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Colours
Patrizia Barrera
Patrizia Barrera
Colours
Voices of the soul
RHA PRODUCTION
Patrizia Barrera 2020 All Right Reserved..
PREFACE
Colours, voices of the soul
I wrote the book without thinking about it, but literally listening to the voices that came out from the deep of my heart, from something impalpable and absorbed that I defined my Soul. They are voices, reflections and timeless stories, born in a remote place which is fantasy but that come from my human and psychical experiences. Each story is highlighted by a colour and a picture, to offer you a global and archetypal experience. They are intuitive stories, not very logical, but almost surreal.
Reading these stories is like opening a window on a collective spiritual world, which is in every one of us.
I hope that they can give you a moment of break and reflection with their chorus of memories by touching colours, which is an incomparable heritage of our existence.
PATRIZIA BARRERA
Water
.
I am the water who murmurs in the valleys,
who touches the lawn with her dewy hands.
And I am the water who thickly falls from the sky,
who gently masses in the dark hollow of trees.
Water from snowy peaks,
rough and dark water who dryly rains on flowers.
Wherever you are
And whoever I am
I’ll always be water
The flaming and bitter drops
were born
from your love for me.
COLOURS
Blue
It was in that summer that I became his wife. I still remember the apple trees that looked out over the fields like celebrating soldiers and the long walkway that separated us from the woods. There was our house, and that's where it happened.
I was young and lost in that voices noise, and in that whirlwind of colours that preceded the sunset: but I felt the night as a friend and I wished that she would come, that my still intact bridal bed would have dressed in pink and would have welcomed me in a nest, as it happens with an eaglet without plumes. I wore his sculpted face in my eyes: his high forehead, his strong gaze, his turgid lips. And then his hands. Those tireless and curious hands that knew how to imprison the world in a painting, forcing the day to appear night, turning elderly into youth. Those tender hands that knew how to cry. My life and his hands: for me that was the whole universe. It went like this for a year, long days of walking in the woods and his paintings, my glances at the river and its colours. The nature was confined there, imprisoned. That was the cherry tree that died in winter and still was continuing to live, and those were the fires of the night when we used to dance in the hills. And the unexpressed desires, the suffered emotions, everything was confused in the moment when the brush widened to discover or hide something. Sometimes he would have painted for hours. Then, as if he woke up, he looked around and watched me, and only then I know that night came down. He took me and we loved each other. His hands still drew on my body and there were no feelings in him. There were only ghosts, only colours. I didn't understand. However, it was beautiful: his magical interest in my hair, in my breasts. He looked at me, and after all, I was his wife. He told me about his confused soul, about those repressed feelings that every night came back to haunt him, about the plans for the new paintings. While he was speaking, he fell asleep, as if he was deeply tired. I don't know why, but I didn't want him to sleep. I felt like I was falling back into the darkness and couldn’t see the end. His paintings kept me company, and when I realised it, I decided I shouldn't had lost them. I swore it to myself and finally I’ve realised; now I am the colour myself.
Sometimes he would leave to exhibit his paintings and I would have been alone; then I wandered around restlessly, not knowing what to do, in my endless days. I used to write to my mother, or go to the lake, or sleep, and stop everything without finishing anything, in distress. I looked at the empty walls, the bare canvases, the brushes on the fireplace, abandoned, without anyone to give them life. It was as if the whole world disappeared from my eyes, only crumbs were left of the dreamed universe. Everything had been stolen from me, his paintings were sold to strangers who didn't know they were buying my soul with them. I felt looted and betrayed, I had seen the birth of a child and I could not keep it.
Then he would return, along with his magic. From those hands a rose was born, a ray of sunshine or even darkness. Out of nothing appeared angels with pure and innocent faces or unhappy children in the wombs of undone women; and bodies brushed, swollen chalices, scenes of madness, of joy, of love. Looking at those faces I realised that I had already seen them inside of me and, touching those canvases, I expected everything to return to me. The fear of losing them again assailed me, languid and fierce: what was the meaning of creating and not enjoying that life? I watched him as he invented new colours and an inconsolable despair was born in me. Powerless, in front of him I thought that if nothing can be preserved, then, it is better to destroy it.
Slowly a treacherous snake crept into my heart, and the Creator whom I thought I was admiring, turned into a tyrant who was insensitive to the feelings of pity that inspired my creatures. I withdrew to his embraces and gave him nothing more, sinking into that bitter loneliness that welcomes dead souls. He looked at me as if he could not see me, and now I know that he was suffering; perhaps he was taken by a choice, by that atrocious doubt that later killed me. Now I understand that he was pining away without knowing how to choose between the woman and her colours.
