You can not save me.
It started to rain heavily as they headed to the subway station. But it was not a light rain, cold and stubborn, as winter rain is. Instead, it was warm and sudden, like love at first sight —if I may say so— and Eric reacted as his intuition dictated: covering her with his jacket. Without realizing it, the two were kissing under that improvised umbrella, isolated from the world and walking a little awkwardly on a slippery, shiny pavement.
It is true that thousands of people crossed with them as meteorites in a wrong orbit, but these two did not really need to see them to find their way to the subway. It was the Opera station —Lliceu—, though it was not really very refined or anything like that. Actually, only a narrow staircase leading to a maze of passages populated by hundreds of other people of all types and sizes.
They waited on the platform for the train that would take them to the station where both would be finally separated, continuing their travels in different ways. Now they were very close together and correctly sitting on a bench, knowing that it would be long before they could be together again, and they did not know quite what to say or do —I guess something like the last moments of a condemned man.
However, in an moment, Eric took from his pocket a trinket that he had bought for Eva earlier that afternoon. She had shown interest in that particular piece and he bought it on the sly while Eva was still looking around the store. But something about that ring also captured his attention: a gem of the same emerald green of that of Eva's eyes, immersed in an intricate border that reminded silver wisps of smoke. She had told him how wonderful it is to smoke a water pipe and, as he had never tasted, she promised to show him —she just promised so much... In return, Eric would not smoke a hookah ever without having done it before with her. But it was a fleeting thought that crossed his mind as he took her hand and, knelt before her, he placed the ring on her finger.
People around them did not see —or pretended not to see— the scene. If they had, however, they may have suspected they were witnessing a scene that would change the lives of these two persons. Of course, after all, we are only talking about two persons, two anonymous lives... so nobody paid attention. And when the train arrived, both settled into their seats with little talk on the way. Then, in the destination station, sought a bend in a corridor protected from other meteorites, and there they parted. There was not a long farewell. Just a shy and refrained kiss and Eric asking her —as every time they would part— not to turn around her head, fearing that if she did then they could not be separated afterwards. Eva, obedient, finally walked away and, just a moment later, she was lost in a network of humid and muggy tunnels and expressionless meteorites. Her ring was on her ring finger.
No need to be an expert to predict that this romance would not survive the summer. Love is strange and sometimes seems to defy logic, but it did not that fall. Nor this winter, springs, summers, autumns and winters that followed. But one day...
...One day, Eva was angry with Marc. She was really furious about him. Marc corresponded to her attentions and caring with disdain and indifference, as often happens when we feel unconditionally loved. But she did not know or did not want to disengage from that evil drug that had become her life with Marc. After all, almost since she became a woman —just a few years ago— he had been his soulmate. A small list of infidelities —including Eric— would not deny her devotion towards Marc. Both used to cheat on each other from time to time, and was in that delicate balance of mutual insults and humiliations where both would feel safe.
This time, however, Marc was betting hard. He told her he would leave, that he would despise her because she did not respect his ideal of life, consisting of drugs, women and alcohol. Well, he did not call it exactly that way, preferring to speak of "live up his life." His project, besides nihilistic, was so little ambitious that there was not even room in it for two. She had responded to his previous threats with new infidelities, but they seemed to have no effect anymore on his man's ego. And that was hurting her the most. Sometimes, when he got drunk at dawn, he would slid on his back in the bed and penetrated without even waking her, not because he wouldn't want to disturb her, but simply because he did not bother to lavish some care. And if she noticed, she would pretend to be asleep. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of it, she loved him because Marc represented the kind of punishment she thought she deserved for some sin committed during adolescence or in some previous life. And this made him, somehow, sort of her personal redeemer.
But today, her redeemer had enough of she having instrumentalized his evil, making him —paradoxically— into something useful, but he was determined to end any hope. They argued, insulted each other and said goodbye. During the following hours, she let burn in her mind the anger and outrage that allowed her to fulfill with great firmness her promise to ignore his calls. But at dusk, she finally pushed the button that allowed Marc through the door separating them, and both were merged into a sullen embrace full of stormy foreboding. And from that day, everything went on as usual before that day, except for one thing.
"Ring."
The incoming message did not make a sound. But a little green light lit up somewhere in the phone and stayed there until Eric wearily noticed it. When he did read the contents, he looked up and before him the stars above suddenly seemed to glow more brightly. She had not written anything else, and he did not need anything else. Eva was his, and that ring was the proof of purchase. Now he was happy to a point hard to believe only until noticing the indisputable fact that she was not there. Then he reminded himself that it would be somewhere in that moment, and that thought alone calmed him. But he should set off immediately.
