Niko’s Eye

Chapter 79.

Isis.

She always felt her stomach do an inside out flip every time Alejandro mentioned that he wanted to "talk.".

She had succeeded in dodging the deed, and now she was avoiding him.

Isis was not ready to hear whatever it was that Alejandro wanted to say to her. There was just too much going on in her life. She had gone through so much that she didn’t need any more surprises or to engage with any bearers of bad news.

Every race I ran there was never a question of stopping until the finishing line was crossed. I can’t say I was good at pacing myself, that skill still eludes me, but I knew how to keep going even when my body told me there was no more in the tank. There is always a reserve if you’re stubborn enough to demand it, and I am. Every finish was a sprint followed by bandy legs and collapse. I learnt as a runner the true meaning of "giving it your all." It means giving until you think you’re spent and then finding more to give anyway. That kind of endurance is without a doubt the most valuable lesson I ever learnt.

She watched Alejandro as he took his morning jog along the track lines of his estate.

Alejandro jogged along the railings by the park of his estate, but that wasn’t even nearly how fast he could run. In those thighs, was enough power to be clean across the park in seconds should he choose. Every footfall was soft, every movement practised so often he could be perfection even on autopilot. From his shirt came blue wires going right up to his ears - music. That’s what flowed in his veins. I swear if he were ever opened up it his heart would be pumping soul-tunes instead of blood.

She thought about how she started being an athlete in high school.

It was an accident that I became a runner. The entire school was turfed out to run a race and mostly my friends wanted to walk. Half way up a long hill of stubby grass and soggy mud I just got bored and began to run. Getting back sooner seemed like a good idea. I recall crossing a small wooden bridge close to the school and the teacher yelling at me that I was in second place. After that I was on the running team. I guess it was the first positive label I ever got - "the girl who can run." So I never stopped. I just added swimming and cycling when I got the chance.

She withdrew her gaze from Alejandro as he was about to turn around the corner. She continued painting.

The painter is a healer of the self and others, for their art is a story told in the foundational languages of the brain - in emotion, in visual dream-language. And so their painting is societal medicine and the reason we are so drawn to art becomes ever more obvious. When we let the "tings" of pain, the stings that linger, out into the painting, then we see it. Then we can comprehend it at every level of the brain from the conscious to the subconscious. For we speak in many languages other than words.

Her father always wanted her to follow her heart. She felt the strings of her heart being plucked along freely as she lethargically made brush strokes onto the canvas.

She felt anger flash through her veins as she remembered that Aisha had killed her father.

Self control is a finite resource because the part of the brain exerting control gets tired - it requires energy and that gets depleted. So, the repressing of anger needs careful thought. If it is boiling up, how will it be cooled? If it explodes, whom bares the brunt? Because they psyche under seige will naturally seek a more vulnerable (hence "safe") person to explode at. Stress bubbles down to less dominant people in a society where the more powerful have reduced ability to handle their anger and stress. Thus, how you deal with your anger is vital. It is as steam in a pressure cooker, you have to find a way to let it out in a safe manner. That can be through physical activity or by finding inner peace, or often a combination of the two. Sport releases the need for self control, finding inner peace expands your endurance and ability for self control. As such, they are a winning combination.

He would always say,

"Kid, my job is to remain as your steady arms that hold you aloft, that keep you safe, that nurture and protect your soul. I am your parent. You can’t let me down because it is I that hold you. I wish I could do better, but in reality, growing up has these challenges. We learn from it, grow stronger and move onwards, always onwards."

It’s been there a while now, this anger, escaping when I’m away from those I love. I’m angry at store clerks and car drivers, heck, I’m even angry if my sandwich isn’t quite right. But the truth is, my life needs changing for the better, because there’s more going into this brain and body than I can handle and still be me. So, even if it’s not okay with you, I’m gonna start working on my real dreams. And this real love that Alejandro is showing me.

Part of love is to protect, with life and limb, with everything that you have, even your soul. We can only take down our fences when there is safety and trust - something that only comes with a real sense of love based fraternity. Until then, we need defence. Just as a parent may protect their child, a leader may defend their country. It is right to work as hard as we can to bring peace, to share food, technologies that bring a comfortable and healthy life for all on Earth. We can learn to see religions as the result of the divine spirit interacting with culture and respect one another. We can take every step we can to reduce pollution, to care for our Mother Earth. Yet in the face of aggression we stand as parents to our nation, and in the name of love we may defend, loving like a hurricane, full force.

The radio blared jazz music through the speakers.

Sergio.

