theory of everything

I am sitting on the pavement gluing my back to the red bricks that explode towards the sky. With fingertips of my left hand I draw invisible patterns and make more complicated calculations. The sun above me makes everything nearly colourless and two-dimensional. I try to look up from time to time, but all I can see is only this whole brightness. Bright totality. Blinding nothingness.

I think I am waiting for someone. Unable to agree with myself on the details, I am simply sitting and keeping a neutral look on my face. There is a big chance I am waiting for J. and if so I am probably too early because J. is never late. If it’s not J. that I am waiting for, I know there are not many other options but somehow they keep on escaping me… It’s so hard to focus, with this sharp and impenetrable light that floods whole world around me. It enters my head through my tightly closed eyes, it sinks in my skin and somehow manages to travel in my bloodstream – it multiplies itself within me and becomes stronger, it aims for my heart. It spreads like disease.

And so – I still can’t remember, I can barely see.

From time to time I can hear steps – but they keep their pace when they are passing me by, so I guess they are not the one I am waiting for (on the pavement, near the brick tower, in this great and horrible sun). After a while I start to name prime numbers – my own kind of prayer, my own kind of psalm.

Someone stops just next to me and casts a shadow on my forehead and eyelids. I want to look up but my pupils become so heavy and all I can see are dusty and dirty shoes in front of me, deprived of any colour, with sad and nearly non-existent shoe-laces. I stare at them out of necessity, as there is nothing else for me to do. I don’t recognize them. But, to be completely honest, it’s not like I don’t recognize them. My mind resembles cotton candy and there is not much I can do about it.

Silence doesn’t bother me (it never did). For unmeasured and unaccounted by anyone time there is only me and these shoes. Finally I can feel that the shadow over me moved and suddenly someone grabs me by my neck and lifts into standing position. I squint and probably my face twists in ugly convulsions. Sun rays attack me in so many new ways, burn skin under my hair and inside my mouth. I think to myself that it can’t be normal or at least I want to think that but instead there is only more fluffy and shapeless matter that fills my head that makes me dumb and indifferent. Probably only the realisation that now I can’t see the shoes worries me a little bit and I nearly make a grunt to protest (nearly but not quite). My whole body goes through the nauseating motions and I can barely stop myself from throwing up or fainting. In the end though – my vision sharpens and the feeling that I am on fire disappears.

The person in front of me is mostly eyes. Blue shadow upon the iris and pitch black pupils – staring at me. Staring through me. Staring inside of me. They are not blinking so I am trying not to. But this game is rigged – we both know it. We both know I will lose. We both know I have already lost (even before it all started). Somehow though - it doesn’t matter. Game has to be played – and so we stand and stare. My eyelids shut for a nanosecond and it’s just like a shot from the gun (it would go straight through my heart if it was real, if I would have a heart). Minimalistic and not very pretty smile spreads like a melted butter just under these blue eyes. Oh yes, if it all was real, I would be already dead.

Dead can’t talk so I stay mute, sort of on a stand-by. All this fluff that filled my head makes it anyway hard to do anything else. I can’t even decide whether this blue-eyed monster is a friend or a foe – just in case it might be the latter I don’t allow my face to change and give away anything that may or may not be happening inside of me. Fee-fi-fo-fum…

- Shall we…? – I hear the voice even though the lips haven’t moved and are still frozen in this peculiar cold smirk. Part of me wants to turn around and simply run away – build a distance between me and this thing. But, as it could have been predicted, I comply. I shrug my shoulders and without any protest start following it. For a while we are walking on little narrow streets with skewed walls around and very much alike some sort of the labyrinth. I know very well – wrong – I understand on a very basic level that I can’t see these eyes; that these eyes shouldn’t be able to see me – yet, with a lot of effort and nearly as if it was against some kind of the law, I look down and try to hide behind my eyelashes. The thing laughs and it makes me scared and angry. I part my lips and want to say something (anything; make a sound – a barbaric and vulgar howl, shapeless and uncontrolled scream) but suddenly I realise that I have forgotten how to do it. Like a fish, with similarly stupid expression, I open my mouth several times and produce nothing but silence. And so – in the language of silence – I say:

- Fuck you.

We continue our walk – between tall and half-ruined buildings, with no-one around to witness this slow decline of mine. Finally we stop – just next to the bench. It sits and makes a general and not very precise gesture that I can sit as well. Don’t know exactly why but my body choses to sit on its knees. We are nearly the same size, with bony limbs that are always too long and in a way. Almost instantly I am uncomfortable and I know it is uncomfortable as well.

- I know you probably can’t remember – how could you really? – it says and even tries to open its mouth in more or less synchronised way that could pass as talking – but you used to sit on my lap just like that many years ago, when I was so much bigger, when you were so much smaller, when things made so much more sense – or at least it seemed so…

My left leg twitches and suddenly I know it’s true. The thing makes a sound that is very close to a sigh. This is when the sky above us opens up and releases its own grunts together with black clouds and electricity. It takes me a while when I realise that there is two of me now. But this process hasn’t finished yet. I multiply. I become spatiotemporally stretched. There are myriads of me. I start to remember.

