Perhaps the vegetation, invariably associated with an Asian jungle filled with a gang of Hindu morons, was a random choice. Or perhaps the housewife in her bathrobe, currently cleaning up the dryer dust accumulated over the past week, was thinking about Hinduism in the store, sculpting her home furnishings around those very sounds?
The sight of hair lighter than almond cream, the owner of brilliantly slender legs, sweeping across the Rue de Cascades, made Dominic involuntarily turn his thoughts from the housewife in her bathrobe's balcony to Isabelle Puhasse, his colleague from the philosophy department, probably sunbathing on a Dutch beach.
He spat it out faster than a sea monster, completely ignoring the conscious part of his brain, which was currently occupied with savoring the impending moment. A neon street sign flashed in his automatically functioning mind, commanding an immediate halt to these thoughts, without the slightest warning sign. Before he could reach the flannel stairwell that often tickled his back, however, the thoughts bounced off the mirrored doors and, along a suburban road, returned to his mind, causing far more confusion than the contents of his right sock.
His logarithmic flight up the stairs toward the top floors was interrupted by the cackle of the green banister, clattering in his imagination. A cackle that, despite its uniqueness, signaled the natural inevitability of a biological clock. Besides, inanimate objects often seemed to convey messages; more than once, he was terrified to conclude that most of humanity would never be more evolved than night lamps, the latest shampoos, photos of Alex's sister in lingerie, and the TV remote.
With increasingly trembling hands, he pulled a key from his pants pocket and quickly inserted it into the lock, which, in some devilish, narcotic way, also reminded him of Isabelle. With dreams he could never realize, the dreams of a condemned man for the next sunrise.
Brought back to earth by completely irrational, yet bound together with sugared string, strings of allusions, he entered his apartment, removed his ancient boots, tossed them carelessly into a corner, and headed to the right, where he would settle down to sleep in the evenings, tossing and turning for long hours amidst sleepless reflections. To a room filled with tacky stuffed animals, used to beautify his female friends who had once visited his kingdom. Especially the tiny bear, which they had initially admired, and the crocodile with a red back, sewn by Madame Framboise, which they used as a shield.
Dominic settled himself on a bed unmade since the last full moon, then reached into his right sock and slowly pulled out four grams of marijuana. The vulgar plastic packaging concealed a plant-based substance of sacred proportions, a pulmonary wafer for the several thousand Parisian students. Out of habit, he looked from side to side at the tempting package, automatically assessing the size of Monsieur Ferrero's portions. Then he closed his eyes for a few seconds, imagining a porcelain cup.
One of the brightest minutes in his monotonous schedule was approaching inexorably, filling the impatient ticking of the clock with more colorful sprites. A sincere, if fleeting, contentment took over, luring visual treats into their cave.
As the second item on the standard program—pulling out the glass pipe and preparing it for use—was in progress, Dominic unconsciously slid his right leg under the ebony back of the chair, lifting it several times with the motion of copulating rabbits. The specter of reaching the very top made him unsure of many actions. Madame Framboise must have felt similarly as her labor in the Mediterranean countryside was drawing to a close, the specter of ending the crippling pain staring her in the face, rattling its skeleton.
The loading of the cannon had been a flawless success; the revolutionaries under his leadership were already preparing to fire. The general settled back into bed, resting his back against the purple-painted wall. The tangle of competing desires had calmed down for a time, lurking, waiting for the bitter tea to be sweetened. Now...
A faint, tickling click of metal devices could be heard in the room, a sound that had been associated for centuries with the creation of a spark, and a few seconds later, a distinctive scent began to lazily reverberate from all sixteen walls, one that Dominic found even more pleasant than the scent of a woman, that subtle blend of luxurious perfume and delicate flesh. A scent that suddenly made all of reality seem an incredibly distant environment, connected to the outside world only through colors and sounds.
