happened with every major breakthrough I’ve had in the past. I remember going to a temple, very distressed, to pray to God when I first found out about love’s true nature. That idea was so big, and life changing and confusing for me, it is true you know?, what they say about not being able to go back once your mind has been stretched thus far, but back then, in the temple that day, I consoled myself with the saying that ‘I know no wise man who wishes to remain in ignorance’. You see, if this beautiful things exist, I want to know about them and experience them, it matters not if they challenge my mind. What happened after the fire left is marvelous and you may want to seat for what I am about to tell you are strong news that will change the course of our lives forever. When I opened the window for the fire to leave I focused only on it leaving, and the perfume trace on my cheek, and hands, and nose, and memories, the whole thing was so intoxicating that I noticed not what had happened outside. I had to remain there, half asleep, with my head on my hand, my arms resting on the window ledge for a long time before I could realise the miracle I was witnessing. The magical rain watered the anise plants that the afternoon before had measured up to 5 inches and now a vast field of corn-‐sized anise plants lay out before my eyes. It was a dense forest I could not see through. And in front of it there was a silver fox, sitting, as if hearing something I didn’t. Having admired the silver fox fur every time I went into the odd store I was happy to see one specimen alive and decided to go down and greet it. It didn’t seem to be in a rush, as it was sitting, so I took my time and had a drink, got dressed, combed, perfumed, and had some breakfast. After that, went down the front stairs and step by step the anaesthesia of the day before wore off and I felt mesmerised before the marvelous view. I walked slowly and the fox didn’t show any sign of acknowledging my presence but I think he felt me way before he entered the property. I sat right next to him and looked very carefully towards the forest of magically enlarged anise plants that lay at 30 feet distance. I then absently pet the fox with my right hand, and he seemed to dislike it for it stood and groaned powerfully. I got scared and stood up as well, but I hadn’t done it properly when the fox assertively bit my left ankle and ran fast towards the forest without looking back, a rage as powerful as his bite took over me and I ran after him
decidedly, I think for a moment I wanted to kill him and without thinking it twice I delve into the anise woods not minding the dangers of breaking into the unknown. I didn’t run for long before I saw his tail and soon I sawr him stop to my surprise. I thought he was running from me but now it seemed otherwise. He stopped in the middle of a clearing with the shape of a circle, delimited by a series of long spears with multicoloured tissue paper strips adorning it’s endings, like the ones of a maypole, but shorter, they looked like a rudimentary form of scarecrow systems that were placed more or less 3 feet a distance from each other. The silver fox then lay down on the ground with his snout and eyes pointing towards the centre of the circle and looking at me calmly as if he had not just violently bit me. I stood there astonished as my urge to kill him had disappeared before his absence of fear of me. Instead, confussion and curiosity took over. The silver fox kept signalling the centre of the circle and then resting his head on the ground and basking in the sun. I just stood there, looking. A few minutes transcurred before I saw a little hole the size of an anthill that served as a sort of axe for the circle. I then saw a bit of green smoke come out and extinguish in thin air. I knew it was the whole of it so I dug confident with my bare hands. Not two minutes of digging later I discovered a bag made of sailcloth, I extracted it carefully and looking the other way I opened it, nothing happened, not any more green smoke so I looked fully on and a bunch of gold coins looked right back at me. Solid gold coins with my face carved in them. Imagine that! My profile persona wearing an olive crown and no denomination on them. Could it be an old ascendent? A king or emperor? Could the false lineage presumptions the family had had for ages be true? Or was I standing before something more mysterious? Would this weird coins show the face of the person holding them? I had to investigate the matter. -‐Are this for me? -‐I asked the fox. He just looked at me as he had before. -‐Are this mine.-‐ He looked at me not like he had before, insisting, but barely acknowledging my presence. -‐Do I have permission to retire this goods?-‐ He then looked straight to my eyes, inclined his head and then went back to being a perfectly normal silver fox. -‐Are you coming with me. –This time he didn’t even look back at me and just continued basking in the sun. I stood up, closed the bag, patted my knees, looked at the fox and remembered how a few minutes ago I was thinking of eating him and making a hat with his fur. He gave me something much more valuable alive, I thought then. I didn’t know just how so. -‐Thank you. – I felt. And then I left, walked all the way through the forest of abnormally large and fragrant anise stems carrying a bag full of coins of unspecified value, feeling surprised, relieved,
