This is for the ones who are tied up to reality by the string of a balloon which burst as soon as they stopped being children. For the ones who built their bridge to this world with such fragile Lego pieces that time didn´t care they were made of plastic, he rusted them anyway. For the ones who grew up wondering when would they be shoved into that machine which would make them grownups, which would trade their dreams for things they´ve wished they´ve done, their smiles for greeting cards, their eyes which wouldn´t cease to be amazed for the tired looks in their parents face. Parents who told them they would understand it when they grew up. Understand why sometimes they bow their heads a little too much, drop their arms rather too soon, give up far too often. Or why at some point they stopped dreaming, when their ideals crashed against reality, and learned how to draw a line dividing reality from fantasy. Maybe they only learned to fear the sound hope makes when it gets crushed.
This is for all of those who were about to give in, who were about to let someone paint them gray, but were saved at the last moment. They discovered that there were people who not only read books, but also lived them, as if the pages were not mere cages of words trying to shout something at us. They found that some not only listened to music, but felt it on their bones and when they closed their eyes there were violins instead of silence, and the world mattered a little less. People who walked different and didn´t look away from what they saw in a mirror. People who never kept their dreams in one drawer and their day to day in another, who acted as if there was no line dividing reality from fantasy, as if Don Quixote had been right. And we realized we wanted to believe the same. We wanted to believe there was no such line.
This is for the ones who always knew that the most real things are the ones who can´t be grasped, but could never quite explain it. For the ones who nevertheless tried to, with their own words, never cowering behind big phrases like “What is essential is invisible to the eye” as if saying that would suffice. For the ones who knew that truth wouldn´t fit in a sentence, couldn´t be trapped into a can, or squeezed into a slogan. As if seven words could cleanse our soul, elevate us over something, or fill an empty space by themselves.
We had the impression that this life was far too predictable, far too tangible to expect from it something more than eating, sleeping and staying alive. It was then that I found out that if I piled up stones I could make a house, but if I piled up words I could make worlds. I wasn´t the only one, but we were the exception to the rule. And if you ever paid attention you must have seen us. We were the ones who read Twenty thousand leagues under the seas while the other kids learned to play football; the ones who admired Tom Sawyer´s wit while our classmates laughed with each new curse word they learned; the ones who searched for treasure maps buried in our backyards while the other girls dreamt of prom, and the other boys dreamt of hanging those girls as trophies on their walls.
In this way we raised ourselves, detached from everything which surrounded us. As we watched everyone else desperately cover the cracks made by souls which are trapped too tight inside our bodies, we expanded them till they became caverns, and without fear of exploring them we found out that to know who we were we just needed to hear the echo they gave back to us. But this left its mark on us, living in the shadows made us pale and afraid of too much sun. We wanted to believe that our days as outcasts would be repaid, that this was but a test, that we were doing the right thing, that we were martyrs. But then we grew up.
We entered adolescence, and laughed at our naiveness. Of course no one was paying attention, no one was interested in our story, and if there was some god watching over us it didn´t matter, because he never came down to comfort you. The only thing that brought us comfort was that sentence that we tried to carve on the back of our minds, “there is no such line”. It had to be true. As a gambler who thinks himself lost and goes all in, as a man who jumps from a moving train for he knows where the train is heading, as a lawyer who stands up to shout “Objection!” right before the judge´s hammer strikes the wood sealing someone´s fate, we had to believe it was true.
But the odds were against us. We realized there were no dragons to slay, for Saint George had taken care of that, nor islands to discover because NASA´s satellites saved us the trouble and with that the glory. But that couldn´t stop us, our dreams grew up with us. They became more humble, more rebellious, and they appealed to us more than ever. We learned that an adventure could consist of a shitty car, a road disappearing into the horizon and a stranger that at the end of our journey we could call “brother”.
We changed our fantasy books for stories of people who seemed to look something to hold on to, because just like us, they had trouble finding something worth grasping in this world with more stones than words. Our ghosts changed from flying white sheets to tormenting memories, and knights in shining armor to anyone who dared help us fight them. We sold all our hot wheels plastic cars and with the few coins we got in exchange we bought a poster of light blue Ford convertible of the ´60, as a monument to nostalgia. We liked that poster. We liked to think some boy had put together that car piece by piece saving it from oblivion, using sweat instead of oil, heart instead of discontinued spare parts, with that abstraction that can only experience a teenager who feels he´s doing something greater than himself.
The movies showed us people lost looking for a place where the ground wouldn´t burn their feet, letting the wind carry them like paper dolls with broken wings, crashing with others once in a while. When that happened, the friction of their frayed wings intertwining made sparks, casting flashes of light over the imperfections of each other. And they only found beauty in them. They laughed at their flaws, and the more cracked they were the harder they laughed, to make it clear they didn´t care.
We know that nowadays there are few roads disappearing into the horizon, because of the buildings growing from the ground like prison bars. We also know that there are not many light blue Ford convertibles of the ´60 out there either, because nostalgia is old fashioned. And we also know that there are every time less people who let the wind carry them. Perhaps a life with no surprises managed to seduce them at last.
But I want to believe it´s not like that. I want to believe there people sitting at the edge of the road waiting for a car to pass to stick their thumb up in the air, for one of us to shoot a flare into the sky so that none is left in the shadows, for an air current to throw us all in the same direction. Let´s keep our wings open just in case. And when that night arrives, like vigilantes dressed up as vandals, we will abuse of the innocent amount of caffeine in the cans of Coca-Cola, brandish our spray cans as broadswords, and wield them against the prison bars which once kept us captive. While everyone sleeps, we will go back to our rooms, pale and tired but smiling.
The next day I will laugh when I see all the men in suits wondering what does that sentence written on every brick wall mean.
“There´s no such line”.
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