Inhuman eyes

Noah sat on the edge of the bed, his broad back slightly bent, in a pose so rigid and dignified that he seemed motionless, but so motionless, to the point that I wondered if he was breathing. I took a breath, realizing that, while looking at him, I was the one who forgot to breathe.

"Do you think they are right, Zelda?" he spoke, without turning to me.

"Do you, too, think I am dead?"

My heart was squeezing in pain, unable to bear see him like that any longer.

"I am sorry." I whispered.

"For what?" He said, as a matter of fact tone.

"For what you are sorry, since you are the victim here."

I then decided to approach cautiously and, sitting next to that statue, I placed a hand on his knee.

The alabaster face was half-covered by those black hair a little too long on his forehead but, behind that curtain, I could feel a bustle of thoughts and fears shaking from the proscenium to the grating, from the broken to the fore.

The pale hand rose in the air faintly, similar to the gesture of the conductor who would urge to empty the stage before the first note moved forward, and touched my fingers almost as if to ask them permission.

For a fraction of a second I felt a shiver at that cold contact, so much so that I looked at him, heartfelt, wondering if I should not close the window.

He sensed my intentions and rushed to bring my hand to his lips, trying to reassure me with his eyes, or perhaps to communicate the resignation and disappointment that closing the window would not take away the cold that gnawed his bones.

Like a metal pincer, Noah's fingers pushed mine to grab his jaw and in a slow outburst, like a desire to be possessed if not the spasmodic need to belong to someone, my hand closed on his neck.

"If indeed you think you called me back from the eternal rest, my wife" he said like singing a sinister melody "Perhaps you have every right to kill me again. Do you agree?"

Smoothly and slowly, he lay down his back on the bed, making sure I followed his movement, holding my grip tightly to his throat.

In the action, the blackish vines on his face opened a little, and between them two cold and lascivious eyes appeared staring at me, the eyelids at half mast.

He opened his lips slightly in a sarcastic expression that I immediately recognized as a provocation for the fact that I had desired him beyond all limits and to have him now, there in front, in a pose that offered himself totally to me but as wondering what I was waiting for.

"I do not, Noah" I answered, lost in the tempting sight in front of me "I do not agree, for your life do not belong to me."

"Really? Am I not yours?" He answered in a sarcastic tone.

The long and muscular body stretched on the bed and, for a moment, despite my hand clenched to his throat, I felt surrounded by a python lying down to take the measurements of the prey before eating it.

A grotesque thought passed through me. Images of the undeads returning from the tomb surfaced from films or books, green and rotten skin or with all the attributes that the most reckless fantasy dared to formulate.

This creature crawling at my feet was nothing of the sort, but for a moment I questioned myself if it was not his soul that was rotting.

As he perceived my questions, his gaze suddenly transformed and began to yearn for love, almost begging me.

The reptilian siege was passionate, and yet I felt that this passion, though he himself felt it, was, somehow, extraneous to him, as if it had been a too human feeling that he no longer recognized.

In his eyes now passed the embarrassment of beeing exposed. Mine, on the other hand, walked every inch of his marble, white and cold body and recognized the indolence of an animal that decided to eat without feeling it or needing it.

Is it really that hard to let go?

Is it really so absurd to break away from what we have held too tight?