Number 9

Hush, Dear, It´s Just a Metaphore
(first scrap of a dark tale, to be properly recreated by someone worthy, who could tell -with techinque- the noble tragedy of our humble aristocracy)

"On the day my best friend died, I could not get my copper clean."

I thought I had walked for three mountains, three valleys, crossed three rivers, and come to this particular light-post. I thought I was tired from this amazing all-night journey back and forth deep down the city halls. I leaned against the wall, the light-post, the patch of non-air behind my back. The tree was lined with christmas lights. White. And they waved, slowly lost focus. Am I drunk or dreaming?
In my hands, a bottle, or a phone, or a heavy heavy black-covered book. I wished I could throw up. Or wake up.

Were the lights white? The lights turned to red. A tree, wrapped in red christmas lights. There is nothing more morbid than red christmas lights, wrapped around the only tree, in a wide street, where there´s nothing.

The scenario is now different, although I know I have walked only five steps. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Eyes fixed-transfixed on the cemment. I am alone inside an empty parking lot. Empty except for the millions of golden christmas balls in more corners than four and wait there are waiters and it´s a crowded fancy room, except that it´s an empty parking lot, and everything is made of cement and fence. The waiters carry around large round silver platters lined with small bits of food I cannot recognize. People eat, chat, chant I think about the weather, they all wear julery made from the daughter of Henry The..... I do not know them. I have never seen any of them. And they are mothers and fathers and grandparents and uncles and sisters and brothers of friends of mine, and I have never would never ever have wanted to see them. Waiters slowly slide through the crowd, as dancers in a faint unnoticeable coreography, and as they ice-skate the hall of parking spaces made of grey, I cannot see faces behind champagne. My stomach hurts. I wish I could wake up, or throw up. They all dress black, or is it mabe silver as the cement under my bear feet? The air of the summer night makes me sweat, and my feet are freezing. I observe my toes coil up and become bluish, grey.

His hair is red. He´s standing right in front of me, with his flaming orange sparkle of a head, and he wears a plaid shirt. And there is green in his plaid shirt. I ask myself if it´s become fashionable, or if he´s been dead for over twenty years. He walks up to me, wearing a glass of champagne. Wearing it, yes. As a mask. As if whispering, he talks to me in the only voice loud enough to be heard inside the parking lot:

-Something´s happened.
I stare.
-Something has happened. Here.
He offers me the champagne, and I can see a white pill dancing inside it. It is a christmas ornament, the nicest christmas ornament, I think.
I drink, and my thirst is suddenly aparent.
I look around at the relatives of my friends, whose faces I cannot see.
-Why are they here?- I´m beggining to feel uneasy.- Why are they here?!- my tone of desperation is not discrete. I cannot figure out their faces, I do not know their surnames.
- Why . are. they. here?!
He looks at his shoes, he looks at my cold bare feet, fighting the cement. He suddenly looks very worried.
- Where are our shoes?! - this time his is an ungernt whisper
- What?
- They will recognize your feet, where are your shoes?!
I have no idea. I try to remember shoes. I try to remember ever having worn shoes.
- Why are they here? - I plead. I look around once again, tring to find th right question, as if to a backwords sphynx. - What is this?!
He puts his hand over my shoulder. They all seem to wear silver, or grey, or maybe gold, or was is black? Was it all black and I had never seen black before?
He looks into my eyes, his is a look of deep concern, or maybe only left-over sadness from lunch.
- Something has happened.

I recognize one of the women. She is short, and I recognize her calves. The feeling of pieces falling into place and a lack of will to recognize anything and anyone fills me as water up to my nose, when finaly he speaks again and I breathe out:

- I saw her. - He says.- Yesterday. I saw her, I ran into her. She told me. She said... She said she was leaving to. To. She was leaving to change her face. She said, she said she would finally be beautifull.

My tears taste like scotch. I have always hated scotch, I would never in my entire life drink a drop of scotch, and here they are, and here they have filled my tears with dirty old scotch. I try to spit, and I bend as my stomach is torn with the throbbing pain I had felt only once before. I bend, but I know I cannot bend much, or they will see my feet. He holds me and I see the cement, lit up by the reflection of the golden balls.

- I´ve been trying to call her.- I tell him, in tears, as if pleading forgiveness.- I´ve tried to reach her, I´ve been trying to reach her, and she hasn´t picked up.

- There has been an accident.

I am raged - There was no fucking accident!
-Shut up- he whispers. They´ll hear you. Shut the fuck up!
- There was no fucking accident- I weep.- It was a choice.

The halucinogenous mixture of guilt, loss, pain and hatred should not be mixed with strong medicine. What have I taken? What was the pill you gave me? Was it antidepressants? I don´t take antidepressants! Whose antidepressants did you give me? this feeling is not mine! I want to throw up, or wake up.

They bring out a cake. A white enormous birthday cake filled with colorfull candles, and those things that sparkle, and amuse the little kids that pretend they are touching real fire. They all sing, or seem to. They smile, and laugh, and they all hold long candles, and white roses.

- What the hell is this? Why is there a cake? Why do they... -
I can´t speak. My stomach is again pulled ground-wise by the wrenching pain that suffocates old rich alcoholics that drink scotch. My words are muffled by tears and I cannot make out the shapes in front of me, he holds me while I vomit and bile colors the grey, dancing with the flames of the candles, and the ground reflections of the golden balls. His arms wrap around my back, I sob onto his shoulders.

- She was running- He said. - There´s been an accident. She was trying to escape, and. Well. They found her. I mean, they gave her the wrong ticket I mean they were helping her escape, except they weren´t. She was eaten by the pack, you see. She was escaping the wolves, only to fall into their nest.

- I´ve been tring to reach her. I guess she´s been keeping her phone on vibrate- My tone is casual, my voice almost doesn´t tremble.- I was wearing her shoes. I had borrowed her shoes and. And she had no shoes and she had no no way she was... I had been wearing her shoes. I hadn´t tried enough. I guess I was hoping she would never pick up.

A record player on the corner starts spinning in a very low volume and I recognize his tropical smiling voice.

- Don´t walk up to them. I don´t want them to see our feet.

I try to protest, I want to plead guilty and. He holds me. I look at him, I can almost imagine myself half-smiling:

- Second time, I guess. You and me, and this place. I´m not nearly dressed as properly. I had my Pink Floyd shirt on. The Wall. At seventeen you die from jumping out a window... At twenty three, I guess you die from... not.

- She was trying to run away from them, I guess. She was eaten by wolves, you know. It´s not her fault. It was a choice. And it... well, it wasn´t. They ate her, you see. The villagers. She cried for help, she said there were wolves, and the villagers you see, they ate her.

- The smell of this birthday cake... it´s making me naucious. I need to leave.

- Have a piece. - His voice´s changed

- No.

- It´s done. Have a piece. The sugar will make you better.

- No, let´s get out of here. I´m sick, let´s get out of here.

- Here. He wraps his hands around my back - here.
He takes me closer to the center of the sparkling black parking lot, where there is a table, and a white cake, with pink filling. I am naucious. I have never been so naucious.

- It was an accident, Have a piece.

- It was no accident.

- Have a piece. They won´t hurt you.

His shirt is not plaid anymore. His hair is not red anymore. I´ve lost him in the crowd. He has spoken, he´s been taken, I know. I try to run. My feet are exposed. My feet have always been exposed. I hate funerals, I hate christmas, and I want to throw up. There is no exit. She´d been trying to escape, and I had never said a word. He´d been trying to run and I had never said a word, I´d been trying to ignore, and I had never said a word. The cake tastes like flesh, and scotch tears.