This was the one momentous occasion when its influence was more powerful than the sudden departure of a night tram. Rumors circulated throughout the cosmos that the more often these ridiculous earthly creatures smoke marijuana, the further it distanced them from their monotonous daily lives. This was nonsense, utter nonsense, the perpetuation of which should be punishable by death on a square chariot. Only at the beginning, when he smoked occasionally, when he did so only at rare parties celebrating the next few hundred days after leaving the womb, did he actually notice such an increasing function, the graph of which resembled a quadratic function.
But not in times reminiscent of the post-winter grass. Today, when the most brutal drug addicts on the market were impressed by the volumes flowing through his muscles, when Monsieur Ferrero, wandering the Parisian ocean of streets at night with a substance bombarding his senses, began giving out his ever-changing phone number with him, Dominic could confidently say he was never completely on that palpable high, legendary among drug virgins, that confounds human senses and crystallizes animal thoughts. Except for that one morning moment, that one moment of a lioness grabbing a gazelle by the neck.
The smoke entering his throat gradually traveled through his entire body like the steps of a railwayman going to fetch another bucket of coal. He felt it touching every cell in him, every vein invigorated by that terrible power to which the Aztecs bowed on their knees. The tablet in his head, responsible for recording thoughts, shifted to the right, pulsing in time with his racing heart.
For a moment, Dominic held the air in his lungs as tightly as if someone were trying to snatch the lost gold of the Gestapo dignitaries from his grasp. Some actions become so deeply ingrained that we do them unconsciously. When he finally came to the insightful conclusion that some carbon dioxide relief was absolutely necessary, he filled half the room with smoke and sprawled comfortably on the bed, feeling perfectly, better than ever before, the magical currents flowing up his legs and then, along with his blood, back into his lungs.
They didn't stop there, however, but, making a sharp turn, swirled around his head and smashed his coiled thoughts with all their might, shattering the compact ball into hundreds of pieces, like Andersen's mirror luring children into the Snow Queen's palace.
He hadn't felt such a powerful blow to the head in a long time, like a horse kicked by an angry blacksmith. Shards of mirror flew in the wrong direction and pierced his heart with terrible force, slicing it to shreds, tearing it into tiny feathers, tormenting him with relish.
In a flash, he realized that on the bed that now made lying down wonderfully comfortable, Isabelle had once arched her body, clinging to the wooden blinds and singing a Hebrew song about the fate of the brave shepherdess. Yes, Isabelle had studied Hebrew, had always been filled with spirituality, and Dominic felt he had no chance of defending himself against her legacy, which meant the next hour would be full of sad memories, full of thoughts of the stick from the strawberry popsicle they'd been eating, still hanging on the curtain.
Fighting an invincible enemy is utterly pointless, so he waved the white flag, masochistically tearing himself apart against Isabelle's knees, as he did practically every day, previously inspired by the ever-reliable Monsieur Ferrero.
Slender, perfectly sculpted legs...
The most exquisite words of a language specially crafted for this purpose couldn't express the meaning symbolized by her statuesque legs, stolen from Aphrodite. To dissect the archetype of femininity hidden in two unnaturally long lower limbs. They flexed almost unconsciously when lost in thought, tensing, and then allowing the muscles to relax.
Perhaps no one else had seen such, and certainly no one could touch such. Because later, Isabelle had no one to nose their taste. This was evident in her unmotivated sitting in a chair and the way she adjusted her hair. But above all, it was evident in the way she turned her sad eyelashes toward him.
Even a disabled child could have read the obvious reproach in her gaze, surely denied if formally questioned, but Dominique was perfectly aware of his presence. Reproach that she had to walk back through the cackling market alone, and that he had caused it with his irresponsible behavior as a puppy chasing a runaway cat. Although it wasn't true, the bitter cup of separation had been poured by her, yet she looked as if he were the main culprit. He often had the distinct impression that she would return if only he called to apologize and promise to end the tropical destruction of his lungs, if only he spoke to her and told her he still cared about those diamond thighs as much as he had that evening when...
