So innocent, so relaxed, so peaceful. They could be alive. They could be dead. She cannot see clearly if their chest moves at all, if they are breathing. They are so still. It is like a picture. Like a snapshot. A hint of light, not much though, just enough to remove some dark but leaving the shadows of the room. X* and W* are sitting on the big couch. No, not sitting.. laying down.. Wearing almost the same horizontal striped shirt, wearing the same black trousers. Wearing the same relaxed expression, or is it the face of death? No flicker of the eyes, no changing in their positions. How can one lay with his hands like that? How can his head not slide down? Is the time really still running? No, maybe it has stopped, like everyone else.
And what about Z*? Is that shape really him? She cannot see clearly his face. It is still wrapped in a thick curtain of shadows. But the way his arms cross, the way he is sitting, the way he is holding a long extinguished cigarette are his own. Too characteristic. He is Z*. Usually restless, now also frozen in this statue-like pose. Why cannot she see his face? She wonders if there is any twitch at all in his eyes, usually always searching and never focusing on anything more than a few heart beats. She moves around the room, softly, making no sound, looking at her sleeping (dead?) friends.
A cold breeze rush through the room. Nothing moves though. Not the curtains, not the paper cups, now empty after much drinking, not even the ancient dust on the floor. The cold breeze passes, as a sad memory and suddenly all the three boys open their eyes and look around, as if they wake from a nightmare and they do not know where they are. But the sense of disorientation last only a little and they look at each other. Their lips curve in a smile, a sad smile. They all know perfectly well where they are and why. It is the third time they meet here, once per year, 14th of February. Many empty bottles on the floor, all are booze bottles, of course. It is time to go, but they all know they will be here again the following year. And this time they do not need to talk about the very strange same feeling they have had now, exactly like the previous years. The feeling she was there with them. The impossible feeling she was walking around them when they were sleeping. An alcoholic sleep in memory of their dead little sister. Not a real blood sister, but the kind of friend that is always perfect. They knew they had with her a friendship that would have lasted forever. But 3 years earlier she had died. That very day. And now they drink for the memory, they sleep with that memory.. and she is still there walking around them, as she used to do before.. as a cold breeze..
(13/02/2009 – 10:43 pm)
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