EPISODE I
“When you come across the gaze of the lady you have always been waiting for, the threshold of bliss is disclosed. At that point do not give out, resist, as from then onwards the best is yet to come".
Capitulation: A deal that contains clauses referring to the surrender of arms, territories or other unspecified.
Cali, Colombia, November 29th 2017
- I´ve come home –mouthed out to the mirror of the gentlemen´s restroom at Cali Airport, one of the passengers of the one hour-scheduled flight to Bogotá-. Though he had the sensation of simultaneously being freed from a toilsome mission.
As he considered having no license to explore what lay behind the door (either a consent or permission from the other side was required), it could also be said that his mission was already accomplished. The ex-missionary drove completely crazy, self-talk flooded in immediately thereafter: “How to relax, me, an uncivilized frantic individual –consecrated years after years to a higher purpose- who finds out that time credits countdown suddenly rest stopped?” This critical thought was hosted by his altered psyche, over flooded by lucid dreams. His mind worked like a bleeding volcano. Neither disgusted nor comforted to have met the requirements to speed up his retirement, he converted in the beneficiary of an amount due that, it was clear to him, no one would ever assume.
The traveller stood right in front of the sink, searching out the mirror´s confirmation as to whether the experience he had just faced would have not been a trap of his imagination. However, what he called an experience did not exceed fifteen fulminant cross of glances between him and a lady that, according to his calculations, was living in her early twenties. Resigned to Colombian women avoiding his gaze by force of an inherited modesty, the 50-years-old Argentinian was about to board flight 4052 of Latam airline, the same as the young lady´s. While acknowledging his vulnerability, ready about throwing the towel in, the teenager to whose beauty he failed to resist performed an open heart surgery on him. The first cross of glances lingered on by means of a mutual bifocal sustain, crouching behind a lapse in which stateless flags rose high up to the roof of the sky. The middle-aged man regarded this so-called visual exchange an access to a world of disproportioned dimensions, hence an unimpaired situation was unveiled at the airport. Neither she nor he was mindful of the time spent on this interregnum. Nothing mattered though. To Valentina, what it took place was business as usual, an abuse of power on her side. Therefore, without saying a word, she acquitted this stranger that dared enter her botanic garden. She had been trained to stare in such a charming way so to spread enthusiasms that sooner or later would turn into unforced capitulations. The legal motto: “Abusus non tollit usum” –alleged Valentina- was applicable to this case, since the harm abuse may cause does not remove the fact of being good in itself. Whoever evaluate her pictures, people that accidentally set their eyes upon her face and pay attention to the body language she unconsciously sways, they would soon notice that her ability to enchant through those black eyes supported by even blacker eyebrows, was innate and learnt at the same time: she captivated since the end of elementary school, when her look began to gain rigour, followers and fame; with the advent of adolescence she added the necessary dosage of forcefulness so to despoil masculine barricades. Based on steady practice and a share of self-conscious audacity, she excelled at developing lethal artillery through which succeeded in getting over her shyness. Once mastered the art, she looked daggers at any billy goat willing to penetrate her unfathomable mysteries. Still, the Argentinian, a worldly wanderer, traverser of harbours and seas, was so far as trained as Valentina to challenge the unexpected, and, just like her, he rejoiced at long-standing Olympiads, adopting an undisguised warrior fighting stance.
He called himself “The Loser Titan”, although in Rosario, his hometown in Argentina, after those rare occasions in which his anger let out, his acquaintances baptised him just “The Titan”.
- I´m afraid that you currently work as a model – guessed a self-confident Loser Titan, shooting the first dart at the heart of his prey.
- That´s correct, how did you know it? –asked Valentina, caught by surprise.
- When I look at what I look, when I draw attention to your sparkles and even moving beyond, I know it could not be otherwise. Adjectives just don´t fit you, their use would end up dishonouring your attributes: your Holy Word proves incapable to save itself from its fervent semantic enemies: the predicate, the subject, the adverb; to bridge the gap, a ravenous lawyer was mandatory; that´s why you study Laws.
Valentina grinned mischievously.
