My soul"

 

He was no one exceptional or extraordinary. He was as special as any average person is to a few of his friends or acquaintances. He lived day by day, increasingly yearning to end this absurdity. At times, this desire wasn't even sincere. Her experience was confined solely to a thought he had long been accustomed to. Only once—a long time ago—had he tried to touch her, to make it real. He did so in silence, in secret, without any signs, without imbuing his attempt with romantic pathos or rapture. He waited for death, for angels, trumpets, and the brightness of that beautiful moment. Yet there was no whiteness, no fluff of wings, trumpets, or angels, only the simple blackness and silence of night, followed by another day. He resigned himself to waking and allowed death to remain in the intangible realm of a vaguely wandering imagination. He lived on, changing nothing.

The quiet thoughts of Werther's autumn were dear to him, but again, not in a showy way. He didn't cover his body or even his soul with a yellow waistcoat and a blue tailcoat. He didn't make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem's tomb, didn't identify with Werther, didn't glorify him, didn't worship him. He only felt that he could silently offer him a hand and accompany him in moments of pain. He would have departed, however, shortly before the novel's end. He disliked theatrical preparations that robbed the final moments before the shot of intimacy.

He would probably have gone to his garden, where he had planted a multitude of thoughts. They bloomed beautifully, but very rarely, and were always watered by others. Only then did they grow. Not because they disliked being watered by him. Quite the contrary. They wanted to! Whenever he entered the garden, they opened their black petals to him, begging for color, a smile to drink from. But he didn't give them any of that. He didn't have it, or perhaps he just didn't want it. He didn't know. In any case, it was others who fed his thoughts, wanting them to bloom, to take on a rosy glow. It was like that almost every day.

Today, too, the garden was crowded with people who had come to tend it. They were trimming the flower stems, removing faded or dry petals, spraying the leaves with a fresh mist of smiles, weeding the weeds, and loosening the soil. When he entered, he saw an almost impressionistic sight. The garden was impressive. It was filled with splashes of color. Around each of the people scattered throughout it, a circle of happy, colorful flowers formed, standing out against the blackness of the others. The people were still working, and the circles were slowly widening. For a moment, he had the impression they would reach him. He looked down and suddenly felt sad. The flowers surrounding him were black. They looked at him with hope, but when they saw his fading gaze, they lowered their heads, folded their petals, and in a vast silence, began to wither. The black spot spread, grew, engulfing everything, muting the colors. Surprised people looked at him, pleading for him to listen, to give them a chance to embrace him. He wanted to. He really did, but they were far away. Fields of fading flowers separated them, an impenetrable garden of thoughts.

So they left, resigned. But not far away. To always be close – true friends.

Sometimes he hated them. Precisely because they were there for him, caring for him, caring for him, always ready to help, talk. He grew attached to them, and they to him, yet he knew that one day he would want to leave them, to walk away silently, never to return. Paradoxically, he also hated them because he couldn't cope without them. He needed conversations, glances, the closeness of people who would instill in him a smile and confidence in himself. Yet, when someone started to succeed, he fled. He shut himself off, terrified of losing his identity, his world, his own thoughts, his own experiences. He knew that all of them were false—that what he felt, thought, sometimes even what he saw, was merely imagined, created by himself, a product of his illness. Over the years, he had learned not to trust his emotions, thoughts, or senses, because they often didn't correspond with the reality of things. But he couldn't reject them. That's why he began to accept them as correct only within his own mind, without verifying them with the real world. This helped him understand himself and believe he had a right to his own experiences, even if, in the eyes of others, they were the result of his illness, not a natural reflection of his soul. He had to create his own world. Who would he be without it? Just a pitiable man with a sick mind? Only this?! He refused to acknowledge it. Owning his own reality protected him from the feeling that it might be true. That's why he was so afraid of help from others, of talking to friends, of trusting them. They would convince him he was wrong. That's why he ran away, even though he yearned with all his being to be with them, to talk about himself, to listen, to reach out for help. He hated them because they gave him what he needed but couldn't take. This caused him immense pain and an unbearable sense of guilt.

He also disliked people who were like him. He understood them, sympathized with them, but didn't like them! He might not have known them, only passed them by on the street like a thousand others, but he knew immediately that they were just like him—wounded by their own thoughts. It irritated him that they were sad, withdrawn, inaccessible. They always seemed unsympathetic, even hostile. Yet, they were complete strangers he'd never met.

