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Some days everything slows down, nothing seems to work out right and David feels like he’s going nowhere, after all. He feels like smoke enters his mind and he can just think about the past and about circles, about always tiredly retracing the same steps, like dirty water in a dell.
He thinks about being left behind, standing still where he was at the beginning and it fills him with terror, the paralysing kind that makes it terribly difficult to reach out, to move even one step forward, to call out a name. To call out anything.
Some days, David feels like nothing ever changes and he hates it so much he could climb up to the sky and tear it to pieces; just so that something happens and he isn’t left staring up, helpless and with empty hands.
*
He’s walking out of his university building, having just finished lessons for today and he’s putting on headphones. The world looks gray around him and he tries not to think too much about the criticism his professor has given him about their latest assignment. “Not realistic enough”, as if she had specified that last time, as if anything at all in this strange life should need to be realistic, of all things.
He shakes his head, but she still sits before him with the mouth quirked to a side and a frown, “I’m sorry, Schreibner, but it all just seems so alienated, the whole story is distant, far away from the narrator and from the viewer and just...hanging there, suspended. How can you make it more tangible?”, David sighs.
He reaches his bike and begins to open the lock but then notices that one of the tires is limp. On the way to uni that morning he had felt something pointed on the road but he had thought that was nothing. Apparently not. He sighs again, running his hands through his hair and then letting his forehed fall against the handlebar. More tangible. How could he make anything more tangible when so often things seemed to be so distant from him?
He stays a moment like this, feeling exhausted. Then he looks at the hour on his phone, his bike is useless, Matteo is still working, that only leaves taking the u-bahn home.
As he stands in the train, holding his bike and feeling the ruttling of the carriage shaking through his bones, he thinks about his project again. A man keeps finding clocks in unlikely places and he desperately tries to give them back to their owners, in the meantime time runs away and the man is confronted with the fact that he’s wasted his life trying to reach impossible people and impossible things. David scratches his nose, talk about uplifting.
He wonders what is says about him that he chose this story to tell. That everything is hopeless? Definitely not. David knows himself to be lucky, he has Laura, Matteo, so many loving friends, he has a roof over his head to sleep, he has a part time job, he can go to school and make his dreams come true, he can be himself; once he had nothing.
Then what is it that keeps holding him back? Why is he not satisfied? If not now then when? He purses his lips, closes his eyes.
It’s unfair to think like this.
He is really happy, most of the time. Sometimes he just isn’t enough for himself and that tends to dim everything else as well. Sometimes he can’t see anyone because he doesn’t believe he deserves any of them and he needs to be alone and think and think and think. After a while he manages to come out of his hiding spots again, then Matteo takes him into his arms, holds him and waits, Laura brushes his forehead, and he thinks that maybe everything will be fine again.
And that’s the way it goes.
And often it is fine again, better, wonderful even. And sometimes it isn’t and everything stills, everything stops, like a stuck breath. Like a throath closing up. Like a lost clock.
But that’s just life, he supposes. Especially when you’re weighed down by a heavy history that won’t let you go so easily. Especially when things didn’t seem to fit for so long.
*
The bahn stops and people of all kinds flow into it, loud american turists, a group of laughing high-schoolers and loads of tired looking berliners that flap down into the seats and stare at their phones. David knows he shouldn’t be staring, but people are interesting and interesting things always hide stories. So he continues staring and tries to find inspiration.
He sees one teenager sketching in a little book and has to smile. Then he notices their dirty hair and tired-looking face. They have a backpack in their lap and are wearing various layers of baggy clothes. David has to wonder. It might just be his own experience making him see things, but what if not? Now that he lives in stable conditions, he could help the people that are going through the same things he had to endure. Maybe he could just say something, make them know that they’re not alone- the teenager notices him staring and looks up, they frown, the next stop is called out and they look away, close their book and step out.
David lets out the breath he was holding. Or maybe not.
He scratches his head. After all, he knows why he chose that kind of story to tell: time passes too quickly for everyone and he wants to make the most of it. The story is a warning and an invitation. One should just do the important things in life without thinking too much about it. One should act and reach out and be present and alive and here, as difficult as it is, and not hide or lose one’s self.
David has to smile a bit bitterly, he tries to, he tries so hard to live and to follow his dreams and to give a voice to all of his love and his ideas, but sometimes it just doesn’t work.
Sometimes he just isn’t strong enough. Quick enough. Smart enough. Good enough.