White heaven-bound birds were as brilliant rays from wind-dappled sea-water; their brightness amid otherwise infinite blue, gliding as free souls. In each wing-given arc they were the tips of a conductor’s wand, a music for both eyes and soul, bringing a wave of sweet earthly joy.

Sergio was over the moon.

It had been quite some time and he still hadn’t recieved any phone call from Aisha.

She probably couldn’t find anything.

He was downstairs in his basement, trying to clean up after what had been years.

The old paintings leaned against the wall of the hallway to the attic, dusty and unloved. Sergio ran a finger along the gold framing, his clear nail almost translucent in the half-light, and it comes away dirty. In the grime that must have taken years to form there is now a streak of gold. He holds it up. With the light that struggles to make it through the grime on the window the colours are subdued, but he can already tell it’s a country scene. The hills roll green, interwoven with the golds of autumn. How it could have lain here in the dark for so long without him knowing? It was a beautiful painting. He moved slowly down the attic stairs, one hand on the rungs, one on the painting.

It’s time for it to have pride of place.

His house maids did not care about the attic and this had him aggravated. He was irritated by it.

How could they pretend to do their jobs and yet they couldn’t even wash the rungs of the stairs to the attic.

He picked up an old mirror, lying at the foot of the bottom of the attic stairs.

The mirror was small and cheap, about the size of the cell phones all the up-town kids were carrying. It was the kind you see in a dollar store thickly rimmed in white plastic, the kind that’s in landfill not even a month later. The shiny surface was covered in greasy fingerprints and there was a lipstick smear. Sergio stuck it in his pocket anyway, tacky though it was it could be useful in a pinch - a flash of light at the right time from the right place could make all the difference.

The attic was filled with all of the things that he used to sell when he was still a young man, trying to get his money right. Memories flashed through his mind.

The second hand store near our condo complex got the worst of the worst. All the old hand-me-downs from our destitute neighbourhood ended up there. You might as well wear a garbage bag as shop in it. I found it well worth the bus fare to go to an affluent area and shop in their second hand stores. Their throw offs were often brand new, bought on a whim and cast off never worn. I’d come home with designer goods, all for a song. After a while I got so good at shopping in them I started my own eBay store and made good money reselling them, enough to leave my shitty neighbourhood and move across town.

He sighed.

His telephone rang.

And then all of a sudden, his heart began to race.

It felt like one of the hottest summer days in the tropics. Girls walked around in their underwears and men gallivanted with their shirts open. Some having pleasant torsos, and others, just a pot belly full of chest hairs.

Everything was peaceful and quite. The wind was merry and cool. Isis sat next to the pool in huge black shades and a white wide-brim hat.

It his her face from the sun.

Suddenly she could hear voices being raised, as if in anger. She was too relaxed to bother herself.

"Some days it feels as if humanity will squabble until the last of the tropical islands have been sold as trinkets in upmarket boutiques," she sighed.

She heard a laugh from behind her and chose against putting in the effort of lifting herself from her relaxation just to see who was it. The person would reveal themselves if they wanted to.

Isis betted that it was Alejandro, he had multiple personalities with different laughs. And it had been a little over a work since he had decided to start working from home so that they can have more time to plan their wedding.

"The greatest aspect of working from home was no more alarm clock. I would wake when I woke, and no matter if it was early or late, that was okay. The day began when it began and ended when it ended. So much stress evaporated. In a short while I awoke at the same time, give or take a few minutes, each day anyway. I developed my own rhythm, my own sense of time that had more to do with nature and my own biology," is what he had said.

Just then, a figure hovered over her for a few minutes before going to sit over in the lounger next to her. She followed the figure’s shadow and saw that it was indeed Alejandro.

"I knew you were spying on me, and why are you half naked?"

Alejandro chuckled lightly.

"Dude, it’s like 890 degrees out here, you’re lucky I’m not walking around here whipping my p***s in anyone’s face."

"Touché."

"How you doing baby?" He asked, slapping on some sunscreen and reclining the lounger.

"You’re perfectly annoying but that’s okay, because it’s as much a reflection of me as anything else. Those days everything goes right I find you so cute, and those days the world bites me I want to bite you. So really, it’s the pressure and stress that messes us up, you and me. Because when I see you properly I soon find that you are annoyingly perfect. I love you more because you are so annoying at times, perfection is boring, we are opposites and in that there is infinite interest and entertainment value."

"That was so random. But if you’re trying to say that you love me, beyond my imperfections, I love you too Birdie."

Isis looked at Alejandro, wide eyes and all.

"Birdie?"

"You know it’s going to be your legal name soon."

She looked at him in shock, and in brooding silence.

They both burst out laughing.

Alex is a proper tool.

Alejandro.

