and that became the day he died for the first time

It seemed to me in that moment that life was just a game of procrastination, that we are always somehow out of phase with the here and now, always hoping for a “better moment” for things to happen and manifest themselves, and that (at least this is what we deceive ourselves into) that one moment would finally be the moment we reap all the good we sowed. 

I really wanted to read the message, but I trusted him. I felt a sense of guilt traversing my spine, as I thought of all the good advice he had given me throughout the years, and that I sometimes failed to follow. He still trusted me in spite of that, and just for this unconditional faith he had in me, I felt like I had to follow this one advice. I put the paper in the chest pocket of my denim jacket.

He put the cigarette out in the ashtray on the table, and with an excited tone accompanied with a confident hand gesture he said “Let’s go”.

We counted the coins from our wallets and pockets, and left the money for the two beers we just drank. He also left a generous tip. He always did, but he always tipped more generously when the waiters didn’t treat him as an alien, and tried to understand his jokes and his funny ways of interacting, playing along and being open to receive with a smile the bright light he was always ready to share with others. These were the moments when the stigma disappeared for a moment, and when the world really felt like a continuum that made sense to the heart.

On that day, the waiters never stopped smiling after interacting with him. Life felt good, and I could breathe it in the air.

He handed me my backpack. It had been lying on the floor and while we were lounging and sipping our beers, I must have kicked it by mistake under his side of the table. As he stretched his arm, he pretended to let the backpack fall, and yes: he fooled me. My reflexes led me to reach forward with my arms, he laughed, I looked at him realizing in a fraction of a second he was joking.

He always managed to fool me with this trick, since I was a little kid. He would also fold fabric napkins into puppet mice, and with slight twitches of his arm’s muscles he would make them twist in the air as if they were alive, and trying to escape his grip. This was honestly the most amusingly terrifying trick he would perform during my childhood. He always managed to make me accept the fiction of those realities, triggering the purest reactions of amazement and awe, mixed with a fear that never managed to become truly scary because he would always infuse these tricks with love and fun.

I took my backpack from his hands now still, and I wore it. We started walking towards the cliffs. He would stop every few steps to observe the seaside flora, and take pictures of the coastal flowers, and the black bugs leaving tiny prints on the sand tracing their movements. He pointed to all the little wonders his eyes would catch for me to behold.

Nature had always been very humbling for him, besides being an eternal source of inspiration. I never met anybody who was as genuinely curious and respectful of nature as he was. 

I remember the first time I saw a praying mantis. It was in the big yard of the ENS’ club where he would meet his friends. My brother and I were running around and playing with the other kids. I remember there were little concrete walls in the yard, and a big concrete cylinder where we would hide or in which we would talk and scream to hear how our own voices resonated inside of it.

I was running around with a can of CocaCola in my hands, and while jumping from one of the low concrete walls, I saw something that looked like a grass blade, or a leaf, but wasn’t any of those two. Perplexed, and a bit scared, I went to him, pulled his sleeve to drag him to the spot where the suspicious earthling was, and asked him if I could kill it by pouring CocaCola onto it. He stopped my hand ready to pour the liquid from the can, he stroke the insect gently with one finger. He told me it was alive, and it was so small that it couldn’t possibly hurt me. Besides, the field was big enough for me to just go play somewhere else and leave the mantis alone. His lack of fear reassured me, and his candid honesty made me feel ashamed of my infantile murderous thoughts. So I let the mantis live, drank my Coke, and ran back to the other kids hiding in the concrete cylinder. I learned a lesson, that day.

Years after, his attitude hadn’t changed. He suggested to reach the cliffs by walking along the water’s edge, and soak our feet in the waves washing ashore. We removed our shoes and started walking, our footprints on the sand fading at every wash of the waves. 

When we reached the rocks, we put our shoes back on, and started climbing. At the top, he sat down, and recalled that time we went hiking, and in order to reach the peak of the mountain, we had to climb some pretty scary rocks. “How wonderful” he said, the memories of those blissful adventures clearly flashing in front of his eyes. “Do you remember the horseflies?” I asked. “Fuck! Yes!” And he laughed loudly, with a deep sigh at the end, followed by gestures that referred to all the times we got stung by those damn horseflies during that hike. He laughed again, as in an act of sealing that distress in the past, archiving the memory as another adventure, another story to remember and tell. He stood up to take a picture of the open sea from that amazing advantage point of view we had just reached. “The rocks are so beautiful” he said, while watching down the cliff, admiring the foamy waves washing against them. I peered quickly below, and retreated in a sudden jump backwards, after getting caught by a slight vertigo. “Are you scared?” He asked. “Yes, a little” “There’s no need to be scared, fear is useless” he replied. 

This statement made me wonder, and my mind browsed quickly through an entire archive of recollections of all the times I had been scared, paralyzed by fear, ashamed of failing.

He had been probably scared too, sometimes, but he knew that when you have solid roots, you have nothing to lose. He had always lived his life abiding by this one rule. He was driven by a wish and a desire to discover and achieve what made him feel comfortable and loved, in the purest way, and despite the way people, society, decided to frame him and his actions. This desire allowed him to put fear aside.

