12 minute read
The choir of a storm
by Filippo massariol
A beast with the appearance of a man is about to die in front of a whirlwind that bars his way. Tormented by anguish, he no longer gives himself peace and feels no longer the master, but rather the slave of his destiny. At that point, the Shadow, a metaphorical figure representing the flow and will of life, comes to him. The storm in this case is only a metaphor, what the man is really fighting with are his beliefs that detach him from self-realization and from the flow of life. And that will continue to return if he does not face them. What the man learns by talking to the Shadow is that difficulties and sufferings are part of life. You cannot rejoice without suffering and you cannot live if you have not died at least once. And so in the end he abandons himself to the storm, accepting his fate. In a more distant time that man will become the author of a great revolution, and he will thank that storm for being part of the existential energy.
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:“Yo, I’m coming home now!”- Said the man.
He tried to start the engine but it was jammed. “There you are right there, in the middle of a desert with a storm coming in front of you. What shall I do?”- The man murmured to himself. And he remembered how many times he felt the same situation even from distant childhood memories.
He wanted art and artistic inspiration and he had that, sure. But now, how. How to deal with a storm?
The brain is so tricky, it can be a garden that gives birth to the nourishment of your inner soul. Or it can condemn you, sort of like a death sentence, because that’s how it feels. Death, pain, chaos. What are those if not just part of the melody? What can I do to be able to block my feelings? Block the pain, block the confusion, stress and block the storm that is coming here to get me. I wish I had an answer for that. I wish I had a plan B, but I don’t even have a plan A, except to just keep going nowhere.
Fog! Fog was there when all the people from this world decided to get sick? Fog was here when they all went against each other, does it work like that? Like when a cell from your body goes crazy and then the whole system does. I can hear it clear, yes, the storm is coming, and now I’m gonna die as I already did many times. No virus, no burglar, no hitman has killed me so far, but this storm that talks into my head is doing so. I can’t believe I could be so silly. I rode the wave so many times: tsunamis and nuclear disasters! I found a way out when there was not, but I can’t make up my mind with this decision.
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I’m stuck in a hole or maybe my feet just touched the quicksand and now I’m drowning in the sea like the Titanic. I have no shield, no armature, no nothing. I just have to follow the will. The will that makes me find the light in the dark. The will that makes me proud. The will that expresses meaning and not its semblance. The will that sometimes you can only see when you touch the bottom. Because it’s that little step at the bottom of the sea that gives you the leap you need to reach the surface. And here we are, still one step from the bottom, and still wondering if this time we’ll be able to overcome it. “Oh my abyss”, how many times we’ve stumbled. As dusk approached and the abyss deepened, a Shadow attempted to speak to my will.
“ Did I say enough? Go away I don’t want to see you anymore!” - The man cried.
“I wasn’t clear enough, I said go away.” - He repeated louder. “ You know you can’t send me away!” - Said the Shadow in a firm tone.
“I don’t want you, I don’t want you to save me!” - He replied.
“I didn’t come here to save you, I came here to kill you.” - Howled the Shadow.
“ Huh, there you go again, you think death solves everything! Then tell me why death is destruction? Or rather what do you hopefuls call it; I can’t think of... huh, value creation! Sure, that’s brilliant. But now why does my destructive death become a creative force that springs your Shadow power?” - The man asked.
“I have not come to take you away and destroy you. I have come to forge what has disappeared in you, as indeed in all men, accustomed to technological progress, to economic well-being, who have forgotten what it means to live.” - Said the Shadow.
The dark figure went on to say: “When I come for the flowers and the sweet creatures in those bitter, arid days of autumn, where I give them an icy greeting, I see no despair in their tone. I see no desolation, and I see no regret. But I do catch a glimpse of a tear of will, falling like dew during a long winter. And at that point, they welcome me like an old friend they haven’t seen in a long time and exclaim: “Oh, Shadow, I knew you would come! We have been anxiously awaiting your arrival. For too long we have been blooming and releasing the lifeblood from our sun-yellow pistils. And now you come to take them away from us!
Do you think hostility is a foreign value to us motionless and distracted plants? No. You know how much we strive and that we want to grow without stopping to impose our being as the domain of a disputed territory. And there we are, in the trenches ready, to shoot! We smell it, of course we do. The smell of death begetting rebirth. We are about to wither. But we will never do it without smiling and ripping out of our way with all our might the same pests that will destroy our garden in the name of creation, like battles in the name of peace. And peace it was, ha ha, I can’t wait until I’m the one who’ll be ripping you out of the ground like the grin of a child stepping on an anthill.”
It was then that the silly man asked: “You always talk of flowers, I remember, nature is your friend. Indeed she seems to have a conspicuous sympathy for you. Yet I can never find your story! You always tell the little stories and impose examples, but you never look at your own shadow which greets you in a frightened way. You are afraid, am I right Shadow?”