[α]

I sit on the bench with this puppet of a human on my lap. Neither of us moves or speaks. The sky above is dark and almost ready to release the storm of the century onto our heads. I wish I could explain everything, put into words and then maybe connect these words into sentences – tell the whole story. Maybe it would help. Maybe it wouldn’t. Who am I trying to kid? This fragile and skinny human starts to shiver and - I can’t help it – I start to shiver as well. Both of us look up and for a moment there is nothing else than chatter of our teeth and distant rumble of the storm that is coming to get us. The universe must be taking pictures because how else would you explain the constant flashes above us? “Smile”, I want to say but in the end I just think it very loudly. My thought becomes audible together with the thunder and so the shivers become even more violent and uncontrolled.

[β]

He sits by the red brick wall and squints in the sun. Straight away I know something is off: it’s in the way his head leans towards his chest; it’s in the way his legs are crossed; it’s all over his face – absent and lifeless. I wave at him and he nods reluctantly. I don’t think he had recognised me yet.

I bend down so our eyes are on the same level. The colour of his iris is so washed out that it looks more like white than blue I remember. His lips are moving as if he was counting something but he still doesn’t make a sound. I wait. Sun burns my back.

[γ]

I can hear my mother singing – it’s a lullaby from the old country, the one that her mother sang to her and her grandmother sang to her mother. I like this language – with sharp accents and words that have so many unexpected sounds in them. I drift in the water around me trying for the very first time to move my arms with purpose, so they match the melody.

Only recently she has started suspecting that something is off – all her guesses, intuitions and fears haven’t been yet named and usually she ends up ignoring them and blaming on pregnancy. But – it won’t be long before my mother finally understands what I am. I think it might make her cry – at least at first.

She started laughing now and she taps with her fingers places which I am pushing from inside her belly with my fists and feet. Her laughter is almost as nice as the lullaby. I decide to play with her for a little bit longer.

[δ]

Even without looking up, I know J. is staring at me and he is trying to figure out how far I have gone this time. But he is wrong - I am simply finishing one of my calculations. I am very much here and I am very much myself.

He is patient and I think he is even trying to cast a shadow on me. I want to say “thank you” but instead I only spit out at him some numbers I am computing at the moment. It happens. It just happened.

J. laughs and for a moment is looking for something in his pockets. Eventually he gives me a piece of chalk.

[β¹]

He writes on the pavement as in fever, equations bloom and grow and slowly take over the whole space. We are sitting in its centre and it almost seems we are becoming smaller with every stroke of the chalk. I wish I could understand any of that. Maybe then I would understand him a little bit more. Maybe not – that’s also a possibility.

Chalk dust floats lazily in the air and builds fractal-like patterns. I watch them in silence. It’s only a suspicion but I think that the time has stopped.

[γ¹]

We are in the park now. She is very quiet. Usually I can hear long-forgotten and obscure melodies echoing inside her - but today it is different. I shift myself slightly and look through her eyes. We look at the clouds. They are just clouds. But my mother stands still with her head tilted uncomfortably backwards and just stares. I try to synchronise with her thoughts – electric impulses, brain waves – anything really…

- You can’t – she says suddenly. She is smiling now – with unnaturally exposed teeth, resembling more a wild animal than a human. We start walking towards the pond. I am very quiet now – just like my mother. Clouds are slowly drifting above our heads.

[α¹]

The movement, at first, is almost invisible. I am pretending that I haven’t noticed anything. Thunders roll already through the sky with the full force and with almost no breaks in between. I have to stop myself from the urge to clench my fingers on the arms of this shadow of the being (I once was). His head finally makes the turn and now we can see each other faces. It crosses my mind that I should smile, but I have forgotten how to do it. So, instead, I do nothing.

After another explosion above us we can feel the first raindrops. My lips part and with the end of my tongue I carefully taste them. Somehow, I don’t know exactly why, I have expected they will be salty.

There is another movement of the pet on my lap. I freeze. A finger lands on my cheek. It digs into my skin and leaves a small deep cut. I remind myself – with a little delay – that it should bleed a bit. His pupils dilate and with much less visible fear he starts moving his finger all over my face. Wherever it stays for longer than three seconds, a little wound opens. Blood mixes with the rain. All becomes pink. Suddenly it comes back to me. I smile.

[δ¹]

0 1 1 2 3 5 8 1 3 2 1 3 4 5 5 8 9 1 4 4 2 3 3 3 7 7 6 1 0 9 8 7 1 5 9 7 2 5 8 4 4 1 8 1 6 7 6 5…

[γ²]

There is a small, wooden deck painted white in front of us. My mother doesn’t slow down until she reaches its very end. Then she leans over the railing and look downwards at her own reflection – blurred and distorted shimmering on the water surface.

- Look. Look now – she says and there is this unfamiliar tone in her voice – short and sharp. For the first time ever I feel uneasy about this, truth to be told – about everything – but of course I do look.

Loose strands of her hair stick to her cheeks and forehead. Her face is pale white with a blue tint, except for the shadow around her eyes – in this afternoon light – an uneven mixture of brown and teal.

