Fascination

FASCINATION

Aleksander Sowa

Copyright by Aleksander Sowa 2013

Original title: Zauroczenie

Translation from Polish Sumeer Chakuu 2016

Cover photo: www.sxc.hu

Cover: Aleksander Sowa

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781310952586

Aleksander Sowa|Self-Publishing

www.wydawca.net

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All rights reserved.

Opole, May 2016.

1.

No one believes me, but I exactly remember my date of birth. It was looking a bit like awakening. And in life, the mornings happen to be the worst. Like today.

Outside is frosty. I’m standing on the balcony and from cold my hands are getting numb. It is windy. I’m smoking filthy cigarette, from which I’m feeling like to puke, but I’m smoking it till the end. Till filter. I will not torture myself with the watch. This all, what I have is enough, without any efforts. I never liked the New Year’s party. People are happy, and for me there is something depressing in this day. Older I’m getting, this depression is getting accrued more and more. It is not my fault that I was born on 1st of January.

Either way, this fact has determined a lot. Always and almost everywhere: in kindergarten, primary school, high school and later on at the university, I was always the oldest one. Or first on the list. And it’s known that the first one has got the worst. And during the New Year, I have usually hangover. Just like the others, only mine is doubled. Just like today.

From speakers, I can hear the music from "Psów", and tears are shining in my eyes. Maybe because, I got drunk with clear vodka. One thing is for sure; there is no better musical note than Pasikowski’s, especially when there is nothing to sip after warm vodka. And love is not helping. At most, it may be one of the additives, like serious illness, bomb explosion or something else, but it doesn’t have an influence on any of us, for nothing. As straightjacket – it’s not curing, but creeping.

I have noticed it far time back, that there are some nights, when we are dying to emerge at a moment later, reborn again. They are like mystery. We are coming so close to other person, that we can’t drive ourselves further. We are discovering the softest parts of ourselves, blinded with love, chemistry, or with something else. It’s like brain copulation, exchanging experiences, thoughts, memories and data. And then arrives the morning. And everything goes to hell, in the haze of everyday dullness. In our language, there is word to describe this, which can’t be named. Shitty. And I’m feeling exactly like this right now.

2.

Lights: red, green, purple. Rhythm. Umc, umc, umc, bum tarara. Shiny ball spinning under the celling, flashing dozens of flashes. Fuckeble mini, crinkly, shiny, skirts smelling like a cheap whore, roadside bimbo on the break on the road. Drunk saxophonist, in unbuttoned maroon shirt with the stain of mayonnaise on his belly. He is playing something, probably he doesn’t even know what, but in this situation, it’s on spot. Nothing else, just to put on the table one more half liter, or zero seven, and in the background of cold reality, gobble it till the end. Drink and cry, cry and drink. And yes, in a moment, snow will start falling. It will cover everything. The sign of all that, which a moment ago was important, relevant and true, will disappear.

– Do you love me? – I asked him, while peeping from back of the table.  

– Yes – He answered. – I love you.

– Even if I'm a crazy woman?

– Even so – he said – you are the only one person, whom I know, who always speaks the truth, and even so, no one listens. Besides me, of course.

– Of course – I repeated – but for me it looks like a definition of crazy woman.

– Do you think so?

– I’m sure – I told this, while taking out the last cigarette for the day.

Nicotine dazed me more than the champagne at midnight, music and dancing all night. And this fucking vodka. Because, if you have an ID card, you need to drink vodka. There is no other option. You have to be patriot. For Grunewald, the Warsaw Uprising, the Wetserplatte, Monte Casino, and for fucker, even for European Union, you need! Tomorrow, i.e. today, I will be having fucking great hangover – I think. As usual. Like every year.

– There is such a probability – he said.

– on the other side I know – I murmured and he is listening carefully – that if I wouldn’t be crazy, we wouldn’t be together. As normal person, I would not withstand you, you know?

– I know.

– I love you, because I am crazy. And I’m not crazy because I love you. There is a significant difference.