A polite and slightly metallic voice fills his ears. The next stop is his.
*
As he walks up the stairs, he tries not to drag his body too much. He will get over this mood, he is strong enough. He has created so much on his own, he will get out of this, too.
He opens the door to his and Matteo’s apartment and calls out a greeting. “I’m in the kitchen!”, comes the cheerful answer. David puts away his coat and shoes and goes to his beloved boyfriend.
Matteo is listening to some rap bullshit and sprinkling cheese on a quiche while nodding to the music. As soon as he sees him, he grins and slides towards him on his soft rainbow socks that Amira gave him as a joke, but which he actually loves.
David has to smile as Matteo dramatically launches his arms around him, “Dearest, how I’ve missed you!” David huffs, “Yeah, yeah I missed you too, you overgrown child.” Matteo removes his head from where it was resting between David’s shoulder and neck and blows a raspberry in his face. Now David has to actually laugh, “And that’s what you get for refusing my extremely loving welcoming home,“ Matteo announces as he goes back to the quiche.
David watches him and leans his back on the doorframe, “Well, I was actually expecting a welcome home kiss, to be honest.” Matteo almost makes the quiche fall as he puts it in the oven, then he sends him a glare, blushing.
David laughs, he absolutely loves the fact that he can still manage to embarass his boyfriend like this, even after one whole year that they’ve been together. “You should just have told me,” Matteo grumbles, still red, as he walks towards him again.
David catches him and lets his hands travel over his sides and up to his pretty face. “But then you wouldn’t have had this adorable reaction,” he tells him and kisses him, softly, feeling Matteo’s lips smile. Matteo puts his arms around his waist and presses their chests together, David fits one hand around his neck and the other one in his messy hair. Matteo starts pressing slow kisses unto his face, behind his ear, then slowly down his neck. David sighs, closing his eyes, letting himself finally relax. He lets his head fall back and Matteo’s hair tickles his nose.
Matteo smells of soap and his very own Matteo-ish smell, which is something like boy sweat mixed with autumn evenings spent in bed and honey sweet smiles in the morning. Something like cinnamon and sandalwood. Something David could smell forever, hide into forever. Something that...smells slightly burned?
“Du, Matteo?” Matteo makes a humming sound, occupied by David’s neck.
“Do you smell something burning? The ...quiche mayhaps?”
“Oh. FUCK.”
*
They sit entangled together on the couch for dinner, Matteo’s legs on Davids lap, the laptop on Matteo’s legs, and watch some ridiculous tv series on Netflix that Hanna told them about.
The quiche was successfully saved and tastes actually really good, David is so glad his boyfriend also works as his personal chef cook. He tells him so.
Matteo stops munching for a second, “This is actually a torta salata, mein lieber herr, not a quiche. But also, you think I’m good at cooking?” he actually looks surprised.
As if David hadn’t told him already so many times how much he loves his cooking. He knows Matteo needs to hear these things more often than others to accept them. So he tells him once more.
Matteo huffs, “I thought you were joking. I’m alright, I guess.” He avoids his eyes and David suddenly feels his heart break a little, on how many lonely nights had this boy eaten alone as a child? And when would he ever accept some praise? He has made progress since the beginning, but so often David is reminded of his fragility and insecurity.
He wishes he could just take it all up and throw it far, far away from his wonderful boy.
“Of course, you’re the best cook I know, dude. Also, I don’t know what you just said but I’m pretty sure this is just a normal quiche.”
Matteo looks up at him, a small crooked smile raising on the side. “Literally what do you know, mr frozen fishsticks?”
“You don’t know this, but that was actually an elaborate plan to make you cook for me, always, so that I dont have to.”
“Yeah, sure, stronzetto.”
“What did you call me? Like honey or something?”
“Why yes, treasure.”
“Aw.”
“I called you an arse.”
“Awwww.”
Matteo shoves his hand in David’s face. David licks it.
They might be fine, he thinks, as Matteo groans and cleans his hand on David’s sweater. They have each other, they have time.
Satisfaction comes and goes, not everyone can be happy all the time.
The show is still on, David puts away his clean plate and puts his head on Matteo’s shoulder.
“Hey, du?” he mumbles, Matteo hums, “I love you.”
Matteo presses a soft kiss into his hair, “I love you, too.” He sighs and David feels a tingling sensation, “So, so much.”
This is more than fine, David thinks, this is the best.