I know what’s going to happen (we both do) but somehow refuse to accept it. I push this thought away from myself and simply just stare – through her eyes, into her pond reflection, still and oblivious to everything else.

Something subtle changes in her face – just for a moment – and she waves to herself and the movement of her hand stirs the air into the melody of the lullaby. And then, in one swift motion, she pulls herself over the banister and throws into the dark, bottle green water. We are sinking. We are singing.

[δ²]

I stop myself just before putting the last symbol. I raise my head and look at J. He is somewhere far: with the absent smile and half-closed eyes he resembles more of the statue than a human. I look through his eyes at myself and give myself a nod. I look through the eye of the Legion and see myself as one. I look up and I can see sky filled with clouds, lightened up by the stars, pitch black, aquamarine, obscured by the branches and on fire.

I shrug my shoulders unable to think of more fitting gesture and – I finish my equation.

last song

‘How?...’ her fingers covered her eyes and I couldn’t tell if she actually knows that I am standing next to her. I have remained silent and immobile, a mirror reflection of the shadow I was casting to her feet.

‘This is that, isn’t it?’ she looked directly into my eye and for a moment the only thing I could’ve seen was the pale blue of her iris. I knew, even without checking, that they were the exact colour as the sky above us. The day was just about to begin and even though it was still quite cold, there was a promise of the close warmth: in the way sunlight was touching our skin, slowly heating up the blood in our veins. I could have imagined how sun rays first shutter into small pieces, then into dust and after that – they travel with air into my mouth and for a brief moment, not a very long one – just two heart-beats, I can taste the Sun...

Her cold, long fingers wrapped around my wrist and pulled me. I followed without saying a word - lying to myself I am ready for whatever comes (because I wasn’t and I knew that very well). I don’t think any of us was.

+

We’ve met for the first time few months back. It was late at night and she was a friend of a friend, or maybe not even that. At some point we’ve found ourselves on our own. We stood among the half-drunk people outside the club and smoke cigarettes in silence. I liked that. When she was done she tilted her head towards me, made a hard to distinguish wave with her hand and went back inside. I don’t think that we have exchanged even one word that night – but somehow it seemed OK. I followed her after a while – into the dark and loud belly of the beast. And then, for the very first time, I saw the real her…

+

We were walking now through half-awaken streets. She was still holding my wrist in a tight grip but I don’t think it was to lead me, rather because she needed to feel that I am still with her. And I was. Sure as hell – I wasn’t going to leave her today. When we had to stop at some point on the red light I only allowed myself to move down her hand. Her fingers immediately wrapped around mine – and this is when I’ve realised how terrified she was.

+

There wasn’t much light inside – few dimmed spot-lights, few fluorescent signs on the walls and very raw and weak light above the bar. People mostly appeared as contours – distorted and without the faces. And in the middle of the dance floor – there was she. Completely unaware of the bodies fluctuating around her, with half-shut eyes, moving to the sound of the music as if it was an electric current running through her, a dangerous, high voltage force that can’t be stopped. I stood there for a while, simply watching. I saw a moment in which her hair-band completely gave in and nearly in slow-motion, her hair scattered in every direction. I like to think that this is how Medusa would look like if she would ever be seen dancing. I wasn’t alone watching her from afar. Few brave or maybe rather dumb sons of the bitches tried to approach her but either she wouldn’t even notice them or, with the visible annoyance, she would only stare at them for a bit just to roll her eyes in the end and go back to twisting and turning of her body. I can’t tell how long it lasted before she decided to stop and started making her way to the exit. I think my face tried to rearrange itself into smile when I’ve noticed she is moving towards me. I still didn’t know what I should say if she would have stop next to me. So I stood there, in this amber of the moment, unable to escape it. Then her fingers wrapped around my wrist, the same gesture that she was going to make few months later on one cold morning, and pulled me out of this dark room, into the starry and cold night.

+

You may wonder why exactly I was following her today: silent and obedient as I was; why haven’t I yet try to fight her, make her stop; why wouldn’t I do something. Why wouldn’t I grab her and shake until she starts to listen or until she loses consciousness? Obviously it has crossed my mind; to be more exact it was crossing my mind regularly like a tidal wave, yet – every time – I’ve opposed it, I’ve stopped myself, I’ve ignored it. And so – we were walking together like a silent machine and an angry automaton, only from time to time allowing ourselves for a sigh or nervous twitch that changed our faces for a second. Her icy fingers were burning my hand but even then I haven’t said a word. Once in a while I would look up, at the sky. Every time I have done it, I thought that it has exactly the same colour like her eyes. But, it had to - especially today. We kept on walking.

