Epilogue: Into the Future

He left Lisbon behind him without regret. He had looked into the future and trembled at its sight. He had seen the big machine eating him alive. He had felt his individuality crumble. He had wept at the sight of the metallic beast ripping his hear out and replacing it with a tracking device. He had beheld how the monster opened his skull and feasted on his brains. It thus became clear to him that his only true option was to run away from the beast in order to avoid its deadly embrace. The beast, of course, was society.

            Portugal was too small for him. In the months that he had spent there he had started to feel increasingly claustrophobic. One by one all the reasons that had spiked him to leave Lisbon when he was a teenager came running back to him. Now that he had left again he realized that he could never have stayed very long. His idea of leading a normal life in Lisbon had always been an illusion.

            He wasn’t like his friends. He didn’t belong there. If he stayed in Lisbon he could enjoy some stability, but this was not enough for him. He needed a purpose in life. He needed to reach for the stars. He needed to travel around the world and be one with humanity. He felt that the borders of one tiny country were like a leash to him, strangling him every time he wanted to roam free. So he cut the leash and ran away from what he thought was a particular kind of slavery. He breathed in the cold winter’s air. He breathed in the air of freedom.

            His family didn’t accept his departure well. They blamed him for his recklessness, told him he was naïve and claimed that he was running away from his future. What they didn’t know was that in a certain sense that was exactly what he was trying to do. He wanted to escape the future he had seen. A future without real independence, a future filled with conformity to the rules of a society in which he could not fit in, in which he didn’t want to fit in. He had pledged to abandon all safety and all fear and to live his life the way he wanted to live it. Like a pirate, like an adventurer. In Lisbon he felt dead. On the road he felt alive again.

            Leonardo had left Lisbon almost suddenly. He warned his family, his friends and his employer of his decision less than a week before leaving the city. There was no other way. The longer he stayed in Lisbon, the greater was the risk of being dissuaded by his family or his more conservative friends to stay. He didn’t want to risk that happening. Also, with New Year’s Eve approaching, Leonardo felt that it was an opportunity to start a new stage of his life and the year that was coming at the same time. Everyone makes New Year resolutions, but they seldom accomplish them. His resolution was to follow his heart and he was accomplishing it immediately. Ground Zero: A New future ahead waiting for him somewhere along the road.

            The bus crossed the Portuguese and Spanish countryside, cruising through the winter night. When he woke up, Leonardo was already in Madrid. As he had done so many times in the past, he took the metro to his uncle’s place in the downtown area.

            When he reached his destination, he walked up the subway stairs, emerging into a dark and cold city. He buttoned up his jacket up to his neck and his teeth chattered as he walked towards his uncle’s apartment which was located at Calle San Bernardo.

            He rang the bell and waited for his uncle to open the door to the building. It took him a minute, but Leonardo managed to resist the temptation of ringing the bell again.

            When the old elevator reached the third floor, Leonardo’s first sight was that of Spartacus, euphorically wiggling his tail and barking at him. ‘Shush Spartacus, you’re gonna wake up the neighbours!’ his uncle hissed at the dog, an over-excitable eight-year-old German Sheppard. ‘Come in Leo. Did you have a good trip?’

            ‘Yes uncle. Thanks for letting me stay with you for a couple of days.’

            ‘Don’t mention it. It’s great to have you around for a few days. We missed you,’ he said, referring to himself as well as Spartacus who was now jumping on Leonardo, threatening to knock him down on the floor. Leonardo was trying his best to calm the beast, hugging and petting him.

            ‘I hope I didn’t wake you up uncle. I’m sorry for arriving this early in the morning.’

            ‘It’s alright really. I had to wake up at some point. This way we can have breakfast together, you must be hungry.’

            ‘Yeah, actually I’m a bit hungry. That would be great!’

‘So, what do you wanna have for breakfast?’ asked Leonardo’s uncle as they entered the kitchen.

‘I dunno… what are you having?

‘Orange juice and toast with strawberry jam,’ his uncle said after examining the contents of his fridge for a bit.

‘That sounds great’, said Leonardo who abruptly realized that he was even hungrier than he had thought. He hadn’t eaten anything in more than ten hours after all.