amused, happy, uncertain and just starting to be conscious of the pain of a bite in my left leg. I didn’t even venture to look around to find out what other riches may this mysterious place house, a tiny clearing had been enough for me, for one day. Looking back at it, it is a very poetic image, me returning from that unknown land with my prize in hand, almost like an oil painting I would find hanging from the old, odd walls of this house, maybe when I go, I will take some with me for you to see, so you know what am I referring to. How could I, do you ask? I shall tell you next: This house is mine now. You see, I wanted to know the value of the strange gold coins, so I took some from the bag and stored them in a pouch and off I went to the odd store. The clerk acknowledged my presence by barely rising his eyes from his accounting books for a moment and coming back to them as usual. I played dumb as grandma taught me, and after a little while I selected a small bone-‐carved comb and some toast, of all things. It should be cheap I figured, and I paid him with a single coin. He took it and nodded. I expected change but he didn’t give me anything back. Not even a look. Feeling robbed I then revolved the place and went for the most expensive object in the odd store, thinking he would feel as outraged as I did and he would finally tell the true value of the coin, demanding the rest of the payment in full, but he was happy to accept another single coin for it! It then hit me, that this coins may be magical of sorts, and I proved it seconds later when I sawr him give the first coin I gave him to a guy as change for the tomatoes he had just bought with a single small denomination bill, and immediately after he stored the second coin in a safe. It seemed I could buy anything in the world and pay with a single coin and the people would get from it exactly the value they asked. Can you imagine? The most peculiar thing! Feeling like a thief, and very vexed, I ran to the house holding my purchases one in each hand, and immediately set to call for the owner of the house, who called on me the next day, as requested. I came clean to him, for as you know, there’s never a need to steal. With the purchases and the bag of coins and the pouch on the large, shiny wooden table, I explained to him what had happened and offered him take the money. He told me this kind of findings where fairly common in the countryside and often followed the sightings of an ignis fatuus, this if the seer didn’t fall off a cliff, of course, that would be the expected course of events. He told me he wouldn’t dare take the money, for the coins had been presented to me and had my face on them, not his, nor as I had foolishly imagined, some celeb ascendant. He remarked he wouldn’t robe himself of his peace of mind by robbing me, and he wasn’t interested in riches either, for he was sitting on a fortune already. Also, the terms of the lease specified that product of the land are the property of those how work on it, so everything was bound and everything was legal. The money is mine. I then told him I had grown fond of the house for obvious reasons, and was interested in buying. He agreed most gallantly and took a single coin from me, in exchange for the house and the estate around it, we signed the deeds in the same large, shiny wooden table that afternoon. That night, as I walked upstairs and through the corridors full of odd oil paintings, depicting scenes as strange as, mind you, a boy
carrying a bag full of stem coins -‐as I now call them-‐ through an anise forest would be, I felt what owning my own space felt like for the first time, and the feeling was breathtaking I tell you. This coins give people the value they expect from them, I could buy anything, from a lemon to an elephant, to rare silks and lapis lazuli as I had always dreamed, and there’s quite a lot of them… Melissa, do you realise what it means? I don’t: HAVE, to do ANYTHING, anymore. I: CAN, do anything, from now on. I am now, a rich man. Enrichedly yours, -‐Juvenal.
