Chapter 4: Meaning doors
The morning dawned with a clean clarity, as if someone had spent a warm wipe through the city to remove the dust from the night. The newly made coffee aroma was leaked through Miguel's house, which was full of small daily noises: the sizzling of a toaster, the gentle rubbing of a cup against a dish, the distant murmur of the radio in the neighboring kitchen. Alex appeared in the framework of the kitchen door with a smile that seemed like a permission to stay.
"Today I proposed a plan for our weekly activities, but before throwing us at anything, I wantedgold toast battery.
Alex let a small giggle, like a balloon that deflates tenderly. -I like it. Sometimes the most honest things are those that do not have a rigid plan. What do you have in mind exactly?
—We can start with a flea market walk last week, perhaps without the pressure of looking for objects; Simply get carried away by what caught our attention. Then, if we feel like, we find a comfortable place to eat and we follow the conversation without hurry, as if we were touring a city inside the city, "explained Miguel, with the fingers with the ideas that were already accommodating in his head.
With the plan assumed, they took a cup of coffee each and left. The walk to the market was quiet, without the haste of an agenda, with the city waking around like a soft choir. The streets were full of small details: a bicycle supported against a column, a seller who cleaned his position with a serene dedication, a couple who argued in a low voice about a map of the city. Everything seemed to push them to stop and look, to choose without pressure, to let curiosity mark the step.
In the market, the tables were aligned as a bouquet of stories told in objects: spices that promised travel memories, old magazines that contained ads that no longer existed, toys that seemed to have left a collection of another century. Miguel approached a stack of postcards from a city that they both knew about hearing, while Alex stopped in front of a vinyl stand, carefully leafing through the cover of an album that seemed to have survived several removals.
"Look this," Miguel said, holding a postcard that showed a lighthouse illuminating a misty coast. The poem on the reverse looked like a small adventure in itself: "Where the route ends, calm begins." He smiled without saying anything else, and left the postcard for Alex to hold it for a moment.
Alex, on the other hand, took a vinyl to a shelf that seemed made for objects that wanted to feel important again. —The times I like to think that objects are like time capsules that wait for those who open them to understand that the present is the result of many passes who crossed.
Between soft laughs and comments without weight, they were carried away by spontaneity: a cup of hot chocolate in a nearby position, a conversation with an old woman who sold embroidery and showed them a small piece with a embroidered flower that said "patience"; a child who showed themA kite that was learning to fly in the morning breeze.
In the hall of a used book, they found a sketchbook that seemed to have belonged to someone who loved drawing human figures in motion. Alex leaned him delicately, as if every page were a whisper of someone who was no longer there, but still had things to say. Miguel observed the shape of the lines, the way in which the shadows fell into the contours, and commented:
"I think that drawing is a way of listening to silence." When you draw, the noise of the world is reduced to a soft note.
"And sometimes silences also speak," Alex replied, letting the conversation become quieter, less focused on the immediate future and more on the now shared.
Later, when the sun began to insinuate its presence beyond the facades, they decided to look for a place to eat. They found a small cafeteria with tables outside and a view to a narrow street that had the charm of the known. They asked for something simple: salads with handmade bread, ice tea for Alex and a double coffee for Miguel. While waiting, they looked at each other and smiled, without the need for big words: the gesture said they were happy with the rhythm that had been imposed on the day.
"Today I realize something important, without sounding to sermon, of course," said Miguel, taking a sip of his tea. I do not need to know in advance if this is going to be big or not. I want to continue discovering it on a day -to -day basis. What do you think?
"Cointed." What we share already gives us enough space to learn. If tomorrow a great decision appears, great; If not, it is good too. I prefer that this is still a trip, not a delivery of results, "Alex replied, his short voice, as if he were a shared secret between two people living in his own compass.
The conversation was frayed towards lighter songs: books they wanted to read, movies that they liked in their youth, places they would like to visit. They talked about favorite childhood meals and memories that were sweet enough to make them smile in the middle of the conversation. On each topic, they found a connection: a note, an idea that seemed to resonate between the two, as if each thought were a key that opened a door to another corner of the conversation.
On the way back, they went through a small park. They stayed in a bank covered by the shadow of a linden, surrounded by the murmur of other walkers and the soft crunch of the leaves under their shoes. In that half -day silence, Miguel spoke with the quieter voice he had used in the morning:
"I feel that this day without agenda is teaching us to listen better." Sometimes the hurry of life makes us forget that there is beauty in the simple, in the way in which one hand can find another and stay there one more moment.
Alex nodded, holding the empty coffee cup as if it were an object of value. "And I like the idea that each encounter is a small possibility."I don't know if what we are building will end at a great moment, but I know that every step, however small, has its own weight and its own truth.
They returned home when the afternoon roof began to become golden. At the entrance, they left the fabric bags with the objects they had found: a postcard, a notebook, a music box that promised to sound again in the still night. They looked at each other in the mirror by the door, as if they assured that the reflection itself agreed with what they had lived.
"Before we disperse in the afternoon, I want to propose something simple for next Sunday," Miguel said, looking for approval in Alex's gaze.
"Tell me," Alex replied, who already knew that any proposal from Miguel came with a dose of warmth and a pinch of curiosity.
"We can do a picnic in the park." Take food, a blanket, books and the possibility of staying there as much as we want. Zero pressure, only us, the city and the comfortable silence of a quiet afternoon.
Alex smiled, and that smile seemed to make the whole day feel lighter. "I love the idea." And if time does not cooperate, we can always move inside and do the picnic inside the house, with the open window to enter the air.
The day closed with a soft promise: that the next match, like all those who had had until then, would be a natural continuation of what was already being built. There was no grandiloques, just a certainty: two people who had found themselves without looking for themselves and who, however, had learned to recognize themselves in the middle of the city, as two notes that, when joining, created a melody that belonged to them.
When lying that night, Miguel dropped on the pillow and exhaled slowly. He thought of the little things that had done the special day: the walk, the freedom not to plan, the shared look at the corner of the cafeteria, the promise of a Sunday picnic. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine a future that did not promise the entire world, but the possibility of continuing to discover the story they were already writing together, a soft line that was getting more clear with every day that passed.