Again the lump in the throat, the knot in the chest, tears in the eyes. Disoriented, Marisa drifted on the streets. Everything empty, the streets, the hours, her heart. Her head spiraling. Marco. It was the first time she felt such a strong connection to someone. So strong it hurt. So strong it was sometimes scary. He understood her, in a caress, a gaze, a word that knew what existed behind laughter and sorrow—he mattered. Not the others that now inhabited her past in small storage rooms locked with the key of indifference. They weren't that many anyway.

Louis, the older school mate with sandy hair who had taken her virginity when she was sixteen. The two of them had been dating for a while and were in his bedroom listening to music (The Beatles' Revolution) one afternoon, during his parents' absence. Marisa remembered—the closed curtains, the phosphorescent aquarium with red and silver fish near the window, the odd sensation of having her intimacy touched by another person. But Louis was an impenetrable block: in truth, he only had eyes for himself. Months later, when he departed to study marketing in France, there wasn't much room for longing.

Then it was Sergio. So handsome and dark and tall, so alluring and hollow as an empty gift wrap. Declarations of love and plans for a future more radiant than the sun. The perpetual bliss lasted nine months, the equivalent to a gestation period, until Sergio left her for his diving instructor. Marisa was heartbroken and, from then onward, avoided getting involved with anyone. Then along came Marco and she lowered her guard. She had presumed their relationship meant something to him, but was clearly mistaken. And what did my love mean? He probably called any woman like that, the lady at the store, his bank manager...

At that thought, a sob sprouted from deep down inside and tears flowed freely from her eyes. I was nothing more than a toy to Marco.

And Camila... His falsehood triggered a wave of nausea in Marisa, for she felt betrayed on more than one level. She searched her recollections for an indication of Marco's lies—and found many, since memory fabricated its own treacheries. Marisa felt torn between the hope of being wrong and the even stronger suspicion that he concealed something from her. One could only know a person in an extreme situation, when they were forced to disclose their true nature. Marco had finally revealed his. Worse, he didn't even have the decency of looking after her safety, leaving her to wander into the night on her own.

As if guessing her thought, the cell phone vibrated with a call from Marco. She did not answer it. Another call from him, followed by a message: where are you? Marisa ignored both. Now it was too late. To use Marco's words, the damage had already been done. In that very moment, what required her attention was a practical matter: she couldn't go home because her mother believed she was at Valentina's; and she couldn't show up at two in the morning at her friend's doorstep either.

Marisa needed to find a hotel for spending the night. She looked around and hastened her pace—actually, she first needed to find a safe place in order to check her cell phone for a hotel. Glancing at the cars passing by, Marisa hoped to get a taxi, but the few that went past her where already taken. As she caught sight of a bar open, her eyes lit up to readily dim out before a filthy interior populated with drunkards.

At that point, Marisa recognized the engine sound at her back and, squaring her shoulders, kept walking. She set her eyes ahead and wiped the tears with a furtive gesture.

"Mari!"

Marco caught up with her, and Marisa advanced at a brisker and brisker pace. She went around the corner and he followed her in the contraflow, with the black Ducati close to the curb.

"Mari, stop. I'm sorry, let's talk."

"We have nothing to talk about. You made your stand clear," Marisa said without pausing.

"You don't understand."

"Yeah, I do. Very well. You can go back to your apartment and fool around with whomever you want. I will mind my own business, which I should have done from the beginning—"

"Will you listen to me?"

His voice echoed on the deserted street. The commanding tone brought Marisa to a halt. She turned around to face him, crossing her arms.

"Come with me." Marco tried to sound calm. He was obviously about to explode. "I won't leave you roaming the streets by yourself at this time of night. Let's go to the flat and tomorrow I'll drive you home."

"That's what hotels and cabs are for, don't worry."

"Mari, don't be stubborn."

"Leave me alone!"she nearly yelled. "I'm not your toy."

Marisa resumed walking and then, on a sudden, was running. She reached another avenue and—like an oasis amid the urban desert—spotted a bar with a glassy façade and interiors livened up by candles and strings of multicolored lamps. Marisa crossed the street and, before jumping into the bar, tilted her head back in time to read the yellowish sign. It displayed a frieze threaded with suns, moons and stars, with the name of the establishment written in old-fashioned letters: CARNIVAL.