A new summer came, and nothing had changed, but one day he didn't paint and joined me in the woods: he seemed prostrated by something he couldn't resist, and deeply tired. I found a tenderness and we loved each other as we had never done before, putting aside our complexes and inhibitions, happy to be simply ourselves. In the end he seemed relieved, as if he finally understood what he had to do. We returned back and he took back the colours as well, but this time he had a new subject: me. For hours I remained motionless looking at his agile hands on the canvas, fast and cunning between the brushes as if they had no other nourishment than this. The day went out and he was still bent over the painting: the woman portrayed was laughing, eternally happy in her eternal youth. Looking at her was no longer me. Behind her a half-open door was giving me a sign to enter, and I wondered what could be behind it so secret that I could not see it. Again, that wretched sadness took me, and I could not escape it; and from sadness it became languor, and then madness. Would I have lost myself again, and never be able to find myself again? And who would have bought me this time? My soul was in the picture, and I could not defend it from the eyes of others. He stood up and kissed me for a long time: did he know I was leaving?
That night I couldn't sleep. My dreams were strange calls from worlds lost in time. Then I realised that it was the painted door that was calling me. I ran into the garden and the painting moved. The door was now open and was showing a black abyss of shadows and, in the background, colours. I jumped in and couldn't get out anymore: like the captive nature I had been sculpted in the canvas, and I was dead.
Since that day he hasn't painted any more paintings and hasn't sold any, because he doesn't know where my soul took refuge: and since then the trees are grey and the faces of the Angels have disappeared like smoke. He can't recognize the light from the night, and he can' t distinguish fire from water. And I can no longer tell him, now, because I am behind the door, where he could never see me again. Now I cry, feeling miserable in my human weakness.
Everything is over. And I no longer have a voice to confess that I stole his colours from him...
THE DEVIL'S MUSIC
RED
They said that music was composed by the devil.
Rumours, jokes, superstitions? But he played that music several times and never saw the devil. And he certainly, he knew how it was like, with those sharp horns, the swaggering air and the black hat, as it usually appears, and then it's scary because you feel his warm breath on you. But as he didn't feel fear, on the contrary, the music seemed to lift him up high where the devil, as they say, shouldn't be. And each time a deep peace descended in his heart, which no earthly thing is able to give. It was that love for the universe that was beating in his chest, when he played, that spurred him on to continue to do so, that strange satisfaction of the senses. And then he felt good, or rather eager to do good, even if goodness bored him as much as evil, and every time he ended up folding back on himself and he didn’t care about those feelings.
So, every day: satisfied of himself and then unhappy, longing to concentrate on those notes and then tired of them. And then there was that strange nausea for people and for himself, after playing, that he didn't understand but couldn't help but wanting it. In the end he got used to that too and didn't pay attention to it anymore, considering it as a small price to pay to enjoy a precious gift.
"The devil? He doesn't exist! "- he said, using his own happiness as proof. "I have never stolen or hurt anyone, and I am happy. So, the devil no longer drags to perdition the mortals who enjoy his companions and limbs? Then, if so, welcome devil! "
And he caressed the chin of his young wife with a heavy, pregnant belly, a sign that the child was healthy and growing well, yet another sign of divine blessing. But the woman died in the spring giving birth to that child. But to say this is not even correct, because the child remained locked in her dead mother's womb until a disconcerting lament forced someone to take her out with an unexpected Caesarean section. Her eyes were open, and she was alive. And then everyone thought there was something evil about it, and that those signs were bad. And when it finally turned out that the strange creature didn't speak, even though it could, and that it just looked at the world with detached and angry eyes, then everyone left them all alone, and the father and his daughter lived alone all the years of their lives.
In the end they disappeared, as if they swallowed up out of nowhere, and everyone said that it was the devil who asked for the reward of their souls. But I know how it went, because I was the only one who decided to mingle with their misfortune, driven by a feeling of pity for that poor creature who grew up out of nowhere, and to whom I myself could only bring a little food. What happened still frightens me, but I'm old now and I'm not given to fear anything but death. So, my friends, listen to my poor chatter and then forget it. There have been so many words already.
So, he kept playing that music, and sinking day after day into the oblivion. Playing it, he found peace, deluding himself that he was no longer himself and escaping from that hopeless reality. Nothing interested him except that music: and when he realised that he could no longer do without it, even though he hated it, he began to hate himself because he hated it. He couldn't do anything anymore: and watching his daughter melting like a candle as well, even though she was healthy, and she didn't speak a word.
