Alone

“Why is someone alone on a night like this one?” she asked.

I suddenly came back to reality and looked up. “Where did you come from?” I thought. The stars were still shining bright. The music was still playing. Then I felt the heat of the bonfire, the sound of the waves. How long was I gone?

“Hello?” she said, with a more curious face this time.

“Alone?” I finally said. “I’m not alone. I’m with everyone here. The whole beach is full of people.”

“Yes, yet you are alone.”

“It wasn’t always like this. I used to have people around me. Or should I say, I used to be around people.” I said, looking as deep as I could into her eyes. I couldn’t feel anything more than sincere and naive curiosity. I guess I trusted her.

“What happened?”

“I wouldn’t be able to answer that with certainty, even if I tried. It’s been a long time. Some of them went on with their lives and we grew apart, some went to their next.”

She sat beside me in the sand as I kept talking. The light of the bonfire making here eyes shine brilliantly.

“In some cases, it was just not worth it. Relationships will always be complicated, because humans themselves are. In the end, the are all an exchange – you give something, you get something back. What do you think a merchant would do if trading goods with another certain merchant always results in a loss?”

“He would stop trading with them.” she answered.

A boy approached us with a jug full of wine to fill our cups. I took a sip and nodded. “Exactly. In relationships, you don’t look for profit, as merchants do with trading, but you look for balance. When that balance is tilted, two things can happen. There’s either too much pressure or a lack of attention on one of the sides. If any of those circumstances extend for too long, relationships don’t work out.”

I looked away from the fire and at her and she was staring at me. Her face serious, but her eyes curious.

“Don’t you feel sad?” she asked.

“After some time, you accept that things are the way they are, and people is too. Sometimes I feel sadness in my heart. But then I focus on the good parts of what happened and those relationships. You see, they made me grow and become who I am today. I learned something from all of them in exchange for what I invested. Everything that starts must have an end. Life does, relationships do too. The universe as we know it will eventually end too. Should we feel bad about it too? I don’t want to.”

I noticed my throat dry and my cup empty and called the boy to bring the jug again. He ran to us, lifting the sand behind him, but careful not to spill a drop of wine. I filled my cup, drank and took the jug from the boy’s hands. “To save you a few trips.” I told him. He went back closer to the bonfire and I continued talking.

“As I was saying” – I continued, while she was looking at the fire with her mind deep in meditation. “I’ve learned to understand what everyone has to offer and how much I give back in return. I enjoy what they give me and I am happy with that. But I don’t expect anything else anymore. I don’t put pressure in people who haven’t asked for it. But I don’t sacrifice as much either. I take what people want to give me and then let them go on with their lives.”

Thinking this to be too much already for her to assimilate in one night, I stopped talking. Resting my arms on my knees, I had some more wine and appreciated the dancing around the fire and the stars above us.

The next morning as the sun came out, I opened my eyes slowly. I was still in the sand, but lying now. There were some of the kids around and a group of young men picking up the remains of the festival. She was not there. The sand where she sat had already been swept by the wind. I stood up, looked around but nothing. She was nowhere. Who was she? Where did she go? And more important yet, would I see her again? Only the memory of her eyes remained.