The Flight of the Phoenix

The Flight of the Phoenix

Raquel Pagno

To all angels that flew throughout the skies and to all that there fly, but specially, to that angel fallen that lost its wings and his life...

From Natália’s letters,

You’re with me. I feel you. But don’t, don’t ask me why, I wouldn’t know how to answer. I see you every time I close my eyes. I get out of the house trying to forget, the memory is too strong, it’s like hot coal, like a flame that ironically burns my heart and maybe that’s why it brings you so near me. I disguise it in front of people, but that day was engraved in my memory with guilt... Guilt because I had infamous thoughts, like that could have changed your tragic destiny. A sunny afternoon that won’t leave my mind, even when I’m sleeping (if I ever sleep!) I can’t abandon that disastrous sunny afternoon. It was a beautiful afternoon, just like you. Oh! How distractive of me, I still hadn’t notice that your smile lite that day and overshadowed the sun! I won’t see you anymore. I’m among a thousand people and my mind is thinking of you, why? Were we two parts of the same soul? Had we a mission to fulfill? Together? It was still early... I was alone for a moment and back you were, strong, omnipresent, flooding my mind. Had you bewitched me? You couldn’t have. I try to focus on my chores, but I keep feeling that you destined me a mission. Come quick then! Tell me what to do. What can I do?

You’re close. In each bird that naughtily flies tearing the gray sky, you’re present. And in each fowl that sings free in space, unbound in the empty, you bless us with your remarkable presence. Oh! How I wanted to have you again in your nest, a pretty and voracious phoenix! I confess that when I saw another like you, I almost mistook it for you! It was as voracious as you and it almost made my heart stop beating! For a moment I embraced the sweet illusion that you might have returned. An impossible comeback... But it could have been you sending the signal I asked. Chills ran through my body while I spill these funereal words on the cold paper. I feel chills taking over my body every time I hear the sounds (and I’m hearing them all the time inside me), they are engraved in me, the dull thud and then an explosion. I thought I’ve seen your face sculpted in black smoke. I’m waiting and will remain like this till you think it’s convenient to take me with you. 

Yes. I fell your hand caressing my hair in my bedroom, strong and gentle, maybe fearful, trying to say that you’re well or that you’re not? I had the impression you said ‘Worry no more!’, just an impression. Nevertheless comforting, it eased my mind. But not my soul. I still long for you. A lot. I cry out for your zealous presence, I don’t know if I should, but I call you all the time. The desire burns as much as the flames that took you away. Burns within my soul and makes my breathing weak and my heart beats wildly, and sometimes, tears appeared on my tired eyes. Then, I wake up! I need to control myself not to let a river of emotion drag me in its strong stream. Even the cold wind flaying my skin seems to bring you to me. Most incredibly, after you were gone, an intense cold fell on all of us preventing the sun from shinning again. The skies are also grieving for you, it shouldn’t have been like this and I can’t convince myself otherwise. What you’re doing up there, anyway? I need to know! Please, give me the answer I’m longing for it! Sooth my soul and my heart! It doesn’t matter what they say or what they may say, I’ll just believe in what you want me to believe, I’ll listen to the truth coming out of your sweet lips, and I’ll surrender to it.

FIRST LESSON - It’s Needed... 

Natália woke up drenched in sweat. Once again the same dream, or the same nightmare, she didn’t know very well what disturbed her every night. She sat on the bed for a few minutes, as the images, still livid in her mind, were fading as clouds blown in the wind. She looked at the alarm clock beside her night stand, it was showing five in the morning in big red luminous numbers. She turned to the window, trying to see some light between the closed curtains. It was dark still. She didn’t like winter, specially the first days of cold, that punished her body since the beginning of April. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep anymore, her dreams were too real and they wouldn’t leave her mind as easily as usual. She laid down again and covered herself. The excess of sweat made her feel cold. She turned to the side, folding herself into the fetus position, trying to drive the dream out off her mind. She focused on that day’s tasks: she would rest till seven, then she would take a shower, have breakfast and head out to catch the bus that ran two blocks from her place. She would commute for forty minutes and she might run into the friend she made at the bus stop. Both would talk till they went downtown and then she would get off the bus and run to the office where she would have an eventual day, and then she finally wasn’t going to have time to think about that damn dream!

Once more she closed her eyes and the image appeared in her mind again. It looked like an old black and white film that she had never seen. She was a spectator of a tragic accident. She couldn’t define exactly how, but she would see an explosion and then a lot of black smoke. She would see people running desperate, some going to the flames and some going away from them. She wouldn’t move, she would just look the suffering mirrored on the frightened faces and would hear clearly desperate exclamations of an incredulous crowd and sirens sounds quickly approaching. She would feel the heat of the sun that shone intensely burning her white skin. Then she would look everywhere, in every face and would realize she was totally alone in the middle of the horror. She would feel the tears rolling down her rosy cheeks and see herself falling on a field of sparse vegetation. She would strongly feel that she lost someone she loved very much and this was a real sensation that was engraved within her heart since she had that dream for the first time. Relatives and friends couldn’t stand receiving calls from Natália anymore, everyday, even in early hours of the day, just to make sure they were safe and sound. Some already thought she was kind of crazy. Once, her brother told her that if he died she was going to be the first to know, because he would pull her leg in the middle of the night just to wake her up, as she did to him. After that, she withheld the phone calls. Specially after she received a phone bill that was a mile long. Unwittingly she started to pray for the soul of each person that was killed in her dream (if really existed!) and for all her relatives and friends, for the ones she couldn’t call to ask for news.

