Discordant
We fight every time we meet. Why is it not over? Because I can sleep, and in the morning, I will wake up without him and miss him. Much else doesn't seem to matter.
Short stories and vignettes by Orlando Barahona
Discordant
The Stage
Singer, actor and writer, my father. Or so he would have been. My old man.
The day he died, I played Mecano's "The Force of Destiny." I can roll my rs better than anyone else in Spanish.
What made my father who he was could not be measured by gestures, nor the sense of tragic doom. He taught me what men and women do to get what they want. He used to ask me to emote from the superficially blank to the most profoundly impactful dramatic expressions of who -- and what it was that I wanted. He taught me how to lie; how to be either a good or a bad actor.
He would hold his boy in his arms. The arms I wish would last forever. I have never loved another man as much as my father. He knew talent as he saw it and felt it. But the force of destiny made us repeat our coaching sessions until I knew how to make another being feel the most loved in the galaxy, or the most reviled monster of every child's dreams.
He took my head between his big hands, and jerked, and prodded, and moved my eyes and ears until he saw the exact expression he was after. When he shaped my lips with his hands, I intuitively followed his direction. I will never have another father, but I love mine in a way bright and lovely, resoundly mine.
Every inflection of a word matters! Hate, love, indifference, boiling retribution and so many more. The canvas that was my face as a child got kissed and sheltered by him. May you rest in peace, Papa.
© Text: Orlando Barahona
© Image: Thomas Hawk/Flickr
This work by Orlando Barahona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
A Story
I don't know how different it will be to make friends where you are. My story was an accident: a man who offered me a drink when I had just moved in invited me over to his apartment. Seven years later, it's some friendship. I should wish you such luck. I wasn't even reaching out, but he found me. Now, I still search for more friends. Say, I will find them. Found you.
Slain
It all started with a doubt. Who could have known that you and I would last this long? Decades into our story, we finally sit down to draft our will & testament due diligence documents, the penultimate act before death. This is how much we mean to each other.
So many years of our souls aiming to connect have brought down so many false starts, jealousy, reflected anger... Why were we angry? Seems to me as if we both don't care anymore.
All the parts between us took years to assemble. When I lie on my bed, I can smell the dark cherry and amber scent of many nights holding each other. Disparate articles of clothing, such as your Tommy Bahama shirts and my Dior sleepwear; my Alexander McQueen pendant and your Quicksilver shorts; the Armani Exchange sportswear I prefer and your vintage New Balance trainers have finally merged at the foot of our bed.
The only way for our relationship to be final is that you should die first. It is with much tenderness that I shall lay you soon, when I know how to end you.
© Text: Orlando Barahona
© Image by: Wayne S. Grazio/Flickr
Creative Commons License This work by Orlando Barahona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Lover
I am quite afraid of being less keen than my lover when I listen to our favorite songs to enjoy whilst lounging in his flat, and to be called dead to rights on my snobbery in my choice of beats when I summon Alexa to switch a song. There's a cultural chasm between my generation, him and the upstarts. I don't know which of us controls the music, video and social media now, and it's visibly shown on my face. No smileys underscore what my narrowed eyelids and cruel mouth tell.
After so many years of work and passion for the search, I found my Nemesis and my companion in the same person. His name won't be forgotten, if my writing perhaps has magical powers as I won't resist the urge to mention him.
Six years of us. The constant malady within our love is your ugly intolerance against my "special" way to view objects and situations, then to verbalise your opinion with horrible inferences and foul language aloud. It all terrifies you because I present myself quite like a horror made visual as a clown staring into you. You never know what to expect coming from my mouth, or expressing my need to touch you, to have your hand merge with mine in a bold and unafraid way.
Did you know that I once tried to end it all? That happened before you, in another state, without success. I survived that sadness, to aim forward into my life and yours. Never will I make you live through loss.
For such a short age span, I have been in love eight important times, all ended because of the disjointed rate at which my partners and I grew into being so different from each other. And difficult. I should be proud to have lived through them, to have changed profoundly and still love my own company.
