los caprichos
by Mileva Anastasiadou
“Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and source of their wonders.”
-Francisco Goya
Goya’s ghost lingered above our heads, he rolled his eyes as if saying, I told you so, because he was tired of people like us, but we had already watched Goya’s Ghosts and already knew how things change fast in movies, and we also knew enough of history and philosophy that proved that everything flows and nothing ever stays the same. We had heard of disasters too, and we had gone through our share of minor inconveniences, but still we were certain that huge losses only happened to others, as if we were immune to bad fortune, because we were special and we went through time without loss, with the certainty that nothing bad would ever touch us, and we had been aware of the danger, because whirlpools had been our biggest fear for years, but we grew old enough to realize that we’d never see whirlpools in real life and that we’d always be safe.
Goya’s ghost remained mercifully silent, because he’d met people like us, who thought they were goldfish mistaking their bowl for the ocean. He had already painted us and our fall and he knew what we had lost. What we lost that day was innocence. That awesome feeling, the conviction that we would always stand above all disease and disaster. What we lost that day was arrogance, and we knew enough of geometry to be aware that a downward spiral would follow into which we would fall, one by one, and then one day, our world would be over. And we could only cry at our own audacity, at how long we had clung to the illusion while the whirlpool waited patiently in plain sight.
Goya’s ghost was bored because he knew about human nature and how the past would haunt us, how it would turn into a demon that wouldn’t leave us alone, a monster stealing our present. Our people died from too much past, but still, what we did was dive into the past, and we heard old songs, and watched old movies, and stared at old photos, although we knew that the past is a dangerous place, that it would suck us inside, like a whirlpool, but we had no option because the past is a safe place too, where everything has already happened and nothing ever changes, and we spent most of our time in Google maps, where we navigated not only through space, but also through time, we found a whole map of our youth there, walked the old neighborhood, where everything was still standing, and we felt special and unique again, and we fell, fell, fell, right into the abyss of the past and in love again, we held onto each other, like our lives depended on that hug, on one kiss, on one touch, because they did, we had love, and love was our biggest defense, but also our last resort.
We may have climbed mountains, and we may have eaten the most delicious meals, traveled through the most beautiful lands, walked on the sandiest beaches, but nothing made us more special than love, like no one ever loved before but us, and we knew that love is the most special and unique and wonderful gift, but we gave in to the sleep of reason again, the sleep that would sustain us and keep us afloat, because what we found out was that loss is special too, the most universal experience, what is common to all is what felt most unique, like grief is a science only we have mastered, as if we have invented pain and no one ever hurt or faced death before. And Goya’s ghost watched us like we were a boring movie he’d seen before, and he leaned against the wall, checking his ghostly pocket watch as if wondering how much longer we could maintain this level of drama. We held each other tighter, as if the monsters circling the room were real, as if one more kiss could keep the whirlpool from swallowing the last of what we had been. And somewhere in the dark, Goya’s ghost laughed.
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