‘Well… I gotta say I was a bit surprised when your mum told me you were going to come this way,’ said his uncle as he gave him a tray with a glass of orange juice and a plate with two strawberry jam toasts on it, ‘I thought you had found a job at a newspaper in Lisbon…’

‘Yeah… that didn’t turn out that great though…’

‘What happened? You didn’t like it?’

‘I just don’t think it was the right thing to do at this point of my life…’

‘Yeah? How so?’

‘Well, I’m not sure how I can explain this to you… Haven’t you ever felt like you were living a life that wasn’t the life you wanted to live?’

‘Yeah… that was the way I felt before I came to Europe actually.’ Leonardo’s uncle had moved to Europe from Brazil at the age of 23 in search of a somehow more sophisticated way of living. After spending some years living in Germany he moved to Spain where he finally settled.

‘Did you find the thing you were looking for here in Europe?’ asked Leonardo.  He had always enjoyed talking to his uncle. He found him a lot more sincere than most people of his age. 

‘Well you see Leo, it’s really hard to ever find the thing “we are looking for”, whatever that might be, but I don’t regret one bit having moved to Europe. I think it’s important to travel and to try to find a place where we feel comfortable at. In Rio I can’t say I felt very comfortable. Although I was born there, I never truly bonded with the place, whereas here I feel a greater affinity to the people and their culture. You know, you mum asked me to convince you to go back home and ask for your job back…’

‘I’m not surprised. That’s definitely something she would do…’

‘Yep.’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘Well you know what your mum is like… It’s hard to say no to her… so I told her I would try to dissuade you from travelling to… by the way where are you planning to go next?

‘I don’t know actually…’

‘Yeah… but the thing is, I think that if you’re not happy in Lisbon you should try to find another place where you can be happy at. It would be very hypocritical for me to tell you anything different. What do you think about spending some time in Madrid? You can stay with us. Maybe you’ll like it here.’

‘Thanks uncle, that’s very kind of you. I’ll think about it. But I think I need to travel for a bit before I settle somewhere. Besides, I’ve been thinking that maybe I would like to spend some time in France and improve my French. Maybe that’s a good place to start looking for a new beginning.’

‘France… it actually sounds good. Well, I think I’m gonna sleep a little bit more… would you mind taking Spartacus out?’

‘No problem. Uncle…’

‘Yeah Leo?’

‘Thanks for listening to me and supporting me.’

‘You don’t need to thank me Leo. I always try to listen to you. After all, you’re the one who knows best what makes you happy…’

Leonardo took Spartacus out into the cold city, just in time to see the sun rise. It was the first day of the New Year. The streets were almost deserted in downtown Madrid. It was just too early and too cold for people to be walking around on a holiday.  In fact, most of the people roaming the streets appeared to be still up from the night before, on their way home after having partied all night long. His friends back in Lisbon had almost begged Leonardo to stay just one more day so they could spend the last night of the year together, and throw him a proper kickass goodbye party. Leonardo had politely declined their requests, claiming that he felt that the longer he stayed the bigger the chance of him losing his nerve and postponing or even cancelling his trip into the unknown.

He walked Spartacus to a little park where his uncle usually took him to fulfill his biological needs two times a day, once in the morning and one in the evening after coming home from work. While he was waiting for Spartacus to finish “doing his thing”, Leonardo suddenly thought of his last New Year’s Eve, which he had spent in the company of his friends in Leeds. He then remembered that Jean-Pierre had told him, soon after they had finished their final exams that he wanted to move to Madrid after the summer, where his ex-girlfriend and long-time love Marta lived. On his way home, Leonardo decided to try to contact Jean-Pierre by email so if he was indeed in Madrid they could meet up again.

It turned out that Jean-Pierre was indeed in Madrid, where he’d been for the past three months. They met at a nice bar at Gran Via that evening, in order to catch up….

