A Story
That evening I settled into one of the hotels in the castle of Ulqin. The sea was right in front of me. In the depths of the water, I watched the waves murmuring lullabies of love. Their words reached all the way to my room. The moon looked like a half-lip upon the waves, sailing and swaying in an entire sea of happiness, under the pale candlelight of the stars. After an exhausting day at the book fair, my eyes were closing. Outside, the breeze of the Adriatic and the scent of iodine filled with oxygen made the body function like a perfect factory. With my eyes half closed, I watched a pine branch swaying near the window. It looked to me like a hand and a fan, waving in greeting, swaying to put me to sleep. I remembered the rustling of my hometown in Përmet and the murmur of the Vjosë along its bed, carrying the messages of the Pind mountains to the sea. But the Adriatic had more depth, more breath. I looked deep into its infinity. There it hid centuries, histories, rocking the dreams of those who had gone, but also the desires of those yet to come.
I was living between a world of dreams and reality, swaying between sleep and waking. A light knock called me back to life. I turned my attention to the door. I thought it might be a member of the hotel staff, but no. The knock was coming from the balcony. In its glass, I saw the flowing hair of a woman. I got up. I carefully opened the door. Facing the sea, facing the moon, under the pale candlelight of the stars, I saw the flowing body of a divine beauty... I was bewildered. My hands trembled from the strong emotions that started in my brain, passed through the gates of my heart, and spread throughout my entire being. I reached out my hand to touch her, and met her body. She was wearing a nightgown the color of the sunset sky, with embroidered lace like morning dawns over her chest. The gown was short, about a hand’s span above the knee; the roundness of her knees and the curve of a silken thigh stole my voice and deepened my desire to take a deep breath.
I desired something, but I hesitated. The evening breeze, with an invisible hand, rocked my desires along with the silken gown, which let out a soft rustle, like the voices of a violin when beautiful melodies of feeling are played upon it... I lost myself... I was bewildered... She placed her hand on my shoulder. A jolt woke me from my reverie.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Who are you?”
“Your dream!”
“And what do you want from me?”
“What you want too! You are always looking for me, I hear your calls, but I cannot come during the day. By day there is noise, there is movement, there is life. The night is quieter, more beautiful, more thrilling.”
“I didn’t call you!”
“No, not you, but your feelings call me often. They do not ask or take permission from logic… they have their own laws and they decide and act according to their own laws.”
“I command them too!”
She laughed, threw her arms around my neck and covered me with her silken hair. I forgot my words, and my head spun; to steady myself so I wouldn’t fall, I leaned against the doorframe.
“You see? My weight and my desire break you.”
“No, I don’t know why my head spun!”
“Where I enter, the mind departs, feelings take over, and happiness itself flows through all the rivers, the veins, that pour through the body.” She offered her fragile lips and kissed me on the mouth, leaving me with the rosy taste of her mouth. Then, she pressed my head to the center of her chest. “Here,” she told me, “hide the pearls of your desires.”
I saw a pale mole on the curve of the small globe of her left breast. Without realizing it, I kissed it.
“Kiss it, kiss it, there hides the secret of birth and the creation of life.”
I weighed her in my arms and walked across the room toward the bed. It felt as if I were holding my very dream in my hands. She was 52 or 53 kilos, bathed in moonlight, rocked by the arms of the waves and the rustle of the evening. When I set her down, the silken gown slipped and snaked down her body, gathering like a sweet memory at her feet. I had the green hills of her chest in front of me, the beautiful curve of them and of her hips, like a beautiful sunset. The lovely little moon of her navel smiled in the washed sky of her belly, which from her breathing resembled the sea, rising and falling. This sight plunged you into an endless sea of drowsiness and happiness. I slid my trembling hands over the bust of Queen Aphrodite, whom this night had brought me. I kissed her, I kissed her from her feet to her hair… she was 300 kisses tall, approximately 1.62 meters. I listened to her taking deep breaths. It seemed to me that the Adriatic itself was roaring in her chest. I kissed a small mole on her thigh, one on the curve of her bikini line, and then the pale light of a mole beneath the fragile curve of her left breast.
“Kiss them,” she said, “kiss them, because you will chase after them your whole life.”
The moon extended its beautiful eye through the curtain; it seemed to me that it smiled. I did not understand whether it was from her words or from my deep breathing. It turned pale, grew shy, and fled. It fled to notify the stars, the expanse, of my secret love, but whose book only she was reading tonight.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, “kiss me! With love and passion, just as you express in your poems for me.”
“How do you know how I express myself? Where have you read my verses?”
“I know! From the moment you publish them, they are no longer your property, but ours.”
I closed her mouth with a kiss. Then I looked deep, deep into the lights of her eyes. A full moon was shining. In their sky flew a flock of migratory birds, bringing love from warm shores. I ran my hand over her body and it felt as if all the valleys of the world were my property, all the meadows had been created for me, all the springs that flowed, babbled and spoke my name. I watched her breathing heavily and stretching out as if she wanted to reach out to catch happiness itself with her hands. I was living amidst a music that awakens desires not easily forgotten.
She placed my head near her heart and whispered:
“Listen to the beats of my heart, there hides the desire of your dreams. From here hopes take life, pour out and drown my feminine being in happiness.”
Within her chest roared the world itself… I did not understand, her world or the world that surrounds us? It seemed to me that the great world itself was passing through her fragile body, in the color and scent of jasmine petals in the days of full bloom. I kissed them, I kissed these springs endlessly, to taste their flow, their sweetness, a taste that is incomparable to any spring in the world.
She sprang to her feet.
“Where are you going?”
“It’s dawning!”
“Let it dawn, you stay here with me!” I didn’t want her to leave, I had been waiting for her for a year... I drank from her spring, but I was completely parched, as if I hadn’t drunk a single drop.
She snatched her gown and went out the door, climbed onto the balcony ledge and jumped.
“Nooooo!!!” I called her name in terror. “You’ll fall, you’ll be killed!” Then, as the silken gown opened, I saw her body fly over the trees, taking the path toward where the dawns are born.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and my mother’s sweet voice:
“Piloooo... Pilo!”
I came to my senses!
“Who fell? You called a name too?”
“A dream, it was a dream that stayed with me in the night and jumped from the balcony, I think she was killed!”
“Get up, my dear boy! Are you going to live with dreams your whole life? Come back to life, son, you’re not little anymore… you’ve been like this since you were a child, you haven’t changed at all… the world and people your age have children, and you chase, chase after dreams.”
“She was beautiful, Mom!”
“All dreams are beautiful, but you have to hold on to it when it comes, don’t let it get away. It’s good for a dream to be part of the reality where you live. When it comes next time, don’t let it get away, and if you can’t hold it alone, tell me too, we’ll talk to it and make it part of our lives…”
The sea swelled with waves and took my mother’s words, carrying them far away, but I don’t know if my escaped dream managed to hear them…