+

We kept on walking for a while, looking ahead, never at each other. No-one was really leading the way. I felt as if my body was burning in the fever – I did wonder if she could feel this heat, the same way as I could feel the piercing coldness of her hand. We have got to the river bank and this is where we stopped. She threw away her cigarette and turned to me. This was one of these moments that allow you to realise that bravery is actually a product of the biggest cowardice. I was so scared that she will simply walk away if I won’t do anything, that – in a moment of the sheer panic combined with bravado – I’ve kissed her. She allowed to be kissed. She’s kissed me. We’ve kissed. (Practical application of the conjugation.) It seemed as everything around us became more vivid, more real. It definitely wasn’t the matter of an old, well-known butterflies and similar shit that plastic and washed up pop stars sing about on the radio. Maybe it was a little bit like seeing the Garden of Eden for the first time: seeing all of its beauty with all of the marks that were left by the snake – broken and twisted blades of the grass, shed skin, rotten apples scattered under the trees…

+

We’ve got to the brick wall and she stopped, a little bit confused. She looked at me, at our intertwined fingers, and at the wall once again. I guess I have smiled, in normal circumstances I would. I slowly entangled our fingers and let go of her hand - only for a moment that I needed to lift her. ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall…’ she murmured to my ear and for a brief moment there was a shadow of a smile on her pale, almost de-saturated face. But I wasn’t smiling anymore. Never before she has felt so light, so small and so fragile – in this morning sun, with a heavy wind pulling strands of her hair in all of the directions and shaping them into a dark and unkempt halo - she looked much more like a bird that forgot how to fly than a girl that forgot how to be. I climbed the wall and sat next to her. I looked ahead at the river, but all I could see in that moment was a giant silver snake slowly but persistently slithering into the city.

+

It wasn’t far from where I’ve lived. Truth to be told - it was never far to anywhere in this God-forsaken joke of the city. It was already dawn, sifting a pastel light through the blinds, when we made the first break in this old as time war between the man and the woman. She started making lines, while I was looking for an ashtray and cigarettes. I came back to the room and looked at her silhouette, a dark contour on my bed, leaning over the music sheets that covered most of the flat surfaces. ‘I should have known’ she said and that was the first time I’ve heard her voice. She spoke very quietly with a faint and hard to recognise echo of the accent. She passed the plate and the rolled note to me - avoiding the eye contact and looking somewhere above my right arm. This is probably the moment when I noticed properly her nearly colourless eyes and violet shadows underneath. I studied for a brief moment arches of her eyebrows and shape of her lips. This image, her face softened by the morning light on this winter day, is the one I always have inside my head when someone mentions her name - so vulnerable and calm, willingly surrendered. ‘What did you mean – that you should have known?’ I asked putting a plate away and passing her a cigarette. ‘That you are a musician. I have always had a soft spot for those’. ‘But you didn’t know in fact – not until now’ I brushed her cheek with the tips of my fingers and lifted her chin so I could look into her eye. ‘Technically - yes, but maybe it's a weird case of a time warp… Or – and that would be much more probable – I have been in fact stalking you already for a while and I was actually completely aware with whom I am going home last night’ she said very seriously and without a shadow of a smile. ‘Or – maybe it was actually me who was stalking you for a quite some time and I knew very well that music sheets here and there can make a one night stand become a more lasting affair…’ I replied. She smiled in a sort of a crooked way and while racking up more of the white powder she said: ‘There is also a third possibility – we are both mentally ill, though obviously not very bright, stalkers…’ She leaned forward and picked up one of the pages. ‘How does it sound?’

+

When I was small my grandfather would often take me for long walks and during those - tell me equally long stories. I could have never be sure, whether they were true or made up. But it didn’t really matter – not in the grand scheme of life and all of its adjacencies. Without much hesitation and very consciously I chose to believe everything and not to trust any of it. In a way - it was a simplistic and practical application of the rules governing fuzzy logic - and it actually worked. As an outcome - I knew and at the same time I didn’t know that my family arrived to this country few generations ago, fleeing from the fire and explosions consuming the continent. Father of my father may or may have not been a descendant of the Tatar tribe and he may have (or may have not) met his pale, blond and blue-eyed wife (who was or wasn’t a  daughter of a German colonel) in the rural area of Normandy. Father of my mother was or wasn’t a Polish logician who escaped Warsaw to work on the Enigma code with the Brits. My mother’s mother might have been a Russian girl that used to attend his lectures before the war and, first as his lover, later on as his wife, never left his side – but she also might have not been all of that. Obviously I knew for a fact that all of my grandparents spoke fluently in several languages (the combined number was close to twenty) so I probably could have assumed that at least part of the family history is more or less accurate. However the details would sometimes change – from one story to another (like the time when the logician granddad haven’t made his way to UK only after concentration camps were freed by the yanks) and I quite liked the fact that it’s left entirely to me what I am going to believe (or almost believe). One of my friends once said I should have checked his wrists (as long as I remember my grandfather was wearing long sleeves, even in the summertime) but it never even crossed my mind. I liked better the world that allowed him to have and not have inked forearm. And for this reason I also I've decided I shouldn’t ask - if he never speaks of it himself. This way of narrating life (rather than passing on the facts about it) was exercised by my whole family, not only by the Mongolian granddad, but it was him that always gave me the most detailed and vibrant accounts of it. After he died it was decided unanimously that I am the one that should deliver the eulogy. ‘True or false – no-one cares’ grandpa used to tell me many times ‘What’s most important is that you keep your story interesting’. And every time he would say that his eyes would become even more slant, and his smile transformed into the one of the Cheshire cat. On the day of the funeral our living room filled very quickly with people dressed in grey-scale, breathing heavily and playing with their buttons, wrist watches and jewellery. I knew I should but I couldn’t really recognise anyone. Someone in front of me was using the music sheets from our piano as a fan. I knew for a fact that this is Prokofiev’s Sonata no 7. My fingers started moving by themselves. And I started to talk.

