Introducing Claudia - being forgotten

 

-      Father died a day like today. Do you rememberthe year? Maybe 2017? It was February, I remember. Oh, I remember well. It washis birthday. The 10th. It was snowing...do you remember? Do you remember hesaid it was snowing too when he was born? Isn't that strange? He died the sameday he was born and it was snowing like when he was born... Many years havegone by... What will be of us Silvia?

 

Silvia seemed not to hear her.

 

-      Silvia, do you hear me?

-      Why look back? - She replied.

-      Why? There is no why. Or…maybe there is. It iswarm today. It’s his birthday…that’s why…many things…that apparently havenothing in common…but they have. I know that they have. They are asking for aform, they ask to be shaped and come to light…like memories…

-      It’s nonsense, Claudia.

-      What?

-      What you say has no sense, Claudia.

 

Claudia had never been enamoured of intensity and greatnessand rash in life. She had lived in fear. All her life. She had lived a normallife in fear. A diminished life as she liked to think.

She was forty-eight now. She had lost much of her life on plans at once narrowand promiscuous.

She had kept a stabile ground, though: philosophy. She had that interest keptenclosed, as a hard habit, which maintained her in a state of concern that hadsalvaged her many times from a life without quality.

Wasn’t she interested in knowing how many other Silvias had been before her?

Wasn’t she interested in understanding that She, Silvia, could be a combinedexistence of all those other Silvias?

In consistency she ought to have done, Silvia ought to have thought about thatquestion.

I'm tired of all this snow, she thought.

She felt radiant and that snow outside, beyond the window,was a hazard for her soul.

She sensed she wastemporary, she felt true she was soon going to die and remembered in one flashall the dead people she remembered, and she believed she had forgotten, but shedidn't.

 

Her father was deeply engravedin her memory. She had memories of when she talked to him over the phone. Itwas during the pandemic of 2020, she tried to recall, when she was locked downin her apartment. What terrible memories!

How come that theentire world was locked down?

 

The father’s support duringthose days, three months, had been a great solace for her.

I’m beginning to forgethis face.

Even so, she tried hardto remember his face.

People won’t remember meeither. I’ll be forgotten! She thought again indismay.

 

Had the being forgottenthe same consistency of hereditary sin? Once you are born it weighs on you,this evil that you can never escape.

She enjoyed, that washer thinking, the well-meant honour of being forgotten as the entire human raceenjoyed it, as a present everybody receives from the very moment you are born. Atevery moment, the individual is both himself and the being-forgotten.

Oh philosophy! Oh, solaceof our souls!

All that is mortal willbe absorbed by life.

We are pilgrims on thisearth, we are not of this earth, for this reason we will be forgotten by thisearth.