VI Dear Melissa, What am I gonna do with all these riches? It is now, the question that turns in my head all day. I always dreamt of being rich but I never quite knew what I would do once I’d become so. It is quite an overwhelming feeling, power. The ease of not having to do nothing: I could stay sit here all day and nothing, would happen. I had an endless list of things desired for when I was rich I remember. And now that I am: Where do I start? Why from the beginning, I know. Looking at the collection of things I’ve held most dear in my mind for so many years, royalty, the image of royalty springs out here and there, I figured it made sense that I should be king of something, with all this not yet measured power. It felt only natural. So I stayed up all night scheming, and early in the morning I headed for the odd store where I commissioned the clerk to make me a king’s cape with the rarest fabrics he sold and to order me a nobiliary title on the mail for it is also the post office. As we stood in the tailoring section of the place for him to take my measurements I overheard a group of men sitting to a little round table at the tavern section that was adjacent, having drinks and heartily discussing the gizmos they had just bought, and showing them off to each other, smoking cigars, and laughing. Discussions about modernity and what are we going to do with this new technology: They have been taking place ever since we discovered fire, I presume. I felt so heartwarmth that I chimed in with my unfinished cape on and had a round of drinks with them. This are good people, Melissa. They don’t need a king. They are happy as they are. I allowed the clerk to finish the cape and took it to the house but I will not pursue my royal ambitions, I shall wear it inside, on the cold days (or when I’m cleaning), days that increased notably since the fire visited and warmed me up and left. I feel terribly cold all the time. Right now I’m wearing all the warm clothing I brought with me and also what I bought here. I cannot be heated it seems. I haven’t been able to do a single bit of work, that, do not think I shall abandon now I’m rich, it is the reason I came here in the first place and I intend to finish it. I just cannot get myself to do anything other than wrapping myself in very cosy clothing and staying in my bed all day thinking bout the fire between the lush white cotton sheets, remembering every detail, trying to evoke the heat of it as best as I can, see if I can bring the heat back to me. The anise plants are drying and I will have to do something with them, there is a field of them. Please write soon. Yours
-‐Juvenal
VII Dear Melissa, Thank you for your many letters, they amused and delighted me. I couldn’t get myself to write to you on the past days or do anything meaningful for that matter. Trying to be healed of the horrible cold I felt and despised, I chased the sun and escaped to the sea for a weekend. This is the place where I have changed my life so many times before. I was someone else last time I came here. And now, would I like to change again? Would I like to be someone else. Yes. I would like that very much, but who was I when I came last time? Can I get back to where I was last time I left? No, Melissa, I can’t. I have lived what I have lived and I will have to add it to who I was and carry it around. I know, if I make an effort, I will be able to remember who I was before, and maybe I will even master the feeling of feeling the way I once felt, even if only a little. And I know I will have to add the new experiences to the mix, and I shall work with and from the person that result from that brew. I want to tell you a story. The fisherman got up early and measured the direction of the wind with his finger, then threw his net to the sea, and he fished something. A shoe. He then threw the net with more effort, with more emotion, I could see it in his face. Hunger. For I was hungry as well. You know how it is, one thing has to feed on another to sustain itself. What was it that he was fishing for? I wondered. Behind a large rock, I sawr his face brighten. What rare fish would he have gotten? The other shoe. The pair to the shoe he fish. At last, he drew breath and his face relaxed, he left net in shoulders, well shod. I could not believe what I saw. So I followed. The shoes seemed to emanate an enchantment that got a hold of me and I could not understand. The fisherman sat to a table on an outdoor restaurant to eat fresh fish. I then sat on a table next to him and listened to him hum. He ordered and I ordered the same. He gave me a look of acknowledgement and I offered him the paper that lay on my table. He took it gladly and then I had an excuse to join him. When the waiter arrived, she served both our orders on the same table. We started to comment on the news and the weather as strangers will do as my bones pained me from the cold, even when we were directly
below the midday sun. I then deviated the conversation to fashion and how interesting it is this days. I told him the story of how I once had to wait one year and a half to get a bespoke pair of shoes made, because the cobbler could not find a particular kind of leather that was, just, so. I then inquired: -‐That’s a very particular pair of shoes you have on. Where did you manage to get a hold of them? As if I had not just witnessed the discovery… -‐I just fish them. -‐Fish them you say! -‐Yes fish them. I fish all kinds of things all day everyday. -‐But surely! Shoes! -‐Yeah shoes! I fish shoes all right…! -‐Those are very particular. How would you like to sell them to me? I had to give him not one, but five stem coins! -‐As you said. These are very particular.-‐ He said. I do not regret my purchase one bit Melissa. Only gods’ hands could have fashioned this shoes. I came back home and felt cold and bored. I looked through the window and saw the dry forest of anise. I thought it was about time to harvest it for it was blocking my view. I went to the odd store for a blade and to the heat of several drinks, the clerk became talkative, and he told me exactly how to harvest the plants in a way we can harness them best to make liquor, because mind you, one thing he likes to do is to drink. Turned out all we needed to become friends was a cheap bottle of vodka. Well not cheep, indeed, a stem coin. But what’s a bottle to a friendship if not a bargain? So I headed to the grounds with my adamantine blade and started to work. I decided, to make it a little bit of fun, I should trace figures on the ground as I cut, and put my drawing lessons to use, finally (I know what you’re thinking). But the figures came out pretty and I like them. All that work made me sleepy and before I could head back to my warm bed I took a liking to the ground and fell asleep right there.
