For some reason, my mind decided to dig up two memories from my past.
Bartender, I'll have half a glass of that drink over there, yeah, that anonymous beverage without any labels sitting on that shelf, it looks good and useful.
In the first one, there was this day, I don't exactly remember when: I was sitting on a bench in a public garden. A stranger approached me, asking if he could ask me a favor.
– What would it be? – I replied to him with another question.
He sat down next to me on the bench.
– Thank you for hearing me – he started – I'd need you to shoot a video for me, you'd just need to hold my phone still, while it's recording me and my fiancé. I'm going to do a surprise for her, I'm going to propose marrying her. And I'll replay the video during our marriage.
– I sure could help... But how much time would it take? My parents are going to be back soon and I'm not sure when. – I explained to him while I began to question myself about a stranger trusting their own phone to me, a complete stranger to him...
– It'll be fast, I arranged with a friend of mine who is a violinist, he is already prepared, he will enter as soon as she finds a gift I left hidden under the bush.
– Okay, I can help. – I replied.
– Thank you very much – he said, giving me his phone – here's my phone, it's already on the camera app, I'll call her: as soon as you see us, you start to record, okay?
- Okay.
Then he got up and walked away. I was still questioning myself, mentally: how did a stranger trusted a phone to another stranger? Sure, I'm not a mischievous person, so I waited without fussing with his phone. I couldn't help but notice how the app wasn't pinned so if it wasn't me holding his phone, another person could easily mess with his Facebook and nobody-knows-what other apps he had (I know about Facebook because it was the screen before he opened the camera app close to me)
Moments later, he appeared hugging a woman. Both were a couple (pun intended) meters away from where I was sitting. I pointed his own smartphone in their direction, pinched a bit to zoom, then I pressed the button to start recording.
I tried to do my best: I'm no photographer but I do know some things about shutter speeds, ISO, angles, perspectives, light and white balance, scene transitions and movements, digital and manual stabilization. I don't shake (only when I'm anxious, and I wasn't anxious that day), so I could kind of make the camera follow them as if I was using a physical camera stabilizer with gyroscope and other fancy techs.
They were talking but I couldn't hear anything, just gestures and face expressions. He broadly waved at the bushes, then they laughed, then she started looking for something near the bushes, until she found (what I presume to be) the ring box. Another man appeared playing a violin, then the first man knelt down next to her, said something (I presume something like "will you marry me?" or whatever), then he stood up and they hugged and kissed, while the violinist started clapping.
Then, the man pointed in my direction while smiling, and both the violinist and her waved to me, so I waved back and stopped recording. He came back (his fiancé and the violinist stayed near the bush, talking)
– Here's the recording – I showed him the phone's screen with the full recording – it was a bit far from here, but I zoomed and I tried my best to record it - then I played a bit of the recording before giving back his phone
– Thank you so much, it's a pleasure to have met you, if it weren't for you I wouldn't have been able to record. You're very cool! I'll invite you to my marriage.
– Sure, you're welcome!
– Wait a minute while I go over there and thank my violinist friend.
– Okay, I'll be here.
He walked away and shook hands with the violinist, then they started to talk about something, and the conversation lasted for a minute until they all walked away... Forever. I never got to know his or her name, they never got to know mine, I was never invited to anything: I was just the bystander who did a (quasi-professional) recording for free. The guy who never kissed while he was alive, let alone dated or married, was once a cameraman eternalizing the very act of a person proposing marriage to another, much like a mason who helped building lots of buildings will hardly get a home for themselves. Life goes on: reeking of bitter irony.
---
Then, there was that other day. It was a Tuesday, some Tuesday. I was waiting for a medical appointment in Sao Paulo, so I was sitting on a bench inside a shopping mall. A young man approached me:
– Could we talk for a bit?
– Sure. – I replied.
He sat down next to me on the bench.
– Thank you for hearing me – he started – Would you have any issues with the fact that I am gay?
– Obviously none at all, why? – I replied sincerely.
Then he started telling a bit of his story. He was kicked out of his home by his own mother, who's a religiously fanatic, because of his homosexuality.
– What she did, this is so wrong in many ways... She is not a mother, she's a monster. – I said
We continued to talk for a few minutes. Something that he said triggered my monologue mode, when I start to talk about my past. He asked me if I could help him financially. I was sincere:
– I came to Sao Paulo for a medical appointment, the only money I got is BRL 4.40 from the subway ticket so I can come back to my city. This phone is a burner phone which I bring with me whenever I come to Sao Paulo, so I got no banking either. If I had money, anything, I would help, but it's all I got at the moment, I'm so sorry...
He thanked me, we talked for a bit more, until he hugged me, got up, then complimented me:
– You're so cute!
– Haha, thanks! You're cool. – I replied
Then he walked away, leaving... Forever. Another person I couldn't even know a name, nor he could know mine. Yes, we talked for a few minutes, yet our exchange of life stories was as anonymous and brief as the other man who proposed to his fiancé. I mean, I couldn't even share my story with that other man, I could only barely know about the fact he was going to marry: not when, not how, not where, just the fact, an anonymous fact.
There were other similar situations that I can't remember at the moment. I'm not sure whether these people really existed in my life or if I existed in theirs. Perhaps I'm just "that guy who accepted to record the day I proposed to my wife" or "the cute guy who once listened to me", just as my memories are unable to refer to them by their names, because I never got to know them.
I lost count on how many people complimented me, saying how I am "nice" and "intelligent" and "friendly" and "good observer" and "good listener"... even people who knew my name, people who knew a bit more of me and my past, people who once used to call me "friend" or (virtual) "boyfriend" (ain't a love relationship: just a parasocial relationship where someone used me as her adulterous lover while addicting me with the sweet poison of her virtual voice, virtual lust and the illusion of a real love).
I doubt that those people, who once complimented me, who once knew a spark of my existence, I doubt they will ever be at my funeral or during my burial (not burial, maybe I prefer cremation, it's less polluting as my modern-human body would be no good for soil... and I wouldn't risk being buried alive, so, to whoever is going to prepare my funeral, take this as my will: I prefer cremation, and it doesn't matter what will be done with the remaining ashes or where they'll end up), because, as always, life goes on, and they moved on with their lives: everyone got their own businesses to mind. My mind has its own business to mind: digging up a past which had long walked away, forever.