Only love turns clay into miracle,
only love manages to light what is dead,
only love engenders wonder.
Silvio Rodriguez
In a clearing of the forest where no man had ever set a foot, there lived from ancient times, a thirsty hippopotamus who loathed water and heat. His refuge was the high branches of a tree, but these, too, he hated. He knew that he could not grow larger than twenty-three centimeters tall, because if he had become taller, he would have collapsed down the tree, his prison.
Each bitter morning the sharp rays of light attacked him. He struck against the trunk with fury making it shake. He had to escape from that tree, or he had to die.
His constant pessimism drove him more to death than to any other escape; the natural option was to let himself fall, but that option seemed crass, unpleasant; he thought about stopping breathing, but he realized that, even if he succeeded, he’d end up on the floor of the forest. He felt disappointed, and he was more upset yet with the purple tree that obliged him to live as a little child. His eyes and mouth burned with hatred, hurling a foul curse; a mournful yet furious hymn that demanded aid and at the same time sighed.
The high sun hid behind the moon, and the wind, obedient to its nature, carried the notes of this hymn of courses to everywhere in the forest and the confines of the earth. Upon hearing what sounded like a plea, all the animals responded: the swallows called to seagulls, the seagulls sang to octopuses and jellyfishes and they, being empathic, twirled in the puddle of the hippopotamus’s vehement tears.
“What is happening to you?” Quacked a duck.
And this chubby personage that lived in a purple tree told him:
“Who are you to speak to me? Go away, you!”
As soon as he said this, the duck died immediately. The hippopotamus burst into tears. Theoctopuses and jellyfish that swam in the lachrymal pool were paralyzed. “Fascinating,” thought the hippo. All the animals looked at him in terror. "My will causes death,” he thought. “I have found reason enough to bear about nine more years of life.”
In that interim, the pachyderm killed six giraffes, six elephants, a tiger, two rivers, a sky, a night and a mirror; all were worthy of his word, his dose of death. The one thing that disturbed his thought was that each time he killed something, he absorbed the very life that he had just ended. This would impede his own plan to die. He became bored. No one came by for fear of suffering the same luck; the nine years were about to be completed, and he was full of life. He had grown twenty-three more centimeters, and gained forty more kilograms for the branches of the tree to support and, without any effort or desire on his part, he was already only one meter from the forest floor. A leap sufficed to be gone from those branches.
Is death the principle of life and life, freedom? He did not know what to do. For so long, he had slightly considered the idea to find the motive that justified the tree and the deaths; the reason that would give tranquil refuge to his nightmares but accepting his fatality, he rejected every form of illusion. His expression was the vivid resignation that shouted to all creatures: I am Death, deduce your destiny! Nothing else matters!
But now that he was free and had the grace of a duck, the understanding of the octopuses, the sympathy of some jellyfish, the humility of six giraffes, the innocence of six elephants, the force of a tiger, the energy of two rivers, the immensity of a sky, the peace of a night, and the magic of a mirror. He wanted to test escaping towards life, the fury for life, the obsession with life, the drowning in life. He bounced to kiss its roots the same of the tree and began to run out of control, anyone would think that he was in love.
And he ran and ran until a pair of Eyes stopped him and detained him three thousand nights.
While that time elapsed, he was incapable of even asking what he was doing there, in the middle of the pastureland. He detested the water, but he could have been arrested, by the magnet of those Eyes, even in the middle of a lake. Eight winters passed. His skin dried out with the wind and was dampened by the rain, but he took no notice. One day he saw those, “his” Eyes, the ones that he almost felt a part of him, moving along with a body. His intuition did not predict, neither his mind created. This was the first time that he thought that those Eyes may belong to someone.
Each time they were sharper, each time closer, he only could ask himself if those Eyes would be capable of forgiving one last death, if that body was capable of sensing him if it could smell him.
The heart of the Eyes felt safe, frightened, it broke three ribs in a beating and discovered a duck, some octopuses, the jellyfish, six giraffes, six elephants, a tiger, two rivers, a sky, a night, a mirror with which the Eyes played fascinated until they heard the first step of the hippopotamus: trembling, determined, as they can only be taken, in full darkness, with total uncertainty, as are always the steps of those who find a pair of Eyes.
A lazy storm cloud restrained each one of its drops, all obeyed but three: one grazed a butterfly that had just learned to love. The other two appeared like two luminaries on the body of the Eyes, ever since that moment one called to the other, but never they could be united, seeking each other they were always moving.
The hippopotamus took another step. The tree’s roots had followed our friend, trying to wrestle him down to the floor; he tried to kill the tree from afar, but he forgot how to do it. By the third step he was scared, he had forgotten who he was. Before, he could have at least offered death; he could have been able to kill a sunset, an
eclipse –like the day that he fulminated the duck- but now? Now, after these Eyes, he realized that the possibility of “What if” was the most absurd pretension never conceived.