Industriously, -‐Juvenal.
VIII Dear Melissa, I am not praising myself, and I know these must be everywhere in the world and it’s nothing special, but when I woke up there was a massive black shape behind me, apparently made from a precious stone, all shiny and polished. As I looked astonished and open-‐mouthed, one of the sides, the one in the front, opened. Out of the structure that looked like a jewel but was after all, technology, came a couple of individuals. They looked all around taking it all in with their eyes wide open. They saw me and looking at me straight in the eye they tried hard to mimic a smile. They were rather beautiful and slim. One, a female, had long, long blonde hair and the man looked a bit like me, but taller and much slimmer. They seemed to be happy to be here. This was a spaceship Melissa. They were aliens. Do you remember what I always say?: “If you met an alien on the street what would you say to him? I’d tell him a joke, see if we share the same sense of humour!” Well that’s what I did. I told them a joke! They understood it! And their faces lightened up! From their heads, very defined ripples of coloured light emanated, like the ripples you’ll see on a radar? That’s the closest description I can give to you. And their faces looked pleased, I thought that should be their equivalent of a smile. That was the compass that guided the path of our interactions, a sort of Rosetta Stone if you like. I asked them why they were here, and discovered that they speak Esperanto! They must have not been watching us for a long time, cause they innocently thought human race had settled for this romantic idea and learnt the language by heart in order to be able to communicate with us. The sole gesture melt my heart and using my little knowledge of the languages that compose Esperanto I spoke with them. Most of what we talked about left a lot of room for interpretation but our primal source of communication was still emotion, that we translated based on the starting point of what we both believed was funny and on from there. They told me they came because they saw the markings on the ground and they took it as an invitation, and rather pleased, for humans had not communicated in a while, they came down to ask me if they got the message right. They wanted, me!, to translate the circles and the shapes for them! And that’s when I got it. They don’t know what those patterns on the crop circles say either! We humans have banged our heads trying to decipher something that says nothing to either party. I am laughing really loud now! I then started to laugh, also, and explained that I had just made them drawings to have a laugh and ripples of coloured light emanated from their heads as their faces looked rather pleased and I laughed my heart out.
On from then, they visited regularly for a period of time and accompanied me on my walks. It was delicious to learn from their culture and understand the differences between them and us, differences that made the point and the fun of our interactions, you see, without those differences our encounters would have been pointless and unfertile. One day, they told me there would be no walk, instead they invited me inside the spaceship and I, delighted, accepted the invitation. I must say I was really curious but I wasn’t eager to get in either. The interior of the ship was clean and minimalist but beautifully polished and decorated with extraterrestrial artwork. The way a spaceship has to be. Off we took and I wondered where would we go. Wished to have had my animals books with me, wondered what kind of fauna would they have. Wondered if they would take me to their planet. They didn’t. They headed straight for the sun at an alarmin rate. As we approached the star, it was overwhelmingly hot, I not only recovered my senses, but I felt I would melt, I started to cry and sweat and scream in exhilaration, I kept begging them to get a bit apart from it but they wouldn’t listen, they said it had to be that way. They suddenly stopped and the spaceship remained suspended for a second before letting itself fall down like a heavy, precious stone. In falling back to earth a bit of sunlight remained attached to me, and I since remain bathed in sunlight, sun warmth, a small, solid, light aura hovers around me all the time now, it is even visible to some people, maybe it will be to you if you pay close attention. I am not cold anymore. Warmly yours, -‐Juvenal
