Dissolving

I live without making a sound, in an apartment building. We are so crowded. There is nowhere to step. Rooms full of silent people. The elderly, the young, the children. One late afternoon, the expected noise arrives. Overly confident footsteps… Every single step falls into our silence like the sound of a bomb… We don’t even look anymore… At anything. They gather all of us on the bottom floor. The racket made by some of us who dare to look, as they collapse onto the wooden floor, drowns our ears. One of the officers pulls me by my arm, separating me from the silent crowd. He catches the eye of another officer and smirks.

I am afraid. I am always so afraid.

The silence goes completely mute. Now I am alone.

My stomach aches. My stomach always aches. It hurts as if they are gripping it with pliers and twisting it.

Courage; “To the bathroom…?”

A scorpion smirks from the officer’s eyes.

He waits. A deathly silence between the question and the answer. “

Upstairs… go,” he says. The scorpion says this, I know it.

…I am afraid. So much. How can I kill myself… I don’t know.

I go upstairs on the wooden stairs, trying not to make a sound, but my steps on the wooden planks translate my existence to the officer as creaking noises.I dislike the existence of my footsteps. The bathroom is filthy. On the left and right, two exposed toilets. Across from them, a broken and dirty mirror; in front of it, a cracked, clogged sink, filled to the brim with foul water.

How can I kill myself. I don’t know.

The door opens behind me. I knew he would follow me. I see his reflection in the cracked mirror, standing right at my back.

“Sind Sie fertig, Ma’am?”

My voice won’t come out.

He waits. He waits for my fear to grow. He makes no sound at all. If only I could do it in this void, but… How can I kill myself.

I don’t know.

With his large, clumsy hand, he grabs my hair and shoves my head into the foul water in the sink.

I wish I could die in the noise my breath makes in the water. If only he wouldn’t pull my head back out.

“Sind Sie jetzt sauber genug, Ma’am?”

I try to open my eyes; I see blurry for a long time.

“How are you today? Come to my room once the IV is done.”

You are shouting too much. Your disgusting voice feels like it’s exploding my head. And you are the ultimate creep. I hate you. I don’t want to walk to your room. You don’t understand a damn thing. I am uncomfortable with my footsteps.

“Are the new meds better?”

“My stomach aches. My stomach always aches. It hurts as if they are gripping it with pliers and twisting it.”

“Alright? Anything else?”

My voice won’t come out. What fucking good will it do, whatever you write down there. Look at my face when you listen to me. The officer is passing behind you, be quiet.

“What is behind me? Do you see something?”

“…..

I ran into my mother. She hugged me. She was so resentful… I know it. I am not guilty. But I apologized. I gave her flowers. I tried to explain. A man was watching. One of his eyes was white, the other blue. He watched blankly as I explained.

“Then?”

“As I was explaining, I started to vomit. I vomited so much. Onto my mother, onto myself. Everywhere was covered in vomit. …When I was a child, I wanted her to stroke my hair. She could never manage it.”

……

“I used to wait a lot. ….. I am waiting.”

“For what? Please continue.”

….

“What is it that you are waiting for?”

“For what….

She will sleep.

She will sleep forever.

For her to sleep… F

or 1 day. 2… 3… 4… S

he will sleep for days. S

he is sleeping. She told me not to leave this place. She lives for me. She can do it by sleeping a lot. S

he opens her eyes for me every now and then.

—How old am I, mother?

My blank mother. Ice. She isn’t here even when she’s awake.

—You’re 5. Do not leave anywhere.

I am waiting… I am waiting…. I am wait… I wa… wwww…”

I am already so sick of this! I am losing my mind. Don’t you understand? My head is throbbing.

“Please calm down, alright, I understand y—”

You don’t understand a damn thing!

I am going to explode with my rage. My pieces will stick to the white walls of your hospitals. I am gradually liquefying. My form is losing its solid state again. Look at my hands, they are like jelly!

It hurts… Ahhhh. It hurts so much!

“You think it hurts because of fear. What you feel is fear, not pain. Listen to me. There is nothing to hurt you right now. Calm down.”

It hurts so much. Ahhhh!

I am disappearing, save me!

“Nurse! Norodol! Immediately! 10 mg.”

I am on the ferry, on the deck. An angel, with long, wavy hair, so slender… A white dress draped like dust from her shoulders to her ankles… Her back is turned. Her feet are bare on the wooden floor of the deck. Along with the wind, her fine dust scatters around from her shoulders, her hair, her skirts… It is as if the sea is watching her, not she the sea… The wind carries her scent to me; life stops. The ferry stops, the sea stops, the wind stops. The city stops. There is an empty room inside me reserved for this woman, do not lea— She has no face!

You have no face. Your face is a flat, smooth piece of flesh. I feel nauseous… My inside is like mud. I run to the railing, lean over halfway, and vomit. People pass by me, they smell of the day. Every time they get close to me, this smell turns my stomach even more. I am vomiting mud. My reflection shatters in the sea as I vomit. I change shape in the water, I dissolve, I scatter…. In every scattered piece of me, the star-glitters of the sun…

It dazes my eyes. I can only see gleams.

Did I wake up again. Damn it. This will never end. It will never end.

I am tired.

A train passes through the middle of the room. Everywhere is stark white. The train is very fast.

“Shall we get on?”

I step toward the train; it is so fast that I feel drunk. I arrive at a stark white apron. My mother is lying on the ground, in the middle of that huge apron. “I am going to sleep…” she says.

A plane like a woman comes and picks me up… smooth. Heavy. Radiant, gleaming. My mother drifts away, growing smaller and smaller. She is sleeping. I arrive at my home. I go out onto the balcony. Everywhere is spring, sunshine. Pink, lilac colors in the sky. Leaves in every shade of green and yellow… flowers.

It has snowed only on my balcony. My front is winter, my view is spring. The tracks of my steps remain in the snow. I jump into spring from this 10th floor. I see the officer’s feet for a moment, with the roar I hear as I smash into the ground.

“Did you inform the patient’s relative?”

“Unfortunately. Her mother is sleeping, doctor.”