The first time I saw her she crept up behind me silent and cautious. She knew who I was, or at least she was aware of whom people thought I was. It can't have been all that interesting, that first time, a bump in an empty corridor, some casual words exchanged, maybe a small and courteous smile and a kind remark. No great chunk of the world changed after that first time but, at least, it had been taken care of. People often don't realise how tough first times can be, how fear or mere unintentionality can impair the normal and healthy course of wonderful things.
She still knew who I was after our bump in the corridor. I had proven to be something of what she expected, uninteresting, may be a bit hollow somehow, unreal in a bad way, smaller than life. All in all it was probably a waste of time.
The second time our paths crossed, the whateverness turned sour. I was in her way. She had this project and somehow, which I am sure must have been wholly annoying, someone decided my approval was required. I can imagine how she must have taken the news; the person whom she knew, or at least knew what everyone thought they knew, that undeserving numb excuse for a human being was an obstacle. Worse still, in time, she realised, he would prove too heavy a stone to lift and her path would remain closed up to her.
I don't really remember much of all this; I remember the first time not the second. There must have been a third time and a fourth but I have no recollection. I never cared all that much about what others thought of me, especially those who inhabit the dwellings we shared. I even enjoyed knowing people had all these weird notions about who I really was, feuds that were born and died without my knowledge, opinions that ran tangents with the wilder side of even the most far-fetched reality. But few people really knew me, there were few tangible evidences; in a way, dressed by smoke and fed by mirrors, I had become the stuff myths are made of. Well maybe not those complex myths books are written about, but a nice comfortable try for size puzzle that people love to hate and gossip about endlessly.
I didn't know who she was. That first time I saw her she crept into a safe place in my mind, she found a home there, a room deep down inside me. She was there to say. I was oblivious to that. The second, third and fourth time came and went and still I was blind to the fact that an impression had been made. I still ignore what went on in her mind after each crossing of our paths.
One day I knew I knew her. Just like that. She was no longer a stranger; it almost seemed I had always known her, from the beginning of time. I felt like she had been a part of me from times immemorial, times that preceded my actual birth, the birth of the human race, a time before there was a planet Earth, a time before reality, a moment where the nothingness of everything was traversed only by the simple fact that we already existed as a part of each other.
I still know who she is even if I'm not entirely sure how or why. I also know who she can be, remnants of that timeless reality we must have shared... I know we did but the same way people construct me at their whim without proof or a base in reality, I cannot prove this claim.
Because of those five minutes we shared in an empty corridor I remembered I had to know her because I already did and it all had to come to full circle. It took me a while to recognise it though. The wholeness we once shared in a time that has no bearing in real time or space lingers on and cannot be broken, but life is in the way.
That first time I saw her, she thought she knew who I was. Could she ever remember who we were?
(volto ao português logo que possível, por agora soube-me bem voltar de todo...)
