Scales

As these thoughts passed through me, his desperate arms squeezed me, and begged me to dive into that tub of cold water.

It seemed like he was desperate to feel alive, or worse, that he wanted to convince me that he was.

His white teeth were clenched in a plea, to believe him and not the rest of the world, to believe that he was alive, to understand that it was the others who died without noticing, unconscious empty envelopes that wandered around the world sucking and plundering.

"My little Zelda ... so beautiful. So... alive."

Although his voice was sincere, for the first time I thought he was lying.

What if, really, with my love and my fierce belief that I couldn't lose him, I called him back against the natural course of things? What sort of half a life did I condemn him to?

And what was it now, that creature under me, staring at me with two eyes so black that it was almost impossible to see his pupils.

A creature that seemed on one side to ask me to strangle him and, on the other,

beg me to let him enjoy this absurd kind of immortality that I had unwittingly made plausible?

A strange hypothesis took shape: put it back where I got it? But with what face, when with the vehemence of Hercules I had snatched it from the Fates, I myself arrogate the right to cut the third thread, of Atropus' competence, the inexorable; bring it back where I had stolen it and start to argue with the three old scurvy, with blood on my hands?

Blood... would blood really come out of this body? My eyes flew over his neck, as if looking for a vein, a beat, a ticking, a pulsating, almost imperceptible up and down a flap of skin, anything that could give me a signal about the biological state of this strange lover.

Or maybe keep it that way. But... Wouldn't it mean, then, condemning it to an eternity of solitude, lonely among all the loneliness?

I would be dead, the people around him, who had loved and known him, would grow old and dead, and he would always be there, hanging in that hole trying to get air.

While I was investigating these hypotheses that always seemed unreal to me, I realized that the black eyes were now aimed at following the lines of my body, but I could not explain the discomfort, the strangeness that made me feel.

They looked like eyes no longer able to dream. Non-human eyes. Almost parietal eyes. Eyes aimed at looking at something that I could not see.

My hand to his neck now tightened stronger, and he misunderstood the urgency of my gesture, releasing a hoarse, deep sigh.

"Zelda... Don't resist to this, Zelda..."

Suddenly I was afraid. How could I, with my little hand, forcing that wall? As coming to my senses, I realized how ridiculous my position was. It was a mockery. A masquerade. I had followed his curiosity to see if the thought of killing him had crossed my mind.

"Noah. I think we should consider that is not working the way we would want it to. Can you please let go for a moment? I don't feel at ease."

Conditioned by these negative feelings, I could no longer read tenderness on his face, but only a mocking expression, which made me think of the snake that played enough with the mouse and is preparing to swallow it whole.

"Zelda..." he whispered hoarsely, one more time. "Zelda, we may enjoy this, don't you think? Come over. It will be a pleasurable pain, I promise."

Where was the man I had loved?

Where was his soul?

Before me, there was nothing of him but the scales.