What if he doesn’t find the solution? He just comes to terms with the fact that people may disappear any moment. And we don’t give the audience the solution either. It’s an insane man who managed to accept his insanity and live with it. No, he doesn’t even know if he’s insane or not. He just accepts his world the way it is. Knowing that any of the people around might disappear tomorrow, he becomes more open with people, more trusting. “I don’t even know if I’ve been insane for all these best days of my life or not. But I don’t want to know. It’s been like a drunk trip to netherland and, at the same time, it’s never been so freaking real before. I feel liberated from my demons, my suspicions and frauds. I’ve done what I’ve always dreamt of and said things I’ve always kept deep inside my heart. I’ve never hurt so much but never have I been so blessed. Now they’re all gone. I’ve kissed them the final goodbye. So, here I am, naked and true, in front of the greatest change a man can face. And I am not afraid. For the first time in my life I embrace my fate.”. His last words, the closing words.///
Me and I. met on a dusky winter evening under an umbrella of fluffy snowflakes. I opened the heavy wooden door of the university building, was about to turn right toward a bus stop. The street lights were dimly lurking in the slim city smoky fog. I was about to vanish in the snow crawling to my tiny apartment where each speck of space reminds me of aloneness of mine. But there she was. Her blond hair elegantly rounded her pretty face, her eyes colored deep ocean blue and sensual pink lips with drops of salt tears, she was mesmerizing. Yes, she was crying. My heart sank and my soul followed. What a heck! – I thought and turned back to her. She was standing by an iron fence. Her lips were trembling. She took a look at me from behind her lashes. I asked her what was the matter.
I knew she was married and belonged to another man. The thought tried to gnaw at me but I actually didn’t care. In my heart she was mine. I knew he could catch us red-handed any moment but it wasn’t of concern. The evening light of the moon, my drunkness, the bubbles of champaigne in my glass – everything told me to take the step and I did. She asked me what I wanted and my answer was “you”. She smiled. I went in for the kiss, she went away from it but I knew she prayed for it in her heart. And I heard the prayer. I did all I could to bring her close to what she wanted. Our mouths played hide-and-seek for a while. Finally she surrended. She stood up and I pushed her to the couch. She played a vulnerable victim and I joined the game. I was a predator and I loved it. So did she. A few moments later she was under my body, conquered and helpless, ready to be my prey. I came on with more and more force, I didn’t just kiss her – I was attacking and killing her with passion, she was dying under me and I knew she was in love with the death. She was in love with being killed by me. For I know in my heart the greatest secret. I know there’s no woman on earth who doesn’t want inside to be killed by her lover. That’s what I was gonna give her that night. My hands caressed her breasts whose nipples were as tight as an iron stick. Not only her nipples were tight while those blissful seconds were rapidly gaining pace that night. Our pulses were rushing forward as hell. Her pulse was rushing forward. Then, all of a sudden, she told me to stop. Who would listen? I ate her mouth crazily then got to her nipples that were about as sharp as needles. Her body was hot, literally. She started to shout at me begging me to stop. Who would care? She could attempt to lie to me with her words but I knew better. I did. “No!!!” That was her. She sneaked from under my body like a wild cat and rushed out of the bedroom. I smiled. I slowly followed her to the kitchen. She was standing against the tabletop. Her eyes wild as a fire, her hair in complete chaos that I created. I was her author, she was my book. I could tear her apart or burn her. She knew it. She loved it. “You’re coming on too strong” she said. “I’m always in control” she said. “I can’t control you”, she whispered. “You’re wild”, she added submissively. “You ruined everything”, I said intently looking her in the eye. “Did I?”, she said. I didn’t turn my eyes away penetrating her with my gaze. “You don’t know how to kiss a woman”, she said. “Turn off the lights”, she added. I did. “Come closer to me”, she uttered. A second later all I could see in the dark were her eyes shining under the beams of the street lights falling down on her out the windows.
She pulled me closer to her body. She touched me slightly upon the mouth and licked my upper lip. I could feel the tip of her wet tongue. I wanted to take her mouth by force but she made me stop. “Slowly”, she said smiling, “Slowly… I want to feel you”. I ran my hands along her belly down to her pants. She held my fingers in her palm. “You want it?”, “Yes, I want it”, “And you surely know what it is that you want, yeah?”, “Yes”, “And you wanna get it from me anyway?” “Yes, anyway”, I said smiling. I knew she loved my answers. She timidly cast her eyes down. I loved the way she did it. She knew I did.
A few minutes later I left her alone in her room. I left. I didn’t want to but I knew I had to. She needed it, too, although that did she not know. She didn’t have to. That’s the way life is. I know.