But that was beyond his reach, and besides, he couldn't even maintain eye contact with her, because that silent reproach had once stirred in his dreams the greatest fear he had ever felt. It was the only avenue from which hints of disappointment emerged, because she, too, was afraid to speak to him. He sensed a certain shyness in her toward him, stemming from the realization of her role in his downfall.
Yes, a fall, using that word was necessary. Because even though, having missed half of his lectures, he graduated with a passing grade in philosophy, for which he received a watch from his grandmother, even though fairy-tale worlds inaccessible to others invited him in daily, and while riding the subway, he always saw the entire train car dancing, he felt perfectly aware of falling into some abyss, its bottom sinking ever lower. He felt perfectly aware, yet he had no chance of even attempting to defend himself. Finding pleasure in life was an abstraction for him; it was more like not taking in unpleasantness. Days spent lying in bed were only diverted by the sound of the television, which had been tuned to fashion shows for several months, because moving to get the remote was impossible. It was actually possible, but after weighing all the pros and cons, he always decided that his current situation satisfied him.
He also carefully protected his psyche from unnecessary effort. Holding an intelligent conversation was excessively tiring, so he carefully avoided any place where he might encounter one. Of all the people whose intellectual needs exceeded their bodies', only Alex kept in touch. But even with him, he didn't talk as he used to, they didn't broach more ambitious topics, they didn't even admire music, contenting themselves with passive listening. Besides the usual conversations about nothing, they could only reminisce about old times and spend hours discussing marijuana, praising its sparkling caresses. It was the only sea they both swam in.
And although Alex told him a whole range of other things, Dominic didn't even pretend to himself that he was trying to listen. He flung open all the windows in his head, allowing information to flow freely and reciprocally, allowing it to flow in and out, and after an hour of such monologue, he couldn't repeat a single word.
Soon, Alex understood, always grasping everything so quickly, and then stopped pestering him with unnecessary nonsense. He saved his stories for skinny Charlotte, who wore a navel ring and made love from behind, and they no longer argued in a language understood only by each other about the color of the girl's hair in the song with the characteristic instrument that had once reminded them both of the wailing of a Persian slave girl.
He came much less often, but his visits were still the second most important element of Dominic's existence. Perhaps even the most important, but he wouldn't admit that to anyone. All the neighbors would laugh at him, and besides, they'd never liked Alex for his diversity and for mocking their sameness. Dominic looked forward to these visits for two reasons. It was nice to talk to someone who didn't treat him with condescension and disgust, yet was simultaneously filled with happiness. Yes, happiness radiated from his eyes whenever he emerged from around the corner of Rue de Cascades, clutching a perpetually full bag of ginger ale bottles, and then from every sentence that came out of his mouth. It was always a huge shock, because no one else spoke like that. They just kept complaining about everything except themselves. Especially the Audi.
Yes, Audi was a living discontent, and if it weren't for the fact that he drank a dozen bottles of ginger ale a day, then sought out a fight with gel-smeared students who reminded him of his red-haired lover, Francinette, one might suspect him of a kinship with the old vendors who sold apples to passersby in the filthiest corners of Paris.
Audi's every speech contained complaints about the lack of libations near the Rue de Cascades, the arrest of another dealer peddling substitutes for salvation, the lack of easy money, and a fashion model willing to perform oral sex, all interspersed with adjectives derived from male genitalia. Dominic couldn't explain what had sparked his sympathy for this marabout (marabout, what a strange term; it must be some kind of bird). Perhaps it was because he'd wandered the bars with him, in the hashish undertones of absinthe, or perhaps because Audic admired him? A simple human feeling.
Neither reason satisfied him at all; he convinced himself she liked him for something else. That there was something incredibly romantic about him, his whole rebellion against the oppressive world, akin to the Musketeers. But that's nonsense. Audi wouldn't be able to place romanticism in history, and calling a simple attack on random people a reaction to unrequited love is sillier than a virgin's ballad about sex.