She entered it in a state of daze, not noticing the dark wooden counter across the side wall and the round tables in the center, many of which were surrounded by empty chairs. All Marisa registered was an out-of-focus snapshot, a floating blur as she walked to the bar in the back. Marisa perched herself on one of the stools, tapping her fingers on the red Formica counter. Only then she looked around.

The walls displayed vintage posters featuring a gallery of characters painted by hand. The collection did not lack the magician with a top hat and the fortuneteller with a patterned headscarf, the dwarf and the Siamese twins, the bearded woman and the lizard-man, the sword swallower and the clairvoyant with a monocle. Near the entrance (Marisa just noticed) stood a natural-scale tin bear, wearing a golden-trimmed red coat and cap, with a drum hanging from its neck.

The house still entertained twenty or thirty patrons. Marisa ordered a vodka and tonic and decided to stick around until dawn--better to be miserable in that bar than alone in a hotel room. A slow music selection started playing, and she recognized the song by Amadou & Mariam, Sans toi. Her shoulders sank. Without you I cannot eat or sleep... without you I cannot dance or sing...

The bartender in a white shirt with a bow-tie brought her drink and a miniature merry-go-round with seats filled with peanuts and potato chips. Marisa half-heartedly munched a chip and took a long sip of vodka and tonic. Retrieving the cell phone in her purse, she began to type a message to Valentina.

Call me asap, I need to talk to you. Marco and I broke up. You were right, I shouldn't have dived head first into this...

Marisa interrupted her writing with a startle when she heard a roll of drums announcing... what? She turned in the direction of the sound and realized the tin bear had started its number, blinking a pair of sky-blue eyes and maneuvering the sticks with its mechanical arms. Next to it, a girl in a puffy pink pant laughed out loud as she pressed the control connected by a plastic cord to the back of the bear.

The toy continued to play until it stopped brusquely, paralyzed with a stick in the air, one irresolute eye half closed and the other wide open. The bar fell once again into a discreet rustling. The after-hour quietness—which was rather exhaustion over the weekend activity—crept into the building. Much like the circus it mimicked, the bar already signaled its fatigue after hosting the crowd. On the now empty tables, the candles exhaled one last sigh before dissolving into a bed of melted wax.

When Marisa turned back to her vodka and tonic, she noticed that a young man with dark hair and olive skin, sitting at the end of the counter, wouldn't stop staring at her. She bowed her head and resumed typing.

I'm so shocked... You wouldn't believe Marco's coldness. I'm almost positive he's seeing Edible. How come I was so naive...

There were two empty stools to her side, and Marisa sensed someone taking one of them. She raised her eyes and was faced with the dark haired guy. Thin, not very tall, he wore black clothes, red suspenders, a green belt and colorful sneakers. A clubber stranded amid the carnies, Marisa deduced.

"Hi, what's up?" he said, resting his elbows on the counter. "I've never seen you here. First time?"

Oh-oh, here came an afterhours shark trying to score. She assented with a stolid smile and resumed the unfinished message on the cell screen.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Roberto. May I ask you something?"

The way Marisa looked at him before she focused again on typing (like someone piercing the air upon receiving a call from a telemarketer selling unsolicited services at dinner time) would have made any other guy recoil. Well, not Roberto:

"Are you waiting for someone?" he inquired in a nasal voice.

"No, but—"

"My girlfriend would like to talk to you," he said.

Marisa looked up in surprise. Only then she realized that, besides being a clubber, Roberto was gay. He indicated a tall girl in a black tank top at the end of the counter. She had three silver hoops in each ear and bracelets tattooed on her forearms. Her eyes were one shade darker than her shoulder-length brown hair. She grinned at Marisa.

Marisa grinned too. It would be good to have company that night. She would feel more at ease with those two than with some shark hitting on her. In a couple of hours it would be light outside and she could go home—her mother would be already asleep after having watched the last film of the night.

The girl approached Marisa and stood before her and the friend, introducing herself: she was Ariela. The three of them formed a circle and spent the next few minutes in small talk, until Roberto went to speak with an acquaintance and left the two girls by themselves.

