Chapter 1
Torso in April
April 1984.
The streets stripped naked, top to bottom.
Snow blanketed the city of Vienna, stirring the cold winter air, into a flowing frosty lake filled with sinuous flowers.
The immobile trees froze under the instructions of the snowy wind; it’s branches draped restlessly, seemingly far lost in deep thought. Above it’s stance, a young couple, few stories higher, in a small apartment room, clung tightly.
The faint growl of the city rested in their silent room as they sat perfectly still, skin to skin apart; one would mistake them to be a perfectly crafted roman statue, on display for prestigious significance.
The boy held a book , “Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki”, and was lost in the planes of Nagoya, drifting away to another land beyond their own. He read it slowly. His lips barely moved, but pronounced every word with intense care and intricacy to his girlfriend laying on his lap, like a worried mother, soothing her troubled child.
While he read, a slow playing of Debussy’s “Arabesque No. 1” defrosted the room with warm familiarity - it sounded like it was played by an angel from another place of considerable distance away. She often extracted waves of solace from his voice.
His arms were around her now as sleep took hold of her. The faint playing of Debussy slowly subsided; or was simply lost at sea. He too, with the slow ringing of the strings and stillness, drifted high.
He listened close, like a bird searching for his best friend in the rustling wind, to her breathing, haplessly searching for something from a mismatched reality.
But just after midnight, her slow breathing enveloped them within their own world. Nothing touched them, and nothing tried to.
They were trapped -or dare say- lost, in their own field within their consciousness, where frosty lake of flowers flowed with delicacy; where all trees stay lost in thought.