IX Dear Melissa, Being back home and going through the whole experience on my mind I realised I never got my animals books and carved bone pen back from the meeting point between the ignis fatuus and me, and some good time had passed, it had rained, wind had blown, sun had shined… I only expected to go back and find my precious books in good condition and not some ragged ruins of the previous glory they held. I took a bottle of recently matured anise liquor, intending to take it to the odd clerk once I had recovered my stuff, and I headed back to the point I had not dared return since that day, and wondered if I had neglected my books on purpose in order not to to go back and have to face the fact that the fire had gone. Today it didn’t matter, and I could feel the breeze on my now warm and sensitive skin, a skin that seemed to laugh now, happy, like someone who receives spring after a long, long winter. That happiness seemed to translate into a gold shimmer. The blooming scent of the mowed anise in the wind was little by little replaced by the fragrance of the evaporated lure as I advanced through the green, alive, inviting, wet, warm grass that moved to one side and the other to the compass of the wind’s sound, stronger with every step uphill. Ripples went up through my spine as I smelled the lasting, familiar, vanishing scent. It almost had a taste. It was sweat, it was a fruit, mixed with some eccentric, precious wood, exotic spices, and maybe just one kind of unique, wild a poignant blue flower, devilish lavish plants! It almost had several a colour. I heard a music like I never had before. Interrupted, cyclic, unknown. Fast a silence fast a sound. Confusing, surrounding. Hypnotising, embracing, consuming. Like several songs intertwined in just one not quite at one. It started to beat faster inside me, reaching it’s maximum volume when I stood right in front of the tree where days before I had just performed, magic. I saw the ragged scientist’s equipment lay on the floor. A Bunsen flame stained with an explosion’s charcoal. A shiny, stainless distillation matrass with still a drop of liquid left. A long copper base that lay helplessly on the ground. And some books wide open at random pages, seemingly, in a state of extremely, incredibly good conservation, given that they had gone through the equivalent of a star’s heat and a devastating storm, not to mention remaining outdoors for a good period of time. I think I felt a hand on my shoulder that seemed to be several hands at a time. It had a quality to it, like some kind of transparency, and I heard some laughter coming from behind of the tree, like children playing hide and seek, but I knew these were no kids. By the direction of the sound I knew they were full grown. The laughter seemed almost physical, contrary to the hand, that seemed ethereal. I looked over my shoulder only to
find nobody behind me and a fear and a seduction took over me. I wanted to get my stuff and go away as fast as I could. Or did I? I noticed the circle I had traced the day of the ritual had gained sudden life and shined a different colour than the other grass, even tho it was crashed by the steps of many more than one person it seemed to me. Anyways, I decided to get my things, that lay on the ground at the centre of the circle, next to the twisted tree, so I walked in that direction but the moment I set foot on the circle I stopped short as if I had crashed an invisible wall, open mouth, chin up, my arms wide open. This time I heard music for sure, but not like the one I had heard a little while before. This was a shameless party. It was cyclical, simple, nonchalant. Popular! I heard drunken voices sing gladly songs that hardly made any sense. Gibberish here, was king, it had been awarded a tissue paper crown and was wearing it off gladly. I felt my hands act of their own accord and throw the whole bottle of liquor over my head as my eyes closed and my mouth uttered a yell of happiness that invaded me for no apparent reason and my body started to dance convoluted moves I didn’t know with a will that was not mine but his. I was possessed by this joy and while I could not see them I could certainly feel several beings there with me, time and space became a blur, I looked one way and it was noon, I looked the other way and it was night, looked up and it was dusk, looked down the sun was shinning, and so on and so forth, every blink of my eyes it was a different time of the day. Nothing mattered anymore, my whole existence could end right there and then and everything would be fine, houses, friends, stem coins, animals, what would I care? My feet started to feel hot like never before, my arms moved in a way I never knew they could, the friction started to accumulate in my feet in a way nobody could have foreseen, and the soles of my shoes, that I’d bought from the fisherman, started to disintegrate, and the leather set on fire as did the liquor on my fists. I distantly heard my own voice sort of think that sort of something may be sort of out of place: but it was too, late. As my conscience was ready to surrender and and slip away forever to give way to eternal dance my body began to execute the most intricate, complex, daring dance move I had ever mastered, laughs cackled louder than ever, music reached volumes unknown, my eyes went blank and sun shined like a sun, can, shine. And just before it had finished, out of the blue came the black one, and in one of the rants I had feared would be the end of me, he jumped and pushed me out of the circle, landing in the centre of it, over the books. The music had stopped. The fire had ceased. He had saved me. -‐Juvenal.