She prayed till she was interrupted by the relentlessly alarm clock that announced it was time to get up. She stretched lazily while listening to the soft music that played on the radio every morning. It was a slow melody and the lyrics spoke of angels. She always wondered if the person of her dreams was an angel. Soon she pushed that idea away from her thoughts, because she knew God would never entrust her to receive messages from angels. She wasn’t even that kind! She did several wrong things in the course of her twenty-five years and was aware she would pay the price for her sins just like her grandmother - a fervent catholic - had always warned. She was, in a way, ready to Purgatory. She did not imagine herself going to Hell, seeing that she was not that bad either, but Purgatory, she knew she wouldn’t scape it! She also thought the sky was just for saints and the Lord’s angels (and maybe the prudish that would not leave the hemline of the priest’s cassocks, if ever the priests had some influence up there with the Creator!). Actually, it has been some time since she practiced any religion, something that made her be criticized by her family a lot, mainly by the elder ones, like her father and her uncles.

She stretched once more and stood up. She walked slowly to the bathroom and turned the shower on, it always took a couple of minutes to heat up the weak stream of water. As she waited, Natália went to the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove to make coffee. She went back to her small bathroom, between the bedroom door and the living room/kitchen, a space that was less than three square feet for circulation. She got in the shower, separated from the lavatory by a white plastic curtain half stained by humidity. She closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deep and feeling each drop of water run through her slender body. She loved that feeling! She thought water could wash not only her body, but also the soul. Water took all her worries away, her problems and her fears, making her feel purified and renewed. She would always take long showers and after she had her hygiene rituals and some beauty rituals, her financial situation would not let her exaggerate. She enjoyed staying long periods of time with the water running down, experiencing body and mind comfort in a state of concentration and maxim relaxation. In those moments, she used to imagine landscapes and clouds strolling through the blueish sky and sometimes she thought she was a bird that could freely fly in the sky. That day, however, she felt out of place and wasn’t able to focus as she wanted to. She felt her neck and shoulder muscles tense, as if she had carried the world on her back all night long. She decided to cut her shower short, she would have more time to have breakfast.

As she finished her chores, she got down four flights of stairs to the street with difficulty. Her legs hurt, as they didn’t hurt in a long time, since she graduated Secretary School, when she used to walk three and a half miles twice a day. Unlike she imaged, her bus buddy didn’t go to work that day. Natália had to ride alone to the final stop and this let her mind wander one more time in the world of dreams and nightmares where images and sensations of the preview night were going repeatedly through her brain and her heart, seeming to her more real each time. When she got off the bus she felt a strong pain when bending her knees combined with dizziness sensation. It took her a few seconds to return to calm breathing. She remembered once she caught a bad flu and between her feverish states, she suffered with leg pains and shortage of breath. "I wonder if I got the flu again?" she thought as she made an effort to get quickly to the office. She worked in a famous law firm for the past three years and she had worked very hard to get that position. She wouldn’t let a small thing as the flu stop her!

Natália! Natália! she hadn’t even put her foot in the room and could already hear her impatient boss, Marcelo Vasconcellos Ferraz, calling her. He was one of the three renowned brothers and partners of the great law firm Vasconcellos Ferraz & Associates, they were very traditional and would normally work with hotshots, politicians, high rank executives and personalities, like famous artists. She always dreamt of becoming a lawyer, but her family financial situation wasn’t favorable and she had to give up her dream. Now, she thought herself too old to go back to study and her office job was extremely tiring. She worked overtime almost everyday, something that gave her an extra income to help the rented small apartment bills, that was located in an old building, but with in a decent neighborhood, and it would still allow her to send some money to her mother, who with her retired benefits could barely pay her medical expenses, and sometimes went through difficulties.

She got up fast from the blue velvet chair, elegantly positioned in the boss  anteroom, where she alone was responsible for allowing, or not, people talk to the important Marcelo Vasconcellos Ferraz. She laughed imagining her unsympathetic boss wrapped in a red cloak, in one hand a staff (just like Merlin’s, the wizard!), and a crown identical to Queen Elizabeth’s on his completely bald head! She felt a sharp pain on her right knee, stopped for a couple of seconds before opening the heavy engraved wooden door, that looked more like the entrance of a luxurious theatre than of a law firm. Doctor Vasconcellos Ferraz, as he liked to be called, was on the phone and Natália positioned herself in front of him immediately, waiting for the orders to come. While waiting she felt a stinging pain on the nape of her neck, as if the pain on her knee had gone up her head. She took a deep breath, trying to focus and make the pain disappear. Once more a stinging pain, followed by dizziness almost made her fall. She took another deep breath, holding the back of one of the four chair placed across her boss.