Like that time he asked her to marry him, knowing damn well he could have been rejected - for obvious reasons. A rejection would have meant a refusal of his whole being, because she wasn't like him; but it didn’t matter. His roots were solid enough, his resilience formidable, and when he risked it all he eventually won it all. That’s what a pure heart does.

“You’re right” I said, “But how do I overcome fear?” I added. “It’s easy if you want to. Are you afraid of people’s judgments?" “Yes…” "What do you care about those? Well, look at me. I got judged all my life. You can do way more than what I could do at your age”.

I suddenly felt bad, forgetting how intensely he had always dreamed my dreams along with me, wishing for me to achieve even the smallest goal, supporting me in order to let go of fear. He had been very clear about it a few years back, when he told me why he couldn’t (and almost didn’t feel he was allowed, or entitled to) be an artist. He had passed the baton on to me, and suggested I should dream wider, his roots were my roots. I couldn’t be scared, there was nothing to lose if I could stay grounded enough. 

“Shall we jump?” He asked. “Not now” “Ok”. He sat on the ground, I did the same. He pulled out of his backpack a few snacks and two bottles of water. As I rolled a cigarette, he asked me if he could have one too, and if I could roll it for him. “Ah Ah! I never managed to learn how to roll a cigarette” “I know, but you shouldn’t smoke” “It’s only one..well, two. It’s nothing” I gave him a loving scolding look, and rolled a cigarette for him anyway. As he rummaged in his backpack, I patted him on the shoulder to catch his attention, handed him the cigarette “Here you go”, “Thanks” he said, giving me a vigorous pat on the back while giggling “Don’t tell her” he added. I nodded. After he let me light his cigarette, he grabbed a protein bar and, determined to read the ingredients to check whether I could eat it, reached for his glasses and wore them on top of his sunglasses. 

He would always do that, and it always amused me to see the nonchalant way he would sport that look. Once I took a polaroid of him, wearing those two set of glasses, in front of a bar by which we would always stop on our way back home every time he would pick me up at the airport. He loved having espresso pit-stops. It really delighted him to order coffee at the bar, in his own funny and gentle way, with gestures that couldn’t be possibly misunderstood. Sometimes it seemed to me that he was able of speaking a universal language. After ordering the coffee, he would always reach for the coins in his pockets right away, juggling them in the attempt to pull them out, holding them eventually in the palm of one hand, while picking with the other the exact amount to pay for two espressos. He always had change in his pockets, and he would always lose it in the couch when sitting back to watch tv.

“Damn, we didn’t drink coffee” he said, while handing me the snack after making sure it had no milk in it. “It’s fine, we drink it later” “You’re right, better to drink it before driving back” “Yes, I think so too”.

We had a small feast of protein bars and fruit, and after a few sips of water he said “Let’s go!”

He removed his shoes, then stood upright on his bare feet, removed his glasses, and his t-shirt, wearing only his dark blue swimming trunks. I followed his lead. He looked at the sea, and after he approached the edge of the rocks he said “Don’t be scared, I would always do this. I am sure you can do it too”. “Ok..” “Trust me, it’s really nothing, it’s not difficult. It’s nice down there in the water, afterwards” “Ok…” I said, not sure I could be as brave as him. As he assumed a diving position, my heart skipped a beat. Would I be able to do it too? He swung back and forth a few times, and jumped. His body in a perfect posture, followed a gracious curve in the air, to then plunge elegantly in the water with a loud splash. Foam in the water signaled the exact point he sank through. I leaned from the top of the cliff, waiting for him to emerge, in order to jump too. I waited, as the foam dissipated, making the sinking point disappear, the waves continued on their way to wash against the rocks, in a dull and calm rhythm. I waited a bit more, no sign of him coming back to surface. I stared at the deep blue water below me, my eyes scanned the water at large to see if he had re-emerged somewhere further. I was looking for even the faintest trace of him. My heart started beating faster as time passed, pumping all my emotions into a vacuum that opened in my chest like a black hole. An implosion that was sucking everything in. I felt alone, as I had never felt in my life. I turned to look at his backpack, his shoes, his glasses, the empty wrapping of the snacks we had just eaten. What now? I screamed, as tears started running down my cheeks. I screamed again, louder, emptying my chest. I stopped. I held my breath for a second and leaned again from the cliff, in a desperate hope to see him. He wasn’t there. 

I started inhaling deeply and exhaling out of my mouth, loudly. I had to find a breathing pace that would allow me to calm down for at least a minute. I didn’t last even 30 seconds. I started sobbing, rubbing my eyes to wipe away the tears and to go on staring obsessively at the sea underneath. 

I froze for a millisecond, to then rush back to the pile of our belongings, looked for my denim jacket and opened the chest pocket. I pulled out the note he gave me at the bar, unfolded it, and read it out loud: “You’re strong, my child”. I fell on my knees and broke into a louder weeping.

The breeze was hurting my wet eyes, and suddenly I realized what happened. I stared into the vacuum that from within my chest was expanding outwards.

Everything seemed to be covered in a shade of black. I realized that that had become the day he died for the first time. 

I stood up and reached the edge of the cliff, held my breath, and swung back and forth a few times. I jumped. I dived in a twirl of bubbles, I floated for a while underwater, then reached the surface again, gasping for air. It was really nothing, he was right. 

The water felt good. My salty tears joined the stories treasured by the salty sea.