The kitchen was a mess.

Fruit laying everywhere, bottles of gin, rum and passion fruit juice laying on the floor.

Alejandro and Isis were whipping up cocktails for the hot weather. They had left the kitchen in war mode and ran off to the supermarket to get a couple of other things.

They came back, set their new ingredients onto the kitchen counter and got back to work.

Isis plopped herself onto the counter and started eating the pineapples that Alejandro was dicing.

"Mmmh. This is real good."

Alejandro looked up at her, her juicy lips sucking onto the fruit, making him stir.

Goddamn it, can you stop?

He quickly looked down at the chopping board before he would chop his own fingers off because of lust.

"So uhm, when should we start planning the wedding?"

"Alex, I’m like 0.3 seconds away from being drunk, how do I think about such an important day in this state?"

Alejandro smirked.

"Go ahead. I want to see how strong your willpower is."

He watched Isis’ face as she looked back at him in horror, squinting her eyes as if she was being conned.

"You know what? Let the wedding be simple, for just as a minimalist frame accentuates the beauty of a photograph, the minimalist wedding accentuates the beauty of our love. The love of a marriage is simple and pure, it is as the air and water needed daily rather than the firework. That’s what we wanted to show in our simple wedding, that by being so steady with one another we could remain together all of our days."

Alejandro stared at her in disbelief. "Wow."

He picked up the chopping knife again and cut the fruits into perfect cubes in the time it took most people just to peel a potato. Every motion was precise from intense repetition and he prided himself on the machine-like perfection of his shapes. Everything was even, uniform, perfect. His eyes narrowed as he watched Isis pour a ton of gin into the blender, and his mouth tightened to a thin straight line, "Too much, too much!"

Isis burst out laughing. "Right."

Alejandro examined the remainder of the fruits. He turned the peaches in his spade-like hands to look for the sallow brown spots, tossing his rejects into a separate bin with a grunt. Then he picked up the lemons and looked at each one like an art appraiser, taking in the minutia of the details, sniffing a ripped lemon leaf before chewing it.

He looked up to see Isis staring at him.

"What’s wrong?"

"You’re really taking this seriously huh?"

"I just have a lot of experience with this and I appreciate a good drink," he said, shrugging, and a little bit embarrassed.

She walked up to him, locked her arms around his neck and pulled him closer.

"Yeah, you do appreciate fine details. One of the qualities I appreciate about you."

Immediately his shoulders eased and his frown softened.

Isis kissed him, softly, her lips tasting like pineapples, mangoes and gin.

I love you.

Sergio.

He was handed a glass of whiskey, on the rocks.

"You look like a bag of nerves, this will calm you down." Said the other man.

Sergio nodded thankfully.

Ice cubes in whiskey gold bring a hue to my eyes that speaks of sunshine and better days ahead.

The whisky turns down the volume on my thoughts. It brings memories of good times past, and I let myself dwell in them rather than think. And in that moment I am here and not, existing in two perfect moments. Somehow it steadies me, gives me the resolve to go on.

He rubbed his temples. "Yeah, uh. s**t has just been wild. I mean, I just found my kid and now my lover wants to blackmail me."

The other man chuckled warmly.

"But we saw that one coming, didn’t we? We’ve just gotta stick to the plan and put it into gear now. So why are you so nervous?"

"I don’t know man, I just, I..."

"You care about her don’t you?"

Sergio sighed. "I can’t say I don’t. But at the same time...she deserves it you know."

"Remember why you’re doing this in the first place. The devil has zero interest in you, Sergio, for what was made by the divine creator must return to the divine creator. To him you are the bug and he so enjoy’s pulling off your wings and watching your suffering. But it’s nothing personal. How could the devil be personal with a bug? No. It is simply a devil of a game. What Satan is after is the destruction of creation, to destroy Earth and all her life forms, to watch them suffer and die. The first step to winning this game is realising that you are in it. She doesn’t care about you. I mean, we knew she would look for a scapegoat, and here we are."

"You’re right. The best bunker plan is the largest community you can keep safe. This is not the traditional nutter running to the hills with guns and ammo scenario, this is the social responsibility version."

The other man nodded in agreement. "Our best bunker plan is not a bunker at all. It’s having a secret base, a private home, and from there planning operations to benefit the local and global society. To beat the beast, we’re gonna bring our best, our A game."

They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Well, the proof of good friends is in the challenges of life. Those who pass such trials are your troupe, your running buddies, your real soul-mates.

"You’ve really proved to be a good man and a good friend to me," said Sergio. "So what’s the first step?"

"You know already." Yes I do and I have every idea of it. It’s not a problem.