LIGHT

Loneliness is a terrible feeling. It's a terrifying monster that, over the years, gnaws at your delicate heart, consuming it piece by piece. Loneliness is terrifying and dangerous. Sometimes I feel as if, deep within my heart, a small, sharp knife cuts through the delicate wall of my life-giving organ and penetrates deeper and more painfully, pressing against all my organs.

My name is Charles Grisham, and I'll tell you my sad story, which gave new meaning to my lonely, miserable life.

I live in New York, the city that never sleeps, because people here live day to day, overworked, hungry, and hungry for fame, like wolves that pack and pounce on their defenseless prey. I work in an office building located in the heart of this huge, terrible city. I lived alone, without family or friends, without a son, daughter, dog, cat, parrot, or other creatures that make life pleasant. I had no one. My only friend was my boss, who piled on new responsibilities every day.

I was alone, but worst of all, I was lonely by choice.

I chose a career that burned me out. Sometimes, when I sat alone, locked in my office, I would bury my face in my hands and cry, because these days, hot tears are a sign of weakness and an opportunity for my ambitious opponents. That's why even crying is done in solitude. I couldn't express my feelings to anyone because people don't understand other people's problems. They live in their own worlds, which boil down to constant consumption to satisfy the basic needs of our miserable, animal existence.

One day, I returned a little early to my empty apartment. The clock showed 7 p.m., I had worked eleven hours, but sometimes I worked much longer, covering for my colleagues on shifts. I enjoyed working because it was the only activity I could find my place in. The rest didn't matter much to me.

I made myself a strong cup of tea, grabbed a dried-out sandwich from the fridge, and happily plopped down into my favorite leather armchair. As I sat there, mindlessly flipping through TV channels and munching on bread, I felt my Loneliness Monster clutching at me with its claws.

That's what I called the unpleasant feeling that had recently been lingering in my heart, or more precisely, behind my breastbone. It began with a sudden, sharp pain that ended just as quickly. Sometimes, while sitting at work, I had to briefly go to the bathroom to catch my breath and wait out the pain.

This time, however, I sensed something very wrong was happening. With my last remaining strength, I rose from the leather chair and staggered over to the phone on the coffee table.

I dialed the emergency number and tried to call for help, but the pain was so intense I couldn't speak. I collapsed to the floor and lost consciousness. The phone hung beside me.

This time, the Loneliness Monster had won.

I heard a signal ringing rhythmically in my head, trying to burst it. I felt terribly cold.

"He was damn lucky," said a distant voice, and a moment later I felt a warm touch on my face.

"So young and already having a heart attack—it's practically a plague these days," said another.

I opened my eyes and looked at the blurred faces of the callers. There were two of them: a man in a white coat holding a syringe of some kind in his right hand, and a young, pretty woman, probably a nurse. I tried to pull myself up, but the straps held me tight. The rumbling signal in my head turned out to be the wailing siren of an ambulance.

"Please lie down, Mr. Grisham." You're exhausted, and it's truly a miracle we managed to save you. Please lie down..." the man said calmly. "

Where... where am I? Where are you taking me?" I tried to focus my thoughts on what was happening here and now, but my head wouldn't cooperate. "

Please calm down and don't say anything. We're taking you to the hospital at 13 Red Street, where we'll thoroughly examine you and prevent further consequences of your illness."

I tried to say something else, but a gentle twinge near my arm sent me into a long sleep.

I woke up in the hospital, hooked up to medical equipment and terribly weak. My eyes hurt badly, my mouth was dry, and the pain in my chest was unbearable. I tried to move, but my body stubbornly refused to obey.

Where was I? That was the fundamental question I had to answer now. I began to recall the details of my last conversation. Yes, it was undoubtedly the hospital. From what I remembered, it was the hospital at 13 Red Street, but that didn't matter to me at the moment. New York is vast, and the number of hospitals is so vast that the average person can't remember them all.

Now, I was most concerned about my job. What about my responsibilities? What about my boss? How would the transactions I'd fought so hard for over the past week go? And how many days had it been since I last lost consciousness?

I glanced to my left and noticed a red button hanging across the bed. I reached for it with a trembling hand and quickly pressed it.

A doctor appeared in the room. He was a short, balding man in his fifties. He walked over to the bed and examined the equipment.

"Sir," I began, anxiously observing the medical equipment. "What time is it today? And what happened to me? You know, I'd have to leave here, you know, work... the boss will kill me if I don't show up for work today."

He looked at me strangely, I'd say with pity. I don't like being looked at like that. It reminded me of my mother, who, when I was little, would scold me with that look when I sometimes stole her sweets.