With no idea on her whereabouts, he began to resort to social networks. Eva kept a moderate pace of updates, but was careful not to provide information that could locate her without ambiguity. So he had to help in some social engineering skills to obtain a plausible direction. It was a poor neighborhood, out of line with the tremendous value he attributed her, in the outskirts of Madrid. But it was, after all, a place similar to where they met each other by the first time.
He requested time off from work and drove from dawn until parking the vehicle in front of the address he had scribbled on a piece of paper. And waited. Hours passed, night came, and dozed at times inside the car, frozen, but without losing sight of the address he was after. Then came the dawn. Wednesday. The sun stretched a bit and, only then, he found the courage to leave his observation post to visit the lavatory at the bar on the corner and have a good strong, steaming coffee. When settled back inside his car, someone hit the glass. It was a policeman: Some honest citizen had alerted on the presence of a suspect who appeared to loiter around the neighborhood. The questioning of the agent made him realize the ridiculousness of his situation and decided to tell him the truth. The cop examined his papers and returned them nonchalantly, without comment on the melodramatic story he had just heard, merely remind him not to park in that place without accreditation.
Eric was forced to go changing location throughout Friday, and he barely ate or rested a bit, keeping an eye on the humble apartment building entrance where she might dwell. About eight o'clock, and with the neighborhood brimming with activity, he shook his shame and decided to call one by one all the intercom to ask about Eva. Some voices gave him hope: the name sounded familiar to them; some would gave him another direction; others would just hung up; and there was even some people opening the door for him without a word. Then, he went asking by local shops. Nothing. Still, he waited until Monday morning for a miracle that did not happen. At least not as he expected.
During that long, endless, weekend, Eric gave his life a review and the scenes of his brief relation with Eva came to his mind once and again. Then he remembered something someone once told him about a triangle and the role that each person holds in each of its vertices along their life —persecutor, victim, savior— and wondered what role there would he embody being there, caged into a car with a terrible backache. As a persecutor, he would use fear; as a victim, guilt; as a savior, need. However, he could not fit his own profile clearly in none of those vertices because he loved her but didn't fear losing Eva, not merit her or not being reciprocated ... Somehow in a supernatural way, Eric knew that both would be together again. It was a strange feeling at the same time of enormous and unknown strenght, something that satisfied and frightened him.
Without realizing it, he had fallen asleep when someone hit the glass again. Startled, he discovered that it was the same policeman that on Friday ordered him to get moving. By reflecting, he pressed the engine start button hastily apologizing to remain still in the neighborhood, and prepared to leave. But the hand that had beaten the glass was indicating to lower it down. Eric did and the cop leaned over him to dictate a direction that Eric was quick to write to the same piece of paper that was placed on the passenger seat, very wrinkled already. When he wanted to thank him no one was there, only the first light of day.
He toured the city to the address, and promptly called the intercom ... But there was no response. He checked the time. The streets were filled with a dense traffic of people heading to work, to school, to their busy lives. He called on other flats. Finally, someone said to meet the girl, but she had left the house without a sign.
He returned to Barcelona dirty, beaten, sleepy, desperate and constantly repeating: "Heaven help me".
"Ring."
But Eva, Eva... Eva had spent the weekend in Barcelona with a friend, while Eric lived in a car on the streets of Madrid. Actually, Eva did not want to go to Barcelona because she did not want to remember. In his mentality, even ripening period, the things that had happened were just past, and it was not worth trying to recover them. But then there was that feeling that assailed him from time to time —a kind of warm feeling that suddenly was becoming cold and painful: memories. So she didnt't want to go to Barcelona or visit any of the places Eric took her to. She was afraid to walk on the Borne, wander through the narrow streets of the Gótic quarter or recognize that restaurant in Barceloneta for fear of encountering a past that would never return.
But Vicky's insistence eventually overcome her resistance and she granted, provided that invite was a quiet weekend —the recent events with Marc were keeping her in deep sorrow and self-absortion that she just couldn't shake. Again, she had decided to break up with him, but not even she was confident to keep her decision. So Saturday started well, calm and homely as she had asked, but when night fell,the small apartment was revolutionized with a thousand pieces of clothing, shoes, makeup and hormones. The night seemed to invite fortune. Reluctantly, Eva agreed to accompany Vicky to a trendy nightclub where, had dictated her hunting instinct, was to find the man of her life or, failing that, some idiot old man who would change a few drinks for some of her youth.