X Dear Melissa, Why I managed to escape by simply jumping over the outline of the circle. If I had stepped on it again I would probably still be there. You’ll not believe what I found between the pages of the french book. It was a loose page of a poetry book. I put it there. Long ago. It is my copy of ‘Ode on a Grecian urn’ by John Keats. You know how it moves me and what I think of it. I think it was that poem and not the traces of magic what summoned them there and originated the circle in the first place. I cannot help but think had it not been there or had there been another poem and not that one my experience would have been completely different, and tho the circle is still there I do not intend to throw another book page at the centre and dare enter again, see what happens. Tho it was a rather pleasurable experience I do not intend to experience it again, it is a miracle I escaped. The black one behaved like a true hero, like a true friend. I am taking him and the white one with me upon my return. Melissa I am pleased to announce it is complete. I have done it. The reason for my coming here is done and I see no reason to delay my return any further. I now know what I will do with my money, rest assured I will invest it well. I for one will commission artist to generate images of the events I lived, and maybe I will have new oils paintings to hang in the walls of this odd house, and so it’s history will go on. I have arranged for the clerk of the odd store come and live here and take care of my estate while I’m not here, for I have acquired a varied array of responsibilities and duties to the property on my purchasing it. I am sure he’ll be able to keep up to the task at hand, tho he probably will have to give up his job at the odd store, imagine how impractical it would be for him to go there everyday and come back, I can only imagine what kind of human being will take over his post, I may come back on vacation one day just to see that and satisfy my curiosity. I will take several oil paintings with me and several relics I’ve found, some of ‘em are for you, I know you’ll enjoy the bizarre images and will be happy to wear the fashions I have got for you. You’ll see, such fun extravaganza! I’ve been playing a board game I found in the house a lot. It is called ‘Given/Gained’. It is supposed to be magical and it has a cut out scale that actually moves. One is supposed to write on a sheet of paper what one gave to given situation, be it a relationship, a project or whatever and in another write what one gained out of it. The scale will then decide and tell you which weighs more, ‘This is what I’ve given:’ or ‘This is what I’ve gained:’, it will lean to each side given the case. I think mine is tricked, since it always leans to the gained side, regardless of the subject. Even tho, a smile crosses my face
every time I look back on the whole experience. I sometimes wish it had never happened, but I can’t help but ponder on the good I gained through the whole process. The best part is that, I know it was not unilateral. Looking back to the learned lessons, I can see the loving hand of those who came before us, the fruit of their work still fills the world around us, and in humble, loving appreciation, I can only be thankful to the ancients who made a way for us, the way we do so for those to come, your hearts beat on ours, together, the present, the future, the past. May these letters keep us suspended in time for them as we are, forever panting, and forever young. I will call on you on precisely ten days. Enthused, -‐Juvenal.
aCKNOWLEDGEMENTS I’d like to thank Irene, a woman whose wisdom and life experience has touched me beyond my knowing and keeps inspiring me on and on, without me even noticing, your energy takes care of me. Thank you. I’d like to thank Sary Salcedo, a major inspiration for this project who brilliantly shot the cover photo, your creativity pushes mine forward, blessings to you every time someone opens this book. John, your continued believing in me boosts me forward, thank you, you great, great friend. Azusheena and Alejandra, my longtime friends and collaborators, exploring life and art with you makes it all the more interesting, thank you for staying with me this last five years. Thanks to all the people who inspired this even without knowing: Felicity Jones, Dame Judi Dench, Joan Rivers, Jo Rowling, Mario Vargas Llosa, Björk, Paul white, Joanna Newsom, Gepe, Mala Rodríguez, Javiera Mena, Chico Che, John Keats, Pedro Friedeberg and over all, Goldfrapp and iamamiwhoami. I’d like to publicly thank Apple for generating fabulous devices that allow us to create beautiful things, Google, for creating that magnificent software that is Translate that has allowed me to speak my mind in many languages, and that engine… Microsoft Office, that in creating word has enabled generations of writers to give structure to their voices and it’s about time for me to thank Adobe, a company that for many years has allowed me to translate my ideas into reality through it’s brilliant, brilliant Master Collection. Thank you enablers. Thanks to PRADA for the beautiful, otherworldly shoes from another era. And thanks to the universal love, present in all things, that will continue to create a better world for all of us through you. Thank you.
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