The second reason Dominic still liked Alex (he didn't know why the Audi had suddenly entered his mind), the second of those reasons (or maybe it was the first, but did it really matter?) was their infinite fascination with marijuana. They weren't in the habit of doing it and then pretending nothing had happened, like an old married couple in bed or homeless people by the station snorting amphetamines, but they would discuss it for hours, using the language of two connoisseurs. Every nuance, every interesting fact, had a name in their own lexicon. For a few minutes, they would discuss a particularly odd arrangement of residue on the walls of a pipe, argue about the arrangement of the material while rolling a joint, and especially converse about the taste of the plant. Yes, this was a topic they talked about until it got dark, after each toke, praising or criticizing the smoke as it flowed successively through the mouth, throat, windpipe, and finally into the lungs in the final stage of its journey. If this conversation had been about religion instead of drugs, its quality would have been higher than a discussion between Buddha and Christ. However, in this case, more than one girl left the room, horrified by the company they had accidentally found themselves in. Dominic remembered how a short nurse (what was her name?) sitting at a café table with them called them drug addicts, and Alex delivered a several-minute speech interspersed with supposed Nietzschean theories that exposed her intellectual shortcomings. Then, all night long, she stared at him with a mixture of distaste, admiration, and utter fascination. They ended up kissing on the floor under the table, and then she wrote her home number on a piece of a menthol cigarette box. The same box Alex had brazenly used to make a filter for another joint, offering it to Beatrisse, the waitress, who was bringing her tuna salad on a tray.
Yes, Alex didn't care about them at all. His list of female friends was longer than the list of men who drank absinthe with him, but he never chased after them, didn't call them, and didn't drool over every new one he met. He was also a true friend.
Dominic was nothing like a blind mole, oblivious to the events unfolding around him. He saw very clearly that Isabelle would immediately follow Alex; she would surely follow his every cheerful smile, and he saw that he didn't even try to take advantage of this. He waited for Dominic to issue the marriage license himself. A complete lack of objection wasn't enough; he waited for an overt invitation, and when he didn't hear it, he instinctively wrote the beautiful girl off and condemned her to eternal loneliness. Yes, Alex truly was the only man who understood and practiced the concept of male friendship; Alex knew there were things you just didn't do.
Dominic noticed he'd been reminiscing about the ever-smiling reggae enthusiast for a few minutes, which meant he'd managed to pull himself out of his whirlwind of negative thoughts. And he immediately regretted that conclusion, because just as the thought of meditating for a long time irreversibly spoils it, Isabelle sprang up onto Dominic's bed, her slender legs gleaming. But it was an unearthly blue evening... She was lying on the same bed, and amidst Edith Piath's singing, they kissed for so long, tenderly touching each other's skin, that he had to change position to avoid permanently damaging his neck. And she was so ashamed, her cheeks constantly flushing, and she didn't know what to say. Because she was terribly shy, probably after her mother, who had worked in a library for years, any deviation from the rules embarrassed her.
As his hands roamed her body, they slid down and down, but when he passed her navel, she grabbed his hands and pulled them back up. He could never understand why; when asked directly, she admitted it was physically pleasurable but that she didn't want it. He didn't understand it, but he felt intuitively that Isabelle was pure goodness, like a goddess—the Maid of Orleans, descended from heaven to save his soul. She was as pure as binoculars in a dishwasher; he never registered a single curse from her lips.
Once, while strolling in the glow of the city lamps, they tossed a beer cap they'd found in the air, reached the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and decided to go inside, stumbling right into the middle of the service. Isabelle approached the altar without a second thought, ready to receive Holy Communion. Dominic stayed, his conscience still remnant deciding it was inappropriate, having blurted out so much before the meeting that the face of the priest collecting the offerings reminded him of a shameless imp ruining an ancient village wedding. Olden days, when She was still powerful.