It cost them not a lot to walk through the door of the premises, although competition was fierce —despite the cold — about very short skirts and very high heels, and once inside both girls got once again fascinated by the combination of decibels, darkness, gin and sweat.
Some hours later, in the early morning subway that would return them home, while Vicky was struggling with her arcades, Eva kept raking her purse frantically. It must be there. It was just a trinket ring, but it was gone and with it a small portion of his life. However, when they arrived at the apartment, Eva decided to remove the ring from her memory and both fell asleep as soon as they laid in bed.
Shortly before noon, the ring was crossing the Atlantic by the northern route on the finger of a young American woman. After a stop in Philadelphia, the ring went to Miami, where she lived with her father. She had found it in the bathroom of a club whose name she could not remember, and judging it of little value, and after consulting with his older brother John, took it as a souvenir of her first night as an adult. Susan was a wealthy East Coast teenager, cheerful and very imaginative, so her first night in the company of the ring was dedicated to enshrine onto it Arabian homegrown stories. Some decidedly supernatural, others with the exotic taste of a silent film. And she also decided that would be her lucky ring.
But that Saturday, in fair reward for her trip to Europe, Susan decided to yield to the wishes of his father and join him on his fishing boat. At times during the long periods when the ship was being held pending a fish to sting, Susan liked to swim in the calluses looking beneath the surface, as if flying over a world of endless sand. And she carried her new lucky charm on her finger. But autumn comes even to the warm waters of the Bahamas, and Susan could not suppress a chill down more vigorously to swim, until finally climbed the ladder stern of the boat and after a last look at the aquatic world around her, she boarded with goosebumps. Her fingers, curled into the icy waters, had failed to retain the ring without noticing its new owner, and had dropped a few meters to the soft seabed. Much Susan felt her loss.
And there the ring had by company a strange procession of beings who were just as curious as you can be when you are just a living particle.
Michael pressed the buoyancy control device and permitted himself to sink a little more until feeling like flying flush the seafloor. He felt the pressure gently squeezing his body as he descended into bitter cold, but did not want to do anything there in particular except enjoy the shady environment around him. Then suddenly something caught his attention. It was glowing in the dark green of a golf submarine forests of kelp and myriads of little people coming and going in all directions. A starfish mauve was ready to cast its stomach on the object when Michael took it. He looked at it curiously between her gloved fingers through a curtain of bubbles, and decided to take hit to the surface as soon as possible. Once on board, he felt a bit disappointed to see, after thorough consideration, that it was just a trinket a lucky beam had rescued from eternal darkness. However, it was still an amazing coincidence that he would have found that object soon after being thrown into the sea. Maybe the boat from which it was released was still around, but as far as he could see, his little boat was alone in the sea.
When they reached port, the ring was placed in his pocket and jumped ashore. He revisited it in the light of the sun, incredulous, and showed it to Robyn, his wife, but she did not give it any importance because it lacked imagination and she only saw there one example of the marine goodwill pollution. So, exhausted any sense of wonder, the ring ended up in a small casket in the room of Joc —their daughter— along with other trinkets, many of them rescued from the same seabed. Then came the fall and magic Halloween, and put on a little witch outfit based black colored gauze that simulated arms laban dark trees in the dark. The ring sparkled on her ring finger. A moment later, she was already part of a child clamor seeking candy or trick, and countless candles illuminating their festive parade from inside many pumpkins lined up at every door. The sky was dark, and the night was ripe for such magic, but the candy was lean harvest. Only a handful in the bottom of the bag, and while most never come to any child's mouth, tastes had changed-she liked to feel the weight of their loot to increase with each new innocent extortion.
Seeing that they were going to go home with a sense of failure, decided to get to that house in the suburbs, much further than we ever had ventured. Especially since, to get there, had to go through a grove along a street where all the street lights were broken long ago no one bothered to repair them.
They walked along that street to the house at the end of the street, all in a compact gang, alternately giggling with unexpected silences that allowed them to hear the noises of the night around them. Already in front of the main door, and after a brief deliberation, they decided that it had to be the witch of glittering bauble ring the one to go on ahead and make sound the doorbell. And she did, without obtaining apparently reaction. She turned to her companions shrugging, but they encouraged her to try again. She pushed again, and this time it was a long press, determined, almost imperious. Perhaps for that reason, she was not surprised to see one of the front windows lit up suddenly. Then, some footsteps could be heard, the sound of bolts, and the door opened slowly.
