A line of smoke ribboning up from that cement patch catches my attention. The different, newer cement starts agitating and bubbling like it's boiling up. It makes more and more bubbles until it starts evaporating up. The hole is now not covered anymore, a small pothole of a few centimetres depth. i hear quick steps, i raise my eyes and see a small shadow, fast, above it, a child coming from the garden, running. The child steps in the hole, hits the edge of it with the tip of the shoe and falls down instantly. He's right in front of me. He gets up, looks at me, and continues running.
From the same garden, the building's garden, a group of kids of different ages and heights, comes out. Boys and girls. They pass by me without paying any attention to me, some of them though turn back to look at me after a few more steps, but when i make eye contact with them they look away. One boy, the smallest of them, the last of the group, looks straight at me with a sad face, and he stops to talk to me.
"Hey, how are you doing?"
"Shut up Ionuț, we aren't talking with him anymore. If he wants to be secretive and tell us nothing, let him keep his secrets, alone. he doesn't need any friends."
The boy they called Ionuț turns his head back and follows the group that goes out on the street and to the right somewhere. i look again down. i don't know why, but those words hurt me. i feel abandoned by friends, even though i don't know those kids from the group, but i feel that i should… All of them seem familiar, as if i saw them outside, near my building…even though it seems impossible, now i'm in Brașov. i don't know from where, but there is a connection between them and me.
A shadow pops up in front of me, i look up, but see just a human silhouette, nothing else as the person's head is barely covering the sun with its head. i put my hand up to my forehead to shade my eyes and see an old woman.
"Poor boy. The kids don't want to take you back in their group…"
"Why would i want to be in their group?"
"Off. Poor boy… Do you want me to tell you story? It's…beautiful this story. It will help you. It's very old, and it has to do with you, you are in this story too."
"me? Yes. i want."
"Come with me. i'll make you a tea and tell you a story."
The old woman goes to the old intercom, slides the card and opens the door. she stops in the doorway to look at me, i was still down on the step.
"C'mon then."
i get up and enter the building. It's suddenly colder in here. i feel though my left hand even colder than the rest of the body. The women goes to the second door on the right and puts the key in, unlocks the door and goes in the apartment. i follow her. i get past the door and enter the small and long hallway, i see the kitchen door, and two rays of light coming from the two rooms at the right end of the hallway. The woman comes out of the kitchen and looks at me.
"Come on, don't be shy."
i'm shaking a little. i feel the warm sweat on my spine getting cold. i swallow my mouthful of saliva and close the door behind me. i don't know why i'm scared.
"i've put the tea on fire. i just now bought it from the market, especially for you. Come in the living room."
i follow her to the left, where the hallway leads to only one open door. The apartment is very old. All the objects i lay my eyes on could be museum pieces. Even the walls are strange, so rough and imperfect. All seems to be dusty, but i see no speck of dust. It's all clean. The entire apartment is covered in carpets. On the ground in all the rooms, even in the hallway, are multiple layers of carpets one on top of another. Carpets of different sizes and shapes and from different materials. All placed specially to not have the slightest chance to see the floor.
Even in the living room, one of the walls is covered by a carpet. As i follow the old woman in, i see two photos framed like paintings, big portraits in black and white near the window. One with a man, young adult, and the other with a woman, much much younger. The woman had the same mole above her lip like the old woman. It must be her, when she was young.
On the wall above the bed is a painting with the Last Supper. On the opposite wall, the one with the door, is a big glass door cupboard, full of porcelain and ornaments. The bright sun hits the cupboard sending beautiful coloured rays throughout the room. Like some kind of kaleidoscope projector. In a corner i see a music device, big one, placed on another smaller cupboard full of cassettes.
The only thing that looks remotely new is a foldable table that is stored at the end of the bed. The bed has a very thick and high kind of mattress, but i don't think i'd be wrong to guess that it is just a pile of rugs there under the sheets. But if not, the mattress is swollen at the middle as if all the springs in the middle are broken and extent to their maximum.
The woman takes a chair from behind the porcelain cupboard and sits down on it. she makes me a sign to sit down on the bed.
