MURMÚRIOS DE LISBOA XLIII

The Paul Auster Book - Prologue
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Bairro Alto

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The first time I saw you, I didn’t really see you. You asked me for light, at a coffee shop near your bookstore. I wasn’t alone. That’s about the only thing I know for sure about you – that you smoke.
I didn’t even look at you. I mean, I looked, but I didn’t really see you. And then I recognized you at the bookstore. And after that I decided you were The Paul Auster Book. I didn’t really decide. You decided for me.
I also think I have seen you before that first time. Your face looks so familiar. I have tried in my mind to remember where, but I just can’t figure it. Maybe it was at another bookstore …

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Everything else I have to imagine. You’re also very thin. You don’t eat a lot and you probably buy those 5 minute microwave meals and you probably smoke a lot. And your blue eyes have a darkness in them and there’s a little twist of cynicism in your voice, as if the world has stopped surprising you a long time ago. And I could bet you take the subway home and maybe you like Pink Floyd and you’re a basketball fan because you’re tall. And I could bet you like movies with strange endings.
I just don’t know if you like Paul Auster. But I can picture you with “Lulu on the Bridge” in your large hands with a coffee at your side and a cigarette plucked between your fingers.
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Do you wonder about me aswell? Do I cross your mind, every now and again? Have you wished me to come into your bookstore again? What if this was a movie with a strange ending and I came up to you and asked you “Would you like to be a character in my book?” What would you answer me? What would your blue eyes tell me? Would they pierce me as they did in Chapter I? Would you shudder like I think you did in Chapter II?
I could, you know. I could try surprising the Paul Auster Book with the blue dark cynical eyes …