—Trick or treat! —Cried the witch of the glittering trinket.
—Wait —and the man disappeared without leaving the door ajar.
Little Joc, satisfied, turned to her expectant companions but she could not understand their expression of amazement and horror with which everyone. And when she finally realized they were looking at something that was now behind her, hesitated to turn to see what it was. But she did it because she was a brave little witch. The shock was terrible: The creepy face of a horrible being was looking at her so close that she could feel his breath on her face. And the monster's eyes, bloodshot, were fixed on hers. As soon as she managed to overcome her initial paralysis, started to run as fast as she could, but not enough to catch up with their peers. The group crossed the dark street and only when exhaustion overcame them, they stopped to reunite, already by the safe side of the street. But the little witch was not with them.
—Have you been hurt, baby? —Said the man of the house when he got up, with all the tenderness he could muster—. Nero, ... bad dog! —He turned, scolding a bit unconvincingly a peaceful but unattractive Bulldog.
—No, no ... I'm fine ... No harm done —stammered the witch of the lost glittering trinket ring.
—Would I call your parents?
—No, I'm going!
—Hey, ... and your candy?
But the witch of the lost sparkling ring ran away without even taking the bag the man had saved, as every year, ready for them. He saw her disappearing in the dark and, bowing his head, he prepared to return. But Nero insisted on sniffing something in the grass.
—Leave it, old fool. Children are scared just to see us just —the owner told his dog—. Maybe another year.
But Nero would not give up. And in the darkness, a small object shone reflecting a lucky beam of light from the house.
—What the hell is this? Maybe she left it fallen behind—he said as he was talking it from the floor after letting Nero sniffing it a bit.
And this is how the glowing ring trinket of the little witch went into the pocket of an old writer named Albert who lived in that house at the dark end of the street. But with a lot of things on his mind to think about, the ring was in the pocket of his parka and stayed there until the old Albert put it back the next morning to go to the airport. Then crossed without difficulty X-ray controls and flew as hand luggage back to Europe again through the North Atlantic route.
The traffic in downton Paris was, as always, hell. The man arrived exhausted to the hotel and boarded eagerly his room number 12108. Only then he noticed the little stowaway who had accompanied him inadvertently. He watched it carefully before leaving it on the bedside table and switching the light off. The Eiffel tower glowed in the dark of night like a giant Parisian Christmas tree, illuminating the room and casting strange shadows on the walls. One of those light rays got reflected by the ring unexpectedly. Annoyed and irritated, Albert got up and drew the heavy curtains until the darkness arrived everywhere, including the small ring, who slept with his new owner until late next morning.
The man from the editor, a bland-looking guy named Yves, was waiting impatiently at the reception desk for half an hour, and could barely conceal his anger when he saw the guest arriving so calmed —although looking a bit desoriented— to the breakfast room. With little time for anything, he paid the bill and both rushed out towards the other side of the city where the event starring Albert had to take place. But the ring was left on the bedside table, of course.
A little later, two women named Aminata and Sujeidi parked their cleaning cart in front of the room door, and led a detailed and thorough cleaning. However, neither saw the ring because the ring did not want to be seen. Aminata could have made it, but in her mind there was only room for Anthony, a man she had just met in a chat room last night and that meant the answer to all her prayers: A father for her little one and a husband for her, capable to rescue them away from the squalor in which they had lived since her husband left her shortly after arriving in France to return to his native Mali. Regarding Sujeidi, up long before sunrise, backache left her little room for considerations others than finishing the work as early as possible to return to his tiny apartment in one of the humblest suburbs of Paris, even if that was just more work as homemaker for her large family.
The next guest on the 12 108 came a little later that day. He was a tall, lanky employee of an engineering firm called Heinz. He ran into the ring when placing his wallet on the table, he looked at it just a second and decided to leave it at the reception desk on his way out for dinner. So he put it in his pocket, but completely forgot about because things were not going well and Heinz had no time for trifles, and the ring returned to Munich the next day with him.
There, Heinz lived with his wife in a small house, about two hours from the center of the city, but appreciated his quality of life. The marriage was childless because the wife could not have them. Maybe that's why she suffered from frequent depressions and when she discovered the trinket ring in a pocket of a jacket of her husband she sat on one of the steps to the basement and began to mourn suddenly understanding the frequent trips abroad Heinz was making. However, Ann Marie always had boasted of being an intelligent woman with a career, and once ownder of a brilliant future. A future —all her friends agreed— she had ruined by marrying too young, so she kept the ring and said nothing to Heinz to determine a course of action: almost inevitably, a vengeance.
