4 Silent treatments

4

My breath failed, my muscles burned, the wind was cold, my feet ached and maybe even my eyes cried a little.

The road was steep. I couldn't see much cause of the fog. I kept going by will and the trees that wouldn't let me roll down, and I had also made a promise.

So I was begging for it to end, to reach the top and fall to the floor to breathe and not feel the heart run.

"See? I told you it was worth it ”

It was the city that was waking up.

The fog covered her like a blanket of protection even though the slight movement of the cars with the lights between the streets was seen. In the distance, the smoke with the fire of the factories was seen, and the green of the city centre. It was beautiful and I couldn't take my eyes off it. Even when my body burned and I trembled uncontrollably, because if I stopped seeing it, it would disappear. 

The city would wake up and the charm would end.

No, I would continue to see this until I fell. I would see the trees move with the wind, the house lights being tun on, the sun comes out and bathes every corner with light.

"It's beautiful"

The smile covered his face, shone in his eyes and glowed on his skin, it was so easy for him. A good day, good words, a shared moment and he shone.

Maybe it was selfish to absorb every moment and keep it. But he was beautiful and I didn't want to share the moments that were mine

"Now, scream"

I didn't get to ask why as he had his chest out and I screamed. It hurt, it wasn't beautiful, there were anger and sadness, it was heartbreaking and funny when I ended up laughing and looking at his smile.

He was expectant, anxious until I started screaming back. It took me a few seconds to scream with him until the lungs burned and the voice broke.

"What are you thinking?"

The snow was melting, you could see the dead colours of nature, the bare trees, with the sleeping earth. The desolation of the cold made the silence and space of the situation shared.  I could hear the tap-tap of the pen with the feel of the doctor's eyes

"In before"

He gave me the minutes, the seconds, in the reward of a response, while he took note of a few empty words. That he would never translate and explain, that he would leave with a question mark.

(I had seen his notes.)

“What of before?"

I had not paid attention to the room. The books on the shelves, the carpet on the floor, the wooden desk with the open files that did not have pictures, but numbers. 

The untouched food in a corner of the desk and the grey eyes watching my movement around the room. Turning an hourglass and tracing the letters in the books.

“Just before”

The sigh, with the mark of the question mark and the words that followed. We had returned to the vicious circle of the questions about Thomas’s.

It had been a few days since the second visit with pastry and juice we had sat down to discuss the book we had read for the last time. And my parents still believed what I was telling them about my meetings for control.

It was just my mother and me, my father going on a business trip for the rest of the week,. It had been quiet dinners, with the noise of cutlery and cleaning shifts. 

Then with spaced talks throughout the day, going outside with Koi that had lengthened in time and streets. With a visit to the Bruhl, and sometimes there was no silence in such a large house if you put the music loud and read. Although there were still moments where silence drowned us.

"Where are you going?"

"Did you take the pills?"

"When is the next turn?"

I understood that it was protection and security, but it was short of breath and imprisonment. She was not my mother and it was the control of whiteness, it was a further lack of control.

Because my talks did not go anywhere and everything ended with the answers to their questions. And when we went out in on one occasion it was silent and with the few comments thrown vaguely to try to break the pace. 

But we failed in prestige.

“His last name is Klein”

She was leaving the room when she grabbed my wrist and said it in a murmur in my ear and left.

That was the last contact I had with her while I left the place. I saw the reflection of her back in the glass of the door, what she told me broke the rules, anonymity, the silence of last names.

Since that place was known for its privacy however at that time she had given me the code and the key to breaking the system. So to know the truth with an envelope of blue sugar in my hand. And it took me two weeks to sit in front of a computer and look for the last name with the name. At the beginning it took time, I passed the option of everything to the news. From there it was hours, sleepless nights, closed room, stored food and controlled pills. 

Because it was an information overdose and I was able to accept it but not yet accept it.

It was a dirty white with colours and flooded with silences. From the movement of the people, the voices in each room, the shoes bouncing against the floor, agitated breathing, fast and slow. It was a place of opposites who lived in peace.

I went through the halls, following the lines of the floor, which mixed in a rainbow and the few posters against the wall that kept losing me and people had a second but not the words. It was faster, more comfortable with the place, and I was lost once again. 