What The Loser Titan had just undergone had an impact on all of his entrails, organs, systems and extremities, but it was not noticeable for her. To face such an event, nevertheless, he was much too prepared. Although a man is born, live and train to assume his physical death, the event to hold Valentina´s stare shall mean a living death to the Loser Titan, a soft lapidation, the liquidation of the past, the disappearance of the future, which would ultimately clear a path to the sublime. The man in his fifties yielded at the charming of the young model, to which he was instantly befriended. To break even with her he started to venerate her, he would worship her whenever she offered him those revealing shots of silence. Abjuring was unquestionable. Now, sworn-in and defenceless, he somehow protected this Colombian who elegantly eluded the attempts of grammar to classify her beautifulness. Valentina was unaware she had her future door-to-door troubadour sitting in front, thanks to that ignorance she rested upon the lap of her feline instinct along with the enjoyable habit to dominate the scenes of this sort, in spite of her tender age.
- I am travelling to Bogota to pick up 40 copies of the book I´ve just edited in France, kind of a print-run bonus. It´s a 170 pages length compilation of anecdotes I wrote about my travels around the world. The edition process has just finalised and books will soon be on sale in Spain, France, Colombia and Argentina.
- A new process is launched thereafter.
There seemed to be sharing a dinner-conversation cherished by an unpredicted over-familiar atmosphere.
- If you are fond of reading –the writer risked a winning chance- I´d dedicate you the first autographed copy of my book.
- I will be glad to, if at all possible –replied Valentina, making a soft show of Colombian tenderness in order to disarm any love protection layer, in accordance to the lethargic visual exchange set in motion between two eye´s backdrops.
Like a divine decree crossfires became prodigal, a flashpoint sharpened by subliminal arrows she shot order for him to collect them at a soft pace, so to prevent the waitress from caring about the event taking place seventeen steps away of the floor she was rubbing. Valentina, an expert juggler, threw him off balance; she was so much a better acrobat than he was. Even though he took the defeat with a high degree of humbleness, The Loser Titan walked into the men´s room having an absurd sense of victory nonetheless, as if the mirror would have managed to overturn the official score.
Valentina deeply relished the emanations showered by her essence´s dominant virtue, her eyebrows got accustomed to taking over the centre of the ring; she played home wherever she might go. She was always ready to stockpile a cumulus of bearer shares, for men easily cooled off beside her, letting claim their deeds and goods for herself. In the meantime, Cali airport remained watchful on how the story would unfold. But them, pretty oblivious to the expectations they might have caused, laughed at their mutual confession in the sense of admitting to be obsessively punctual, they should always tend to show up at airports quite ahead of the boarding time.
- I would be pleased, Valentina, to have your WhatsApp number and address, so in December 2nd, three days from now, on the way to the airport I´ll ask the taxi driver to make a stop at your flat to leave the copy of my book. Okay?
- Agreed, but I won´t be home that day –she pointed out-, so you´d better leave the book at the reception and the lads in charge will hand it over to me afterwards.
Valentina, utterly delighted, passed him her coordinates.
- I am flattered to be the first reader of your book –she said, in an attempt to give him a compliment.
Her flattering meant more than a compliment to The Loser Titan. At this point the writer kept wandering about in an endless sky while trending himself towards an unbreakable relationship with Valentina, fuelled by a strong molecular activation. His accountant, traveller and story-teller´s tracks records had been grounded on friendship involvement. Recalling on his brief affairs, recounting the ladies he ended up in bed with, he realised they were suddenly wiped off the map. It was not unexpectedly that by the time he ran into Valentina at Cali airport, his universe solely reported a field of dried-off cactus – through a letter rogatory she was invited to occupy that deserted land. Beaten unconscious, having no past or future to envisage, the girls different from Valentina turned into cement statues forthwith.
- I´m visiting my cousins in Bogotá, was invited to a graduation-dinner party and will also be modelling for fashion shows in the days to come –Valentina remarked with her mouth widely opened. When the sentence was outspoken her eyebrows arched in so an instigative way, that gave the impression she was in the mood to house both the fashion show and dinner graduation party beneath her brow bones.
Two handbags escorted out Valentina´s presence: in the first one she kept all the stuff a future Dolce&Gabbana model was supposed to carry in case an infatuated airline pilot would request her a modelling private session; in the latter, a variety of jackets and overcoats to cope with unfriendly bogotan cold weather. Pretty attentive not to steering clear to his linage, from the very beginning The Loser Titan realized that Valentina expects five-stars hotels bookings and prospects for tall men, far from those poorly ventilated hovels he used to stay at during his backpacker´s world trips some years back. “Good to consider seeing myself looking after Valentina´s heart in the midst of a major breakthrough, consequence of losing her marbles. If so ever happens, money should have to bring in to finance flirt-oriented expenditures” – The Loser Titan adjusted his mind-set, laughing at that mental image.
