Episode 24 | A flock of seagulls

previous episode

After so many days avoiding each other's glance, we couldn't stop staring into the other's eyes, where the magnitude of our newly discovered feelings was mirrored. We only closed our eyes near dawn, and we closed them to the new day, the final day, trying to escape into the oblivion of dreams.

I woke up startled to a whistle I had never heard before, that seemed closer to the island than the cry of the seagulls. And I had never heard those birds over our island before. I knew immediately something unusual was happening. Not having found Armand on the bed, nor anywhere in the house, I ran to the beach.

He was standing there, neatly dressed like I hadn't seen him on the island for days in a row, weirdly wearing a watch that seemed to finally invite the curse of all temporal dimensions upon our lives, a lonely figure waiting for the boat that could already be seen on the horizon, coming toward us -- toward him.

He was crying.

"Armand, mon cher ami... Would you have left without saying goodbye to me?" I was disappointed. "Armand, why do you cry?"

He tried to dry his tears brushing his face on his shirt, but they wouldn't stop streaming. "The whistle of the boat would surely have woken you, Carlo... I did not want you to see me cry... I guess I'm just tired..." He had dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't slept at all. "And I have so many battles to fight ahead of me... You know, I've been thinking... I'll have to do this over and over again... come out to as many people as I want and have to." He sighed. "And not everyone will be so ready to embrace it as you were... Merci beaucoup, mon cher Carlo." He sighed again. "You can't know the relief I'm feeling after all... No, you don't know how coming out feels like... when so many lies finally die... one feels so naked, like a newborn baby..." His whole body shook. "And since I'm not planning to tell it to my mother on her death bed... and surely not to my father after I inform him about my professional sheer... seems like you'll be the sole person to share my secret on the planet, Carlo..." He gave the saddest of smiles, wet with tears, and looked away from me, towards the approaching boat.

At his helplessness, when in opposition I was feeling newly reborn and full of hopes myself, I gasped. "You are no longer alone, mon cher Armand. Please, never forget that." I said, reassuringly, as I embraced him. I could only imagine the battles that lied ahead of him. "Whenever you feel lonely," I continued, as I held Armand tight, with all the strength of my arms, as manly as I thought he could have longed for, "please think of this beautiful island. You have your home now. And think of me here..." I was speaking next to his ear, and instead of the discomfort I had experienced the past days, I took a new pleasure in holding him close against my body. "I will be taking care of it for you. Your... brother. Waiting for your return."

"Please, don't lose sight of the dried brambles giving way to the flowers..." I guess that was the second part of my nightly love declaration, now under the sun. "Please never close your eyes to your beautiful watercolors, turning into a real garden... Because when you return, it will be there for you, mon cher Armand... I'll be the faithful gardener, but you know... the sun and the soil will be even more faithful and generous than I could ever be... Supporting you, supporting me. Uniting us on the surface of the planet."

I could picture Armand back in France, at the Château de Montbellle, with his mother on her deathbed and his almighty father displeased with my friend's decisions. "When you face difficulties, please think of how the breeze runs free on this island," and I ran my hand through his beautiful, soft golden hair, along his ponytail and down his back, "and unreservedly wanders into all rooms of the house..." As if I were the breeze, my hands wandered freely over Armand's body, too. "The house that will be illuminated from the inside, painted white as you have envisioned it..." But what was I doing, caressing Armand like that. Like he longed for, but I never thought I could? "Can you see it already?" I asked him, as I started crying myself when I heard the whistle of the boat so close, too close to the island. And the flock of seagulls was already circling over our heads.

"Thank you, mon cher Carlo... Mon amour."

"Thank you, mon cher Armand..." My body was reacting to Armand's body like I had never deemed possible. And yet, I could not let it escalate beyond a fraternal union, not even at the last moment. "Fratello mio."

Where do kisses come from? Where are they born? And why aren't they born, or born dead?

"See you..." I whispered, already only to myself, as Armand had ran towards the boat. His luggage was already being loaded.

"Please..."

"...come back..."

"...soon."

next episode