Four Strange Stones

I am at Ryan’s funeral. He was my friend for a very long time, as I remember playing hide and seek with him and other friends in the back yard of his house. Now, I am at his funeral and I see some familiar faces. It's not the first time I meet these people, but I have never talked to them before. I have seen them before in our ordinary lifestyles, but we have never exchanged proper words. We know who we are and who the other people are, but our meetings have always been reduced to simple signs with one’s head and an exchange of gazes, never words.

That man is one of those people I have met through some days of my life. He looks intriguing in his baggy dark clothes, with that skin brightening against the jacket and sending its own reflects on the grass below his feet. This man of incredibly long legs and arms stands in front of me, and momentarily lifts his head to look up at me. I sometimes catch him staring at me, but he never looks away. I am always the one who feels frightened by his glance. I tend to back away from him a lot.

I recognise him as one of the people who live in the building next to where I live. He is one of the faces I see repeatedly at the door, and I know his name is Gerard. Gerard, my slight neighbour, stares a lot at me with those wide orbs of countless secrets. I have never really dived into them, as he wears an intense look on his face all the time, but I know that he enjoys looking at me. I don’t know why, but I find him searching for my gaze... too many times. I tend to back away from him a lot, though.

Today, at this funeral, I know he was friends with Ryan too. Apparently they knew each other for a couple of years, though Ryan never mentioned his presence in his life. I don’t care about that. That man is here today, and again he looks at me. Our eyes cross yet another time today, but the touch feels a little different. There are definitely some shared feelings in them, as we are both grieving for Ryan. Gerard once more gesticulates toward me with his head, a cordial movement signalling my mirrored feelings now, but I don’t answer him in any way. I simply stay here, looking at some place lost in the horizon, trying to figure out why Gerard searches so intensively in my eyes.

In the small get-together that Ryan’s family gave after the proper ceremonial, I find myself being confronted with a closer look. Gerard came to me. That man is standing and staring at me only a few inches away from my face. I tend to back away from him again, but I can’t do it for a long time. Gerard came to me. This man is in front of me, I have to be as cordial as he is to me all the time. I just quit looking through the window, and I find those piercing eyes in my eyesight.

Once more, I feel that there are some shared feelings here, as we exchange another of his favourite points: a gaze. His is as addictive as I have never thought, since I have never looked directly at him like he does to me all the times we meet. His eyes show me the interest of someone who stares at me intently for a long time, but also the pain of someone who has just lost a friend. There, the mirrored feelings. They connected me to this man, but I still tend to back away from him. I can’t stand that strength, it’s too much for my shorter self.

“I never got to say goodbye to Ryan…” Gerard speaks out of nothing. He stops staring at me, and is now looking through the window I have looked through before, as if searching for a new shade of Ryan that had just left me, him, us.

“I never got to tell him how much he was important to me…” I answer, trying to keep myself focused on making that conversation worth whatever efforts we are trying to put into it.

“You can still tell him…” he answers in his low-toned voice, returning his face to stare deeply at me. I notice that he’s pointing to the window, as if telling me to shout at the wind in hope that Ryan would listen to me from wherever he is now. I try to smile at the idea, the thought of being listened to after so many years of dedication to a great friend as Ryan.

“It feels awkward that good people leave us so soon”, I sigh onto the window, making some of my breath spread over the cold glass. I feel my eyes trembling while I gaze across the exterior landscape.

“You can cry…” He simply tells me. I look at him again. I need to look at him. Yes, I can cry, especially after meeting his also aching gaze and finding a mirror of my heart. Is this supposed to happen with this man? I could let my head nuzzle on his shoulder and let his black jacket that suits him perfectly, now I notice, welcome the tears I am able to expel from my insides. Yet I don’t. I look at him again. I need to look at him again, but I don’t know this man. I tend to back away from him once more.

*

Three months after, I could never tell that a funeral could be so significant for two people, but it was a fact that death and loss were a constant factor in my life… and in Gerard’s life, as in everybody’s life. I also learned that people paint some places and some moments as they wish, to make them ideal for their intentions.