It took me half an hour to get to the room.

Gise was sitting next to the bed, her legs against her chest and holding the cold hand of the bedridden boy.

Eyes closed, breathing easy and machines around him that came out of his chest, his arms, his mouth. 

Even so, I could see it, the same cat eyes, dull black hair, with long fingers, he was him but it wasn’t him. And I watched, pale skin, sunken eyes, dark circles and hospital clothes. I saw everything and I could not tell them apart.

"You took your time"

I took the seat next to her and stayed for an hour in silence, looking at those closed eyes.

“It was my parents who visited”

We were on the roof, it was cold although it was a static one, trapped in our bones that did not lift wind and burned us.

We were with blankets and near the open door from which the heat entered. We saw the few stars that were seen in a semi-cloudy sky.

"I saw you"

A statement and there was no comment from me, there was no surprise in the use of his voice, which had been growing in recent weeks. Although on a daily basis, between bumps of hours and days, between closed doors and small walls. And always avoiding other issues

"They only come for ..."

And he was walking to the edge of the ceiling with the blanket as a cape on his body and he was swinging between the void and the ceiling. And I had the idea to go and grab him but I didn't move. I kept still, watching, waiting and knowing.

"Because it's my fault”

We were sitting at the same table this time he had his own envelope of sugar, red. Mine was in the shirt pocket, worn and old.

We watched the leaves fall through the window and we had the sound of the chats with the moving of the chairs. It felt like our nights, in silence and together.

"I saw Thaddeus"

The envelope stopped spinning, his eyes were on me, and I couldn't hear the movement in the room anymore. My three words had changed the atmosphere in our bubble and now we were facing reality. With his eyes on me while I counted the leaves avoiding the truth in them.

"How was him?"

His voice was no longer tired and broken although it was not soft and awake. There were still traces of the past that marked its present. When I looked into his eyes, he didn't look at me anymore, the sugar envelope started moving once more.

"Well"

I was in a debate, with the biting of my lips, of running my eyes through his long fingers, dishevelled hair, the slight tremor on his shoulders and black eyes. I hesitated in the following words knowing their weight.

"It wasn’t your fault"

Still, there is a reason why curiosity killed the cat. Sebastian got up and left.

 He didn't answer my visits for a week.

My feet created waves in the water, my hands ached from my bent posture, my skin burned from the sun and my eyes were red from exhaustion.

I had been thirty minutes in that position and next to me were the news, printed and highlighted. I always had them by my side, to read them, understand them, memorize them. And be able to give away out to this maze that had been created from a childhood mistake.

Greatness in the fingers and everyone wanted him, his feelings, his soul, the artist possessed by the devil. And he didn't have anything left for him, the consequence can be seen in three months, two days and a year. It was a premonition that came as a surprise.

If I closed my eyes and the sunlight illuminated me I could see, hear and feel it.

Standing ovations, the lights on the back, the fingers, in each shadow, the red and green curtains, alive and dead.

The takeoff and landing and there is never time for anything. There are only keys, white, black and fast fingers, there is a speed, and there is no love, there is coldness and push. And he is only with his other half, his mirror, his brother.

Then my eyes open because they cannot continue, they cannot with what happens next. With green and red lights, in sharp sounds, despair, screaming, blood on the skin, in the hair, in ambulances, in fast movements and mistakes

In aid hindered by drunks of the night, in stopping one life and repenting of another. In addictions that shouldn’t have happened.

The bed squeezed me, I felt the springs try to break the last barrier between me and them every time I moved I heard the creak of it. My mind was fighting between fear in the attack of a spring and the possibility of bleeding by one. The one that won in my mind was indifference.

That day I had not managed to get out of bed, my feet had not touched the cold floor and my eyes would open for a few minutes. They had come to check on me, with brief conversations cut short by my silence. The pills were left on the next table, and the white had become comfortable and safe.

I wasn't hungry, I went gone to the bathroom about three times and felt the tiredness in my veins, in my breathing. I wanted to worry, I wanted to fight yet I took the pills and slept for hours.

"I want to be alone"

He was sitting against my bed, his head resting on my mattress and my eyes closed.

By the time sunlight entered the room, and I opened my eyes, he was gone and had left behind a blue sugar envelope next to the pillow.

T.A.