A Parallel Planets piece by Unknown
Parallel Planets, in collaboration with Whattaroll,
presents Sublunary Psyche: Ode
Story by Harun Osmanovic
Photographs by Marta H. Cuadrado
* * *
For the longest time, I would always wake up first.
It was a ritual of mine, of ours really. But unlike most rituals, which are done in all awareness as a choice or in acceptance of whatever reason that is pushing us to accomplish it, this was completely unconscious. It was my personal biological clock, of circadian nature, that set an alarm to wake me up; so I could spend some time just looking at Her, I reckon. If all things were good, if we’d had a good night sleep, if we were in good terms – which for the longest time we were – I’d be lying on my back, She on Her belly, me close to the right edge of the bed, the one nearest to the window, She rested on my chest with Her cheek right between my pectoral and my clavicle, Her left arm gently deposited on my right shoulder. She had the habit of using me as a pillow – ‘t is more comfortable than the pillow itself – She’d say. She was probably lying; women do that sometimes, accepting a least comfortable compromise for the promise of a more romantic outcome. My left arm was left with only a scarce source of blood influx; the formication would be so intense that it gave me the impression my limb was simply gone, like amputated. I’d reach with my right hand; touch my fingers, no nerve signal! That feeling is one of the strangest that I was given to experience, trying to lift one of my members but getting no response… it always took me aback, made me panic almost. But moving, of course, was out of the question. One simply doesn’t kidnap a sleeping beauty out of Her dreams. In fact I would find myself trying to synchronize my breathing with Hers; slow and long inspirations, expirations with a noisy whisper. This could last some time, the meditative – vegetative – state of two bodies entangled, to my delight as it gave me the chance to inspect every detail of Her body; in awe.
For the longest time, I would wake up.
The first thing I would see was Her hair, dark as midnight. It was there in my face, tickling me a bit - a lot in fact - to the point that I started thinking it was alive, bunch of no-see-ums which become apparent only in a swarm, and that it really was it waking me up. I would move my head slightly to the right, to get away and a better view of the full length of Her silhouette. The white valley of the forehead would leave way to the thick eyebrows; the lines of which were so well trimmed that even in the early hours they kept, as if they could communicate, all their symmetry – only on rare occasions would one of those militarily ordered pieces of hair desert, go AWOL on the cheek (It always surprised me that so many people think lashes are the ones flying away, without ever suspecting the eyebrows). The lashes? They were pointing; I could only see the tips, escaping from the lines of her face, like pubic hair escape the fine laces of a culotte en dentelle. Following my decent I’d slide down the slopes of the nose. Ah; what a nose! It’s curb followed perfectly the one, on [0;+∞], of the reciprocal function that maps x to 1/x. Beauty is often a matter of mathematics. At the base of it, the deep bed of the philtrum would always cast a shadow that forms a vertical arrow with the upper lip, giving the direction to the mouth. From my vintage point, I could see the parted lips which, as is often the case with a pair of fraternal twins, were absolute opposites. The one at the bottom; carnal, meaty, voluptuous and confident while the other is delicate, fragile, serious and discrete. The mouth as a whole bore a characteristic I cherished dearly; it was upside down. What I mean is that its incurvation was declivitous… which always gave Her a very lovable melancholic tone; colon, hyphen, opening parenthesis - pale pink liplike sorrow I wanted to kiss awake.
Sometimes She would wake up, right then; catching me, hand in the cookie jar, lustful eyes.
She’d smile.
- I have an emotional hangover, She told me once. Yesterday, on my way home, I saw the perfect rose.
Her eyes were closed; She was half asleep still; maybe even more than half but She continued.
- A pink rose. Her fading-away color, the tip of the petals turning into a gold, dying-leaf like tint, embodied beauty in all languages. I touched her softly, She gasped, so softly I did not even feel I had indeed caressed her, and the rose stayed in my palms.
She became quiet. I was looking, passed her arm, at her ribs. Every breath-in would make them more visible, and suggest the promise of a breast. The skin, a lighter shade of white – was that even possible? – was more delicate right there, by the armpit.
- Sometimes this happens with humans too, She said. You touch them, and they stay in your hand forever.
That’s when She initiated the cytokinesis of our bodies; I mean She stood up. Her flesh had been stuck to mine; like conjoined twins we were… an irrational number between 2 and 1… and She just tear Herself away. And me? I was left in Her hand, like lifeless, off, away from my stem… She sat there for a while, not speaking a word. Spoken language was irrelevant, really, I remember too well.
Those days I’d only close my eyes when I’d fall asleep. Now it’s different. The opposite in fact; my eyelids shut I dream without ever sleeping… but saying I’m awake would be a lie. For a long time now, I don’t wake up at all… just so I can take another look at Her. I reckon.
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