Friday 2 March 2018

Such Possible Love


© Denis Fitzpatrick, 2015

“When I’ve said a thing, if it’s to myself only, it’s hard for me to go back.” George Eliot, Adam Bede.

How it was that Roland Garcia Marquez was able to awake every morning promptly at 3 am, according to his strong desire, he was never able to figure out. Mind you he never spent too long in questioning this ability but set about the morning’s business straight away. He lit the candle on his bedside table, moved the candle onto the small shrine next to this table, and then knelt in front of the shrine, devoid of all ornament, whispering invocations to the ether, his hands clasped in front of him. He was praying to everyone and to no-one in particular, spontaneously asking the Fates to in any way bring his Rosa Fernando Flores back, whom had left him when she saw him kiss another woman fully and passionately on the lips. She left suddenly, leaving only a note, and Roland did not get a chance to tell her that the woman was his first girlfriend and that the kiss was the result of a deep feeling of friendship for her, whom had made him a real man. Rosa had also left her share house and Roland was never able to find her again. Leaving him with only this crazy ritual, praying to anyone or anything to bring back his Rosa, his One True Love, the woman that revelled in Roland’s manliness.
    Three years of steadfast, regular praying to the elements was now quite possibly paying off, for Roland could suddenly now viscerally feel with all of his senses another presence within his mind, making a counterpoint to his whispered begging of the Universe. And that whispered counterpoint felt like a woman, specifically Rosa, smiling while she responded to his random prayers. Such a presence was impossible though, realised Roland, and while still begging the Universe to bring his Rosa back he subconsciously discounted the strong telepathic feeling as the result of not enough sleep. These early morning rituals were obviously catching up with him. But he continued nonetheless, his despairing prayers seeming to be the only hope for him.
    When his hour’s long vigil had ended, and that sultry, Latino voice of hers remained deep within his mind mirroring his thoughts, Roland’s fiery desire for her grew even brighter and he decided that there simply must be a way for him to find her without the unaffordable expense of hiring of private detective.
    ‘Try the phone,’ blurrily said that voice. In response Roland had an epiphany: if he could list every possible Aus mobile number and call them he was bound to find her. Seeing as how the first four digits of the mobile numbers were set and very limited the rest were just combinations of the numerals zero through nine. He simply had to do an online search for all of the possible Aus starting mobile numbers. He also needed time to make the thousands upon thousands of calls but that should be easy enough. Thus after showering and breakfasting he began to list every possible mobile number and that done several hours later he realised he could reasonably do the job in a year.
    ‘Rosa, darling, here I come!’ Then he made the first call on the list.

*

Roland was just as surprised as anyone when eight months, one week and five days into his dialling of every possible mobile number Rosa picked up the phone.
    ‘Hello, Roland,’ she said. Roland was speechless. ‘Yes, it’s me Rolando, I’ve been with your voice in my head for the past eight months and so knew it was you calling. Your voice has reminded me of the sweetness we had, of that love I’ve never been able to find again. But why did you cheat on me, Roland? Why?’
    ‘That was Catherine, my first girlfriend. I only kissed her that once and that to thank her for making a real man of me, no longer scared and petrified when a beautiful woman smiled at me.’ Roland took it matter-of-factly that Rosa had been listening to his thoughts, or at least claimed to be. Well, she must have been able to, how else could she know that it was him calling, especially since he had changed his mobile number a few times since they’d broken up.
    ‘Have you been able to hear my thoughts too, Rolando, as I’ve heard yours?’
    ‘Yes, but it’s always been just above a whisper, and I’ve been only able to talk with you sometimes. You recently read David Copperfield, didn’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I heard you read the whole thing, your voice inside announcing the words.’
    ‘Wouldn’t it be really wonderful if we could develop this telepathy?’
    ‘Yes, it would, Rosa, but if we were to tell anyone they would think we were both crazy. No-one would believe us no matter how we proved it.’
    ‘We have to tell people, Rolando. We could be millionaires many, many times over. We would have beautiful children who would have beautiful lives.’
    ‘Telepathy doesn’t exist, Rosa dear.’
    ‘Our telepathy exists and we should be able to show it. And if we have children they would probably be telepathic too. We could start a whole new type of person, people who can exist on just thoughts.’
    ‘Telepathy doesn’t exist, Rosa. They’d just lock us up.’
    ‘What if we went public anonymously? We could safely make our millions and no-one would be able to call us mutants, or crazy, or frauds.’ Rosa had made a good point: they could indeed safely make millions from their random ability, and maybe start a new era of humanity, heralding the greatest golden age so far.
    ‘I think you’re right,’ decided Roland, ‘we could really anonymously prove our telepathy. But we’ll have to get together. Are you still in Sydney?’
    ‘Melbourne, in Carlton. I have a very well-paying marketing job here but my bosses are real monsters and I was thinking of quitting at the end of this week. But for you Rolando I’ll quit today and I’ll see you tomorrow. Where in Sydney are you?’
    ‘Balmain, the only sales rep in this artsy town. I have a flat here that takes up most of my pay but it was the only real place available. We still have a housing shortage in Sydney and the rents are ridiculous.’
    ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Rolando darling, and together we’ll make a new world.’
    ‘I’ll message you my address.’ And with a few more love smitten words each they agreed to meet tomorrow evening after Roland had finished work and to immediately begin plans for ‘a new world.’ Both of them were tremendously excited.