He even wondered at one point why he perceived them this way. He began to listen to his emotions, his thoughts, and study their reactions. Finally, he came to the simplest, even banal conclusion: the reason for his aversion was that he saw himself reflected in them – they walked slowly, as if tired, with a careless gait, heads down, hands in pockets. And their eyelashes were silver. But what struck most was their inner selves, which, to those who could read, was like an open book. To understand the content, however, one had to know the language and the specifics of the recording of feelings, scribbled by a pathetic hand. It was very sloppy – some pages were blank, others were written or crossed out, pages were numbered out of sequence, font sizes and types were randomly chosen, there were no paragraphs, chapters, periods, commas, capital letters, and sometimes even diacritics. It was just a flood of emotions and experiences imprinted on the graying pages of the rough draft. As if there was no strength or will to copy everything cleanly – correctly and in beautiful handwriting.

But he didn't need correction to understand that language. He spoke it himself. And perhaps that was why he ran away from people who wrote down their thoughts in the same way. He was afraid they could read him as easily as he could read them. That they could see his heart empty of joy, his gray face with sad eyes and silvery eyelashes. He didn't want them to see him as anything like himself. He didn't want to be one of those pathetic, pitiful people! But he was. And he didn't like them for that either.

He often ran away from everyone to be alone, not having to pretend or play a predetermined role, ashamed of who he really was. When he was alone, he regained his individuality. So he studied his garden, studied it, sought out its nooks and crannies, explored, discovered new places. He watched the flowers gently move their petals, swaying to the rhythm of his free-flowing thoughts, and waited. Each time, he caught himself waiting. He wasn't quite sure what for. He felt as if something were missing from his garden, yet when he looked, everything was in its proper place. He felt it must be something intangible, indefinable, like an invisible complement to the whole. Something like air, but even more intangible.

And as he listened to this feeling, his gaze involuntarily wandered to the sky. Then, for a moment, he felt that the sky itself was empty, that it didn't contain the garden. The thought flashed through his mind: God wasn't here. But he immediately dismissed it, because he was, after all, an atheist.

He made this choice himself. He was raised in faith, but his disillusionment with the world was too strong. Everyday life contradicted what had been instilled in him. He doubted, and then—for fear of punishment for sin—preferred to reject faith. From then on, he felt this strange "lack," but he constantly resisted the thought that it was the emptiness of lost faith. Whenever the feeling of incompleteness returned, he tried to drown it out. Then, most often, he sat at the piano and played. Just like now.

He moved the stool closer to the instrument. He straightened, placed his hands on the keyboard, and studied them for a moment, mentally recalling the sound of the first chords. He held his breath and gently, tenderly pressed the keys. The sounds spread across them in a thin layer. He felt warmth in his fingers. Blood began to circulate better, his fingertips warmed. After the chords came the arpeggios. His hands now covered all the octaves, moving up and down, following the soft movements of his wrist. The notes flowed across the keys, and his fingers greedily drank in their black-and-white sound, reaching the climax, the forte fortissimo on the third page of his own composition of the Polonaise in A flat major. And then, drunk, tired, they slowed down. Calmer and calmer, tender again, they merely brushed the notes, scattering silver particles of trills around them. Until finally, they nestled quietly against the keys, enveloped in the mist of the final pianissimo chord.

His eyes closed. The music drifted slowly away, carrying him to the garden, calming his heart and opening it.

He stood now among the green grass, drenched with morning tears. There was no one here but himself this time. He felt a pleasant warmth and someone's closeness. He looked around, but saw no one. And suddenly he understood! God was here with him—the Creator himself, in whose existence he had never believed. But now he was here! As a cloud. As a flower. As every blade of grass. As green, white, blue. As rustles, murmurs, songs. As everything! Suddenly, the garden was filled with life, movement, colors, and sounds. When he felt it, he could no longer capture the feeling of emptiness that had accompanied him his entire life. Now it had suddenly drifted so far away that he could not reach it. But he also didn't want to reach it, because now Someone held it in theirs.

He felt happy. The silver of his eyelashes dried. He raised his head, looked at the blooming garden and the blue sky. On the horizon, he saw people. He was no longer afraid of not reaching them. He ran across the garden, still holding God's hand. He threw himself into their arms, and they happily hugged him until the last black flower disappeared underground.