I worked at a music store at that moment, I still do indeed, and I play guitar in a small band, but frustration walked me home every day. I always took my steps back to my house with a frown upon my features. Gerard would always meet that expression whenever we met at the front door of our neighboured apartments, as if he was waiting for me. It happened every day. I came home with a frown upon my face and the same pair of eyes were staring at me, the same intensity in them scratching my skin. It happened as if it was some ritual he needed to feel complete and alive, but I grew in time to enjoy that surveillance. It was some sort of a drug that I couldn’t deny or avoid.

The picture was always the same: Gerard would be sitting at the doorstep, smoking and waiting with his face very close to himself and the world. As soon as I stepped on the sidewalk, a slight smile would rip his tedium face in two radiant halves. The first time, we never talked. His gaze was still too much for me to take. We had talked at the funeral, but even though he had created this rite for us at our doorways, we never talked again. He just sat there and watched; I really felt his eyes undressing me, but not from clothes: from my silence.

That was why I started to be cordial to him and mutter some “Hello’s” at him. He would never answer though. Gerard just sat there with his sharp gaze catching me every time I came back home, either from work or band rehearsal. When I entered the lobby that would lead me to my apartment, I could feel him smile wider towards my retreating back, as if he was proud of having met my eyes once more, but still ashamed of admitting it.

Gerard one day was brave enough to talk to me again. He didn’t answer my “Hello” that day, though. He is an artist, but I didn’t find that out until the moment he talked to me at our doorstep. Three months after the first trial, his affable words spoke directly to me again. He didn’t use the tricky games that spoken language has, though. He drew his message on his arm. Almost like a tattoo, Gerard had a sketch of myself on his left arm and a subtitle reading, “Wanna talk?”. I melted at the embrace of his gesture. He was smiling and staring at me. Still staring at me.

After daily visits and slightly exchanges of looks at our doorstep, during which we had somehow felt that the world could only make sense within our silence, we finally knew that we understood each other. It was as if we had some sort of magical element inside of us which allowed us to support and comprehend one another in all the right moments – the first proof was back at Ryan’s funeral. Gerard knew how to glance at me if I looked happy. Gerard knew exactly how to act if I reacted well to his presence. Gerard knew how to smile if I was frowning. And the result was always the same: a sign of our heads and a slight smile that told me more than I wanted to know, actually.

That first time we talked, both thankful to Gerard’s creativity, we sat at the sidewalk by our doorway, smoking and introducing ourselves properly as if we had just met in a causal moment, as two teenagers in their first time at a nightclub. I remember that day very well, and I know that Gerard remembers it too, and the weeks that followed it, as we always met on that same spot at the same hour every day, only to reflect on our busy day at work or hobbies. We had some other rituals together: we visited Ryan’s grave once each week, where we sat a little more and confessed our qualities and flaws to one another.

On one of those visits, we touched for the first time. Or better, Gerard brushed his fingers across my hand, just a little bit, as if trying to know if I would understand his meanings. As if trying to see if I would lean in to the touch or take my hand away. However, I noticed that Gerard did everything to look like he hadn’t meant it, and that the touch was innocently caused by Nature and our sitting positions. I don’t know if I surprised him as much as I surprised myself, but I searched for his hand and I didn’t hide it behind anything. I grabbed his hand softly and placed its back on one of my palms, running then one fingertip on the palm of his stretched hand.

I knew what that simple touch meant, as I started to feel protected by Gerard’s figure at my front door, as a bodyguard that we all need but no one ever likes to admit such fact.

Gerard, however, was an artist and his life was as wicked and twisted as the mix of colours on his creations. I’ve learned the hardest way that sometimes, inspiration takes him to unexpected places, and that was why he had to go to the West Coast of the huge country we lived in. Our close paths would follow now completely different directions, but we knew we would never forget each other: the smiles, the doorstep, the ritual visits to the grave.