*

Roland and Rosa didn’t end up planning the revelation of their abilities the next evening but instead spent the night at Roland’s flat, getting to know each other again over a bottle and a half of Shiraz. They each liked what they found and well into the wee hours made their way to Roland’s queen size bed. They made love until almost dawn and slept until noon. Roland could afford to sleep in as he was now on holidays, to celebrate his One True Love’s return. He was not due back at his sales office for another four weeks. Rosa, though, was officially unemployed and her savings would last only a month. The sooner they began preparing for their inevitable millions the better. Accordingly, once the table had been cleared after breakfast, they set to planning their momentous revelation.
    They began by confirming that they could in fact read each other’s thoughts, also briefly noting that their ‘reception’ was better the further apart they were. They then planned out a one hour show to highlight their abilities and spent the next two weeks in improving the quality and quantity of their reception. At the end of the two weeks they were even starting to read others’ thoughts, Rosa twice becoming embroiled in a telepathic conversation with two complete strangers. Things were looking good.
    Before they could begin their shows proper, however, they decided to do a bit of market research. Roland invited five of his friends over, for what Roland termed a ‘unique, never before experienced illusionist show.’ Since Rosa’s ability was the better of the two she would do all the mind-reading, wearing a mask to preserve her anonymity, and Roland would be her assistant. He told his friends that the mysterious woman had approached him out of the blue, asking for his help in dealing with her traumatic ability recently acquired. Apparently this woman had unsuccessfully asked a few people and Roland, he told his friends, was eager to help such a damsel in distress once she had indeed proved her strange ability.
    Their first show was a disaster. Rosa’s ability was uncanny and accurate, to the point where one of the audience had a massive heart attack, falling from his chair with his right hand clutching his chest. When the inert body hit the floor, almost at exactly the same time, another of the audience had a very serious asthma attack. His puffer was only of use in getting him to the hospital for serious treatment. The other three members of the audience, though not as badly upset, left Roland’s flat feeling very, very paranoid, as if all of their motives were open to the world.
    They both had to attend Balmain police station, after the body had been taken away, where they had to explain one sudden death and very nearly another one. The police weren’t entirely convinced until Rosa proved their telepathy to them. After that the police felt that they would really rather not know these two genetic aberrations.
    ‘Well, obviously now,’ said Rosa as soon as they were back at his flat and Roland had poured a Shiraz each for them, ‘we can never show anyone what we can do. No-one is ready.’
    ‘Yes. But if you like the telepathy we’ve taught each other as much as I do we have to go on using it.’
    ‘I love the telepathy, Rolando, having you so deep inside me, vibrating with my core. No, Rolando dear, we cannot live without the mind-reading but we also can’t live with it.’
    ‘We can live with it if we keep it as our secret. We just continue not showing anyone but keep it all for ourselves. We keep this bottomless love forever.’
    ‘I agree,’ replied Rosa, after a brief consideration.
    It was after these last words that Roland and Rosa largely stopped talking with each other, expressing and developing their telepathy instead. It was very much like a drug to each of them, a drug that got stronger and stronger each time they used it, instead of getting weaker like with other drugs. It didn’t take either of them long to confirm that their ability was indeed stronger if they were apart from each other, when they had measured it as best they could. Thus, for their own well-being, and for their own love they decided to travel apart from each other, whilst at the same time growing closer, easily able, about three months later, almost at the extremities each of New South Wales, to instinctively tap into other human minds about them. The minds of the lower animals were just the soughing of the wind, rising and falling.
    It is now Mayday, 2015, and Rosa has just told Roland that she is pregnant. Rosa first felt this reliant presence within her last night, dreaming of her foetal daughter, and awaking to a bubbling conversation with this daughter inside of her. Roland is of course ecstatic but both know they are not willing to give up their telepathy in order to get together and raise their child, thus reducing their telepathic ‘reception.’ It was Roland who first suggested they raise her, Gabriella, telepathically. Rosa had no objection and assures him that her daughter very much wants to explore her ability, every instant becoming clearer in her thoughts that she wants to talk without speaking. Well, Rosa qualified, that’s the impression that she gets.
    Roland soon started talking of moving overseas, the distance aiding in telepathically raising their daughter. He had not been able to touch her blossoming mind yet but Rosa assured him that their daughter had touched his mind, telling her mother that ‘Dada strong fun fun.’ Rosa translated this as ‘Daddy is strong and lots of fun.’
     And that was how Rolando modelled his fatherhood, always in contact with a perfect daughter that he never expects to see.

~~~~

If you have been enjoying Fitzpatrick's stories here you may also enjoy his short story collections, and other books, available online as both Kindle books and paperbacks (go to http://amzn.to/1NfodtN). Other ebook and paperback options are available at  http://bit.ly/1UsyvKD Fitzpatrick is also having a collection of short stories, Aberrant Selected, published by Waldorf Publishing in 2018. You can follow its journey at www.aberrantselected.blogspot.com