The red leaves of autumn were so pleasantly dancing in front of Alex at that moment, falling from above and rolling in slow circles down to his feet. A beautiful dance that brought the melancholy back to the man’s soul, reflecting it into his glance too after a few moments because it felt so good looking at the autumn’s soul dancing in the arms of dreaming and in the rhythm of the music of time. At the same time, it was pleasant to look at that red carpet too, a carpet that had different shades of reddish, on which the soles of the white sneakers, which the man wore at that moment, were carefully stepping as though they would have been afraid to deform the carpet’s shape and chasing the divine pleasure away from him… That pleasure at which the eyes of melancholy watched at that moment.
As though he was imitating autumn, Alex wore a coat of light brown on his shoulders. Under the coat, he wore a pullover of the same color, which he combined with a pair of blue jeans whose color reminded others of the clear sky on a sunny day. Only his white sneakers seemed the perfect personification of purity and innocence… of something that was about to come when that red carpet of autumn would have been pale or gone, and the cold of winter would have ruled over the kingdom of those places.
And, as if he’d been so eager to embrace winter as soon as possible, Alex wore white headphones too, which he used to listen to the sweet melody of the piano keys… those keys that were undoubtedly touched by Her fingers. Yes, his Helen of Troy was playing the piano at that moment, allowing the man to listen to the happiness hidden in those piano keys and in the melancholy that ruled in his soul. And, while listening to that music, Alex saw her with the eyes of his mind… she was wearing a black dress as he’d seen her that night at „The Helm.” She was slowly bent over the piano keys, which she gently touched while playing, having her eyes closed, and completely charmed by the same melody played by her fingers. Her lips, which had stolen the red of the ripe cherries, were luring the man’s heart to kiss him, making him want more and more. He especially felt all this after that night when he saw her accompanied by another man, by that „Worthy Rival” as Alex kept calling that man in his head, a name he always heard buzzing in his ears too, especially in the last few days.
What charmed him more than the perfect image of her playing the piano were her perfect curls, in which she had hidden the shade of the ripe chestnuts. In that hair, was also hidden the scent of love and melancholy because Alex missed touching it so much and having it close for an entire life… over his arm while the owner of those beautiful chestnut curls slept next to him. Yet… „She belongs to someone else. She’s his and not mine, even if I had given everything for her to be mine and only mine. Yes, I’d have given everything for her to never be with someone else, especially not the woman of that man who doesn’t smile at her, although her eyes shine with happiness.”
Suddenly he felt jealousy sneaking into his soul, something that made him frown. He was right in being jealous because even if he showed up in her life after that „Worthy Rival,” Alexander Doyle still wanted her only for him. „I can’t feel different when her eyes beg for love from the world… that love that she seems not to have with him while I’ll give her my heart if I have this chance. Yet, such a chance, I won’t ever have, it seems to me.”
Such thoughts eventually made him sad. This made him bow his head and hunch his shoulders, although he proudly walked by then. Walking like that, he still kept his hands in his pockets, as if hiding them from the entire world. And his eyes, the color of the tormented sea at that moment, carefully looked at the autumn leaves, which he compared with his hurt soul, with that soul stained with the red blood that was slowly flowing through his veins… in the rhythm of longing from his heart and of love. Alex felt all this after he’d seen Her again, the one whom his eyes were still seeing in front of him, playing the piano. Yet, his heart saw Her differently… sleeping next to him and only next to him for his entire life.
Suddenly his heart, thirsty for love and feelings, winced when the eyes of the tormented sea saw the silhouette of someone he knew in front of him. She was there. Yes, she was sitting on one of the wooden benches in the park, reading a book. He recognized her because of her chestnut curls, from where the man felt love embracing him.
Seeing her there, Alex stopped. Even his heart started to beat weirdly in his chest, somehow with fear. „But… why?” The man’s mind wondered after a few moments. „Why am I afraid when I’ve wanted this for so long? To see her… alone and not with him, to have the chance to admire her in silence, even if from far away because it’s the only way I still can dream about a life together.”
Yet, nobody was there to answer such weird questions. The man’s heart was too busy to strangely beat in his chest while his soul, eager to embrace love, longed for her and for that pleasant touch of her fingers because „I would have given everything to be the piano keys that she’s touching in my soul at this moment, playing the melody of her soul and the music of her heart.”
Such a strange comparison of himself with the cold piano keys made Alex smile. He felt damn strange after this, as though he returned to his teenage years when he had fallen in love for the first time. Yet… that love was so pleasant that he didn’t want to give up on it no matter what. He didn’t want that for sure because it was exactly what he had been dreaming of his entire life: to feel love dancing like the foaming sea waves in his heart, waves that took form in his blue eyes at first, those eyes that innocently looked at the woman he loved but who was still of someone else.
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„For the moment,” said the stubbornness that suddenly awoke in Alex’s brain. „For the moment, she’s his. Yet, I might have a chance to make her mine after this. And, even if I don’t have such a chance, to deeply feel the scent of ripe chestnuts for an entire life by my side, I’ll still have the chance to dream about her even from far away.”