Then, at that Communion, Isabelle knelt, and when she opened her mouth, she looked so wonderful, so incredibly unreal, that he was certain of her holiness. He only waited for the floor to open with the golden chariot arriving. When he himself believed in the possibility of his visions coming true, he began to pray that she wouldn't be taken to heaven yet, that she could still help him improve. Of course, after a few minutes, she returned to him, and Dominic understood that changing his lifestyle, giving up tropical plants and returning at dawn, might not be a necessary evil, but a choice born of the depths of his mind.
Immediately afterward, he walked her home through the emptiness of the Parisian night, and there, at the entrance to the stairwell, they kissed for the first time. He touched her delicate lips for the first time, leaving his mark on them. Just then, a bearded tramp emerged from the backyard trash can and, looking enviously at the flexing female body in the luscious stockings, laughed a throaty cackle, asking, "What, does it taste good?"
Dominic saw the incredible shame on Isabelle's face then, the shame of a little girl whose skirt fell down at the school dance. He turned and sent the drunken scoffer a crude bouquet of the most insulting curses he could think of at that moment. So exquisite, in fact, that the beautiful woman looked at him with involuntary admiration. And although they never spoke of the incident, he felt she was proud of him, of not leaving her disgraced.
It was a wonderful evening, perhaps the best in the world. That was when he decided to stop smoking, not because of the frequency. He was in complete control then, having no problem stopping for several weeks. He only wanted to stop because of Isabelle's pleas, and he could neither refuse her nor lie to her constantly.
It was a wonderful evening, but one was even more wonderful: the birthday party where he kissed her all over, his neck aching. It was then, just once, that Alex had said he envied him, and anything could have happened. But a dozen or so days later, Dominic happened to meet Audi near a playground filled with children playing soccer. For the rest of his life, he would never stop wondering what would have happened if he hadn't met him. If he had been walking down the street a minute later, if he had been talking a little longer with the french fries vendor, but he was walking right then.
Audi was incredibly far from the reality of Paris at that moment; a few seconds earlier, he had finished rolling his third joint and was just starting to smoke it. Seeing Dominic, he handed it to him, in accordance with the unwritten tradition that unites cannabis smokers on all continents. Dominic wanted to say he was in love and decided he didn't need to smoke any leaves to feel happier, but suddenly he felt that in front of Audi, it would sound idiotic, like farting mechanically during a kiss on a boat. He figured it wouldn't do anyone too much harm, since he always smoked occasionally, and Alex did too, so after a moment's thought, he helped Audi with the backyard mystery.
It only took a few seconds, just one deep drag, to recall that wonderful feeling. Thoughts darting through his head like the irregular motion of a tennis ball in a spherical room, bouncing to the rhythm of irrational associations in his subconscious. Smiling cheerfully at every phenomenon he encountered. Savoring them, he decided to run home to call the person he held dearest. To listen to the childish voice that cheerfully chirped after most of his sentences. To joke with her about her shirt being zipped to his fly, which she saw as a coincidence, and he as a clear suggestion from the world's watchmaker.
Isabelle knew nothing about drugs, standing out significantly among the Parisian philosophy students in this regard. In her naive opinion, the effects of hashish were no different from heroin, but she was an expert on people. She immediately sensed that Dominic crafted his elaborate monologues in a slightly different way—subtle nuances, subtle differences that no parent, not even the most trained police officer, could detect, but which a twenty-year-old in love would notice. When she asked directly if her suspicion was correct and she'd heard the truth, she didn't say a word. She hung up, adorning her address book with a single tear, and all night she ignored the incessantly ringing phone.
From that night on, they hadn't spoken at all, except for random, completely impersonal sentences about school. From then on, Dominic's life became a massive drug rush, a giant cake sprinkled with cocaine and lined with green pills with a heart printed on it, a cake with a few decorations, but overwhelmingly made of marijuana. After a dozen or so months, it stopped having its intoxicating effect on him. For most people who occasionally indulge in pot and then, depending on their imagination, experience visions of paradise or laugh hysterically for a few hours, this was incomprehensible. Dominica began to stimulate, energize, and improve his concentration. All he had left was that first morning cigarette, when his body, after a few hours of sleep, had minimally detached itself from the plant's effects, shifting his train of thought to a more exotic one.