After one month of being in that far away city, Gerard wrote me his first letter and it clearly became a usual thing for the both of us. We could exchange e-mails, but it was too modern for the odd and simple bond we shared. There was a necessity to use our own hands to communicate, writing letters. I felt that I could feel Gerard’s hands through the distance that separated our ways. When I read his letters, it was like I could feel the touch of Gerard’s pen, jotting down the words and sometimes whispering them to the lonely surrounding walls.

Actually, I dreamt about that, that soft touch of one finger and one palm that brushed lightly but caused deep shivers of a hungry and cavernous touch and feeling. Those weren’t, though, usual things on Gerard: that man owned only the lightness of a human being that dedicated his soul to Art because of a gift or a continuous apprenticeship, always truthfully loved and constant.

One year passed by and we didn’t share too many letters; the first two months we did, as the letters were nearly daily. I dedicated myself to responding him as soon as I got the envelop at home. However, little by little, our conversation became casual and less usual, especially from Gerard. I didn’t know why, but the letters didn’t come as often as I expected them. They were also shorter every time they got into my mailbox, as if Gerard had lost his will of writing to me and telling me what he felt and thought.

I shielded myself in our friend’s grave, remembering my own regret back in that funeral. I remembered that I should tell Gerard what I truly felt for him, tell Gerard that I wanted and needed him by my side every day, that it wasn’t proper love yet but an urge to be with him, talk to him, touch him lightly once more. It was fabulous how Gerard understood me already and how he always knew the way I felt, only by looking directly at me. Gerard always knew how to respond to my sentimental need, clearly excavating through my skin and reading my soul, but he had suddenly given up on writing back.

When I made the tough decision of telling Gerard how I felt, I had no letter to answer to, and so the words kept closed in my mind and heart. I was nervous about telling Gerard my true feelings, but it was enough for me to think about something else, like my work or my band, and Gerard would already have given up on whatever we had together. It hurt too much thinking like that and even the notes I played on my guitar cried Gerard’s name underneath my touch. It wasn’t true tears, but the weight of missing him. It had been only one year after Gerard left the city where we had once lived together…

I am, then, left hopeless about whatever I thought for myself by Gerard’s side. One more month took care of my life, and I celebrated alone one year without Gerard, without his protection, his trust, his fidelity, his confessions. I celebrated alone my solitude and even that I went for work and band rehearsal and tried to forget about Gerard for some moments in my life, I just needed to get back home and the world would seem all crashed down. Gerard wasn’t there anymore…

I even spent some nights at that same doorstep, without sleeping, either sitting where Gerard had waited for me so many times in the past, or standing at the other door, trying to figure out which apartment belonged to the man that had left me one year before, leaving me with some hope, yet with pain and an endlessly unfulfilled need of having Gerard staring at me intensely again.

One of those nights, I gave up on waiting for Gerard and went home, to lay down on my bed and get some sleep. No tears claimed their presence, but my dreams were inhabited with thoughts of Gerard and the day we had touched for the first and only time. I wanted more from that man, but now he was gone for no matter how long.

Time passed by and the past already tasted like lies to me, as if Gerard had been only a ghost hovering over my life to make me see that I was a man, sensitive to details as grief and ache, and once more the penitence of never having expressed my feelings on time.

Time passed by again and the past already tasted like lies to me, and one day, when I was returning home as usual, what I most wanted somehow happened: the old Gerard was back to my doorstep! I tried to ignore it because I thought it was just a vision that my needing mind had created for me, playing tricks with my eyes to make me think that everything was fine between the two of us. But Gerard got up from his sitting position and I saw him smile differently, as if he could break at any minute, and I knew that it was no vision. Gerard was there, on my doorstep. I wanted to hug him as it happens in all chick flick movies, but I thought in something better and tastier than that. I slowly reached for Gerard’s hand.