Yes, I certainly own my part in the lack of joy, the lack of sex, and the roughness between us. It's been a trigger to my most recent jagged thoughts, the ruminations and such guilt for us not being together right now. I will be better in my thoughts and spirit for me, but also for you, lover.
© Text: Orlando Barahona
© Image: istolethetv/Flickr
Creative Commons License This work by Orlando Barahona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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He
As he enters his flat at midnight, the hallway light is turned on with apprehension. He knows where the knives are if there's an intruder. No one tonight. He wipes his feet on the mat, which reads: "Not You Again!" in a bold Helvetica font, then follows that by turning the second light on in the living room.
The giant Medusa of a central chandelier illuminates all the visual signs of a man suffering from an acute awareness of his physical surroundings, but also his shoddy hygiene in the way in which his possessions have no appropriate places to rest upon. It's not an enviable trait.
He goes to pour a drink at the modest table made of cut glass with the nickel-finished steel frame. He's content today, and relaxing is necessary. The faded scent of L'Eau d'Issey Pour Homme lingers on his erogenous zones enough to bring serenity. Sitting fully-dressed in his dark chocolate leather tailored suit on the chaise longue, he's almost calm and void of the usual ruminations about his day. Getting undressed, covering his body with a silk robe will be delightful after his whisky.
He is a creation of his mind: Lucius, an émigré from Czechoslovakia, of Spanish (Gloria) and Czech (Lucius the First) parents. His life parallels mine in all joys and sorrows: both parents died in 2023, almost a month apart. There are only two younger sisters left, Carlotta and Lucy. The former had two girls, the latter one son, a cherished nephew.
Both parents were professionals: she, a journalist, he, a hydraulics engineer and architect. During the divorce, when he was eight years old it was stipulated for both to have joint custody, and all the loneliness of looking out from hotels in different cities, when they took Lucius and the girls with them during job assignments. Six months with one, six months with the other.
His life has been a series of profoundly introspective moments; happy occasions and a zig-zag trail of destinations in cities big and small in Europe and the United States, where he finally settled. Loneliness and wonderment coexist now in a comfortable existence within himself.
In the United States he lived in Miami, Miami Beach, New York City, Houston, back to Florida to find love and move to Iowa, when his lover Dermot was summoned as an AS/400 programmer. The last stops were in Vista, San Diego and Hollywood in California.
The most wonderful qualities of his can be found and understood by meeting him, and absorbing his hope and vision to overcome the crushing lows of depression, along with the manic episodes, few as they have become. His goal in life is still a bit muddy, from holding back the light living in his mind and soul.
Never a great student, many of his early years were spent learning from tutors and unfortunately, several schools, which came as a result from the intense travel schedules engaged by the parents. This lifestyle marked Lucius as a shy and awkward boy.
His adolescence would reveal a spectacular set of events, all changing the course of his life. That is when he left his childhood behind, and his exodus from the family happened at age 16, just after being shamed by the scandal in which he was the younger participant. His father never forgave Lucius for having relations with his brother.
Life with two sisters, a mother and a very loving grandmother for a continuous six months per custody cycle has changed some of his core views on male and female behaviours, with an intelligent, creative and sharp alertness to wit, clever personal performances from either gender enriching his curiosity and wonderment at the world around his slim body and average height every day; a bright boy with two intricate hazel eyes and wavy black hair set free to roam.
His father was not affectionate, but rather a rancid disciplinarian, whose male presence seemed to upset the half of Lucius sympathetic to others' troubles, to an impulsiveness and imagination sometimes lacking when he entered the second half of the year with him. It was his father who made the most shocking discovery of Lucius's adeptness in using chess as a social opener to the seduction of both his classmates Violetta and Charles.
After being expelled and ex-patriated from the country and his family, 16 years of age looked grim to Lucius. Despondent, his mother facilitated living arrangements for him through her colleagues.
His first land of Exodus was the island of Formentera. I shall let him tell you his stories.
© Text: Orlando Barahona
© Images: Free Public Domain/Flickr
Creative Commons License This work by Orlando Barahona is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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