What remained, if he was no more than the absorption of others’ life-force? What subsisted, if he had never created anything - not even a gesture? If nobody could even pronounce his name, the real one, the one that he did not know?
The fourth step hesitated more to arrive. The fifth one synchronized with the Eyes’ first step.
The sixth one anticipated to his own doubt. The seventh one blew along a tiny avalanche of dust, beautiful by the enormity of its crash.
They met each other with ingenuous curiosity, the Eyes discovered another set of eyes, they were amazed to be seen reflected in them as they were in the mirror. The cloud was containing the rain and the breath to not miss a moment. The wind was bored and disappeared northward.
The hippopotamus felt tickles in his legs and realized that the roots had gotten lost on the way, it was only the grown pasture that caressed him. The hippo asked him to help him hide, but the pastureland did not accept. The sun on the horizon was leaving flailing his arms, and the Eyes
were nowhere to be found. Nervous, he scuffed at the stones and the dirt, stirred into the cloud causing it to rain; the anxiety that had insinuated before finally knocked him off.
"Are you OK?" A quiet voice behind him made its way into his dream. He silenced his body but moved slowly his head in search of the voice.
“Why can’t you see me? I am here. Can’t you really see me?”
He did not see where the words were coming and although he knew it, he sought a pair of Eyes.
Now there was a rainstorm brewing overhead, a diffuse grey sky, and the first star. The paquiderm had some Eyes missing, a voice, the emotion in suspense and his body pourred rain.
The cloud sympathized with him and squeezed a ray to illuminate the landscape. The hippopotamus could distinguish a silhouette in front of him and smile, the face hurt him. What expression is this I have done? He asked, stunned, and recovered his hard appearance immediately. He was cold and shivering when the warmth of a hand took his plump forefoot guiding him for a dark path to a cave. All was tranquil and warm there. The cloud sent them another lightning bolt and made it last two seconds; in that interval, it was possible to see someone seeking something among the stalactites. Someone had found what it was looking for and a lamp was lit.
The shadows were shaking behind a butterfly drying her wings. The hippopotamus saw with increasing clarity the body who owned the Eyes that watched him for three thousand days. He could not speak. The Eyes sat in front of him. With the same serene voice that had called him before, the voice pronounced his name:
"Love"
"Huh?” He was disconcerted.
"You” A chill traveled through him, replaced by a tremor.
"No, you are Love, you are, it is a feature of you."
"Yes," she said, “it is a feature of me, and it is a feature of you."
"Aren't you afraid of me?" She laughed sincerely.
"And why would I be afraid? Fear is the one thing that would stop me from thinking about you."
"Everyone fears me. They do not want to approach me, at times they pretend not to see me. I only know how to kill."
"Still killing, precisely because of that. I have traveled across galaxies, moons, comets and entire planets looking for you. I am sure it is you: you are Love. And as for me, you cannot kill me."
"But I cannot control myself. Of course, I would be able to kill you!"
"You cannot kill me because I do not expect anything from you. One only dies on you if something is expected in return. I only want you to be Love."
"I do not even know what that is."
The hippopotamus began to get angry. Suddenly, he was worried about the withered appearance he may have after all that had happened, after what he had done.
"It is simple beauty, like the reflection of a drop of dew that caresses a bud."
"I am a hippopotamus!"
"That it is only the form that you have chosen to take"
"I have always been a hippopotamus." Now he was amused, no longer angry. He started to believe that she was crazy.
"No. You have been galaxies, forests, dinosaurs, rocks, clouds, hands, fire... Have you forgotten it? Right now I can see your sympathy, your innocence, your humility... I can see... your magic."
"How can you see it? Why are you so sure?"
"I feel you." She loosened her hair, and millions of petals flew forth. "The nature of love is to kill that which deserves to die on his name: the twilight, the sea, a sincere soul, the very God. Those who know your real essence are always willing to die for you."
"You have killed?"
"Only a purple tree."
"My tree?"
"Yes."
The hippopotamus did not try to understand; he wanted desperately to be lashed to something. All his roads were scattered. All that he thought he knew, his philosophy, dissolved among the words of his friend. He collapsed.
It was the early morning, he opened his eyes in the shadows; she was by his side. Every attempt of reasoning evanesced before the innocent respiration of the sleeping Eyes. In the peace of the daydream he heard a whisper: Would you forgive me? Before considering it, he said yes with the head.
His intention of death turned into spontaneous forgiveness. He moves even closer to the body of the Eyes. He did not have a tree where to return, but he had her and wanted for her to have him. The world did not know of any another hippopotamus, whose heart had beaten to the point of stopping during six seconds the rotation of the earth -ever since all our clocks lie angry.
