Swallows in Opposite Skies

A love that exists only when eyes are closed.

Once upon a time...

On a farm isolated from the city, where the boundaries between past and present seemed to have dissolved into the mist of the Delaware River, there lived a man. The house was enormous, built of rough stone and thick mortar. It seemed as old as the country itself, yet carefully maintained by the man’s own hands. Around it, rolling hills and dry-stone walls formed a mosaic, covered in stubborn moss that insisted on reclaiming every inch of the place.

A few meters from the house stood a massive wooden barn painted entirely red, its boards creaking beneath the weight of the wind at that time of year. There was a large garden, filled with every kind of plant one could imagine. The silence of the property was dense, broken only by the crackling of firewood or the crowing of the chickens.

The scent of that place was peculiar, a mixture of damp earth, tobacco, and the sharp aroma of apples that had fallen and never been picked. In the air, one could feel the distinct chill of snow about to fall. There, in that isolation of stone and shadow, the man was just another element of the landscape, as still and resilient as the foundations of the house where he sheltered, or perhaps hid.

He was nothing more than an ordinary man. Like anyone else, he had his flaws and his virtues. He had moments of joy, and moments of anger. He had dreams, but he also lived with great fear. Sometimes he wanted to disappear, and sometimes he wanted to be seen. Like any man: full of contradictions.

It was a freezing night, the kind that made even the squirrels hide in the barn, and that left the man aching with homesickness. His only joy was far enough away that he spent the night awake, wondering whether she had eaten properly, or whether she had already forgotten her old man. The cup of tea, a habit he refused to abandon, had long gone cold in his hands. He stared at the falling snow with a melancholy he wished belonged to someone else, not him. He had always felt alienated, outside the curve, trapped in a constant wave of thoughts that kept him from living fully. He spoke beautiful words, about leaving the past behind with a laugh, yet he relived every lost second, swallowing his tears and pretending to be stronger than he truly was.

“You’re wasting time sitting there.” I finally said, resting my face in my hand, my eyes still fixed on him. He did not seem to be there, but somewhere else, perhaps in the past, or in the future, but never in the present.

He brought the cup to his lips and took a sip of the tea, immediately regretting it before placing the ceramic piece back on the windowsill. Then, finally, he turned his head to look at me. It felt as if someone were tickling me; my stomach flipped, and I bit my lower lip to keep a smile from escaping. It was foolish, after all.

“It’s snowing, love. I don’t even want to move from here today.” he replied in a low, gentle tone. But I knew he was holding back much more.

“She’s fine. You know that, don’t you?” I said, lifting my frozen feet onto the sofa. “And she’ll be back soon.”

“It always feels like winter when she isn’t here,” he murmured, looking outside again with a sadness that unsettled me. “When she leaves, it feels like I stop existing, and I only become a man again when she returns. Does that make me dependent?”

“It makes you a wonderful father.” I said without hesitation. I watched him release a sigh, as if he disagreed. “You should focus on your own things until she comes back. Distract yourself.”

“It’s freezing out there. All my ideas of fun are simply impossible right now." he said, resting his head back against the armchair, his eyes closing for a moment. A second that made my whole world tremble. “If only you were here. Truly here.”

Silence settled between us, heavy with things unsaid and feelings that should not even exist between two people like us. I knew he avoided looking into my eyes, yet he needed something to anchor himself to. And I felt lost if I looked anywhere else.

“I should move away.” I said playfully. “I’m so tired of spinning and spinning around this farm.”

“You love this farm.” he shot back, opening his eyes and looking at me. “If I told you I love you, would that make you stay?”

I let out a long, heavy breath that turned to mist from my mouth and nose. He was staring at me, and for a second I wanted to believe he was truly seeing me for who I was, that he felt me as something vital to his sanity.

“You can’t love someone you don’t know, honey.” I said, feeling my eyes burn and my throat tighten, as though something were lodged there. And there was, a million things I wished I could tell him and couldn’t. “If I were truly here right now, you wouldn’t be saying those things.”

“You’re the only one who sees beyond the surface. Who accepts me for who I am. Why wouldn’t I say I love you?” he said, sounding almost annoyed as he rose from the armchair and crossed the room with firm steps until he stood before me.

“Because it isn’t real.” I whispered. “Don’t you understand? It’s a strange kind of love.”

“But it’s ours. What can you say against that?” he said, kneeling in front of the sofa, his eyes so fixed on me that I only wanted to embrace him and pretend my world was that, was him.

“Nothing. Sometimes I think it’s something divine. We long for a moment of happiness, and we get it...” I said, my voice trembling. “Just an instant when we close our eyes. We are like two swallows bound by the red thread of fate, yet flying in opposite directions.”

The words seemed to weigh on the man’s mind. His hazel eyes drifted for a moment before focusing on me again.

“I don’t care. I’ll fly toward you.” he said firmly. But I knew he was a man of words. Only that, words. He wrote beautiful poems, beautiful songs, beautiful stories. Like me. He knew how to express himself well, when the world seemed to want to tear something from him, he returned to where no one could reach him. His art. His canvases blurred with infinite colors. “If we are two swallows, they always return to their origins, to where they belong. They always return home, no matter how far they fly. I will return to you.” And then his hand, covered in tattoos and a few newly formed calluses, rose and touched my face.

My heart seemed to stop for half a second before pounding wildly against my ribs. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again, I was in my bedroom. The sun was blazing outside, slipping through my curtains without permission. But all I felt in that moment were the tears rolling down my face, passing over the place where the hand of the man I longed for, and loved, should still have been.