I sat down while still enjoying the music. I closed my eyes. Shut them completely from my external world to behold my inner world.
I knew it was the only place where I could have real and true peace.
I listened to the sound of my own breath when I inhaled air through my nostrils and after I exhaled out strongly aiming to relax everything in my body.
I love the inner world. It's always peaceful as long as you don't impose external happenings onto it.
My fatigue energy divulged. I felt everything in me calm down slowly.
I stood up to check the pork steaks. They amazingly were doing great just the way I wanted them to turn out.
My pasta exhibited signs of readiness. I used my kitchen towel to lift up the pot and drain out some water.
I stack it back on my gas stove. Next I poured the canned beans into the pot containing pasta.
I did the same for the canned fish and tomato pastry. I then smoothly used my wooden spoon to gently mix them nicely.
I added some black pepper and salt to my pasta. So far its sweet tantalising smell weft my entire sphere of contact.
I assumed that it must taste good. I got tempted to savour it in my mouth. But I resisted, held my strong urge in place which claimed to be satisfied.
In less than thirty minutes my meal came to its completion. I could not go on exalting the aroma anymore even when it had taken dominion of my current premise.
I developed some immunity to it. I set up a quick table.
I sat on my garden chair. On one plate, my two grilled steaks of pork and my mixed pasta in a huge round white bowl.
They were set up on a tray which I put on top of my laps. Aside from my pork steak plate I had added some mango pickle chilli.
I cut a small piece, shoved it into my mouth.
"Heavens!"
My thoughts run wild after tasting it.
"This damn steak is heavenly."
My hands performed a handcraft miracle. Of course my mind and hands combined can produce any magic I dream of.
"Emma, I wish you were here to share this glorious moment with me."
I thought out loud to myself.
It didn't matter, in the view of the fact that this damn steak improvised a special kind of goodness.
I sipped from my glass of wine. I have to testify that the love from heaven descended in my mortal body.
My eyes switched to the pasta. My fork straight away dug in. It reached my mouth. I took my time chewing it.
My senses were intoxicated by its flavour.
"God," I was amazed at the gifts he embedded into the human mind.
Its taste fought against that of my grilled pork steak. I couldn't possibly choose any favourite between the two.
They all had brisky ecstasy in them.
I swig from my well chilled wine glass of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. What a fine meal I thought to myself.
I just wished I could share it with another human being. I remembered a statement I heard from a long time friend of mine.
"Happiness is only real if shared with others."
Her memory flooded in my head with each steak that entered my mouth or the canned-beans-fish and pastry pasta.
She was called Margherita Ferrari.
I immersed myself with her thoughts completely. Her memories became alive in my brain.
"Contratino?"
Her soft voice was full of tenderness. She leaned her head over my chest shoulder.
We sat at the corner edge of an extended tiled corridor. Behind us a chimney and a fireplace made out of pan bricks.
Our feets rested on the flat stones. To the right were a furrow and two toilet entrances. The lights buzzed brightly from the toilets straight up the wall to the dorms.
"Yes, my dear."
I calmly voiced. Not sure if my voice could compare to hers.
"Has someone before ever told you that your smile is the best gift you can ever give to a person?"
"Really?"
My furrow brows raised. My doubts clearly showed.
"Yes but even more so for your heart. It's so big and vast. Reaching to the ends of the Earth."
Margherita now faced me. She was older than me by a few years.
I had just come back from Scotland so we had a week before she could depart back to Italy.
"Our bond feels as if we have known each other for decades."
I confided in her. She grinned smugly.
"I feel the same. Probably, we might have been friends in another life. Maybe in thousands of our lives."
She added to my statement. The feeling between us was mutual. We only spent a week together after my return yet our bonding could not be described. We both shared a deep entanglement most people just dream of.
We had an awkward moment. We both went silent letting our shared words reach the depth of our souls.
"Do you know why I am always happy?"
I initiated a conversation after a long silence we both fell into. I presume pondering about our deep felt friendship.
"Hmm, no."
Her gaze was fixed on mine. At such a serene moment nothing you could hide from your companion. Her eyes searched down the depth of my soul and I did the same into her.
I smiled, "Because each day that unfolds holds a bulk package of gifts. Each gift has gifts inside them."
I paused to feel her energy if she vibrated on the same frequency as me and if my words had any meaning to her.
"You can't crack open all the gifts at once. You can just pick one. When you open it you discover there are more gifts inside one gift package. You would need to select one again and upon opening it you find more gifts. The sequence keeps going and going. You can't possibly get to its end. It's infinite."
"So what you have to look for in each opened gift are a thousand joys or a thousand hills."