"Sit down, make yourself comfortable. The tea will be ready right away."
i go to the bed and jump up on it, the mattress it's too tall for my feet to touch the ground. i hear the springs squeaking while my body is lowered and raised by them. The bed finally settles down, the old woman was watching me all this time with a kind smile as if she were reminding herself of her beautiful young years.
"Alright. So my father was a psychologist and was working for the…let's say government. He was always working, always a project he needed to 'see it through' as he used to say. Even if he was working from home some times, he barely had any time for me. But when he had time, he was, playing with me, and back then he'd always tell me a story. A very beautiful one. The same one always. It was about me, this story, but you were also in this story."
"me? But i wasn't born then, probably…"
"Ha hah. No, of course you weren't born then, i was just this little girl, old around your age now. But the story is very very old, it was written thousands of years ago, just for the two of us, and others like us."
"Others like us?"
"Yes, we two are special, you more than me, but there are sure to be others like us."
"Wow. And because i'm special i am in this story?"
"you don't just appear in this story, you're also the main character."
"Wow!"
"you want me to tell you this story?"
"Yes, yes."
From the kitchen comes a whistling that becomes louder and louder. The woman gets up and goes to the kitchen.
"i'll be right back, the tea is ready, you'll love this tea,"
i hear the two cups hitting each other, i hear the boiling water touching the cold cup. i hear the kettle being put back on the cooker and then the slow steps back to me. The woman enters the room with two ceramic mugs, beautifully drawn. From them, vapours rise up, a little blue tinted, i think. she gives me one of the mugs, i take it and look inside.
"Yes i know, blue tea, it looks very strange, but it's good for you. It's called, the butterfly pea tea. Also, my father prescribed me this tea. It helped me very much this tea, in life."
i keep looking at the tea, it looks so wonderful, exotic, and it's blue, a dark blue. Like a magic potion. The smell it exudes is a green one, spinach, broccoli, like wet earth. It's pleasant this smell, a little soft, a little relaxing. i get my lips close to the brim of the mug, but i don't taste it, the vapour was too hot to get even closer than that. i let the mug lower, on my leg and look at the woman. she sips little by little from the tea. i see the vapours hitting her thick glasses, hers is also hot, but she can drink without hesitation. When she finishes sipping, she lets the mug down, she looks at me through her steamed glasses and smiles.
"Ah ha ha. my glasses are all fogged up."
she nods down and looks at me from above her glasses.
"you don't want to drink?"
"Yes i want, but…it's too hot."
"Eh, let it get colder. Put it there on the nightstand."
At the head of the bed, after the folded table is a black nightstand. i slide my ass on the bed to get closer, but with each movement the tea hits the walls of the mug and i get some drops on my foot, and the bed. It burns me bad, but i wetted the bed. i look instantly at the woman. she saw everything. With a calm and gentle gaze, she makes a gesture with her hand.
"Leave it, no big deal, the bed won't get any more broken from a few drops of tea."
i get down from the bed, slowly sliding on my feet, careful to not spill any more. i walk to the nightstand and put the mug there. Near the mug i see a circle mark. The material that covers the wood is very thin and has a different texture than the wood. The circle mark seems to be made by something hot, the material is melted and i can see the wood underneath. i place down my mug there, right over the circle mark. The base fits perfectly. i get close to the mug with my mouth. Ah! It's still too hot to try.
"Come sit back on the bed so i can tell you the story."
i turn towards the woman, run quickly where i sat down the first time and jump again landing my ass on the mattress. The woman coughs a little.
"Alright…"
The voice, the lips, the face, they all tremble a little. she takes the mug again to her trembling lips and sips some more. This time, much more. she finishes and leaves the mug on the edge of the porcelain cupboard. There is no circle mark there. But there's a coaster. The woman coughs a little more but she's not shaking as bad as before. she clears her throat and begins.
"It will be a little different, the story, but otherwise, it's exactly as my father told it to me. i'll tell you a little different version because my father told this story with more attention to my character, and i will tell you this story with more attention to your character."
The woman takes her glasses off, her hands were still shaking a little.
"Alright, all started a long long time ago. When Romania didn't even existed. Before the Dacians and the Gets. Thousands and thousands of years ago, around the time when humans just came to be, and they all lived then in one place, a single point on the entire face of the earth. Back then, there wasn't much knowledge, but humans were united, that group was the only group of humans on the earth and they were just a few hundred."