"Damn this music! "He blasphemed to himself. And every day he vowed never to touch her again, knowing that he would not hesitate a moment later to pick up the instruments to do so. And every time those sounds went up to the sky in a magical enchantment on his body, shadows of exhaustion were drawn, that dark spot that every day took more form and became clearer, until it exploded with its horrible appearance and he could no longer avoid seeing it. That hairy paw was born on his chest and it was the sign of the devil, who he had never feared and still was not yet afraid but full of horrors and deceit. There was no escape: that music was the covenant of blood that had sucked his soul and that had granted it as a gift to the dark Lord. He had now touched it and held it in his hand, feeding on its pride and lack of faith. And the contagion passed from man to man through the sounds of that music that stimulates the senses towards the sin that cannot be committed, but which, in your heart, is precisely why you have already committed it. A silent plague that every creature brings to another, repeating the cycle endlessly. Then he wondered how many massacres he had committed, bringing that music into the world. How many other sins were waiting to explode, how many more sins were spinning in the air waiting to be caught? He had been blind but now he saw and understood that this music had to be destroyed immediately, because if there was still a chance of salvation that would prevent men from following his own path it depended only on him. He raised his arms to take the score... but he couldn't. That music still spoke to him and enchanted him, playing an easy game against the will of the victorious man. He understood in a moment that he did not want to destroy it at all, but on the contrary, to play it, because there is no stronger temptation for the human being than that of dragging his brother to perdition.
"You must burn it" - whispered a voice behind him at that moment.
It was that mute daughter's voice who was now speaking, and she stood straight before him, pale and suffering in the face and trembling all over.
"You must burn it" - she repeated, uncovering a breast. There, too, the spot had taken shape.
The paw that had settled on her breast had now dug and devoured it all, piercing its heart as well.
"You see how I am reduced. You must burn that music, and you must burn me too. "
Then he understood that there was no more hope or time: they piled up the little stuff they had on the shore and made a great campfire of it. Then he threw his daughter's body over it and finally that music. And he waited in silence for the fire to go out completely, watching the last pieces of his life leave with it.
And when everything was done, he felt old and tired: not because he had lost his only daughter, but because he could no longer play his music. And when this thought was clear and sharp in his mind the stain on his chest began to burn, and to suffocate him in a vice, until even his body was consumed, and his flesh consumed.
So, he went back to his room and killed himself.
FOLLIES
Orange
I saw her and I was immediately impressed. Something in her attracted me and repelled me at the same time, something infinitely sweet and secretly sad about a woman's mouth and a child's smile, as if a magical innocence and languid perversion had reunited in her. The more I looked at her the more I became convinced that she had a dual nature and, consequently, a dual beauty. And in fact, beautiful she looked to me, of a rare elegance, like a shy rosebush grown among the wild prunes. It was so, by instinct, that I followed her: she walked lightly without turning, fast and safe on long panther legs. But it was enough to look for a moment at her pure profile to find there the childish insecurity that had kidnapped me and that
now more than ever seemed to sound bad on her perfect body. As in a dream I can still see her brown hair left loose on her shoulders that seemed to tremble, her nose small and turned upwards, the bitter and soft fold of her mouth. As I followed her, I even imagined the acrid sound of her voice, which must have been as fine as her hips and as harmonious as the tender outline of her thighs. And it seemed to me that I had always known her as I wondered what I was doing there, alone on that long road, chasing only a woman's perfume.
These thoughts accompanied the long road that seemed to have no end. But nothing had an end that day: neither the quiet chatter of the larks, nor the heat of the barren hills, and even less the sweat dripping relentlessly and slowly from my forehead. But I kept on going, driven by the only longing that she would finally turn around and look at me for a single moment. Suddenly, almost annoyed by the sound of my footsteps, she turned around: I caught a bloody glance and sharp marten-like features. Fierce and bloody, then! But her lip trembled with fear and I felt in a moment the courage of the one who feels the strongest. I looked at her too, long, hungry and insolent, pouring into my eyes the forbidden thoughts that had been dormant for too long. But I did not advance one step, taken by the unconscious fear that this was only the vision of a moment, a mirage chased by a life that for a single imprudence could vanish. I felt an extreme need to sink into her, to feel the warmth of her skin and the sweetness of her mouth. I wanted to hurt her, to squeeze those thin hips and crumble them between my fingers, and lay my fingers on her breasts and then rip them off, to step on and destroy something too precious and fragile not to make me angry and spoil my heart. She stood there, motionless, and did not escape. But why? Unknown to each other and staring at one thought, neither of us moved, and we stared at each other like restless schoolchildren waiting for the sound of a bell that never came. Eventually it moved and I held it back. I was perhaps an accomplice to a mysterious implication hidden in her eyes. Disoriented and lost, I followed the gentle rhythm of her beats, the pleasure that came out of her skin and the dark voluptuousness of my senses.