Natália, are you alright? she heard the voice of the man in front of her as if it was miles away. She closed her eyes and before passing out, she heard her boss yelling something like Help! or Ambulance!.  

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From Natália’s letters,

In every part of me, in every object I look or touch, in the streets, in homes, in every person that walks with or without purpose through the desert streets, but mainly in the sky, in the cloudy sky, rainy, in the clear, light, blueish, you’re in everything. Now even closer than when you were by my side. I close my eyes still trying to reach you and I can almost feel your warm breathing... Oh! My sweet phoenix, how many longing sighs...  Why can’t you be here drying the tears my eyes shed for you? And how I desire that you were here, but that desire will be forever impossible.

I find comfort in death, and the comfort in death is to know that I can be with you. And then I don’t fear death and I even start to desire it. Wait for me where you are. I’ll go. Soon, we’ll be together. If there’s mercy, death won’t separate us like life did. Now that I see all this life in vain, senseless, just in dreams... The dream of being with you, of having you once more. Without you there’s no reason. It’s nothing but a feeble impression, a smooth nightmare, a blink of an eye lasting long enough to repeat it from beginning to end. Because it was short and dull, because this life only truly existed for the little time you were here, my phoenix.

I can’t even travel to be with you. The memories make themselves dark and violent and they bring up scenes I want to forget. Just your departure. Were we ever happy? I ask you. The silence responds and the more I search my memory looking for happy places, the more sad memories come to me from all those lives. Was it like this from the beginning? Did my desire and craving push you away that far? But why then would love push away people who love each other so much? Was it really inevitable to think that love separates soulmates like us. Wasn’t it still time to bring them together?

Anyway, both of us were one. And it wasn’t necessary to weld our bodies together so we could be one. Because we are just one, essentially and it’s in the essence that we get to know what it’s real and what isn’t. And I saw your essence! And I recognized as part of my own soul, my own being. And so it was born this impossible love, I would even say unwanted. That was also what you felt, because maybe you knew that it was too late to love me, but still, we couldn’t change our essence. But what was really love, if there was no surrender? Frustration, remorse, hate. Or just suffering and pain. But now I surrendered and I lost you, there remains only the longing and the emptiness you left. And the worst punishment of all is in the uncertainty that the end is near. In that case, I’m still here longing for you, to see you. And nothing more excites me, nothing more interests me and I’ll be here, just waiting for that moment to arrive.

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SECOND LESSON: All Serves the Good

He just watched her. Without tears in his eyes, no hard feelings. Natália was still so young... Seeing her lying unconscious on that hospital bed, made it seem like she was a child having a dreamless sleep. He saw the disease beginning and growing inside her. The black stain of the brain aneurysm. He always saw this black stain inside her. He never said anything because he knew he couldn’t interfere and he would cause her more damage than good. First he felt a budding revolt and, it didn’t seem fair that such a destructive disease would afflict a woman that young. Then, he focused his energies in prayers and was warned that the disease happened for her good and it would make her grow, evolve and she was going to learn from it. He heard many time, out of many different mouths, that some evils come for good. How can evil come for good? He asked that same question to many different listeners and after hearing countless answers he convinced himself that some things were just like this. Either for selfish reasons or for his own soul’s comfort. Selfish reasons because he would suffer much less for the people he loved if he thought they were suffering for their own good. Comfort, because it hurts less in him if he was convinced that difficult moments existed to make us learn and evolve, just like the people we love, even though is known that not all suffering is temporary as some are permanent. Not only permanent here in this life, but really permanent, karma, taken to all eternity. There are incurable karma. Even in thousands of lives, of comings and goings, we can’t always heal them.

Natália’s case still seemed uncertain to Andrew. He had no recollection that made it possible to know if he knew her from another life. That’s because he never sought her in his past. What negligence,  he thought, never having sought for her till this day!, because Natália was his friend. Maybe the best friend he ever had. He met her as child. They played together during childhood and learned together, during adolescence, the first love lessons. They were more than siblings, Andrew was part of the family. That was why he was impressed when he realized he never sought her in past lives, despite numerous regression sessions he had done in therapy.

Andrew had aways seen strange things and heard strange voices too. From a very young age, he was always surrounded by imaginary friends and mythical creatures that were around and would tell him the future. He could foresee pregnancies before they were able to be detected in a blood exam, he could feel diseases in people, he could even see Death with its scythe accompanying people when they passed away. Specially when Death accompanied young people and children. When he was four years old, still in kindergarten, Andrew saw that sinister accompanying a class mate. Because he still