The day she disappeared I stayed late in my bed. As always I woke up and looked out the window. As always it was raining. It was the fall, after all. Probably, it had to rain though I didn’t know what it was that had to rain every day. Rain was like liquid time to me and the drops like seconds. That way I could hear them slip away. I quickly opened the icebox and closed it even quicker. I don’t usually eat ice and ice was the only food inside. “Mary, where’s the heck all the hem?” – I shouted. How could she on earth have eaten all the hem? We bought it yesterday. “Are you in the shower, lady?” I knocked at the door of the shower room. I slowly opened the door a bit and peeked inside. Nothing but a white wall although her tooth-brush and some female stuff were at their places. I looked at the floor. There was a faint yellow smoke running along the baseboard. The moment I saw the smoke I knew for sure she disappeared. At least it wasn’t her who’d eaten all the hem. Although I really wished it had been her.
My little shabby so-called apartment was in a constant state of overhaul. The left wall was always overpinned by a stack of wood for the floor repair. The right one was… Well, it was there at its place which was a big lump of consolation in dark times. I mean times when the electricity was shut off and the only way to feel the way to the kitchen was to touch the right wall (unfortunately, no matter how I tried I couldn’t ever touch the ceiling). By the way, the biggest trick was that they shut off the electricity at night. Always. That might have been a sort of a joke I never managed to laugh at. I’ve never had enough light on my walls because the trees before the window stole it all for themselves. Photosynthesis is important. I understand. At least I have some stuff for breathing. But lately I feel like I would rather stop breathing. Don’t know why. Must be a seasonal disease. Or a decease.
There is light shining in a figural sense though. My neighbours rarely trouble me with their visits. I rarely see them. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re all already dead. God bless them. They must have been very generous to give me so vast living space and freedom. I would turn my stereo up so loud that even devils would call the police or kick the door a bit. Most likely my neighbours died on the way to my door. If I opened the door I’d sure as hell find their twisted dead bodies with plugged ears. But, you know, I actually rarely open the door. I guess it’s already covered with an ivy or grown into the wall. Can’t know for sure I rarely come up to the door. I wish it came up to me but that’s barely ever happened. If it did I must have been obliviously drunk at the time.
My little shabby so-called life is in a constant state of nothing. Lately I’ve seen an educational program on TV about a fish that can fly. Not that it can lift off into the open sky with gas burning from under its scaled tail but it can jump out of the ocean just a bit. It’s a unique fish because it can travel into a different dimension. I guess the fish’s ocean fish peers consider it to be a bit out there. Anyway, I wish I could identify with the flying fish. And I can, really. The only difference is that I can only fly in my dreams. Oh, I love to dream. I’m actually dreaming my life away one day at a time. I don’t even need TV. Imagination plays tricks with me. Once I walked into a mirror wondering why that guy in the doorway (the mirror) looked so much like me. He even had the same cap on his head! It was a delirious experience to realize the truth. It always is.
For so many nights I wished I just disappeared. To vanish in the thin air, to stop being, to be annihilated has been my dream for a century. I guess you all remember the movie “Alone Home”. There was that guy who wished he’d once wake up and his whole bunch of family members would be gone for good. Well, I understand him. The only difference is that it’s me who I wish to disappear in the morning. The question is “How would I know that I’ve disappeared? Who would know it?”. The thought strikes the hell out of me.
Well. I guess it’s time I introduced myself. My name is… My name is… No, not Slim Shady! My name is Igor. I live in ****. No. Not that bad. I live in a one bedroom apartment somewhere out there. I mean outskirts, actually. In fact, I dwell outside the city. Like an exile which I love to identify myself with. I love it. Don’t know why. Each morning I wake up. Not bad, yeah? Well, what? Some people don’t. Actually I can stay in bed for as long as it takes an average russian bus to arrive at the bus station – which means forever. I wish I could sleep forever but that’s impossible. Unless you’re dead but then you don’t actually sleep, do you? I don’t really know what you’re doing when you’re dead. I sincerely hope you’re alive. At least for a while.
Sleeping is not a trouble. Never was. The trouble starts once you’re awake. Usually it’s raining. The sound of rain is like ringing of a phone to me. Someone’s trying to get God on the phone, maybe. Or, it’s God who’s trying to get you on the phone. I don’t know how to answer this kind of call. I hope God does. Or else we’re all doomed. Of course, there must be God on the ICQ. The question is “Who of the thousands of the ICQ gods is the God?”. Who cares, yeah? Let’s just start the day once it’s here to stay.
My living room, bedroom and any other kind of room is all in the same room. That’s progress! You don’t have to move too much. So, in some strange kind of way my icebox is in my bedroom while at the same time it’s in the kitchen. Talk about space warp! Quantum mechanics in action. I guess I must be the quant in the equation. Not that I’m that small though I’m not a big particle either. About 176 cm, don’t know for sure. Still don’t touch the ceiling. Yeah, and I’m often at two places at once. One is this world, the other being any other I’m in at any given moment (especially when I’m drunk).
- I don’t like the taste of ice-cream on your lips. So cold. Just like your heart.
- What are you talking about?
- I know.
His memories are disappearing.
I’m forgetting the world I’ve created.
God is a child. There are days when I feel like one.