Singing to Deaf Ears

Kalixta is the singer of our City of Tedium. Yes, you heard it right “The City of Tedium.” Anyone who has not heard Kalixta sing does not know the power of song. Our lives are not only boring but hard. We work 9–5 doing almost nothing. If Kalixta ever dies, music will vanish from our lives. I have thought about what this music of hers really means. The simplest answer would be that the beauty of her singing is so great that even the most insensitive cannot be deaf to it. We don’t know where Kalixta learned to sing, we only know she sings and she sings well. In our city, we are quite unmusical, and precisely because of it, we can enjoy good music. She is music to our ears. When Kalixta sings, she makes us experience a feeling that from her throat something is sounding that which we have never heard before and which we are not even capable of hearing. In our City of Tedium, silence abounds, nothingness prevails, and we are always more than ready for a little bit of entertainment. To comprehend Kalixta’s art it is necessary not only to hear but to see her. Every Friday evening, and Saturday nights, Kalixta will sing to us. We would gather in the park and would wait patiently for Kalixta to appear. She is a delicate, tall and slim woman. Her age is impossible to know. She is a woman of undetermined age; she is wise beyond her years; some say she is an old soul. Kalixta has big exotic green eyes. And as the song “Green Eyes,” her eyes had a soft light, brought to our souls a longing, a thirst for love divine. And precisely this is song “Green Eyes,” Kalixta enjoyed singing for us. She also enjoyed singing “Black Eyes.” And the lyrics go as follows:

“Dark eyes, passionate eyes

Burning and beautiful eyes

How I love you, how I fear you

I saw you in an evil hour for sure

Oh, it’s not unreasonable that you are darker than the depths

I see mourning for my soul in you

I see the triumph flame in you

A poor heart burned in it

But I am not sad, I am not sorrowful

My fate is comforting to me

All that is best in life, God has given us

I sacrificed to the fiery eyes.” [1]

And songs about eyes, Kalixta likes to sing. And what a contradiction, Kalixta’s eyes are suspicious and rich in paranoia. This is what Kalixta is, a walking paradox, a Pandora’s box, the mother of all contradictions.

Kalixta learned to dance samba. During her concerts, she would turn her body back, and her hips and buttocks would move from right to left and from left to right, and in the same manner, the eyes of her audience would move from right to left and from left to right. But the excitement did not end there. Kalixta knew how to move her breasts up and down at the tone of the music. The people of the City of Tedium could not get enough of Kalixta. She knew about theatrics. Some romantic songs, Kalixta would move her arms, her body would contort, and then she would throw her body to the floor crying. And, of course, we would give her a standing ovation. Hers were crocodile tears, but we did not care. We were an insincere city; we cried to our wives, our wives cried to us, we cried to our bosses, and our bosses cried to us. We knew all about crying to get whatever we wanted to get.

But, the fun did not end there. Kalixta knew how to sing in many different languages such as English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese and Ukrainian. But, a caveat here, whatever the language Kalixta sang in, nobody could understand a word of it. But, we did not care because life cannot be understood, life is a complete and unfathomable absurdity.

One day, Kalixta, in a tremulous voice announced she was going to sing “Missing a Piece.” This is, Kalixta said, the song that was playing when she met her husband of 25 years, Esculapio. And the lyrics go like this:

“Love is a big loop, a step to a trap

A wolf running in circles to feed its pack

I compare your arrival with the scape of an island:

It fattens as well as kills, like a daughter’s sorrow

Love is like a huge lighting, challengingly galloping

It opens slits, covers valleys, revolts the water of the rivers

Love and agony have clenched in space

Fighting for hours, the heat defeats the fatigue

And the lover’s heart misses a piece

Like the waning moon, like my heart in your arms.” [2]

And with this song, Kalixta would make use of all her artistic abilities to accommodate her body to the lyrics of this song, to the point that she would end up moving like a snake on the floor and then end up rising like phoenix. And, again, the public would burst into applause. When Kalixta stopped singing, she and her husband Esculapio locked eyes. Esculapio and Kalixta knew all was a lie. They did not meet when this song was playing; the song that was playing was “Cold, Cold Heart.” She and he knew it. And, knowing the obedient people of the City of Tedium, they probably knew it too. But, guess what? They did not care. Anyway, life is a lie dressed as a truth like politicians have taught us.

And who says men don’t cry? Over a period of 25 years, Esculapio cried silently about all the many moments of his marriage to Kalixta. The reality was Esculapio married a woman with a cold, cold heart; in the left side of her chest was not a heart but a piece of ice.

The last day finally arrived. Esculapio decided to sing for the City of Tedium. Kalixta was in the first row awaiting impatiently to hear Esculapio sing; she was about to experience the power of a man she considered a coward. Esculapio said in a clear, and strong voice. I am about to sing a song. The title of the song is “Of Life” and the lyrics go like this:

“Many times I told you that before doing this we should think it over very carefully

That in this relationship of ours both substance as well as desire were lacking

That it wasn’t enough that you understood me and that you would die for me,

That it wasn’t enough that in my failures I could find comfort in you

And now you see what has happened in the end came into being,

With the passing of the years, that tremendous weariness I now cause you

And even if it is distressing, you have to say it.

For my part I was hoping that one day time would bring it all to an end,

If this had not been so I would have gone on playing at making you happy,

And although the tears are bitter, think about the years you have yet to live

My grief is no less than yours and the worst thing is that at this moment I can feel nothing

And now try to win back with futile effort this lost time, which has left us defeated

Without the power to appreciate, that thing they call love of life.” [3]

Kalixta began to cry, and that very last day in the life of Esculapio, the day she lost him, she cried all the tears Esculapio cried during 25 years with her.

And like this ends the story of Kalixta, the queen of contradictions. She was able to fool the people of the City of Tedium, but in the heart of Esculapio, Kalixta was singing to deaf ears.

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1) ‘Black Eyes’ (Очи чёрные, Ochi chyornye) — written by Ukrainian poet /writer Yevhen Hrebinka [1843]

2) ‘Missing a Piece’ (Faltando um Pedaço) — performed by Brazilian singer Djavan [1990]

3) ‘Para Vivir’ (of Life) — by Cuban singer/songwriter Pablo Milanés [1976]