Eva Colombo, Means of escape, seventh chapter: Abyssal gold ( Inspired by Julio Romero de Torre’s painting La Fuensanta )
 
Eva Colombo, Means of escape, seventh chapter: Abyssal gold ( Inspired by Julio Romero de Torre’s painting La Fuensanta )

On the land of your exile everything is mud. The sky and the earth, everything. Dry mud. Only your fountain isn’t dried up, and your eyes flooded with dark water. You aren’t aware of it, but I’m looking at you . I know that your eyes are looking for something beyond the horizon, since you can’t live any longer among this people. The people from your exile’s land are not able to find their way in the dark and they can’t quench their thirst. They trample down everything, they dry up everything. You are able to walk alone in the dark and because of this they are scared by you. You can still draw water from your fountain and because of this they envy you. Up to yesterday you believed their words, you believed the land of your origin would have disappeared forever. But today you’ve realized what has prevented your fountain from drying up: it has been the hope which has keeping on flowing into your eyes when you wept while wakening up from a dream, a recurrent dream. Your land. The hope that that one wasn’t a dream but a memory which somehow could show you the way to come back. Now it is evening and you are alone, near your fountain. You’ve filled with water your vase and with your arms you cover its opening so that the greedy look of this people wouldn’t dry up your water. You’ve encircled your eyes with black kajal so that the envious glances of this people would slip away without tainting the dark water of your eyes. The deceptive words of this people slip away on the coral beads of your earrings and you can hear them no more. You only hear the murmur of your fountain and your coral earrings: they speak of an abyss dark and lively as your eyes and of a land situated beyond the horizon. A land that still exists: your land, my land.
“ Oh, to sail away / to sandy lands and other days / Oh, to touch the dream / hides inside and never seen “ ( Led Zeppelin, Achilles Last Stand )
On the land of your exile the stars can’t show you the way since the sky has been reduced to a mirror image of the greedy look of this people and it is like mud, dry mud. Now it is evening, rest your head on the hollow of your arms which shield the opening of your vase and fall asleep. You will dream of a land beyond the horizon, your land of origin. You will wake up weeping and you will know that that land still exists. And you will see that your tears in the dark water of your vase will be like stars which show you the way to come back. And when your lips will touch that water it will be as kissing the ground after a shipwreck. You will lift your eyes and you will be aware that on the shore of our land I am waiting for you. I will break the hourglass which has measured the time of your exile and I will sprinkle its sand on the shore: at the sun rising it will glitter as gold.