The Recurrence of Desire

The heart of the progressive and ambitious man hates nothing more than the curse of recurrence.

As the architect wearily worked and suffered the coming—once more—of the relentless heat of summer, all beneath him busily arranged the myriad of metal designs into shapes that would please the eyes of unknown audiences. The ballad of construction was ongoing, each man placing the weight of their mind on their work, avoiding any careless mistake that would result in the destruction of the collective effort.

The architect we follow was sitting on a beam that would months later be the eleventh floor, away from the judgment of the dancing machine-like workers far below. Even though he had no place up there, the architect could not keep himself from witnessing the building of his idea. He could not remain at home while his dream took shape, to shine every afternoon beneath the lilac palette of sunset, and then emerge as a beacon for the nocturnal workers in the starless nights. This idea had been the result of endless nights spent alone, until the time he woke up from a slight overdose of narcotics with the shiny skyscraper vivid in his mind. Back in the present, he purposely sat dangerously high above the builders to avoid mingling in their misery and stagnation, and remain happy in his dreams of the future.

As he pictured the mirage-like skyscraper in his mind, the heat and exhaustion of the moment consumed him and lulled him to sleep. The darkness of his eyelids yielded to light, as he slowly stepped off the elevator and looked around at the glassy interior reflecting the shades of pink and fuchsia from the neon lighting of the room. Regardless of the brightness, the room was completely empty; the bending of the light could scarcely hide the blatant dark grey flooring, which contrasted strongly to the aesthetically illuminated ceiling and glass walls. At the end of the room a polished window revealed the eternal black of night and within it a reflection of himself.

The architect moved gaily towards the attractive jet black of the night, and gazed into the eyes of the proud and smiling man looking back at him. To his surprise, over his reflection’s right shoulder he saw the figure of a young woman, covered in semi-transparent veils that protected her delicate skin from his piercing gaze. Her feet uncovered, she stood still and gazed back at his reflection, pushing him away with her stance but calling him with her undecipherable gaze. The architect could only see the dark dilated pupils beneath the discreetly large eyelashes of the sensuous figure, but his heart felt the call of that stare. The desire to obey was such that the architect could not look back to verify the presence of the corporeal source of such a reflection. He was enthralled by those endless eyes that merged with the night, by that lustrous black hair that absorbed the fuchsia of the room, and that curvaceous figure that begged him to take hold of her and save himself from the eternal night.

The feeling was overwhelming, especially after the exhausting summer and the long elevator trip he had faced in solitude. With eyes closed and immense joy he went headfirst through the glass and into her eyes. He momentarily felt the heat of her embrace and the sweat on his body caused by the ecstasy of her love. But after that eternal instant the weight of his mind made him realize that he was falling, into the bitter cold and the gusts of the lower floors. He thought he would wake up from this dream, but as he touched the floor he felt immense pain and he fell unconscious. He realized he could not escape recurrence.

Hours later he woke up in the cold floorboards of his room with a shiny image in his mind; a pillar of illusion. He got up and sat at his desk to sketch the lines of that dream as the brown leaves outside his window danced cyclical ballads with the whistling winds of autumn.