– There is no other way out? This is the only possibility? – The husband answers with a question.

– There is no.

I have enough. Enough of everything. Enough of butts, Champaign, this damn saxophonist, Psów, New Year’s balls, birthdays, and for all the rest of things, I have got enough. I just completed forty years and I’m not happy at all. Because what is there to be cheerful about it? Throughout my entire life, everything was simple and obvious. Now, it is all about reality, but I’m feeling lost. And this reality is filled with the information, colors, stories – everything, it is so unrealistic. Sometimes I would like, that all would have been otherwise. As it was before. I would like to be in a different place. Not sure where exactly, but fucking great, especially not here, where I found myself now.

– I’m tired.

– And I’m drunk.

– Are we going back home?

– Let’s go back.

Taxi is shaking on the bumps of the desolated city as a wagon. In the radio, I heard again the same fucking saxophone. The same fucking melody. I know this song, but I can’t remember from where. Whether this will hunt me till next December? Or, even worse, for the next forty years? Maybe this is the way, how the old age begins?

– It is blues. – Husband mutters under his nose.

– What did you said, darling?

– I’m feeling sick.

– Aha.

– All the best.

– What are you saying?

– Nothing.

Conservation on level of four in the morning. I directed my eyes toward the sky. Clouds overshadowed the irregular snow. It is full moon. Moon was looks beautiful. It reminds me of a frosty morning at the bus stop, when I was twenty years old. Twenty! seemingly not so far time back, and like entire eternity ago.

Flock of black birds. I do not know, rooks, the fucking crows, ravens? Doesn’t matter. Their view when they cawed, flapped their wings or deliberately trod on the ground, moving at the same time their necks, made me sick and made the scene, that frosty morning on that damned bus stop the tragic vision. I could endure it only by the bright, shining golden spot from the dawn sky.

Now, I have the same moon for free. It is as beautiful, clean and pretentious as that time. Without parochialism, without envy, equal, fair. For everyone. And just for me.

Husband is leaning on my arm. His touch is warm, calming. For many questions, you can find the answer, you just have to wait. Maybe today is sufficient, until morning? It is only few hours. Although from the taxi’s window the night is in full swing, the dawn still far away.

3.

At home, as usual, I’m staying in a dressing room, a bit too long. I love these moments, these crumbs of minutes and seconds are just for me. Everyone one need such a lonely existence, even just for a moment.

Behind the door, I heard his quite snoring. I smiled warmly. I have got almost everything, which I dreamt about. A husband, who loves me. Money that I can spend. And even my loved table with lighted mirror for removing make up, which I always wanted. I can paint my pictures. But deep inside I’m burned. Stubble in August, forest after felling, the Chernobyl power plant after 1986.

– Ladies and Gentlemen – I can hear – fourth zero zero just past. It is first of January of two thousandth…

Fuck! - I’m thinking annoyingly. You don’t have to remember me. I reached out, to turn off the receiver, but in halfway I hold my hand. My finger freeze in the air. Again this song. It is now third time today. Strange. Maybe it is not a coincidence? For sure, because life doesn’t know the coincidence. Everything is planned in advance. We are just cogs, who are getting oiled with our plans. Let it be.

I washed up my make-up. I have got sand under my eyelids. Color of night around the eyes is disappearing. I now know it, this Old Good Marriage. I looked in the mirror. It reflects the face of women, still young, but without glare, which I used to see a few years ago. It was taken by the memories, that tug now like wolves.

– Whatever they would be – I don’t know, why I whispered to myself loud – with time everything becomes good. That is why they are always better than dreams.

– You think so? – In my head, I immediately hear this question.

– I’m not thinking. I’m sure of this – I’m answering almost inaudibly.

It is like praying. Daily conversation with God. I’m not lying. Whether while praying you need to repeat without sense the same rule? I really think that is not like this, and these words after years turn out to be very true. I would like this to be in other way, but I don’t have any choice, my dreams change my life into misery and it became a nightmare. Till now, I can’t wake up from it. If the