She anticipated to his question.
"I know your doubts build a labyrinth. I know that before I can clarify the first one, seven more will have arisen. Do not ask questions about love. There are constraints, not answers. I only Know who you are, I have seen you in my dreams. I do not have more answers, I cannot offer you any reason.”
He was touched. He did not know about the tangling that people have invented to complicate it, to control it, to diminish it. For the first time in his life, he felt radiant.
“I can do anything you want... I could try to kill again. I could change my color if you want.”
“Shall I change color?” –The irony sprouted friendly from her voice.
“No, not you, I don't want you to change anything. You are more perfect than anything existent.”
“Every time I’m more certain that you are Love, what you would never do is to ask another to suppress their nature for you. I only want you to be Love, thus, just as things stand. Neither would I want you to change. I want this, your mere presence, and you do not have to do anything.”
An angel flew by stealing their voice. The butterfly remained bewitched with its brilliance and invited him to sit down with her. Time is a sublime dimension. Everyone lives for a time, their own sequence of facts, their collection of changes and, besides, there is the time that runs alone, and although we are all bound by it, it is the one that in the final accounting, cares the less.
“Why am I what I am?"
"To live."
"I will tell you... for centuries, all that I desired the most, was to die."
She did not say anything. A cricket announced itself.
"I discovered with anxiety that neither my life nor my death would change anything..." His lips stopped. He saw without looking at the dripping landscape with a subtle arch of soft colors in the sky.
"I have always felt myself very much alone,” he whispered.
"But you had your tree?"
"I spent all my life there, at times I loved it, at others I hated it. I do not know if I miss it or if I am grateful that no longer exists."
"You can not exist while there is not someone, something that senses when you shout.”
His arguments could not find words, his soul reborn in agonizing pain of labor. An imaginary tear sprouted. He wanted to cry but his eyes would not.
"You are a miracle," said the Eyes while hugged him with vertiginous fixity, strong, longing for becoming one with him forever. Little by little, she had entered in each one of his pores with the murmur of a prayer. But he did not realize. That hug caused an earthquake, and the quake an avalanche of hummingbirds spreading themselves over all the continents.
Suddenly he recalled: The blocks of ice floating in the seas, the first fish he saw, a sparrow helping paint the roses in red, the lava of a volcano chasing him when a purple tree received him with protective branches and did not come down from there up to now. He agreed that his fear made him forgot himself. Explicit photographs of the universe came to him, the stars, the earth, where he chose to live; dragons, dinosaurs, people, mothers, wars, music, songs, forgiveness, kisses; all kinds of clouds, spores, and insects. He recalled God.
Love left his lethargy when he felt the fingers of the Eyes vanishing discreet like tears on his back, and the vapor emanating from it went with his breath to sprinkle what can be seen and what cannot. Its majestic spell dominated the fog.
The angel kissed the butterfly, and they left flying stealthy toward the horizon. A pair of silver stars. There was a live expression on his face. He turned around to look at the Eyes, he turned to both sides, sought her among the stalactites, called her, shouting. But she could no longer be a voice.
Desperation.
He did not find her. That day Love was reborn, that day he also died. He asked himself again if the Eyes would have forgiven that last death: his own. He felt for the first time, the same that all those he had killed.
He died in the cave and in the path, dying each time he took a step, one thousand times without being able to die entirely, but for each time he fainted, his force was duplicated. He is destined to be happy only from time to time and each time more. Never he sleeps, does not stop imagining, dreaming, desiring and seeking for eternity those Eyes to return his reflection.
Mariana Salcido
Octuber 2016
Comments
Mariana, welcome to the FM ning, and from what I have gathered in our email conversations, and your enthusiasm for fearism etc., there is no doubt a fruitful collaboration will come from this all. In posting this piece, by you, "Eyes of Love," I experience an encounter with a complicated and deep reflection, as well as a particulary aesthetic style of work on the Love and Fear encounter, that is so interesting to me and others... I hope you keep sharing your views and create more discussion. This piece of writing reminds me of Surrealism, allegory, and the Nietzschean work Thus Spake Zarathustra as a philosophical-poetic inquiry and ethical theology without all the moralistic dogmatic trappings we often encounter in ethical works. I heartily encourage you to share more of the background of this piece "Eyes of Love" and how you think it was important in your life to write.
Dear Michael, thank you so much for the deep reading to my favorite story.
The story was written in an unrelated moment, in the middle of a boring class playing a sort of co-authorism with another student, but he left the story early on, so I kept going. If it were possible to measure moments, I’d say I was one of the happiest times of my life.
"Eyes for Love" is just starting to make sense now. Phrases come to my mind in decisive moments, through breaking points.
I wish more people would understand it. Any ideas? (Other than dumbed it down?)
Deeply, thank you, Michael.
Mariana