"Sir," he said calmly, a mysterious smile appearing on his face. "Is your work really that important? Is it worth sacrificing your life for?" Because, you see," he paused and wrote down some results from the device standing nearby. "There are more important things. I won't tell you about them. You're not a child who needs to be taught the basics of life. But I'll tell you one thing: Your heart condition is the result of overwork and fatigue. That's why I advise you to consider your lifestyle. You need to slow down a bit."

Yes, he's definitely talking about my Loneliness Monster, who's probably sitting in some dark corner laughing at me right now. But I couldn't leave my work and stay in this hospital forever. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them a moment later, the doctor was gone.

I don't know how he managed to leave the room so quickly. But I was left alone.

Alone with my loneliness.

I lost track of time and reality. It seemed to me that I was suspended in some dream from which there was no escape...

One day, a little boy came to me. He was dressed in torn pajamas, with curly black hair, and in his right hand, he held a teddy bear. He approached the bed and pulled a mysterious package from his pocket.

"Can I get you some chocolate? I got it from my mom." He held out a bar of chocolate and popped it into my mouth.

Yes, that's what I was missing, the taste of true sweetness! I felt much better, but I still couldn't walk on my own. The nurses stubbornly offered me a duck, and the doctors kept injecting mysterious substances into my veins. I was a veritable goldmine of chemical inventions.

"Thank you," I replied as politely as I could, savoring a square of chocolate. I watched the boy. Strange, but... well, don't get me wrong, he reminded me of someone... no, it's impossible, just because he looked like me didn't mean such things didn't happen. When I was little, I looked like him. But that's normal. That's normal...

" "I'm disappointed in you," he said after a moment, and an unpleasant shiver ran down my spine as I looked into his eyes. They were large and terrifying, full of rage and hatred. "Why did you do this to me? What should I call you now?"

Suddenly, he grabbed the back of the bed and pushed it hard in front of him. The apparatus toppled to the ground, and the bed hurtled forward, knocking down walls and crashing into other rooms. Terrified, I glanced back to see a boy rushing after the bed, gripping the back tightly and pushing against the heavy bed with incredible strength.

"Stop this instant!" I screamed, tugging at the boy's hands. But they began to burn, as if they were red-hot, like iron. I howled in pain and lay down on the bed.

"I'll take you where you'll understand the truth!" the little boy shouted in a demonic voice, letting go of the bed, which sped forward like a speeding car.

I slammed the bed into the concrete wall, which shattered into pieces like glass.

I felt nothing, no pain, no fatigue, no fear, no hatred. Nothing.

I lost consciousness once again.

Terrible heat, and a bright glow before my eyes, piercing my eyelids.

I heard the rustle of sand in my ears.

I opened one eye, then the other. You certainly won't believe me; after all, this is the story of a man weary of life, but I was lying in a hospital bed in the middle of the desert. It was terribly hot, and I was terribly thirsty. When I put my feet on the hot sand, I felt a fine, fine dust burn my legs.

I couldn't believe it. But then I didn't understand what it was all about. I knew only what you know now, and nothing more. I deeply wanted to believe that it was all just a bad dream, a nightmare, or the effect of the medications coursing through my veins. But I couldn't free myself from this nightmare, so I stood on the sand and looked ahead, where I noticed more strange things.

On the horizon, among the sand hills, lay a city. From a distance, it looked empty and deserted, the skyscrapers stood glassless, and the streets were buried under tons of hot sand. But it was a city, I was sure of it. It looked like New York, perhaps another metropolis. But it was huge and so... American. Yes, this could definitely be my beloved New York.

I began to stagger through the desert, hoping the city wasn't a figment of my imagination, a true mirage brought on by the heat of the afternoon sun.

Ahead of me, I spotted a little boy from the hospital. He stood confidently in the hot desert sand, holding the same teddy bear in his small right hand.

"Do you know where you are?" he asked, and I instinctively recoiled from the demon of my sick imagination, even though his voice was warm and gentle. Now this tiny boy was calming me down and inspiring confidence again.

"No," I replied, which was true, because I couldn't recall any city on earth bordering such a desert. At least not a city as modern as the one I saw before me. "

You're in your own mind, Karol. This is your world. It's as empty and desolate as the one you live in. You live in your own world, which is a desert. And I, Karol Grisham, am your unborn son."

"No!" I shouted, trying to run to the boy, wanting to punch him. But every step I took brought me no closer; on the contrary, I felt like I was taking him further away. Damn little brat, what does he think he is? Who am I to him? His father? I don't have anyone! Where is the hospital where I spent so many days?" "Where is

the hospital? Take me to the hospital immediately!" I shouted again.

"Karol, there's no hospital here, because in your own mind, all you have is this desert." Karol... Father... I want to live. I want you to call me John, and when I grow up, I want you to take me fishing and to the mountains. Dad, finally understand that you're not alone in this world. There are other people too.

"There's only me and my career, and my friends are my colleagues! And you're a figment of my sick imagination!"