+

I’ve put my arm around her and my fingers started moving on her ribs as on the piano keys. Neither of us made a sound. With the last non-sound she nodded and said ‘It was beautiful’. Sunlight flooding my bedroom was much more vibrant and much brighter by now and I saw clearly milky tone of her skin, details of her tattoos and those few straight and in any other circumstances - almost invisible scars. I’ve consciously made an effort not to follow them with my fingers. The same way she didn’t ask why I don’t play my music in any audible way anymore, I didn’t have a right to ask about them. It was clear to me that one day she might tell me a story and maybe it will be about an unfortunate attempt to climb a fence (and how she fell and how branches and rusty wires left their marks on her) or maybe it will be a story about sadness and how it left these marks on her. For now it didn’t really matter. For now we were in the middle of the war. It was probably long after the noon when she stretched like a cat and started putting on clothes. I didn’t want her to go but I didn’t say a word. I’ve got up and started to put on my clothes as well. She gave me a startled look and froze for a moment. ‘I am going to walk you home’ I said without turning and put on my trainers. Later on someone once told me that they have never saw her smiling. Trust me when I tell you that - they've missed something truly amazing.

+

Time was passing neither slower nor faster than usual - as if this day was completely normal and no different from any other day. I kept on staring ahead of me, trying to calm down my loud and nervous breathing and trembling hands. I gave up after a while and shifted all of my attention to her. Something in the way she frowned looking straight at the Sun, with her long fingers that seemed to be moving to some silent, known only to  her song - reminded me of my grandma Lenka.

+

She never spoke unnecessarily and usually just sat or stood in the shadow, nearly always with a book in one of her hands. She observed the world around anxiously. This inner silence and nature of a wild and cautious animal made me horribly curious and more and more often I would find myself standing next to her - attempting to see my surrounding with her eyes (and maybe one day - discover what frightens her so damn much). I was ten when - still without saying any unnecessary word, she pointed at the chair opposite her and between us appeared chessboard. She was fast, sharp and undefeated. The more we played, the longer our games were, the better I was becoming – but even then - I could not defeat her. All this time, Lenka hasn't graced me with even one word. I've figured that maybe, if I'll start making some colourful and dramatic mistakes - she may let me hear her voice... Yet again I have underestimated her. Instead my grandmother – in her usual and a bit awkward fashion – joined me in the game of mistakes. For the outside our games looked like not a very good ones: full of small and big mistakes and missed opportunities. However, on the deeper level, known to the full extend only to both of us - our game had now even more layers and nuances than before. Every bad move, every mistake - had to look like one; what’s more – none of us would ever simply use it to lose (that would be distasteful).

+

It crossed my mind that this is what we are doing at the moment – playing to lose (because how could we possibly win in all of that?). I could feel her heartbeat – so fast and violent. A brutal and perfect metronome for what I have written for her. I started silently playing my last song on her skin.

lux

We are sitting back to back so I can’t see her face. I know, though, it must be very pale – as always, with nearly invisible freckles mapping the sharp line of her cheekbones. There is also a blue tint spilled in uneven circles around her eyes, shade darker in the places where her eyelashes cast shadow. I always had the impression that her skin seems semi-transparent - with some inexplicable source of light floating just under its surface. When she is around it never really feels as dark as it should.

Our silence is dense and as it grows it starts absorbing all of the noises from our surrounding, all of the speckles that distort sound waves. It becomes so quiet that I can hear her heartbeat and the flutter of eyelashes when she blinks. After a while it’s nearly unbearable, as if we were submerging in some kind of a black hole. I find myself unable to make any movement – all I can do is just sit and only imagine all of the things I could (or maybe – I should) do. We are like two butterflies pierced with sharp and narrow needles to this piece of the reality, to this moment in time. The intervals between her breaths become so long that every time they happen a thought, a suspicion, that she may be dead appears. This is when I become a bit less and then, even after she swallows lazily another lungful – I know all of that won’t come back to me. So there is less and less of a human in me. Maybe that’s why I am so cold.

I can’t hear the explosions but I know for sure that the bombs are still falling – I can see their toxic and blinding reflections on the walls that surround us. I try to find recognizable shapes in the shadows moving on the walls and it feels a bit like looking at the sky and telling the stories about the clouds that happen to resemble animals or some random objects. There is a dog with three legs and something that – if you tilt your head a bit – looks like a lighthouse. I want to tell her about them but my mouth is too dry to make any sound. So I keep on playing for both of us – even if she doesn't know about it.

I remind myself the day when we last played this game, only few weeks or months ago. She was next to me, just like today, with sun-rays entangled in her hair and dew setting up in the crevices of her clothes. This bizarre inner light that lives in her was even stronger and every time I tried to look straight at her it made me squint and I would start to cry – it was like staring at the sun. I also remember she laughed a lot that morning and I really liked that sound. At some point she raised her hands to cast some shadow over her face, her fingers moved slightly in a wave-like motion and for whatever reason that was, it made her look even more like a child. I have grabbed some long weeds and straws that got burnt in the sun and were no longer green but gold and copper and braided a crown out of them. That day I have made her a queen. Queen of the light. Queen of all the lost children.