With such thoughts in his head, Alexander took a few steps in front, sitting down on a bench, not that far from her. He shyly sat on that bench, somehow afraid while wondering, „If she sees me and smiles, what to tell her then?” Yet, it was an unnecessary fear because She seemed not to see him because she was too focused on reading the love story of the novel she was reading at that moment, a novel with a green cover, a thick one, strong, as a good book should have its cover to last in time.
What kind of novel his Helen of Troy read at that moment, Alex didn’t see. Yet, he found that novel interesting, and this was so because she read it. And, for a few moments, he would have liked to hear her loudly reading those lines her eyes were reading. Thus, she would have given him the chance to hear the pleasant melody of her voice one more time. Yet, she silently read those lines and not loudly. This made her seem completely immersed in the universe of that novel, part of a world where she was probably the main character of the story, the main character of that love story, which the author wrote with his soul and with passion… in a story of love as the one her heart seemed to long for too. At least this was what Alex thought about her at that moment.
Alex’s heart also seemed to long for such a love. His heart longed to be seen by two black eyes like those savage berries and those two lips, the color of ripe cherries, to smile at him when she’d have seen him. Yet, she seemed not to see anyone there, and this made Alex feel so lonely.
Alexander Doyle felt that he was a shadow at that moment, although he hadn’t ever felt like this before. Yes, he had almost always been lonely, but he hadn’t ever felt loneliness so vivid in his heart, at least not as he felt it at that moment. Why did he feel all this? It was undoubtedly because of her, the one who seemed to ignore him consciously, although Alexander was sure that it wasn’t anything like that. His mind told him this, that mind that still logically thought at that moment, although his heart kept strangely beating in his chest because of that loneliness.
„She seems to feel the same,” the man suddenly whispered when he saw her closing the book and looking in front. Alex even felt that she sighed, and he felt this seeing that her chest moved up and down so as someone’s chest generally moves when he sighs. „A sigh I’d have liked to be because of me, because of the melancholy and love, and not because of the sadness from her soul.”
Realizing that She seemed absent, Alex turned sad. She seemed completely immersed in those thoughts that darkened her glance while her white hands, whose long fingers had touched the piano keys in Alex’s soul before, were resting one on top of the other as if they were waiting for some other two warm hands to touch them. Thus, they would have stopped feeling lonely. Yet, her hands hadn’t been touched by other hands eventually but kept resting on the green cover of that book without a title in Alex’s head. Yes, it was an unknown novel for Alex, whose eyes didn’t see what kind of book had turned his Helen of Troy sad. He was also sad, but this happened because her eyes didn’t see him, although he dreamt of this. She also didn’t smile at him but just kept looking in the distance and not at him…
***
When he returned to the bench on which he had stood before, Alex didn’t see Her in the same place where he’d left her, and this made him frown. He felt his heart strangely pouncing in his chest and that he was lonely again. The man even felt that the cold had taken him into its arms, although that afternoon was a pretty warm one. Yet, Alex still deeply felt that cold… the one born from despair and sadness. He felt it despite the warmth felt from those cups of coffee he went to buy, and he went to buy them when he realized that it was the only way he could talk to her. Yes, it was exactly what Alexander wished to do on that beautiful day of November: to talk to her at sunset, to ask her about the book and what she thought about love, just as a hopeless romantic would have done at sunset… the perfect time for romance, for reunion, and for dreaming. Yet… she wasn’t there, and this broke his heart again, even if it was for a short time only.
Instead of her, on that bench on which she had stood before, Alex found that book with a green cover. „A pair of blue eyes,” by Thomas Hardy,” he read when he approached the bench and saw the book. „A pair of blue eyes, just like mine.” Yet, this thought was a lie, and Alex also knew that. She couldn’t have read that book because of him. She undoubtedly read it because it was part of the classic literature, which she seemed in love with and not with him because if she had seen him that afternoon, she would have undoubtedly smiled at him… like a stranger to another one. Even so, if she had done that, he would have liked to approach her.
„Yet, she doesn’t see me,” he told himself eventually, sitting on the same bench on which she had sat before. He seemed to imitate her, keeping the book on his lap and touching its thick green cover with both palms while seeming immersed in thoughts. Then, somehow eager to read those lines which her eyes read before, Alexander opened the book and read the first lines…
„Still, something was impressive about her… her eyes. In them, you could see the essence of her entire being; you didn’t have a reason to look deeper into them - her entire life was there. Her eyes were blue; blue as autumn distance, blue as the blue we see between the retreating mouldings and woody slopes on a sunny September morning. A misty and shady blue, that had no beginning or surface, and was looked INTO rather than AT.” Eyes similar to his blue eyes, which also looked into the distance just as those blue eyes described by the lines of the book were doing. Yet, his blue eyes didn’t see other blue eyes like his but a pair of black deep eyes, in which he would have been able to lose himself for an entire life, without fighting or standing against this idea of not being conquered by them. No, if she had allowed him this, Alex would have opened the gates of the kingdom of his soul alone, surrendering in front of her because he knew that it was more pleasant the plenitude of her arms than his loneliness…