When my fingertips came across the even silkier, milk-tanned skin, the time and the world did not stop. The world kept its rotation, but at a fast speed, moving forward crazily, as time rushed ten years into the future. A future of union and commitment, after I had admitted to Gerard how much I had missed him, when I found him at my doorstep for the first time in one year. After Gerard had admitted to me why he hadn’t sent any more letters: he knew that his feelings were too profound to be felt and lived in such conditions. He had tried to ignore such things running inside his chest, but we couldn’t be away from each other, Gerard said, because he wanted to enjoy those feelings properly. He told me he had been sore, when he had been away from me, and coming back was the wisest and most wanted decision.

So, with only one touch, we moved forward in time, ten years into the future, never forgetting the traditions we had created before. Gerard still waited at our doorstep for me to come home, even after we moved in together to an unfamiliar place. Gerard still took me to Ryan’s grave, the one that had brought us together for real. In this case, fate hadn’t had any important role and we couldn’t be more thankful to our friend for living a life full of joy and friends – that was the real reason for us to be happy together.

*

I am at Ryan’s grave. And again he looks at me.

“Gerard, you ever think about what could have happened to us if you hadn’t gone to the West Coast?” I ask him with my tongue stirring against my lips to form the words. “Do you think we would ever admit to each other that what we felt was love?”

“Frankie…” He simply whispers. I lean in to his embrace a little more, as his arm is resting on my shoulders. “I don’t know, or care. We had some harsh times when we were away, but now we are together. I remember at least one sentence from each one of your letters. They all meant the Universe to me, as I kept sinking in my deepest feelings for you. You were in my mind all that time, and when I sat down to paint something, all I could sketch was you and your eyes, your round face, your shaking skin. It was unbearable.”

“I think a lot about us…” I confess, as we have already been doing on every time we weekly walk to Ryan’s grave. We don’t mourn anymore, though he’s still in our minds; we just honour his long gone existence, since he died in pain but left us a path of light. “I think about the future.”

“Me too, Frank”, Gerard spaces out for a bit. I want to be inside his mind to try and find whatever he is thinking about, as we approach our steps from the grave that had united us ten years ago. “How short do ten years seem now?”

Gerard’s question makes full sense to me. We have been together for almost nine years now, but time has run in front of us. I don’t regret it though, and I feel in his gaze that he doesn’t regret it either. Gerard stops his steps and turns around to stare at me. His ancient habit of just standing there and looking at me. Today I do not tend to back away from him, as his eyes mean my love for him. Today I look back at him as I smile.

I remember all good things we shared. I remember when he simply waited for me at my doorstep, to just stare deep into my face one more time. I rarely let him meet my eyes back then, but now I never get tired of sharing with him my thoughts and feelings through my gaze. I no longer tend to back away from him; I prefer to seek for him a lot now. I want his gaze locked with mine. I need his eyes crossed with mine and he grants me full access to his plenitude.

Two smiles and one short kiss after, Gerard brushes my right hand with four of his fingers and I know what he wants. I stare at him profoundly, I peck his nose lovingly and I take his hand on mine.

Gerard leads me to Ryan’s grave, as we have already done that trail countless times in the past ten years. I have my intent look on our hands, but I feel the urge of looking at Ryan. He is not there now, it’s just a symbol, but I know that he will see me seeking for him and I think he is proud of his two friends who got together.

So I look at the grave and something different lies in there. There’s not only the squared form with Ryan’s name, birth and death date. There are four more stones. I wonder what those are doing there. I look at Gerard’s face and he is looking at them as fiercely as I am, but his eyes shine differently. His orbs shine of contentment, and I don’t know what to ask him or expect from him.

He says nothing. He grips my hand a little more stoutly and stops us in front of Ryan’s grave. In front of the four stones. He smiles and stares at me again. I do not tend to back away from him.

“Don’t look at me, Frank…” Gerard tells me and I don’t know how to interpret his words. I stare at him quietly and he beckons me out of his sight. He silently tells me to look down – where the strange four stones lay.

Will
You
Marry
Me?

Four strange stones for four magical words. They were sculped in such pieces of nature with precision. They looked like Gerard's kind of work, so I'm sure they were sculped with love.I open my eyes in surprise and I need to look at him again.