Mrs. Carlie, The Strange Tale of

Night two thousand and twenty six. She is not here.

Every single night of my life, as usual, I go for my routine stroll… I end up at the pool area; I stop and take a very careful look all around the place. Every single night I walk and personally check every chair and every corner but I can’t find her. Every single night I crouch and crawl to the pool side and I look right into the water, there, just beyond my reflection, there where light is broken by the water ; there where all my hopes dream and rest, right there where it all happened.

The first night, or, to be more precise what I call the first night of my life, I was of course working, guarding those brand new Marriott villas. My job was not complicated; all I had to do was walk around with my little flashlight scaring cats and crows that liked garbage bags too much. 

I am a lonely man, you see? No family, only a few friends and of course Popper, my trustee companion, my dog. To be honest with you, that job suited me perfectly, I watched and cared for our customer’s dreams, I protected them from reality. Those vacations villas were an oasis amidst a crazy world of regrets and harmful thoughts, I liked my job… I was, lost.

That night changed everything  

I was walking toward the pool area; I believe you can already imagine how alive that place was at day, kids running and music playing, everyone enjoyed it so much, I, on the other hand, liked to see it at night, when everything became whispers and nothing more, shades of what had been… Water is life and there it stood, as always, tranquil, waiting for another day of fun.

As I approached the chairs at the far left side of the pool I noticed a presence, but this time it wasn’t neither a cat nor a crow, it was young woman.  There she sat, alone, looking right towards the old light house, I noticed her because every fifteen seconds her whole body would be completely covered by that soft yellow light. She was naked.

At first I doubted whether I had to come close to her and ask if she needed anything or just leave, but the truth is I couldn’t dare to move one muscle of my body, I was shocked, I was paralyzed and she… she was absolutely out of this world, her sight didn’t even bother to notice my humble presence, her ears didn’t want to hear a mere particle of the noise I made with every step.

Who was that girl?

Then it happened, she stood up, turned around and came walking slowly towards me. That, I confess, was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever lived. She came, step by step being lit by the lighthouse’s light; 

I saw frames coming to life, twenty four frames of pure impossibility.

I guess you might think, dear reader, that I actually engaged in a conversation or maybe that I asked her something, but I did not. She stood two feet away from me, enough distance to make me feel completely shy and absolutely disarmed.

“Hello, my name is Carlie” –  She said

Her eyes searched my soul in that very instant, she could see all my secrets, the absolute nature of my wildest dreams; with that look Mrs. Carlie found all the particles that make me human and understood them;  with that look she saw my heartbeats and heard my thoughts. Those yellow eyes were not normal, that is the kind of yellow you would want to get lost into.

She took one more step forward and then our bodies melted together having just that old light as witness.

Her lips found mine in a moment of total innocence and then… it happened.

The universe stopped.

My eyes were full of tears, as I said before; those were twenty four frames of absolute impossibility that turned into my dearest memory.

She was gone.

Night two thousand and twenty seven. She is not here.

Every single night of my life, as usual, I go for my routine stroll… I end up at the pool area; I stop and take a very careful look all around the place. Every single night I walk and personally check every chair and every corner but I can’t find her. Every single night I crouch and crawl to the pool side and I look right into the water, there, just beyond my reflection, there where light is broken by the water;  there where all my hopes dream and rest, right there where it all happened, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I can find her and tell her the very words she deserves. 

"Thank you".