2.

It seems six hours have passed since your hand was rudely and mercilessly pulled out of mine. And I stand as if in an endless soap bubble, surrounded by everyone and at the same time all alone. Without a single thought in my head, I fall to my knees and the ring on the wet asphalt burns me, making me shrink into a tiny lump. It shouldn't be here, but you are there.


Even through the bubble, I feel touches, they hurt, sting, but only their looks are worse. Filled with oily and black pity, it is poisonous and seems to flow down my back, covering my clothes and skin with gasoline stains, bypassing only non-existent bleeding ulcers on my body. Everything hurts. Breathing is no longer hard. It's hard to live, it's even harder to exist.


The world seemed to freeze, as if someone pressed the stop during a movie, everything froze, all the fuss, all the people. There is only the icy sensation of your palm in mine, there is an emptiness inside me, which seems to be eating me alive, eating away at my insides, without bringing any real pain. In general, the pain stopped for a moment, as did the emotions and feelings. And this moment continues for a whole infinity. All I want now is to hear you again, to feel something other than a painful ringing in my ears, which makes my brain seem to melt. It, unfortunately, does not disappear and, I am afraid, will accompany me for ages.


The body goes numb, gravel from the road and small fragments of glass stick into it. I no longer understand where I am and what is happening to me. I only know that you are missing next to me, so painfully I just want you by my side. I seem to be screaming again. I don't understand if it's my voice, if it's my body, which is now convulsing on the asphalt. Everything around seems so angry, alien. Not mine, as if I were an alien and I need you to breathe, and not oxygen at all.


The gazes are fixed on me, there are not thousands or even dozens of them, but the pain seems to subside. And these eyes empty me, tear me to unemotional rags. And this continues, they destroy me, poison me with their silent condemnation to a painful heaviness in my chest, to a painful lump in my throat, to torn ligaments, so much so that only wheezing comes out of my mouth mixed with sobs and heavy breathing. To tears on the cheeks and painful pleas in a whisper, to blood-torn cheekbones and cracked lips.


It seems that there is nothing left in me, not even pain. I can't focus on anything other than a golden glitter a couple of inches from my face, everything except gold instantly mixed up: white, green, red, yellow, black, people, cars, trees. Nothing exists but longing and desolation, although, in reality, everything around is going on as usual. And there is a wild desire to break into pieces, to fly apart, so that they would take me away after you.


Something alien invades my bubble, the touch on the shoulder hurts, and, as if for a fraction of a minute, returns feelings. It seems that from a simple phrase your mother said I get sicker than ever, her voice is filled with pain and pity. All my ulcers seem to burst beneath her hot fingers and dry words.


"It happens. Do not blame yourself." A heavy half-sigh, half-whimper interrupts her. And she says these words as if not to me, but to herself. "It will get easier over time"


And I know it won't. It never becomes. The wounds heal, but the "limbs" do not grow back, and do not hurt anymore, they just hang with a useless stump, sometimes swelling with phantom pains on cold evenings. Everything could be different. If I had come earlier, I would have helped. I would have time. Everything would be different.


A heartbreaking scream erupts through the ringing in my ears and shroud, scratching my ears and my sore brain. After another second, which seems like an hour, I understand. This is my own cry. Desperate, painful, loud scream, a song of sorrow like wolves. The hand and heat from my shoulder instantly disappears, as if I were a leper, from the fact that it hurts me, from the fact that my main analgesic, the pain reliever is your whisper, your lips and hands, your breath and light stubble in the morning. My salvation is you, and you were treacherously stolen from me.


And let this hand disappear, bringing nothing but more pain with it, it doesn't matter. I know that you would not have pulled your hand, left me or anyone else. You were with me when I had no one and I wish that all of our moments were the sun and sunflowers, a rainbow and magic pollen with the taste of cotton candy. I'm sorry that all I gave you is the smell of dust and mold in my uncomfortable apartment, before you appeared in it. But you were always with me, turning the dampness into the sun with just your smile, taunt, poke or kiss. With just yourself.


Everything around is insanely slow, even the sigh of your tear-stained, heartbroken mother, the howl of sirens. My own breath, my fading cry. All this reminds me of a stupid movie, a low-budget melodrama, in which I, by some coincidence, found myself. I want to cry and laugh from pain and longing, but I have no strength for that either. Breathing hurts, living is even more painful.


A shoe, black and stern, covers the gold in front of my eyes. Everything is slow for me, so I barely have time to cover the last thing I have with the palm of my hand, which for a moment cuts into a rough sole. I do not feel anything. There is no pain, only the realization that I saved what belongs to you from them, as if they were barbarians.


The leg moves and I see a white, endless white robe, ending in a pink face, on which my clouded brain could not distinguish a single feature. My mind is clouded with a veil of grief and sorrow, an infinite number of them, in which I am drowning and already drowning.


A second seems to last an eternity, my brain does catch everything around and nothing in particular at the same time. My intermittent breathing accelerates and slows down. I don't know why this white creature is here. I hope this is an angel. For a second, her voice sounds angelic. But it pulls me out of catatonia and prostration with his coldness, impersonality. Angels don't say that. I hear only a few words, which subsequently spin in my head and destroy me.


"I'm sorry. He cannot be saved."


Her voice is filled with ice and cuts like a thousand of the world's sharpest blades. For a second, I forget how to breathe. And then something in my chest boils, seethes, something that I have never experienced in my life. Or I felt, just never before was this something so strong, all-consuming, destroying me from the inside. In a brief flash, something fills my mind, turning it into hatred and rage. Primordial, brutal rage. I wanted to tear her apart, to make her experience what I am experiencing now, to hurt her insanely, so much so that her heart was torn to pieces, and her head was buzzing filled with phantom sounds. She does not and never had the right to talk about you like that. Everything can be fixed. I know. Can be.


Only because of this seething anger do I find the strength to stand on my feet, which have turned from numb and cottony to leaden and heavy. And she still stood and looked at me from the bottom up with her painfully calm eyes, as if every day she sees people who are being pulled out of the arms of their loved ones. I wanted to grind her to powder, kill her, break her. Make her walk in my shoes. On my face there is a bloody mess of blood and tears that flow into my open mouth and turn the already illegible half-shouts into an absolute mess of words, my personal mantra:


Everything can be fixed. I know. Can be. Everything can be fixed. I know. Can be. Everything can be fixed. I know. Can. Can. Can.


I had the greatest effort to squeeze my hands behind me, in one last attempt to hold back and not smudge her on the gray asphalt. She didn't even look at me. I wanted to throw my pain on her so that there was a burning hole in her chest, aching with a dull pain. And you and I would be close. Would be near. If not me.


From her zero reaction, she is calm as a corpse. My heavy body falls to its knees with no strength, breaking them into blood. She turns around for the last time and repeats. "Can't be saved".


A storm of emotions subsides in my head, I am back in my bubble, and my lips silently and tirelessly repeat "can be, can be, can, can can". Anything is possible, I will do everything for him, for you. Just to keep you warm in my arms for just one more time. I suddenly find your ring under my fingers. The fact that it is not yours and you will never answer my question absolutely disappears from my head. Loose fingers pick it up and I try to pull it over my ring finger. It sits stupidly and out of size. On the first phalanx, but it is yours by right, so let it bind us even for a second, for a moment. And give us one more day. I'm crying. Everything around becomes quieter and quieter until it becomes completely silent. Only the words of this nurse ring in my ears, terribly loud and incredibly close.





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