The first time we’ve met – it was at the seaside. She stood in the water and the tidal waves, that were getting more violent with every minute, crashed on her legs and tried to knock her off her feet. She swayed visibly but didn’t move – just stared at the horizon line. I watched all of that from the cliff above: too far to do anything and too close to be able to ignore it. From afar she looked like a birch splinter sticking out from the dark and angry palm of the sea. It started raining and the water was already as high as her waist. I remember this calm and very clear nothingness that filled my head. At this very moment she turned into my direction and waved at me, pointing at the beach.

When I got to the spot, she was already there. For a moment she stared at me with a hard to decipher look on her face – something between amusement and anger. “It wouldn't be fair for you” she finally said and that’s all that has ever been spoken about this bizarre stand-off between the sea, her and me – we've never mentioned it again.

With another explosion that I still can’t hear glass from the last remaining window falls to my feet. I can see tiny sharp splinters falling, as if in the slow motion, on me. Bloody freckles appear on my skin but it’s OK – it doesn't hurt. A lot of things stopped hurting some time ago…

I can feel her moving. Her cold fingers land on my face – she looks at me without blinking, with a very faint smile. I (faint-) smile back. Her lips move and even though I can’t hear her voice I know she just said: “We are about to die”. I nod and pull her towards myself. In the very pointless shelter of my arms she rests her head on my chest. We wait.

Lights out.

Memory [raw]

I can’t sleep. I don’t sleep. I have already got used to that. There are so many things that you can do at night-time. Tonight Te is here. A moment ago he gave me a weird look. He asked if I ever turn off the music. He also asked if I ever go to bed without the book. “No”, I answered out-loud and then I thought to myself that of course I never do those things. First of all it would be pointless. Second of all – if I ever stop, I will die. I will perish. I will disappear. I will be gone and all that’s left will be a cloud of disorganised atoms. So – no, thank you. I rather stay awake. I am already used to that.

But I said only this stupid ‘no’ and that was it. And then Te was sleeping and I have lied in bed and smoked cigarettes. I probably was a little bit angry for the fact that he is here, asleep, and wondered why hasn’t he gone home (or at least to the other room) - even though I knew exactly why. So I have grinded my teeth and waited for the sunrise. I can do it this way as well.

When the sky outside my windows started to turn grey, rainbows fell from the ceiling. They got entangled with my hair, coloured my cheeks and for a moment it felt as if I was gone already. There was only blinding technicolour and white noise in my ears. I started to count quietly (and if I am counting, something is counting and then this something must exist; something has to chew on this mathematical mantra and maybe this something is even accenting prime numbers and pushes itself farther and tries not to miss any of them). 789 – and suddenly I am back. I am. Back. Te sits on the bed and stares at me with his child-like eyes. I want to ask what’s wrong with him, but for a moment I can’t speak – not yet. I sit up and light a cigarette. Te is still staring. I really wish I could punch him but I stop myself. “What?” I finally manage to mumble out. He loudly swallows and points at my left arm. I follow this gesture with my eyes. My arm is gone. FUCK. I finish my cigarette in the complete silence and then I close my eyes. I start to forget. I start from the moment in which we both look at the lack of my limb. Then there are numbers and rainbows. There is night and there are cigarettes, there is an estranged look from Te. Just in case I go back few more hours – I forget everything that happened since last morning…

There is coffee. That’s a good start. Alla sits on the sofa with absent eyes. Her hair is a mess and all the eye make-up is smudged on her cheeks. “How are you?” I ask while searching for clean mugs. “Exactly how I look… How do I look?” and without thinking about it she straightens up and buttons her shirt. There are love bites on her neck – just above the collar. “Fabulous, darling” – and maybe she would believe me, if only I would look at her. But I am busy trying to make coffee for us. I feel some movement behind my back and suddenly two hands land on my shoulders. I try not to move – I freeze. It’s already bright outside and it’s so hard just to be; it’s already bright outside and I really don’t want to be touched. And most of all – I want to have a cigarette.

She moves away in silence and gives me a long look – searching for something in my face. We stand in this grey unfinished light and none of us even blinks. Finally she shrugs her shoulders, puts on a jacket and goes to the door. Good. Our paradigm remains unchanged.

I finish my coffee. I spend several minutes looking for my left shoe. I finish another coffee (the one I have made for Alla). I leave. On the staircase I pass one of my neighbours. I nod to him, he mumbles something unrecognisable. We don’t look each other in the eye. I push the front door and suddenly blinding sun swallows me.

