hay fever (507 days of spring)

It’s almost as if summer's exploded two days ago and covered grass with some make-shift flowers - flowers that won’t survive even for a week. I have a hay-fever and can’t really see on my left eye. Tears – meaningless but very salty – are dripping from my chin. I don’t have any tissues so I am trying to ignore them.

I start to count. It’s neither my heartbeat nor the passing seconds. Numbers appear and fade away on my inner eyelid. Three hundred. Shadow that more or less resembles a human being appears in front of me. “You are late”, I say so quietly that even I don’t know if I have managed to make any sound. Three hundred and one. In that exact moment all of the whys and whens actually escape me and it is necessary that I keep on counting - that’s the bright red thread that won’t let us get lost. You might be saying something but all that reaches me are muffled sounds in the background; I try to smile whilst navigating between the numbers. Three hundred thirty three. I think to myself that you are a little bit like this pollen in the air that surrounds me: you bring so many colours to the things around me and I can nearly see them, I can nearly smell them - I am sure I would - if only I wouldn’t cry all of the time. It’s not that I haven’t tried, for a while I’ve even taken pills for that and thought that maybe, just maybe, they could stop my tears. Three hundred fifty eight. It didn’t go as planned. I have to take a deep breath to fill in the spaces after all of the words I don’t want to think out-loud. I nearly lose my count. Three hundred ninety eight. By now, I can hear it in your voice, you are getting annoyed with my silence and you talk even more; you talk even louder. Four hundred twenty eight. I’d reply but I can’t stop counting: I need to count for us - our red thread entangled between the trees; red thread that can show us the way out from this wooden maze. Four hundred sixty six. Even my own thoughts have become blurred now. We stand opposite each other as if preparing for a duel and it’s only our shadows that hold each other’s hands. Four hundred ninety nine. I start to rush through the numbers and by now my right eye is also crying. Five hundred and five. We kiss good-bye. Five hundred and seven.