NanGua

He had passed-away.

(…)

A passing of the sort and nothing would never ever be the same, for him as for us.

I once asked him: “If you were to reincarnate, what would you like to be?”

He had smiled and pretended thinking.

“I want to be a panda.”

That sounded original enough, but originality was his motto.

“Why a panda?”

“ … They are rare… and endangered; they are loveable, cuddly…”

“And dirty!” I was tempted to add.

“… They are looked after, protected – they don’t have to fend for themselves, they have a good life – they are fed, cleaned… even encouraged to f***! What else would you demand of life? They have no responsibilities, they are pampered and venerated… people even have to pay a stipend to take their picture! What a life! And they are a symbol too…I want to be a panda!”

“You want to be a symbol or a panda?”

* * *

“I wish I had known you as a priest”, I said.

That would certainly have been a good platform for his self-realization and winning the hearts of people, winning a crowd, satisfying the ego for recognition through the good deeds and good words: a splendid exhibitionist act while keeping sufficient distance… he would have been a good priest I decided, but I still question the obedience to which he would have referred or belong to. Priest, Doctor and I assimilated to a Rabelaisian image, philosopher and healer, promoter of the free thinking and critics by the laughter and derision.

So, not the physical or mental healer and instead a placid panda! It did not fit, no way… what he was meant to be I knew all too better: a philosophical rebel; a Socrates new version.

* * *

The showman: people, audiences held their breath. An animal, no, not an animal but a beast on the stage; forehead low, the intensity in the eyes, the obstinate look, the felinity in the movements, the verbal fluidity, tense, febrile, never pleading but quivering or decisive; a wild beast encaged on display. Neurotic to the extreme and pretending the ignorance of his power like that of his sensual beauty, with savage dynamism, primitive, gentle and brutal, devastating with fake violence; he electrified and adding to this magnetism, he ally an exceptional honesty.

* * *

I think that he had it all, but he never capitalized the geniality, the audacity to his benefit.

With her, he had believed that the release would happen and she would have finally ignited the virtues. Unchained from the past, from his own

self, he would have taken the plunge; he would at last be a man of free standing.

On the sentimental paths he had understood the horrifying pain of love; all along he had been, time and again more of a sensual individual than a someone in love, always mysterious, never satiated, hardly ever clear with the sentiments. For some reason, he had convinced himself, as in the making of a pact, that she was the one… She had the key he gave her