“Dude, Africa is fucking crazy! You wouldn’t believe me if I told you some of the shit that happened to me while I was there!” Jean-Pierre was just like Leonardo had remembered him. He was the tallest guy at the bar, a small place where you can relax while drinking good wine and eating delicious tapas. His skin was black as coal and his teeth were as white as ivory. While talking to Leonardo, he got really excited, like friends usually do when they meet after spending a long time without seeing each other. He was a little bit skinnier than Leonardo remembered him, although he still kept a rather athletic appearance. He was wearing, like he usually did, a cool hat, this one was brown and round and gave him a hip look along with his brand-named, elegant clothing and expensive Italian shoes. His sophisticated look contrasted quite a bit with Leonardo’s eternal t-shirt, jeans, and worn-out Converse shoes grunge look.

“Did you get everything done, though?” asked Leonardo, after taking a sip of his glass of red wine.

“Yeah, yeah, but you know what it’s like… well actually you don’t… Everything is complicated in Africa man! And then there’s the whole corruption thing. But in the end everything turned out just fine. I managed to finish my dissertation and sort out my stuff in the Congo.”

“That’s good, dude. I’m glad to hear that. So when did you come to Madrid?”

“Well, I told you when we were still in Leeds that my plan was to come to Madrid as soon as I handed in my dissertation and sorted out my stuff.   I’ve been here since the end of September. I’ve been living at Marta’s place since then.”

“That’s great, man! Congratulations. How did you convince Marta to get back together with you?”

“Well, that wasn’t hard. I called her from Belgium and I told her that I really wanted to come see her. At first she was a bit reluctant but she ended up being okay with it. So I came here and you know how it is, my charm did the rest.”

“Always confident, aren’t you, you crazy bastard?” asked Leonardo, laughing.  “So have you found a job yet?”

“Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about something related to that matter…”

“Yeah, sure, what is it?”

“You see, it’s been really tough to find a job around here.”

“I can imagine. With the economic crisis and all there are hardly any jobs available in Spain.”

“Yeah, and since I can’t find a job I don’t know if I can stay here in Madrid much longer. I mean, now that I sorted out my stuff in Africa I have money to live off at least for a while, but I think I’m kind of wasting my time here in Madrid at this point. Besides, things between Marta and me aren’t that great right now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. So what are you planning on doing?”

“You said in your email that you wanted to spend some time traveling, right? Thinking about what you wanna do with your life.”

“Yeah, that’s the idea. I’ll probably leave in a couple of days.  My plan is to go east, take my time. Visit any place I want to, every village or town that seems interesting to me, an exercise in pure traveling. By the end of it, I hope to have figured out what I want to do with my life after that.”

“Yeah, you see, I was thinking… ‘Jean-Pierre said as he looked very intensely at Leonardo, “I was thinking I wanna come with you.”

“Are you serious?” Leonardo asked, startled by Jean-Pierre’s unexpected proposition.  “You’ve always been the “do what society expects from me” kind of guy. I can’t imagine you living a gypsy life like mine, on the road, goalless.”

“Then maybe it’s time for me to change. Do something unexpected. Maybe that’s my problem, maybe I’m too predictable.”

“What about the whole making a lot of money and having a bunch of kids and buying a big house and a nice car thing? I thought that was what you truly wanted…”

“I don’t know, dude. I wanted to do all that with my Marta. But we aren’t getting along that well so I’m not sure if that’s going to work out. And I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Thinking about the things you used to tell me, thinking about travelling. We’re young and this is the time to do it. When I got your email I thought, “This is it!” I’ll ask him if I can come along.”

“Well, you do realize we might be travelling for months in a row and I have no idea where I’m heading?”

“I do.”

“And you still wanna come along?”

“Yep.”

“And you know that I wanna leave in one week tops?”

“That’s enough time for me to get ready to leave.”

   Leonardo and Jean-Pierre looked attentively at each other. Leonardo was very surprised with Jean-Pierre’s decision to come with him, but was also thrilled to have gained a trusty travelling companion. Jean-Pierre was equally surprised with his own decision, yet he was certain that he was doing what his heart was telling him to do in that moment of his life.

“Well then, to adventure!” exclaimed Leonardo, lifting his glass into the air.

“To adventure and to the future!” cried Jean-Pierre, knocking his glass against Leonardo’s.