I saw real tears in the boy's eyes. They ran down his cheeks and disappeared behind his dirty, hospital pajamas.

"Then I have no choice but to take you where you'll understand what I really mean. We'll go to the city, Dad, and there you'll see yourself."

I tried to protest, but when he touched me again, I lost consciousness, which was probably the best solution at that moment.

The city began to change.

Gray buildings disappeared into the gathering darkness, and the blackness opened an umbrella over my New York.

I felt fine sand everywhere, becoming a sharp razor, cutting into my flesh. I tried to open my eyes, but they immediately began to water, and the darkness grew thicker by the second. Finally, I couldn't see anything anymore.

I felt cold, and the bed next to me began to glow strangely. A bright glow illuminated a section of space in front of me. I noticed a small boy. "

Calm down, Karol. What you see around you is just your sick imagination, which doesn't actually exist. And the grains of sand that hurt your body are the passing of your life. This is how it destroys you from the inside, and you, absorbed in your work, don't even notice. Come with me."

I left the bed behind me and followed John obediently. The city was sleeping. The tall, dark outlines of the buildings resembled mysterious monoliths, and the wind whistling between the buildings brought to mind the roar of some diabolical monster. Every now and then, I glanced back, but all I saw around me was darkness.

We must have stopped in some large area, because the outlines of the black buildings were a considerable distance away. I immediately imagined we were in the heart of New York, where a massive, empty intersection was preparing for the morning invasion of cars carrying people going to work.

"Where are we?" I asked, as the boy stopped and stood for a moment, staring at the building opposite. He raised his head high and addressed me in a gentle voice. "

We're in the heart of New York, where the tall building where you work stands. Look up, and you'll see a light on in a window on one of the top floors. It's the only light on in the entire city. It's the light from your office, Karol. What you see around you is the desert you carry in your heart, a desert where there's no room for other people. Where there's no room for me... It's night, and you're working overtime, absorbed in your work."

I pulled away from the boy and began to walk briskly toward the nearby buildings. But what was I really trying to achieve? The whole time, I felt as if the space around me was trying to expand into infinity, and I stood there, futilely trying to overcome time and the place I found myself in.

"You won't escape loneliness, Karol, until you overcome it yourself! You'll live far from other people until you die, saturated with rot and selfishness! You egocentric bastard!"

I ran, away from the little boy with the teddy bear and his voice piercing my ears. I left everything behind—the lonely city, the streets, the heavy, leaden clouds, and the building where I worked.

But all the while, I felt a white light illuminating my office like a lighthouse on the coast.

I woke up in my own apartment.

And yet, it was a dream. God, thank you for such happiness! I'm alive, alive! I almost died from cardiac arrest, and the stench emanating from my dead insides would probably only alarm the neighbors after a few weeks.

I stood up and shakily walked to the window and looked out onto the busy streets. It was bright and warm outside, people were hurrying home, and cars were driving along the busy streets, which was perfectly normal at the moment.

I sat on the couch and began to recall the details of my dream. It was undoubtedly a very realistic dream; I'd even say that no nightmare had ever seemed as terrifying as what I'd just experienced.

And perhaps that would have been the end of my story, for reality had returned to normal.

However, there was one thing that, at that moment, made my ailing, wounded heart beat faster.

It was a teddy bear lying in the corner of the room. It had never been there before.

My old Dodge sped toward 13 Red Street, where the hospital I'd spent some time was supposed to be. I didn't believe the teddy bear or the numerous cuts on my face, remnants of the razor-sharp sand that had cut me in my sleep. I didn't believe anything, and only one thing could convince me that everything that had happened was just a sick man's dream or the truth that would change my life.

Believe me, I searched for the hospital for a long time, hoping it would be where it should be. Finally, I remembered exactly what it looked like. I even remembered the nearby buildings and the green branches of the trees that had hung over me as they pulled me from the ambulance.

But no one in the neighborhood had heard of the hospital at 13 Red Street. There had never been such a hospital here.

At 13 Red Street stood an old antique shop where a wizened grandfather kept a dozen worn teddy bears on one of the shelves, similar to the one I was holding in my sweaty, nervous hand.

My life had changed since then.

Have I become a better person? I don't know; I'll let the people I've met judge that. My friends and acquaintances. My good, dear friends, whom I'd never had before.

My work no longer mattered so much to me. I divided my time between work, friends, and family.

Yes, my dears, I have a family, and I'm very proud of it. Family is the only true meaning of existence for anyone.

I have a wife, Rebecca, and a son, whom my wife named John.

Coincidence? Perhaps I'll return to my dream someday, when my beloved son is a little older. We'll sit by a pond in the mountains and start fishing, just like my son wanted.

And I'll tell him my story, just as I've told it to you.