So, we continued that eternal wandering between fields and hills, and the sky looked like the sea, and every smell was promising storm. I was accompanied by an omen of death that suddenly upset my soul and didn't seem to abandon me anymore. And I, who had never loved the warmth of my body, felt it with macabre impetuosity, as if he had awakened in vengeance from the long oblivion to which I had condemned him. Me, who had never loved a woman, now I would have lowered myself to ask, I would have thrown myself on my knees on impulse in front of those lovable hips begging for an hour of pitiful and loving caresses. But it me, then, the man who had been afraid to love, and for this reason had confined himself forever to the certainties of an irrevocable destiny, to a uniform work, denying himself the warmth of the domestic hearth out of sheer cowardice? Were they mine all those heavy years on my shoulders when I had forgotten that I was a child, and for this reason I abhorred the thought of a human touch on my forehead and the diamantine smile of a new-born baby? What had I done about my poor life but a dress that was too tight and in which I could barely find room for myself?
Buried by these thoughts I realised that we had arrived near a house, and that the woman was now lost. She looked at me and I stood outside, waiting in vain for an invitation that never came. Standing at her door nothing happened that day, nor in those who followed, and I stood breathing the earthy air of the fields until the sun became incandescent, and the dust burned my feet, and an impetuous wind forced me to retrace my steps.
From that day on I lived the terror of myself, I touched the futility of my empty life and saw with bitterness the collapse of my illusions. Suddenly I was disgusted by my thin old skin. And I finally understood that I had never loved, that I had chosen with ferocious stubbornness to walk alone this passage on earth, intent on giving value to what has no value, if not the imaginary and insubstantial value of the vanity of men. Following that woman one day I was for an hour myself: now I have returned to my life, to the downhill road that will lead me to her predictable end.
I know that I will never be happy; but perhaps I will be able to convince myself that I have no wrongs to reproach myself for and bad choices to deny. I will draw a veil over my soul as everyone does, and I will walk the line of time, justifying every minute of my bad deed. Forgetfulness is all I desire.
But now I know I'm walking on empty, hopeless and loveless.
MOTHER
White
That's not true, Mother, what you used to tell me about life: that every day is the same and that in vain the sun illuminates a world blinded by hatred. If regret is legitimate, I can tell you that even then I loved what was not given to me, and that I bitterly longed for the existence that you denied me. From the first moment I realised that I was there, still lost in the eternity of my infinity, so confused at the inviolable limit between life and death, I felt the weight of your remorse on my shoulders and a voice without sound pushing me away from the world. I had just been born and a spark of rejection lit up in my heart and burned me. Then a thick and indomitable pain dug into me anguish without tears, while in my heart I already caressed the idea of being your son.
I didn't know that you didn't like me, nor that you looked at your image in the mirror with terror, or that you trembled at the mere sound of the word "mother". I didn't understand why I existed if you didn't love me, and never spoke a friendly word to me. I only know that I was hoping and suffering and falling asleep crying among the horrible ghosts of my dreaded destiny. Wrapped in a soft fog I did not know the injustices and humiliations of your world, yet your cry was already known to me, and in it, like a sweet lullaby, I found my rest. I had learned to recognize your voice, and from the darkness I consumed my strength in an attempt to understand you and to find a fixed point in my uncertain universe.
Outside of you, of your sweet body, the noises came softly to me. But it was the beating of your heart that I loved to hear, so mysterious and absorbed, and of its only sound I fed waiting for my whole body to form. And as the blood began to flow in my veins and my eyes closed, waiting to re-open before you later, I spent the eternity of my time imagining your face and fantasizing about the life I was going to have, wondering if it would have been beautiful or not. It was so sweet to sleep on your breast and perceive from your belly the good smell of flowers, and listen to the rain dripping thickly on the windows, and watch the hours passing by even though you were always sad and your only words spoke to me about death. What did I know about life? Nothing. Yet I loved it and longed only to enter it and measure myself as a man in my actions before God.
But you attacked me with your speeches: that even a chicken eats its eggs, that all animals kill children they cannot feed. That the big fish eats the small fish, and that there is no place for a sheep in a world of wolves. That a child is a child only when it is born and that there is nothing before.
Nothing? But then what was I? I was there. And I knew I existed from the first moment, since an indescribable force shaken me from my torpor, and divided my first cell, and ordered to my heart "Beat! "The same force that prevents the planets from colliding, which forces the sea to remain confined to its cradle and summer to grow wheat and finally directs the course of the rivers. That force that separated the world from chaos and forced the whole universe to be born.
Mother, do you really believe that it is man's will that moves creation? I know instead that everything that exists in this world is ruled by Love, and that only in its name do the stars shine in the sky.
Then you spoke to me of the wars that upset the world, of hunger and pestilence, and of all those evils for which there is no remedy. Yet, Mother, every man is a breath of fresh air, a question mark in the innumerable probabilities of creation. And those little cubs that the chicken devours are not the germ of the next life that will one day be reincarnated? And if I had been born, could I not have loved you?
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