Ka sits on the bench and in the nervous manner turns pages of some book. He bites his nails. I stop in front of him and my shadow fills in all the white spaces between the printed letters. I pass him a paper cup with a coffee. He raises eyebrow and looks at me a little bit longer than he should. “You look like shit” he comments. Then he closes his book and puts away to the bag. All this movement is a bit too fast for me – I still haven't managed to catch the title. We sit on the bench in silence and look up at the sky: all this ultramarine and all this brightness floods our eyes and rolls through our heads. I squint and look at the air we breathe out. It’s also blue – it swirls softly with the smoke that exits through our noses. I could sit like that much longer – without unnecessary words, just watching all of that – maybe this peacefulness of our cells and this distant murmur of our blood would become permanent… Maybe it would change me into something new and better… But the moment passes together with the cough that shakes Ka’s body. We slowly get up and start walking towards the river. I pretend not to notice droplets of blood on the inside of his hand.

One of the twins brings beer to our table. Everyone is speaking at once: wind scatters these words together with the smoke from our cigarettes. Hidden behind my own eyelashes I watch Ka: his grey eyes and grey cheeks. To be honest – everything about him is grey today (maybe except his lips, which are so red, as red as the poppies that you can find on the meadows, as red as the sunset two days ago, as red as the blood hidden inside of the palm of his hand). Prim` and Double Prim`` start to laugh so hard that the whole table starts to shake. Beer spills from the glasses and now the whole surface resembles lake – it changes colours in the sun and refracts the light and our breaths, our thoughts and words. I extend my hand, just like in the dream, to save pack of the cigarettes. And my phone. But most of all – cigarettes.

Te appears from nowhere. He pats Ka on the back and I can only bite my lip when I see it because I imagine all the damage this gesture can do to Ka’s insides. Prim` or Double Prim`` gets another chair, I get up to bring another round.

All the green and brown bottles shimmer above the bar. I stop for a moment on the doorstep – exactly where the border between the light and the shadow is running. I squint and let all the air from the lungs out. I straighten all of my fingers and spread them as far from each other as I can. “2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23…” I count quietly and in concentration. Someone very softly touches my neck. “29” says Te and closes my hands. We stand like this for a minute or two and I watch how sun rays build a halo around his head, how they penetrate his skin and warm up the blood in his veins. Somehow it makes him look like a saint. I don’t even know when I start to cry.

They are discussing some pressing problem of the contemporary world: how the Universe is expanding or maybe how the Equation for Everything should look like. I look at all of that from under half-closed eyelids and don’t really pay much attention. I start to blink in a way that will synchronise it with my own breath. Every time I close my eyes I imagine that I don’t exist anymore. Or maybe they are the ones that disappear? I feel a bit dizzy so I very loudly blow out the smoke and straighten up on my chair. Somewhere in the background all the street lamps turn on. Their orange light softens our edges and somehow it makes us look a little bit more two-dimensional. Exactly in this moment Ka starts to cough. All of us freeze. Fingers of his left hand dig into the wooden arm rest of the chair, while his right hand tightly covers his mouth. Te helps him to get up and together they start walking away from us. Every step they make is marked by one cough. I can’t stop myself anymore so I close my eyes and start to scream. My voice awakens wind and tears apart the clouds; it follows the birds that are heading south and pierces through the surface of the water only to crash at the very bottom of the river. Twins press me to the ground and whisper lies to my ear.

We sit back to back to each other just so we can’t see each other faces. Every breathe I take is Ka’s exhale, every breathe he takes is mine. He twists his arm to the back to touch my face. I light a cigarette and a moment later I can hear clicking of a lighter somewhere behind me – like a mirror reflection he has repeated my gesture. So we sit leaning at each others back and smoke in silence. I want to say something but at the moment I don’t know how to even think this, so I stay silent. Quietly and only for myself I start another sequence: “0. 1. 1. 2. 3. 5.8.13. 21. 34…”. “55. 89. 144…” with every word his lungs whistle. When he is at 233 he starts getting up and stands in front of me. He covers my ears with his hands and looks me in the eye for a very long time. We don’t blink. It might be few seconds or few hours. In his pupils there is a reflection of mine in which you can find a hidden image of his, in which there is mine, in which there is his… Our own private infinity.

Suddenly Ka straightens up and smiles in a very sad way. “I need to go”. I shake my head but he is already at the door. I follow him. When we are passing the living room Ka puts his head inside to say good-bye and then he adds: “Te, take care of her”. The other one immediately moves towards me like a motherfucking guardian angel. I hear the front door closing and on the peripheries of my sight I can see Te’s hand moving toward my face. “I am sorry” I think or say out loud and close my teeth on his thumb. He makes a hissing sound and takes a step back. That’s all I need – I am already at the exit. On the staircase I take few steps at the time and it’s more like a controlled fall when I get to the last landing. This is when my word starts to shake and tremble as if it was in fever. It feels as if it is spitting out on me strings of colourful air. When I am already lying on the floor it feels a little bit as if I am already gone. There is only rainbow and white noise. I start to repeat the alphabet, because if the alphabet is said and after every a there is b, and after every b there is c, then surely something must exist and this something is saying all these letters. Somewhere half-way through the thirty first round (between n and o) I come back to the world. Te is standing above me with his thumb in his mouth and twins are trying to have a look from behind his back. None of us says a thing but I already know what has happened. Out of a habit I quickly scan my body. My hands. There is only one of them. I mutter some swear words angrily and start to forget. I forget about the fall and I forget how I have bitten Te. I forget about the time I have spent on the kitchen floor with Ka. I forget about the evening by the river. Just in case I forget a little bit more – all the way to the morning…

Alla is lying on her belly and looks very calm asleep. I look at her for a moment and then, very quietly, get up. She says something through sleep and for a minute I fear that I have woken her up. But no, she is still asleep. In a hurry I put on my clothes and lose few precious minutes to find my left shoe. Then, very quietly I open the front door and get out to the staircase. When I am on the very bottom of it I meet one of the neighbours – he holds the door for me. I get out on the street and suddenly I am being drowned in the blinding sun-light.