“Once and again would I grieve for ages, I´d be open to trials and tribulations, provided that on the road approaching to the cliff should I eventually meet Valentina.” –The Loser Titan started a monologue, with his heart glued onto her while he glided through blurred boundaries. By then, the hit “Lost and Found” played by a famous 1990´s American band named “The Kinks”, reverberated throughout his soul in the very moment she smiled at him. The reminder of the song caused the writer to go back to his days at the University in Rosario, when he believed he was to become a boring accountant so to please his father for once in life. The Loser Titan rolled his remembering until he mentally pictured himself studying with Luis Miguel, a classmate friend. Not Luis Miguel the famous Porto Rican singer but a fervent roman catholic believer, surely much more appealing to Valentina than he actually was, for this lesser-known Luis Miguel stands a meter and eighty seven centimetres.
Unaware of the time elapsed, Valentina judged there was nothing left to be done; her phone number and WhatsApp had been given to him, she had him wrapped around her fingers already. In a few days she shall be granted the cream of the crop by receiving the dedicated book from this writer, whose personality attracted her so much; what the big deal is? She had enrolled a new member to her fan´s club, now converted into an array of followers tidily grouped by age, religion and socio-economic backgrounds. Even so, staging an histrionic pose, she ran the blade in right to the hilt by expropriating The Loser Titan´s last stronghold:
- I love playing the piano, very fond of travelling and languages specially French. And also love to run marathons and be with my family.
Should there be a need of an additional prove of their compatibility, Valentina had just provided it: he played the piano, he was a musician, traveller and a six languages´ fluent speaker, included French as a matter of fact; moreover, on his best long-distance runner´s performance in France he got to the finish line in a half marathon. As of his polyglot skills he kept silent though, as he might not make her trust the gossip that Argentinians are snobbish and arrogant pedestrians, pedantic folks bound to eat life at any cost. The Loser Titan actually thought it was the opposite: there had been an Extinction of Dominion over him when his dossier was laid down onto Valentina´s desk. He restrained himself from shouting out the unique invisible discrepancy: far from being family-focussed, The Loser Titan agreed on his father´s pronouncement that family is an entanglement brought to notice of the Civil Registry system. But files on the subject might magically erase so long as Valentina ever decide to access to his private life.
Last call for passengers belonging to group number 2, LATAM flight 4052 destination Bogotá, remember, last call for passengers of group number 2, LATAM flight 4052 destination Bogotá. The gate will be closed shortly. Oversized hand luggage shall invariably be sent to the hold of the aircraft…
Valentina skilfully handled all the surgical tools used in the open heart surgery, a virtuosity proportioned to the seriousness of the disease. Facio ut Facias – Valentina seemed to be challenging him with the proverb, something like: “I´m doing a subtle surgery, don´t you realize that I stood still waiting for you to make a step forward? I´d like to know how big your commitment towards me is going to be like” – she was apparently saying to him as motionless as she could. Meanwhile, The Loser Titan was witnessing the burial of his shallow personality, the utter ruin of his will. Valentina teemed with life; whereas he wanted either to die in her arms or to retain the feeling of being tied to the verdict.
- Hey dude, should you need any help with your luggage, please let me know –he sought for lending her a hand when ushering Valentina to the aircraft.
- No, thanks.
She turned the offer down because she untrusted prospects openly festooning with gentlemanness, she instead tended to think that helpers men´s ultimate goal was to become heroes in the hope they can get meaningless sex in exchange. From her standpoint they were simple free riders, sexists and discriminative, for they secretly labelled females as incapable to carry heavy hand luggage.
- Is it your last word? –he jokingly played the last card.
Valentina laughed in an unprecedented way. The fact that The Loser Titan naturally respected her claims for independency pleased her so much. That could be the proper manner in which a potential relationship with any man should ever be built upon: being her central planet, while men-satellites are orbiting her around, attracted by tireless magnetic impulses. She was imperceptibly working as a single-minded law attorney.
When he grew silent the young model wondered why The Loser Titan had earlier said that a new process begins. Yet haunted by curiosity, she dropped the idea of going into more details. Every time a word close to “proceeding” was spelled, she instantaneously thought of someone involved in nasty businesses, mixed-up in ugly trades, which suggests that in order to unravel them lawful services are to be invoked. Her refusal to go into further inquiries [about the process] was grounded on this reasoning.
