"He calls me and says, 'Honey, just remember, you have to be home by ten.'" And I tell him, "Don't worry, honey, we haven't finished the second case yet."
A burst of laughter, like a machine gun burst, echoed around the table.
"What a mess!" The thought flashes through my head and jumps from one neuron to another, triggering my hand. It grips the mug, two fingers full of foam, and raises it to my lips. The joker finishes his beer. The thought jumps through his neurons, and he takes a swing and throws the mug with a beautiful lob.
The pub is full of people, the clinking of mugs, flowing beer, and laughter. Pretty barmaids shake their asses in hopes of a tip. There's a line at the bar. The smell of sweat and cigarettes makes my nose turn.
He's sitting a little to the side, and a few tables away is a group of jelly-tie guys. The missing link between the homo dickhead and the homo dickhead dickhead. Between them, Mr. Joker.
A parabolic graph. His table is marked X1, the ties' table is X2. The mug is at the peak of the parabola W.
The fourth dimension of space is time.
The mug flies in a beautiful parabolic lob. The increasingly slower ascending flight, after a momentary halt, changes into a descending flight with a constant acceleration of g, or nine point eighty-one meters per second squared. After traveling two meters, the mug hits point X2, the head of one of the jellybeans. And a human head is as fragile as an egg. A hundred-point throw. A corner to the nose. Blood and a scream. The barmaid's finger on the button calling Justus. The ties get up and move towards Figlarz. The butt sits softly on the chair where he sits.
***
Figlarz's butt on another chair. Pressed into the cold, plastic seat of the tram. He stared blankly at the world outside the window. People getting on and off. Cars. Buildings passing by. Everything seems unreal. He glanced at his reflection in the window. A pale face, deep-set eyes, clearly marked by the shadows beneath the shadows. The menacing gaze of a wild animal.
Two steroids boarded the carriage.
"Good morning. Please prepare your tickets for inspection."
Passengers nervously patted their pockets and pulled out single or monthly passes. One of the canaries approached Figlarz.
"Ticket, please.
" "I don't have one." He didn't even bother to look up.
"Then your ID.
" "I burned it," he said truthfully, not even trying to lie.
"What a smartass, aren't you?" He sounded so confident. Convinced of the strength of his chemically-packed muscles. "We'll establish your details in a moment. You're coming with us."
The stowaway looked him in the eye. Right into the pupils, those small, rheumy eyes. The man standing opposite Figlarz, reluctantly, did the same and sighed with fear. Figlarz wasn't surprised, because he knew exactly what the other was looking at. He himself was forced to look into them, into those exquisite eyes, every day in the mirror. Blue as the sky. Once cheerful or sad, sometimes menacing, but more like the menace of a pixie. Now as friendly as afternoon tea in hell and warm as two ice cubes. The eyes of a madman.
Figlarz finally spoke, his voice strangely soft.
"No, I won't go," the man said, making them take a step back.
"Are you all right?" his friend called from the other end of the carriage.
"Yes, okay," the first one replied, looking away. "Some nutcase. Not worth the bother."
The tram stopped. They both got off. Figlarz got off two stops later.
***
The nightmare of Tartarus reflected in his eyes. His father's blood on his hands. Blood that can't be washed away. He looks into the mirror. Cursed blue eyes watch from the other side. They remind him that he was once human. And now? Who am I now?
The cracked mirror distorts reality, mocking it, revealing dozens of those hated eyes. The prankster looks down. Blood on his hands. Shards of glass embedded in his fingers. He turns on the tap and rinses the wounds. It stings like hell.
***
"What happened to your hand?
" "I cut myself shaving.
" "Heh, heh. That's fucking ridiculous," Asmodeus snorted.
"That's how it is. I'm a convalescent after all. My hands aren't what they used to be.
" "Shitty farts."
They sat in the kitchen, drinking jasmine to bolster their fragile health and snorting carcinogens to balance the jasmine's influence.
"And where did the mirrors go?" You can't live without them, sweetie. Me, that's something else. A nasty face. That's what.
"I took them to the basement," he replied reluctantly after the third questioning "huh?" "They were irritating me.
" "Judging by your hands, they probably went to the trash in tiny pieces, not the basement.