Ariela was an art student in the third year of college and, just like Marisa, a fan of TV series. She argued that true innovation was on TV, not in cinema. Cinema had become pasteurized in order to assure return of investment from a large audience, which included China. Television, on the other hand, could be daring. For example, the most amazing series of all times was...

"Breaking Bad!" Marisa spoke at the same time as her.

"That's it!"

"Simply unbeatable."

"A work of art."

They looked at each other with complicity. Marisa said:

"I wish I were more knowledgeable about art, you know? One day I'll attend a course like you."

"You don't need formal education in order to appreciate art. References are important, but too much theory can kill spontaneity and intuition. That's certainly true when the artist creates a piece of work."

Marisa stared at her with a doubtful expression and told a story. When she was fifteen, she had gone to the MoMa with her parents to visit an exhibition featuring all sorts of installations. The family paused before an assembly consisting of a dark-gray cart with colorful bottles, an electric-turquoise bucket and a yellow wet floor sign. They observed all details and tried to interpret that work. They stood there for ages. The father thought it was a criticism to the moral filth in the world. The mother believed it was an ode to cleanliness. Marisa theorized that the work paid homage to pop art. They were at that, when the museum's cleaner showed up and took the cart away.

Ariela laughed. The boundaries of art were really blurry. In a museum, somewhere in the world, there might be a gray cart in display to symbolize moral filth, the virtue of cleanliness, or pop art. She talked about performance artist Marina Abramović, who during three months occupied the atrium of the same MoMa where Marisa had her encounter with the cleaning cart. Marina would keep still and silent, seated opposite an empty chair. That was her work: the artist's presence. More than 750 thousand people spent hours in line just to sit on that empty chair and exchange a look with Marina.

"To me, it sounds like she wanted to do something eccentric so everybody would think she's a genius. And people must have gone to the museum compelled by curiosity or to show off," refuted Marisa. "A woman decides to spend three months sitting on a chair without moving or opening her mouth, and that's supposed to be art?"

"It's seemingly so simple, isn't it? Now think of all physical and mental discipline required for that. Especially mental. It's very easy to get dispersed, but she didn't. She remained present there, with her body and soul. So people saw their own humanity in her. The artist was a mirror. Many people cried. Many returned. The most moving moment was when the love of her life, Ulay, sat on that chair. It had been more than twenty years since the two last met. Marina was with her eyes closed concentrating to receive the next visitor. Then she opened her eyes and recognized him, and now he became her mirror..." Ariela stopped talking and held Marisa's hand. "You look suddenly sad, what's the matter?"

"It's nothing..." Marisa lied to her and to herself: "I'm already getting over it."

Ariela stroked her hand, and the two exchanged a look—in that moment, two mirrors gazing into one another. A dive into the same reflex, the soul imprinted on the iris glow. So many stories in there wanting to come out, and a silver drop falling onto the mirror of the lake—a tear? Marisa tried to find something to say but was at loss of words. Ariela simply asked:

"May I kiss you?"

Marisa remained quiet, not knowing how to reply. The lips caressed hers. She kept still, eyes wide open, no reaction. It was strange to be touched like that by another woman. Soft. A drop forming circles in the water. So soft. Ariela broke contact, ran her fingers on Marisa's cheekbone and hair. She drew her lips closer again...

Marisa heard someone clear their throat and jerked her head to the side to find Marco standing next to her. The tin bear rolled the drum and the girl in the puffy pink pant pepped up with laughter.

Ba-dum-tisssh! Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...

___________________________________________________________

This beautiful song is by an African duo that have been nominated to the Grammy. They're a couple, both blind, having met in a rehab center. Isn't that an inspiring story?

Carnivàle was a wonderful dark fantasy series produced by HBO. I have no idea how it came to my mind when I decided to jazz up this bar. If you haven't watched it, give it a try. The first season builds up slowly, impeccable production. Then on the second season everything comes together and catches fire...

Speaking of fire, be an angel and vote for this chapter if you like it! Hmmm... what fire has do to with angels? I haven't got the faintest idea ;-)