Sun rays dance in the tree tops and when they reach the pavement they are completely distorted. I open mouth and allow the cold air touch my teeth. With a tongue I spread it all around and when it’s already mixed with my saliva – I swallow it. Ka sits on the bench and moves one of his foot to some melody that only he knows. I approach him and cast a shadow on the pages of the book that is lying on his legs. He looks up and smiles at me. “I look like shit, I know” I say. He reaches under the sit and suddenly there are two coffees in his hands. He passes one of them to me and then very quickly closes his book and puts away to the bag. “Let’s go and watch the ducks”.

I light another cigarette and blow circles out of the smoke into the air. I send them, as in the procession, towards the cloudless sky. Aquamarines and azures fall into our eyes and fill up our heads. My breath synchronises with Ka’s and now we are already breathing together. Wind starts to blow from the east. I could stay there, in this bright silence, in this over-oxidisation, much longer – but the moment passes when the whole body of Ka starts to shake from the never-ending coughing. I patiently wait for his breath to come back. His open hand, all coloured with blood, for a moment hangs between us – it looks like a blossoming poppy. One of us shrugs, the other lights a cigarette. We start a slow walk towards the town.

Prim` and Double Prim`` are arguing. It will pass in the moment – it always does. We stop few metres away and wait in silence. Twins suddenly go quiet and only look at each other angrily. A moment later they start laughing uncontrollably. Their laughter ascends and echoes between the buildings as if it was a muezzin prayer. Passer by turn their heads, some of them stop and wave at us, others take their phones away from their ears and close their eyes. Air is trembling. Ka places one of his hands on his chest, I shut my eyes and in my mind I draw a thick black line around myself. We are like two infidels in the sacred place. Profanum versus sacrum. Ka pulls my sleeve and starts walking towards the closest bar. After a while twins follow us.

Te is already inside. His whole body is coloured with the orange chemical light and it makes him look a little bit like a bronze statue. We sit down at the round table in the corner. Ka is just opposite to me, semi-transparent and barely visible in this dimmed light. Twins speak at the same time to him but he only gives them his absent smile and maybe this whole thing would look quite normal, if only he wouldn’t be holding so tight to the table.

I get up very quietly and go outside to have a smoke. My hands form into fists. “1. 4. 9. 16” every number stands for one heartbeat of my heart. Te appears in front of me and blocks the sun. For a moment we stare at each other without blinking. “One hundred…” I throw a punch at his face “Sixty…” this time my fist lands on his chest “Nine!” – I try again to get his face but he grabs my hand before that and closes his huge arms around me until I calm down. I don’t even know when I start to cry.

Ka looks at me above the table and I think he is talking about some book. I can’t really focus so I only nod and try to look smart. There is a delay in a way sound and picture are reaching me: and when they finally do – they are distorted, defected and incomplete. Suddenly Ka’s body starts to shake but it takes me a while to connect this picture with the coughing sound. Twins freeze and their eyes become even more round and child-like than usually. Te gets up and helps Ka to stand up. They go outside. Now the whole world is mute. I am afraid to move and only stare at the door. After a moment I take a big breath and start to scream. Somewhere behind me I can hear bottles breaking and glasses exploding. Prim` and Double Prim`` cover my mouth and my nose and wait for me to lose consciousness.

Ka lies next to me in bed. With his index finger he traces contour of my nose. None of us speaks. It’s very quiet. I wait for the words to form sentences in my head – before I say it out-loud. Without noticing it and in the background I start another string: “1-4-1-5-9-2—6-5-3-5-8-9-7-9-3-2…”. “3-8-4-6” Ka moves closer to me and I can feel his eye-lashes on my cheek. I close my eyes and imagine that it’s a butterfly. This moment lasts: it might be few minutes, it might be few hours. Suddenly a butterfly takes off. Ka starts getting up but I grab his hand. “Please, stay the night”. He shakes his head but at the same time he falls back on the pillows again. Neither of us is moving, just like the insects pinned to the board. We might be smiling at each other.

The hum of atoms falling apart fills the night. Everything around starts to shake and there are big flakes of multicoloured plaster falling down from the ceiling. Ka strokes my hair and I think he is coughing. Purples and blues are forcing themselves into my larynx and try to suffocate. For a moment it feels as if I was already gone. I can still hear this damn cough, though. And if this cough can be heard, there must be something that hears it. So maybe I am not gone? I listen to the cough and wait. Finally, a little bit reluctantly, word comes back. Ka is still next to me, with a faint smile on his face. There are bubbles of saliva in the colour of the rust on his lips. He doesn’t blink. I kiss the inside of his hand and start to forget…