One Tuesday a few weeks later, Heinz came across a handwritten note upon arrival from his office. It was Ann Marie: She had "left the nest," she had flown away, and he should not try to find her. And one more thing: she had took "the ring" with her. But Heinz, though he tried, could not remember any ring at all. I was too shocked by the events of the day: He had just been fired despite their efforts to convince the direction in Paris, and now he discovered that his wife, perhaps weary of living with a loser, had left him. In all likelihood, she would have gone to see her mother in Italy, and had missed the Christmas lights that had just spruce Munich. And Munich is a beautiful city as it prepares for Christmas. Heinz tried to keep his composure. He found nothing in the fridge, so he walked to a kebab at the crossing roads. It was raining in torrents, but Heinz not even notice until he saw his shoes flooded in the mud.
Ann Marie, however, was not in Italy. At about the time that Heinz was clearing the snow that had accumulated on his windshield to abandon by the last time his company parking lot that afternoon, she was landing in Barcelona on board a Low Cost flight. She left her stuff at the hotel and began to wander the streets to the beach of Barceloneta. There she took off his shoes and lay down on the sand. There was a woman's name written there, half obliterated by wave action. In winter, the warm afternoon sun caressed her face gently leading her to close eyelids. It was just a few minutes, but when Ann Marie opened them again, she was startled to find that her bag and shoes were gone. And a sensation of anger and helplessness, even ridicule, overwhelmed her.
The shoes ended up abandoned on the jetty, between rocks, but the bag and its contents were carefully searched by that pair of young thieves who had just noticed on the tourist lying on the sand. A quick inspection revealed that there was, in addition to plastic, about three hundred euros in cash that they decided to spend celebrating in a big way going out to dinner at a fashionable local. But Ahmed had a little surprise: Among the things inside the tourist bag, he found a ring that he secretly withdrew without Esther noticing to offer it later at dinner. During the evening, however, both remained silent and just ate, so Ahmed chose to wait. She nodded glad when, after the dinner, Ahmed suggested going to the 12th floor vantage point. They paid with a large bill and climbed. And it was there where Ahmed gave her the ring. She smiled shyly as she watched it, but then her eyes turned with loving sternness to those of the young man.
—Not like that, Ahmed —She said, and she could see the reflection of both in surface next to them. We will return everything. I feel bad... She must be desperate.
She got up and dragged the boy with her. They both went out to the streets. But they never could return everything. Not only a 50 euro banknote stood there: the ring also saw them leaving.
At that time, Eric and Carla were walking aimlessly through a nearby street. Eric and Carla had met recently and both were part of the always large broken hearts guild. They practiced a kind of circular or cyclical therapy in which each one was patiently listening to the litany of laments from the other before recommending being strong and then starting his or her own account. In this endless conversation they would roam the streets of the Raval, discovering small venues where senses were tempted in a thousand different ways. The rules of the game, though unwritten, were carefully observed by both: they were in love, engaged, yes, but with an absent third. This absent third played the role of the great motivator of their enthusiasm for life, and it was so much like this that sometimes they would wonder whether it might be the true and only reason for the seemingly endless search of lost love.
Carla had told him several times that love is as a pitcher. If it is full to overflowing, no other loves can fit. If it is empty, or if there is something of lower density than true love, its arrival will fill it quickly and without remedy.
For that reason, they had tacitly agreed not to mention the absent third, though sometimes Eric stayed paralyzed with an eye to infinity when the absent third became too present. Then, Carla remained silent and pretended to look at something else.
Once, Carla invited him to try a water pipe to accompany tea with pine nuts, but failed to put the mouthpiece in his mouth, and he never explained his negative.
Now they had reached a bustling square.
They decided to go around the building that crowned black one side of the square, intrigued by its austere look that seemed to host inside a sophisticated space for drinks or food. They decided to give it a try, but had to overcome a couple who were rushing outside the local, and what they saw matched their expectations: a spacious and essentially solitary hall matted with design upholstered armchairs, some tables and chill-out music. But curiosity kept driving them in any direction they could not pin down and finally put them in an elevator that led to the eleventh floor. There, pushed a door and up the stairs to a lookout for whose views were not sincerely prepared: a stunningly beautiful moonrise between the slim and shiny buildings from Diagonal Mar. But that view, certainly the most spectacular from this dusk, was but a small portion of the Barcelona universe that could be glimpsed from the viewpoint that surrounded the whole building.
