1017, Victoria Street. That was his new address. That was the number and street name of the place where he would live from now on. In Ottawa, Ontario, the capital city of Canada. He always did what he said he would. Thus he had realized his plan of returning to his home country. The way he had been brought up was certainly rather conservative. But there was nothing conservative about leaving his family behind in Europe. And not only his family but so many opportunities.
In the years to come he would have to face a number of challenges. He was not afraid of that. He did what he was told and had no trouble in doing things that were straightforward. For as long as he remained in the professional field – a real setting – there was no problem. His curriculum vitae testified to a bright career: the path of a brilliant student where links had always prevailed between undergraduate and graduate education and beyond. He had grown and been trained to become a librarian and was clearly among the best. He had been willing to work for the federal government of Canada, and, like everything in his career, he had succeeded. His Masters in English had opened doors and been a help in adapting to his English work environment. Professionally everything was alright, but emotionally it seemed that he lacked something.
He had first seen Ottawa exactly a year before he went there to stay. He had only spent a morning there, traveling through Ontario, and that morning had been sufficient to determine his fate. He fell in love with the city. He felt so attracted to the city that his heart grew insensitive to the world around him. He would do everything he could to make his dream come true, and his dream had been to get a job in Ottawa, Ontario. That was how he conceived his future, and since he was very stubborn he would not change his mind.
Sure, his journey in Europe – if a twenty-year stay could be called a journey – had been rather disappointing, but he had learned all through those years that matters of the heart do not necessarily run smoothly. He would not believe that time can bring good things. And then, after the latest humiliating and devastating love-affair with a girl not worth mentioning here, there she was: his only true love. She appeared so gratified, with the beauty of an angel in the rising sun, her face so pale. And the words she pronounced, her reflections, everything proved that they were on an equal level: both had touched the bottom of their souls, both felt empty within a world that seemed hollow. Those were moments to be cut out of reality. Chance had led them together. Both seemed conscious of the fact that they were precious moments and yet they could not hold on to them. Perhaps it was a lack of courage – maybe the fear of sharing something they had previously both experienced alone – that overwhelmed them. Perhaps he was not yet ready to make the step.
These thoughts lead back to his years at high school. He had not spoken all that much then. He used to look at his fellows, look at his friends, used to see them smoking, having fun, cheering up… he always had the role of the silent observer. He would think about it, wonder why he could not set it right, why he was never able to act. He always hid in his shell, seeing reality as a dream. So when he truly perceived the wonder in her eyes, he could not act. He did not want to act for fear of breaking up with something that had hardly begun. He would rather stay where he could master all, where knowledge was uncovered, everything was predictable.
Then the decisive day came back to him: the day he left Europe, the day he left everything behind. His parents had taken him to the airport, sadness obviously present in his father’s stern and dry face, in the warm tears flowing down his mother’s cheeks. After several embraces he passed the gate and looked at them through the glass. He held his right hand up to wave goodbye, and there, a little away from his parents, he could see another hand waving back. There she was, his one and only true love; the girl who would have been so thankful to have him and he was about to leave her behind. Tears came to his eyes.
The plane had left on time and the passengers gradually all fell asleep. The overhead lights were low as if to stress the clear light and strange glimmer the sun cast upon the clouds. It was a fairy-tale setting, a genuine representation of what dreams may be like: to see them, to go through them, but not to be touched nor walked upon. They were present all the time, more or less visible to the human mind.
He felt sorry for the girl, and, his heart and soul filled with regret, eventually fell asleep.
He had misjudged Chance. As he did not believe in such a notion, he could not act in favor of it. But his dreams bound him to the girl who had raised her hand to wave goodbye. He would find her again and again in his dreams as if to emphasize the missed opportunity. Even if their lives were separate and different in reality, they would be bound together in a world above human understanding, in a continent unknown, resembling the setting above the clouds.
It’s a sea of thoughts
That binds two human beings in love
That binds the colds of the earth
To a continent unknown
Made up of Man’s knowledge and philosophy
Made up of our wishes and our dreams
We are all sailing subconsciously
On the great sea of thoughts
High over the oceans
Way above the mountain peaks
Where air is growing scarce
There is the sea of thoughts
It’s a sea of thoughts
That lies between two human beings in love
That lies between the colds on Earth
And a continent unknown
© 2017 Matt Oehler
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