When the academic year was still underway, he had a habit of holding back, with superhuman effort, for an hour after waking to experience that magical moment right before lectures. He'd lock himself in the bathroom for half a minute, then emerge triumphantly in a puff of smoke. Smiling, he'd sit in the lecture hall and gaze steadily at Isabelle.
She was so sweet, so absorbed in Kant's philosophical system, that Dominic, looking at her, was convinced she was nothing more than a logical animal driven by impulses. Without any control over the biological side of life. Every day, he imagined undressing her against her will, amidst her screams and cries, and then taking her by force, humiliating her femininity, enjoying her shame and listening to her moans.
He couldn't count how many times he'd made the trek to the toilet in several bounds during the break, releasing the pressure on his male power. At first, he'd only wanted to do it once, just once. He'd been constantly afraid of being caught, then washed his hands for a few minutes, and by the end of the lesson, wondered if anyone had seen him. But no, everyone tried to avoid his face, far removed from philosophical speculations about existence. They pretended not to see that slightly delirious expression that twisted all of Kant's thoughts inside out, that they had no idea those characteristically red eyes existed. They pretended not to be surprised when he sat motionless in one lecture, half-asleep, and then jumped on chairs the next, flinging the timidest students' notes across the French classroom and laughing with the voice of a spotted hyena slaughtering a gazelle in the darkness of a nighttime watering hole. But Dominic was still aware that their knowledge of the 24-hour process taking place in his body far exceeded his own desires in the matter.
And he remained trapped on the marijuana train, passing increasingly obscure stations, increasingly feeling that the path led to a place he no longer believed existed. He had no memory of the actions he had performed a few seconds ago. Permanently entering the faces of new people into his information bank was completely out of the question. He had to constantly jot down the simplest tasks on a torn piece of paper hanging above his bed. He limited his conversations with people to essential exchanges of information, and an evening outing to the neighboring alley, where, amidst liters of absinthe and thick smoke, he tried to convince himself that he needed nothing more.
He tried, but to no avail, because even those evening outings were nothing like his first, spontaneous outings, when he and Alex had each downed a bottle of Burgundy, and then spent a whole month reminiscing about dancing on Parisian buses in front of surprised fellow passengers heading to the Rue de Cascades, waving an umbrella at a children's clothing stand.
He tried, but to no avail, because since the beautiful Isabelle, no girl had shown any interest in him, not even for a drunken, non-committal kiss, not even for an innocent slip of his hand into her panties. At ecstatic discos, he was embarrassed to approach them, pacing the dance floor, watching only the crude advances of his friends, and his insecurity gave him the image of a bore, inviting his lovers for soft drinks. Even his friends, even Audie, had lost his cursed virginity, ending up at some bonfire in the vineyards with a completely stinking psychology student, her crooked teeth scaring the hell out of mirrors.
Dominic couldn't slip the disco dancers all-powerful amphetamines into their drinks, couldn't rape a drunk, handball-hopping Girl Scout returning through the forest, and a shred of pride (always absent when the hungry Eskimos needed it most) kept him from visiting the Place Pigalle. The shame that set in when neighborly conversations first veered towards boasting about their conquests caused his racing heart to beat so fast that he couldn't say anything, not even steer the conversation elsewhere.
Amidst this whirlwind, amidst a series of corkscrew days not dissimilar from the most soluble dreams of yore (Dominic couldn't remember his dreams anymore), a single, dense mass of clothes in a running washing machine, suddenly, out of nowhere, he found himself with a few days off. Today he didn't understand how he'd managed it, but there was a day when, in a single second, he decided he had to stop. It was probably his psyche's last defensive cry, his last thought to get Isabelle back, his last thought that not all was lost.
