Today I dreamed of him. It happened during those moments when I am neither in deep sleep nor fully awake – I call it the twilight zone. Many creative ideas come to me when I am in that frontier between sleep and wakefulness, but then, if this was a dream – and it was – I must have dozed, for how could I otherwise explain those vivid, too real images that crossed my mind? I almost never …
Category: Other Stories
I’m reading a book by one of my favourite Spanish authors, Julia Navarro, Dime quien soy (in English Tell me who I am, although I’m not sure there is an English translation). It’s a compelling story about a woman who, in the thirties of the 20th century, abandons an upper class, comfortable life to follow a communist revolutionary, who turns out to be a Russian spy who will use her for his less than transparent purposes. She shares his …
She’s driving on an autumn sunny day, and on her Spotify playlist James Blunt’s nostalgic voice sings “You’re beautiful”. She remembers driving another car, years ago, while listening to that same song on the way to meet him. At the time they were working together on a project, there was nothing between them, or maybe only a feeling of growing trust, the beginning of a friendship, of shared ideas; somehow there was a taste of something good to come. And …
At eighteen she arrived in the big city with butterflies in her belly – leaving her island to come and study at university was no small adventure! She had many friends there, though, and through one of them she had found the place where she was going to stay. For years, friends of friends coming from her island had stayed there and recommended it. She knew Lisbon of course, she had been there several times with her family; …
She slowly wakes up, letting herself linger in that wonderful dimension between worlds where everything is allowed and dreams of the past and future are real for as long as it lasts. Then, as she gains conscience, faces and places fade away and she opens her eyes to the small rays of sunshine that peep through the blinds. By her side, on her huge double bed, there is no one, but she does not feel lonely. She feels …
Once I said, half-joking, that you reminded me of Heathcliff, the dark but loving, passionate but sombre, vulnerable yet aggressive, lover of Wuthering Heights. I don’t think you’ve read the book, for the only word you retained was “gipsy”; you laughed and said I was not the first person who called you that, because of your raven black hair, that sometimes had a wild look about it; your dark eyes, aquiline nose, tall figure and reserved, sometimes even unpleasant, manner. …
There’s nothing compared to the exhilaration you feel in the beginning of a love story. Whatever the season, it always feels like Spring – the sky is blue, the sun is shining and warm, and there is a bright light in your life; it’s called being in love. Falling in love Falling in love usually happens suddenly, as if you were hit by something. One day you look at a person you have known for a time, and you …
Many times you live next door to someone for years and you know nothing about them; when you meet in the lift you say good morning or good evening; most rarely you exchange a few trivialities about the weather, as the lift goes up or down; and little else. Everyone goes on with their lives and that’s how it should be. However, from time to time, something happens that makes you discover your neighbours’ dark secrets. The other day as …
Maybe it was the box. Maybe it was that lunch, or perhaps both. Something clicked inside me, and it’s definitely not making me feel better. A gift and lunch Arriving at my office after the holidays I saw the colourful Christmas package of my favourite Portuguese porcelain shop and wondered who had left it there. After all, it was Christmas, a time for gifts. I looked for a card but found none. There was only my name …
She turns it again and again inside her head and for the thousandth time she is unable to reach a conclusion. Rather, she feels unable to decide. Her life hangs in the balance and she has no clue about what she will do next. She knows what she wants to do, what she would like to do, but then she thinks of the unsurmountable obstacles and she falters. She cannot do it. But how can she not do it, and …