Carla began to practice English with a very friendly Australian tourists group while leaving Eric absorbed in the panorama spread out before them.
But something caught his attention. Something glowed in a hole. He took it in his hands and watched again and again. Curiously at first, and later with growing anxiety. It was an emerald ring with a gem embedded in a silver scrolls. The stone seemed a bit worn, but suddenly glowed with the intensity of a thousand suns, or at least it seemed to him.
—I have to go now ...—Eric appeared altered, incredibly upset.
—Now ...? Carla protested in vain, because Eric just turned towards her as he walked away, shrugging his shoulders.
And then, as he walked away, he was thinking how strange destiny is. Fate separated them and a ring reunited them. No doubt she had lost it in that tower that afternoon, and everything happens for a reason, he reminded himself.
But he could not find her no matter how though he tried, and his head turned images of his previous failure, and that made him feeling sorry for himself. But now there was a difference: the ring he wore in his pocket had surrounded a finger of the woman who gave meaning to her world. He held it tightly in his fist and returned home.
In Barcelona, streets were already decking for another Christmas. Another sad Christmas, dark, as if all the lights of the holidays could not dispel the shadows. In his apartment, Eric thought going crazy and then had an idea itself of a madman: at least he would meet her parents. He did not know thier exact address. In fact, he could only remember vaguely the town's name. So he got a ticket for Munich and once there he went to the small Bavarian town of Oberburg.
Downtown streets also appeared decked for Christmas, but reflected a more innocent and sincere joy that the great cosmopolitan city that he had just left. Just for that, just for breathing pure and frozen air, he was happy. Although there was also another reason: he believed that in this pure air he could —somehow— breathe the presence of Eva.
And, although he did not know, she had come home with her parents for Christmas. This would not be a happy Christmas: her parents were through big economic troubles that were casting doubts on te future of Eve herself, and also the life she should have to return to in Madrid was hurting her just remembering it.
But tonight was magical, special, and everyone in the family of Eva tried hard to forget any pain and enjoy company from each other. And when dinner was finished they left lit the Christmas tree and went to the village church to celebrate midnight mass.
The church was packed.
Eric had come to town shortly before, and still carrying his luggage in the car, walked to the center but when he saw a small crowd in front of the church decided to enter driven by a sudden feeling of unity. It had started to snow and the whiteness of the land in the dark and cold night gave everything an air of strange and beautiful theatricality.
Eric came in and walked absently down the aisle regardless of the parishioners who leered as what he was: an intruder. Regardless of the windows, regardless of the imposing stone walls or the watchful eye of all the saints and demons who watched him from above, he walked towards the altar.
Eva was there in the third row, second from the left. The first thing Eric saw was her left shoulder, her blonde bob pageboy, the rims of his glasses, the profile of her cheek, her lips, the gentle curve of his nose. And a flood of emotions from deep inside rose to his throat, like a torrent after the thaw. He had to stop not sure how to appear before her, with almost no air in his lungs.
Eva did not react exactly as he expected.
—What are you doing here?
But Eric did not find breath to answer because now his eyes were swimming in the infinite ocean of Eva's eyes.
"Ring."
He took the old ring trinket and laid it in a box. Then took a gold ring from another box and gently fit it on the ring finger of Eva. But she looked at him with tender disbelief and returned to lay her eyes on the humble ring. They both laughed as Eric understood: He undid the operation, returning the gold ring to its box and the trinket to Eva's finger, and then both looked at each other through a sudden curtain of hot tears, like this summer storm under they once kissed, and again they didn't know what to do or say. But it was not necessary to do or say anything.
Their fingers were interlaced covering the alliance. In the minds of both, there was only one word:
"Ring."
I can see a ring rotating in the emptiness thorugh the darkness of time, and I ask where does it go. «Something calls me —it says to me—, because we rings never move on our own will.»
The American sisters Blanca and Sierra Casady wrote this gloomy Gallows for their duo CocoRosie in 2010, and by doing so they built a gothic and bizarre soundstage where it seems to float an endless drama crossed by a flying ring.
Gallows appears here by courtesy CocoRosie.
Gallows appears here by courtesy CocoRosie.
Original Spanish title, Anillo.