" "Well, maybe one or two broke on the way. Like I said," the boy laughed hoarsely, looking at his bandaged hands. "The wrong hands.
" "One or two. Fucking hell, you didn't have more than three mirrors in your house.
" "Yeah, no," he agreed. "I didn't." Then he fell silent, absorbing the scent and taste of jasmine. They were silent for a while.
"Tell me," he asked after a long moment. "Whose blood do I have on my hands, friends or enemies?" The dwarf looked sharply, almost menacingly. But then his gaze softened and darkened.
"I don't know, buddy," he replied reluctantly. "You'll have to answer that question for yourself."
"What if..." The unspoken words caught in his throat. Mischief swallowed the choking bitterness and tried again. "What if I don't find the answer?
" "This will be the saddest moment of your life. The moment you realize you can't answer that question," Asmodeus said, then added quietly, almost at the edge of his hearing. "And the saddest of mine."
Mischief often wondered later if his friend had foreseen what would happen next. But now his ugly face twisted into a smile. He inhaled, wheezing, and swallowed the snot that had settled in his throat.
"What will be, will be. Now show me those paws. Let's see if we can do anything with them."
Mischief obediently held out his hands, and the dwarf's fingers maneuvered around the bandage, pulling it off with surprising skill. His shapeless hands were covered in scars and calluses, their palms hardened like the soles of a shoe during the long years of wandering.
This ugliness was somehow reassuring, emanating a sense of security and stability that Figlarz hadn't experienced in days.
The clumsily applied dressings fell onto the table, and as Asmodeus tore the gauze from the wounds, a hiss escaped the young man's lips. He hissed several times. There were quite a few cuts.
"Huhuhu," he muttered. "Nice work, kid. When I'm done with this, I'll check if there's any glass left in this house besides those two cups. If you ask me, you must have worked hard. But don't worry. Dr. Mengele is coming to the rescue. Your hands will be as good as new in no time," he began chanting unfamiliar incantations. His hands throbbed alternately with heat and cold. They began to sting and itch mercilessly. After a few minutes, shreds of scabs and skin fell away. Underneath was fresh, baby-pink skin.
"Thanks.
" "No problem. You deserve a bottle.
" "You say you have it," Figlarz pulled a frosty bottle of "Selected" from the freezer and pickled from the fridge.
"I like that," Asmodeus exclaimed. "Bread and salt. True Polish hospitality.
" "By the way, we have to drink from jasmine cups and pickles straight from the jar, because you won't find any other glassware here.
" "No problem," he replied, trying to ignore Figlarz's eyes. "Whose blood do you have on your hands?" he asked himself—friends or enemies?
***
The apartment reeked of gasoline. Figlarz stood in the middle of the room, watching the last drop of oily liquid fall to the ground. He set the canister aside and looked into the terrified eyes of the boy lying on the bed.
"I don't have anything against you, man," he said, not really knowing why. Certainly not to reassure him. He simply had to say something. "I don't have anything against you. It's just bad luck that you're like me. See you in the next life. Who knows, maybe you'll have a chance to get even."
As I was leaving, I set fire to the rags on the table, having previously soaked them in oil.
"For now," I said. The boy said nothing. He didn't react in any way other than widening his eyelids even further. The paralyzing spell prevented him from doing more. He couldn't even moan.
***
Kanar takes a step back, terrified by the memory of the flames he saw in my eyes.
"Are you okay?" his friend asks from the other end of the carriage.
"Yeah, okay. He's some kind of lunatic."
The tram stops. They get off. I get off two stops later.
***
The mug hits point X2. Blood and bone fragments fly into the air. The barmaid's finger presses the alarm, summoning Justus. Ties fly off and they run toward Figlarz. He stands, mouthing the not-so-mysterious words
, "Shall we dance?"
And off they went. A few minutes later, the riot police burst in. Unsure who was with whom and why, they began to pacify everyone.
A small inferno broke loose. At the height of it all, he jumped under the table, gaining a vital few seconds to utter the magic formula. No one paid him any attention.
He left the pub, unmolested. The anger burning in my heart faded for a moment, replaced by pain that struck with redoubled force.
The pain of losing that one bright and pure spark in my life. A spark that had been extinguished forever
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