He locked himself in his room for three days with headphones on, not answering his phone, and prayed to all the gods in the world to give him strength. He was just about to go to the bathroom when the phone rang. It was so pleading, yet so insistent, that Dominic had to pick it up. The voice coming out of it was Alex's.
Dominic wanted to say he didn't smoke, that he had to stop and not see anyone, but he wasn't sure if it would sound reasonable. You could play the hash musketeer every now and then, Dominic knew that, he knew people like that, and Alex had done it too (fucking free association), so he was afraid he'd be laughed at by him. But no, Alex was a true friend, and when he heard everything, he came to him, and they talked music for four hours. It was another of the most wonderful nights of Dominic's life. Back then, he had believed wholeheartedly, back then, he was utterly convinced that getting Jola back was only a matter of time. But a few days passed, and the phone once again shattered the silence in the apartment. This time, however, it wasn't Alex's cheerful voice, but Yuliana's somber bass.
Yuliana met Dominic at the legendary New Year's Eve ball, when, heavily under the influence of cocaine imported from Marseille, he kicked open the bathroom door and then leaned against the sink, which was probably poorly screwed down, or simply of poor quality. It fell to the floor, shattering into dozens of pieces with a crash. The landlady, a petite brunette with the eyes of an angel, began to cry, but amid the general commotion, no one paid her any attention except Audie, who tried to grab her breasts.
From then on, Yulian appeared in Dominic's life, sometimes more often, sometimes less often, surprising him with a phone call at the most unexpected moment and inviting him to his birthday party. Dominic was already mentally preparing a rejection, but once again he dismissed his initial reservations, explaining to himself that they were pointless. A friend's birthday is a completely normal part of social life. You can't isolate yourself from other people simply out of fear of your own destructive tendencies. It would be a perfect test of his willpower, after all. To go and not smoke.
Funny (he always had a strange sense of humor), while still spraying cologne in the bathroom, he convinced himself in the mirror that a visit didn't necessarily mean smoking, once inside, he knew perfectly well that he had come for that single purpose. And when that moment arrived, and the pipe was in his right hand, he knew he would be doing it again every day. Some things are simply beyond our control, no matter how much some people want to believe otherwise. It's not the wolf's fault that he is a wolf.
After a brief sojourn in a quiet station hidden in the bathroom, the Tropical Grass Train roared on its way at lightning speed. Coughing once again became an hourly ritual, and eating the only pleasure. Added to all the ancient problems gnawing at the soul and body of marijuana devotees was the worst, one that nullified every breath.
The inevitability that ended the student cycle, assuring Dominic that never again would a leggy beauty leap across his gaze, bowing to the barmaids as they danced. The messages in his head proclaimed that there was no point in making futile attempts at improvement, no point in even getting out of bed. For the rest of his life, each day would begin with a pipe and memories tearing his personality to shreds. Not because there was no possibility of return, but because doing so was utterly pointless. At the same time, he believed, he convinced himself, that stopping increasing his distance from the rest of reality would be a surrender. It would be foolish to write off the last two years; it would be a waste of all his achievements. A return to the ridiculed machine from which he initially sought to isolate himself, to boring routines and evening visits to the cinema.
And the final station lies further than any imagination responsible for predicting lifespan can reach. Without absorbing synthetic powdered poisons that burn irreparable holes in most internal organs, one can admire daily sunrises for decades and lie down under a rubber duvet many hours later. Thousands more mornings will begin with a course through a devilish spiral, where Isabelle Puhasse's slender legs hang from every wall, decorating one's thoughts and tearing apart one's entire body.
And her reproachful gaze, covering all the night lamps.
Dominic lazily rose from the bed, leaving his rattling thoughts for a moment, and noticed with slight surprise and no small pride that he had burned the entire contents of the pipe in one go, now smoking timidly and losing its warmth.
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz