LIGHT AND SHADE by © Nina Rapi (extract)

What keeps me awake at night? The excitement and fear of the unknown. The kind of fear that’s never big enough to stop you but pushes you instead to try that bit harder. Try to catch the moment you’re always chasing, the moment when anything could happen. I’ve believed in such moments ever since I first caught one …

Maria was a modern woman, a town girl. She wore silk dresses and high heels
and had a way of swinging her behind when she walked through the village square that made all the men drop what they were doing and think of what they could be doing instead. The women on the other hand would tighten their lips, narrow their eyes and predict a catastrophe.
Me? I just wanted to touch her silky dresses. She’d let me sometimes. My mother was a dress-maker and Maria was a regular visitor at home. My mother would have trouble finding me most times as I loved roaming around the village but when Maria was around, she could get me to do anything. I would be passing pins back and forth, holding the mirror this way and that and serving them cool lemonade as if each act were a sacred ritual. I had never seen such beauty and confidence before. A group of us, girls, would hang around Maria’s house and follow her about whenever she went out. It didn’t bother her. She loved all the attention, whether it came from children or adults. So did her husband, the Village Secretary, the tallest man in the village. He was so proud of her, he’d indulge her anything.

Maria gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl. The gossip stopped with the second birth, the birth of the little girl. Maria must be a decent woman after all, the verdict went – two children in a row. All went quiet in the village for a while…

Sleeping is what you do when
you’ve learned all there is to learn
about time
about light and shade
about how things change
and I know none of that yet

Sleeping is what you do when you’re all done
And I’ve done nothing yet
That’s what’s keeping me awake...

I was seven years old and up for my usual nocturnal adventures. That night I wanted to see how darkness turned to light. I couldn’t work it out. I had to stay up and watch it happening. I had tried keeping my brother and sister awake with games and stories but by midnight they were fast asleep. I watched, full of anticipation, two bedbugs suck my sister’s cheek, hoping they’d succeed where I’d failed. She stirred but nothing more. I turned to my brother, all curled up in the corner of the double bed the three of us were sharing and pushed him a little. And then just a little more. He didn’t even stir. I gave up on them, climbed on the window sill and waited…(continues)

CHASING THE MOMENT © by Nina Rapi

It was rolling, the ball was rolling and I didn’t have to do a thing.
The air, the light, the body were fused into one.
Energy transformed into matter.
I, the lights, the people, the movements of my hands,
I couldn’t tell them apart.
I could see no eyes, no ears, no mouths.
Who needs eyes and ears and mouths when the body can speak
and see and hear everything.
The body, what body, you asked.
The body, my love, the body, I replied.
The ever-present body. The can’t-do-without-it body. The knowing body.
The searching body. Searching who, you said.
Searching everyone and everything, I replied.
Searching you, searching me, searching the…I stopped talking.

Why talk when there’s nothing that can’t be said with silence?
The silence of a heartbeat sound.
The sound of a breath breaking into glass, turning into ice.
Who wants ice when you can feel the heat of the moment, the heat of desire,
the heat of a loving whisper. Whisper?
Why whisper and miss a beat when you can shout?
Shout and be heard. Shout and be shouted back. Deafening each other.
Oh no, I want silence, what pleasure to have silence again.
Here we go, repeating ourselves. I despise repetition.
Repetition without rhythm. Repetition without meaning.
Meaning what exactly, you said.
Meaning I know nothing, I replied.
And why should I? Is there a rule against that? I don’t want to know ok?
I do want to know! I only want to know what I want to know ok?
Space, I need space. Space in my head. Space to listen to only what I want to listen. Reject the rest, without a second thought.
Is this cruel? Egotistical? Blind?
Or simply the truth?
Truth! Ha! Is there such a thing, you said.
You know what’s real today is false tomorrow.

Who are you? Do I know you? Do you know me?
Or do we just shuffle along side by side,
compulsively pushing one moment to the next, scared to keep still.
Day in day out, ghosts of ghosts, clusters of molecules moving in close proximity
to each other, pushing time forward out of necessity.
I did hear you mention the word necessity earlier, you think I don’t listen?
You think I’m not here? I’m always here, waiting for you.
I’m never anywhere but here and that’s the problem.
Major problem. This being-here business. This being-here-now business.
It hurts. I mean, the light is too bright and it hurts my eyes.
So, what’s for dinner?

© Nina Rapi 2001 & 2004 & 2007