A Ballad of Time and Madness

by Kevin Koperski

"Isabel!"

The voice sang through the streets and danced with expectation.

"Isabel," it cried again. "Isabel!"

The voice was a song, and it was the song of a man beholden to nothing, a man on the verge of storied accomplishment, a Conquistador under the arches of the chamber where his treasure had hidden for centuries. The song was mournful, having been uttered only in whispers and cries for over a decade. It was fearful, having been the theme of countless nightmares. It was hopeful, tinged with the magic of dreams and an unquenchable thirst for passion. And it was powerful, indeed more powerful than any tune in the long history of Time, but let us come to that later.

The voice sprang from the lips of our Conquistador as he sprinted down unfamiliar streets chasing after footsteps. A single turn remained in the road ahead, a blind corner between two souls and their destiny. But destiny is a shady thing, a mistress of the future, easily cast aside by the greed and jealous nature of reality once two souls are reunited. Reality, it's been said, maintains a disturbingly unromantic outlook on the nature of souls.

But Fernando, for that was our Conquistador's name, darted around that final turn with abandon, searching for his destiny, longing for his Isabel. He knew she was nearby, and his news could wait no longer. How many years had he worked toward this moment? How often had he dreamt it, rehearsed it, played out its conclusion in the quiet rooms of his apartment? When the questions came from worried family, when the bill collectors knocked down his door demanding payment, when other women snuggled close in bed, naked, satisfied, and asked why he was so distant, so untrusting, so secretive, what answer did he always want to offer? What answer justified their concerns? It was an answer he never spoke, because they could never understand. The answer was Isabel. And the answer would always be Isabel.

He sang her name again, and as before the song spun with expectation, licking at the cobblestones, twisting around the street lamps. It filled the night with warmth and anticipation, and every pair of feet walking the streets hesitated. Every man felt a pang of empathy. Every woman with a romantic heart recognized the longing, and each secretly wished she was the object of the singer's desire. Longing of such an exuberant nature is rare, as is the love that propels that longing into madness.

Isabel was a romantic soul, but there is a difference between wishing you were the object of someone's affection and hearing the wind cry your name in the night. Fernando knew this. He wanted to reach her before she fled in fear. And there she was walking with friends, ahead in the faint glow of a sidewalk streetlamp.  They were heading home, all five of them, from a night at the theater, and they stopped to listen when they heard his song. He watched them tease Isabel, amused by the coincidence of her name on the tongue of a mystery. Perhaps they didn't yet understand, and perhaps that's why they turned, startled and in unison, when his footsteps chased them through the night.

"Isabel!" he cried. He stopped a dozen paces from the women, and a moment later Isabel emerged, at long last, stepping forward out of the crowd. She was as beautiful as Time itself, and he should know, for he had an intimate relationship with Time.

"Fernando?" she asked. It was only partly a question of identity. Mostly it was a demand for answers. She could fit more meanings into a single word than anyone he knew. But it was his name, and they were her lips, and nothing else mattered.

"I've been looking for you," he said.

"And you've found me. But why?"

He smiled at her. It was a proud smile, a naïve smile, a smile blinded by too many years of imagination.

"Don't grin like an idiot," she said. "It's cold, and my friends have places to be."

"Send them home. I have something to show you."

"Show me then, and be done with it."

"I did it, Isabel. It took me a long a time, but I found a way. You asked, and I succeeded."

"What did I ask, Fernando?"

"Remember your words on the pier when you touched my hand?"

"No."

"Come now, you remember. Under the stars, gazing at ships on the Med. Your hair was crazy from dancing in that lucky westerly wind. You touched my hand and wished upon the moonlight…"

"Fernando, that was fourteen years ago."

"I know you remember. It was your wedding night, and a woman never forgets her wedding night."

"Can you blame me for trying to forget?"

One of her friends, standing in the group of confused women, asked, "Is everything okay?"

Isabel turned and stepped backwards, nodding her head. "I'm sorry, Fernando. It's nice to see you. Been a long time. But I’ve got to go. Take care of yourself."

Fernando reached for her arm. "I guess you don't remember."

"I'm sorry," she answered, pulling away and turning to her friends.

But our Conquistador was not so easily discouraged. He suffered, as all daring explorers do, from an abundance of ego and pride, and why not? He had achieved the impossible. And he saw hesitation in her steps.

"Isabel," he said. "Let me help you remember."

He lifted his chin then, inhaled, and began to sing. Isabel, to the surprise of her friends, stopped walking and turned to listen.

His voice began low, faintly audible beneath the sounds of wind in the air and leaves on the road, but soon it grew bolder, his words louder, and the wind gained strength. The Heavens twitched, the ground laughed, leaves jumped into the air. Clouds parted and the moon spun. They heard tides crash against invisible breakers in the distant sea. He sang, and the world lifted itself up into heightened awareness, and those who at that moment breathed the earth's air ascended into calm euphoria. They were drunk on the magic of his melody. And when he reached the song's crescendo, the last word of the last chorus, it being the wondrous and fantastical name of Isabel, the stars began to fall from the sky, cascading in a sparkly fall of illumination, as though the universe might collapse upon itself but remain beautiful amid endless destruction.

When he stopped singing, there was stillness. And silence.

"That was lovely," Isabel said with a sigh of bewilderment. "Mesmerizing and haunting and beautiful. Thank you for singing it to me."   She stood sideways, facing neither him nor her friends, confused about which way to turn. "We did have a wonderful moment on that pier," she added. "I've never forgotten. But that was a long time ago, and I need to leave now."

Fernando's smile was broad and proud and happy.

"Goodbye," she said, but confusion had crept into her voice. Or maybe it was fear. A stoic, grinning fool can be an intimidating sight. As she turned and stepped that first step back to her friends, the confusion and the fear fell flat on the stones underfoot, and everything she knew about the universe proved itself unproven.

Her friends, like the world around her, were motionless. But you mustn't confuse an absence of motion with stillness. People can stand still, unmoving, as Fernando did, but there is always motion. Their tongues lick their lips, their chests swell and contract, their fingers twitch, their eyebrows furl, their hair blows in the wind, their weight shifts from