Forever looking for forever

short fiction

foto- Rolando Andrade

Author's note: This is a repost of one of my most viewed posts, which was originally published on 11/03/2023. I had 150 fewer subscribers then than I do now, so I'm republishing. Unlike most of my posts, this one isn't an essay or poetry. It's short fiction, a style I'm also very fond of. All comments are welcome.

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The night covers her with its cloak of darkness.

Today, like every day, Maria can't sleep, she remains like this, dazed, trying to recover since Pedro left, leaving behind a trail of memories that lead her to him, trying to find him again, as if it were always the first day, like that summer day when they met on a beach, hugged and kissed as if they were old acquaintances or eternal lovers.

After 10 years together, Pedro left a month ago, nobody knows where, then Maria stopped working in the ward of the city hospital, now it's her mother who looks after her, the widowed mother of a man Maria never met. Her mother has always been there for her, from day one, caring for her like someone caring for a newborn baby, feeding, warming, protecting, as if she wanted to take her in her arms again, her little girl, orphaned before she was born, now fulfilling the same fate as her mother, alone, not alone, she has her mother, the only one who never left her, who never went away, her mother and father framed on the wall of Maria's room, so young, Maria's mother pregnant, just before her father died after having plunged forever into the murky, cold waters of the river where he fished every day.

When she got up today, Maria had the same feeling she has every day, time doesn't pass, the emptiness she feels doesn't go away, only she passes through time, she has aged a lot in the last month, she's thin and tired, it's the scars of abandonment, she thought, the scars that hide and at the same time reveal the life that has forced her to remain forever trapped in the past. Today, as always, breakfast always seems to be the same, or at least for her, it always tastes the same, a nothingness that reveals everything she longs for, the consolation of a return, the warmth of a hug, not like her mother's daily hug that reminds her of how fragile and helpless she is.

Today, Maria leaves the house early, the damp morning fog reminds her that this is a November day, and as she walks towards the river, Maria is assaulted by memories of the petals scattered around the house, dry, brown, crunchy, the same petals that used to be red, daughters of a rose given to her by Pedro on her birthday. Maria knows that she has been searching all her life for a forever love, a love that is everlasting, that doesn't die, that doesn't fall like the leaves in autumn, a love that reassures her, gives her security, that puts an end to the loneliness of those who search without ever finding.

As she slowly enters the river, the same one where her father took the plunge into eternity, Maria thinks, as the water covers her tired head, that now she too will be the forever that hurts in other people's memories. She dives in knowing that she has always been looking for the forever that she will now find when she becomes a picture frame hanging on her mother's bedroom wall.

The large, strong hand that grips her arm seems familiar. When the hand pulls her out of the water with the force of a machine, the force that pulls her is familiar, like someone you haven't seen for a long time but who has always been there.

Maria wakes up in a bed in the hospital ward where she works. Next to her, Pedro sits, almost sunk, in a black leather armchair. The big, strong hand that pulled her out of the water is now stroking Maria's hair, as if trying to calm her thoughts, erase all the time that has passed, wipe it off the calendar.

Now Maria already knows what forever means.