1) The Passage, day 14.

Day 14,

My memories, my dreams, my feelings, are like falling stars: I can scarcely perceive them before they fade away.

"... Stop! Listen to my voice! ..."
"Stop!!!"
"... please, listen to me! Do not do it! ..."
"NOOOOO"
"Help me! I beg you ... "
“Someone call an ambulance!!!"
"... Stay with ... STAY WITH ME! ..."
"SOMEONE HELP ME!"
"... Towels , hurry... We need ... the bleeding ..."
"... why have you ..., WHY ARE... DOING ..."
"... stay ... me..."

"Do not leave me now."                                              

The nebulous faces. The dark rumble of voices. The frantic gestures. The anguished screams.

Your tears.

Then, suddenly, it’s all gone again. And, as always, I have only a pile of smoking, blackened sensations.

All that remains is the darkness, the confusion, the cold. The questions.

Your warm tears.

They still rain on my chest. They still flow down my body. They still warm my lifeless limbs. They sink deep inside me.

They still keep me alive.

Where are you now?

I always try to understand whether what I just experienced was a memory or only a dream. But nothing is ever able to give me any confirmation.

If only…

I look at this deep scar.

How did I get it? Why do I have a scar like this? Why am I still alive?

For a few days my travel was adrift. Following one of my "crises", I woke up on the deck, my chest naked and frozen.

Who knows how many hours I was out there.

The cockpit was devastated, as was the galley. But above all, the GPS was missing. I probably threw it into the sea.

I decided to take the day off and, calmly and patiently, started to rearrange the galley and cockpit.

If one were to look at me from above, I would be nothing but a tiny, bright dot in the darkness.

A dim glow in a sea of permanent night.

Last night I lingered for a long time in the shower. I stayed even when the water became lukewarm and finally freezing. I just wanted to feel something.

"Do not let yourself go ..."
"Follow my light ..."

"Do not abandon yourself ..."
"Keep holding on ..."

"Do not get lost …"
"Follow our path ..."

Rustles, whispers, hums, voices, shouts, screams fill my dreams and my thoughts every night. Only the sea roars louder and fiercer when it calls me.

Like the dulcet tones of a siren’s call. Like the promise of a truce.

Tonight, I woke up screaming and dripping with sweat. I got up and ...

The sky was on fire.

A red, pervasive, cold light.

Blinding.

The first polar aurora of my life.

Extended from one end of the sky to the other. Strong, powerful, and alive.

Like a series of colossal curtains, behind which flow hands of angels, giving life to a play of hypnotic and seductive lights.

It's your light, the one you kept on.

I found myself on the deck. I did not waste time even to dress. I'm here, now, in the intense cold. It is the spectacle of a lifetime.

The sky emits hisses from all sides. The symphony of the atmosphere.

The frost is really intense. I feel it penetrate inside. I feel it biting my soul, but I have to stay here.

It is my light; the one I had lost.

I cannot lose it again.

I continue to scan the horizon, looking for the origin of the aurora, hoping to see you.

I think back on what I lost, on how much the time seemed infinite, on when the light shone everywhere. On what you were for me.

And yet, it was only a moment. A fragment now faded away.

And you're not here with me anymore. Where are you now?

The sea is getting restless and is shaking more and more. The flaming sky must have awakened it from its sleep. The waves have already washed the deck with dark, frozen water. Lys is being tossed around too much and is starting to moan in pain.

I have to hurry back inside.

See you soon.

Artist: Ilaria M., "Balìa" (2018)