“ Hahaha how can I blame a man like you!” - Said the Shadow sneering in an arrogant tone and then went on to say: “I never have a story to tell because I am not a story. But I am the reason it happens. I am the blood that flows down the craters. I am the volcanic magma in the substrate of the earth. I am the storm that sinks the ship, and I am the wind that keeps it going. I am the cosmic void that gives substance to the earth. I do not have a story and I do not tell it because it would be offensive to you. It is you who make me true and make me proud! You are the lighthouse that lights the way while I remain in the dark, because not all men recognize disorder, or sin. They aspire to perfection while being the expression of the exact opposite! But me, I don’t ahaha, I find perfection ridiculous. I find the perfect in the imperfect, equality in ‘injustice, and fairness in diversity.”
The man continued to stare at that immaterial face that seemed more familiar than anything he had seen in his life. And the Shadow went on to say: “Once there was a man who looked like you. You know, you all look like each other but he most of all. At night he would not sleep, rather than close his eyes he would invoke my presence. He would ask for my help. He wanted me to do the ‘impossible!”
“ Explain yourself.” - Said the man.
“ He wanted to fly without wings! He wanted politicians to stop deceiving and exploiting people; he wanted his compatriots to develop a brain and unite against injustice? HAHAHAH!”
“ Will you stop laughing, Shadow?” - The man exclaimed angrily. “ You don’t want to have peace, you want to have war?” - Replied Shadow.
“ Do you call my peace war because my battle lies precisely in transmuting your malice?” - Asked the man.
“ Hahahah, no, of course not. Have you ever wondered why you breathe? Have you ever wondered why all your cells die miserably every day? Is it perhaps the fruit of evil, or is it just the wind dissolving the indissoluble and giving order to disorder?” – It said, laughing in an increasingly arrogant manner.
“ Huh, so you’re calling me a murderer?” - The impatient man asked.
“Oh my dear, murderers were those who did not kill the cells but killed themselves. Out of fear or pity, they thought that they were different and that their bodies could live without chaos. And so they ended up intoxicating themselves and dying of their own poison, will you do the same?” “ Are you calling me a coward? Do you think I am not capable of accepting death?” - He said as his face was twisting more and more in despair. “ Oh no, my dear. I find it much more difficult to accept life rather than death. And you right now are draining your life! You are depriving it of fertile soil like clay in the bed of the Nile. You see, I once knew a mason and that mason told me that there are no houses that collapse. Or rather houses collapse but the important thing is that it was an earthquake and not you. That storm will probably wipe you out, but tell me now, would you rather have the storm reduce you to ashes or your agony?”
The man remained silent and then exclaimed: “Agony I command!”
“ And what commander abandons his ship?” Said the Shadow and then continued: “So many icebergs have struck thousands of humans, but you know what, they didn’t drown them because they were masters of their craft, and they preferred to embark into the unknown rather than be slaves to it. Now go on and strike!”
“ What will become of it?” - The man asked
“ What will become of it only you know.” - Answered Shadow.
“ You say you live inside all of us, so why do you want us to die? And if we die, why do you survive? Are you a parasite?” - The man kept saying.
“ Oh, I’ve been waiting a long time for this question. There are many living who die and also many dead who live. I am Shadow because within I bring light that breaks down my darkness. Otherwise I could not call myself such. I am the death of life because life is the regeneration of the destroyed. And I know that your mind, which does not give up yet, is like a dog with a muzzle or like the hinges of the door or the tons that keep the anchor attached to the ship to the bottom. You can decide to stay attached to it, and it would remain your choice, but at that point, another blizzard will come and take you away. And what would you have gotten out of it? Now I must go. The night is calling me, but remember tomorrow is day or have you forgotten that darkness remains and does not persist? “
“ What?”- He said without understanding what the Shadow was trying to communicate.
“ I’ve never told anyone, but you know... No road you take is straight, and even if you go the wrong way, your will will force you back to the right one. Remember nothing ends but everything comes back. Now it’s time to go, make your choice, die now or live by dying!” - Howled the Shadow.
“ How can you be darkness and carry so much light inside?” - Said the man trying to discern the meaning of his apparent insignificance.
I’ve learned to accept the light, it’s not so different, and it gives a shape to my shadow that otherwise would remain only substance of raw matter, like a gas that has no shape. But I choose to give shape to what I am because it’s what everyone aspires to but few become.”
“ But I’m afraid of shadow, I know that I’m made of light and shadow, but every time I accept it… Huh, damn it! I’m afraid of vanishing both and going back to being gas.” - Said the man crying.
If you’re afraid to be who you are it means you haven’t lost yourself enough to find yourself again. Bye my friend, we’ll see each other again don’t worry!”
The man smiled, and knowing that it would not be the last time he would have seen his beloved Shadow, he opened his arms wide, and shouted to the storm laughing as he had never done before: “Yes! Come and get me, come on! I could not wait, haha, hello dear old friend!”
He disappeared, but only temporarily. And the Shadow remained to look at the sky that in the meantime was clearing up. He continued his journey in the desert in search of other damned to be saved, who would reappear sooner or later.
And as the immanent silence came, he could hear the laughter of that man, who was no longer damned. Between the rustle of the wind and the rising of the sun above the deserted mountains that were about to bloom. The calm after the storms had given birth to another day.
© canva
