It was a muggy morning in London. Despite the almost perennial rains of the city, the air fills loaded. It's probably because of the emotion about the imminent Olympic Games. The British people if anything, are known by their patriotic passion, different to the blind pride of the Americans, more fundamental or as everything British, more sophisticated. And the one thing that characterizes the metropolis is that spirit of perfect host, won year after year by a ceaseless swarm of tourists.
London is his temporal home. A June filled with social events, the Queen's Jubilee, no more no less, and also his seventieth birthday, has him installed in the most practical place, preventing him from any casual escape. Despite the years behind his back, he as to admit he hasn't lost the taste for being «the honor guest» wherever he goes. That's why, once more, London is the perfect place.
This is a rough Friday, every bone in his body hurts, not just because of his age, but also because he just kept rolling in bed all night, even after falling into an irregular dream.
The first thing he does when he opens his eyes is see his night stand clock. Besides him, the void in the bed announces that Nancy has been awake for hours. Maybe see foresaw the long day they had ahead of big, bold, illuminated number 6 makes him smile. The date is nothing new to him, it's been anticipated since… approximately the 18th of last month. A little flashback, the first of thousands to come in this day, comes fleeting, uncontrollable.
Some year in the past, in that vertiginous storm of days, nights, gigs, buses, drags; at some point he had told about the importance of that date to John. "Fuck! How am I supposed to remember when that happened?" was his only answer. Paul's reply, in an apologetic way, "For our biographers, dude, we must always remember the dates for them", seemed to be enough.
The morning was rushing in a very tangible way, the same as the first half of the feared 2012. This year's months were filled with plane travels and people screaming at him in Spanish or Portuguese. The South America tour, prepared for the warmest months in the south hemisphere, was a total success. Thousands of generations overlapped singing in one voice their melodies, released all the contained emotion, accumulated after almost half a century of nearly religious admiration, that ended up directly into his blood stream.
He was born to be on a stage, to feel one with his public, to grow with each sounded note. That's why this wait, this forced holidays, marked the passing of the years. Not the gigs, not the recording sessions, not the long interviews.
With the computer on, he got to thinking about the guys. How things would have been like if all that technology had existed half a century ago. How many things, anecdotes, songs, images, pranks, hangovers… would be documented, instead of wandering sadly into oblivion. Or worst yet, in the mind of two seventy years old men, who break down each story into several different endings. One of his children, possibly Stella, told him recently about Ringo's smart idea. It was to create an account in this famous social network called Twitter. The initial pride "I created one before" was eclipsed suddenly with his daughter's reply "Sure dad, but he's using it differently".
He pictured his friend John with one of those gadgets. A quick vision of the possible sentences, or even images, that his pal wouldn't have been able to hold on to, could have lead the authorities to a bit of a pickle « We should close that punk's account!». But it's John Lennon, and the moral of such deep thinking is the same as always "He deserves special treatment". The only magical thing within the tragedy of losing someone who is taken from you before their time, is the ironic immortality they acquire.
The John in his head will always be the young man full with witty answers that would mean the envy of the most capable screen writer. Instead of modelling the character of his memory, the present would adapt to the character. You can have the weight of the years in your shoulders, the passing of time reflected in your face, your ages trying to slow down your every move, but the one you miss, the one who is with you in your daily life intermittently, stays unmoved, almost mocking.