"So few?"
"Yes, well it was just the beginning of humanity, the humans just came into being… Alright, and at that time, i also came to be. Back then i had the name of, Olsana."
"you were born back then?"
"Yes."
"And you lived until now?"
"That's right."
"How is this possible?"
"Well, i haven't lived in the same body. my soul was in a previous life, Olsana."
"And you remember something from then?"
"Yes, vaguely, but details and memories come sometimes back to me, from the times when people called me Olsana. my father used to do exercises with me…memory exercises so i could remember more… he would put me in some kind of trance so i could remember that life, and he guided me through from the present."
The woman stops suddenly. Like she was stopped brutally by something.
"i…"
she tried to continue but she stopped again. she closes her eyes. her whole body was shaking, but just for a second, as if she became conscious about it and stopped herself. she opens her eyes back, a tear leaks from her eye, tear that she wipes immediately. she looks into my eyes. Even her eyes were shaking. But she stops herself. she calms down.
"Back to our story…in that time, there were few of us because we just went through a violent event. We just built a huge tower that was supposed to make our life easier, but that construction led to the loss of many lives. A lot of humans then divided in groups and left, they wanted to live separately from our initial group. But when we recovered from our depression and after we mourned our dead, we wanted to reunite and continue to improve ourselves. So we sent scouts after them, and sadly the scouts returned with awful news. Not even the biggest group that left had survived. They were too divided. Then we promised ourselves to never get separated again. It didn't last long the promise. Even though the humans were devastated and lacking purpose, i felt the most useless creature then. i also felt guilty for what happened, and without a purpose, a life meaning. That's until a purpose was given to me."
The old woman makes a pause, clears her throat, sips a little from the tea and continues.
"Moon took me and showed me the way even from the first day i was born. She was my guide and taught me to see different. The purpose Moon gave me, to protect a man. He was Light, a god, and together with Darkness, they created the entire universe. Moon was like a daughter for them, but at the same time also the reason that they are in a continuous conflict, even today. Light incarnated into a body of a man that just died, but blocked his memories first, to protect himself and the body that he was about to possess."
Another small pause in which she sips from her tea.
"When we found him the first time, we thought it would be a good idea to wake him up. To make him remember himself. It didn't went well and we lost him again. But we couldn't give up. It was our mission to protect him. So we went again after him, the plan was simple, protect him from Darkness but also from the world. Hidden under the pretext of a prophecy, we managed to create a community around him that had as purpose protecting him. Of course, humans in large groups are hard to control. We failed many times in maintaining a united community. But we managed to protect Light for thousands of years."
The old woman stops. As if she tried to remind herself something, but she doesn't pay too much attention to the train of thought she just for a moment boarded and comes back to the story.
"The last and the longest-living community was the one created right here, in Brașov. After year 0, don't know exactly what century, we ran from the old community, a bunch of people, crossed the Danube river, and stopped here, at the feet of the mountains. Here we made camp, and continued our community and short time after, other people appeared, from the outside. Sometimes whole groups of people joined us and made camps near us. The ones that didn't want to join our community just stood around us because the location was too good strategically. So the Brașov city came to be, a bunch of camps and people among which our community was hidden. And we lasted for thousands of years. Well, not more than two. Until Darkness came."
The woman makes another pause, takes the mug and picks it up to her mouth. she sips from the tea, stops and tastes it in her mouth loudly.
"you can drink, it's definitely cold by now."
i get off my bed and go to the nightstand. i look inside the mug, vapours aren't coming from the liquid anymore, but it's dark, a dark blue, and the reflection is of another, it's me from now, and everything around me is dark again. i look at the woman, she's old, so very old, you'd say she has 100 years at least. It's dark in the living room, and the living room itself looks darker. The objects are much older, more beaten by years, dust everywhere, furniture covered by sheets and spider webs in each corner. Not kept at all. Time was cruel here.
"you don't want to drink?"
"i…don't want."
"It's alright. Well, tell me young boy, what brings you to me?"
i don't know, what am i doing here? Why did i come here? i remembered the old woman and knocked on her door? my hand. i look at my left hand, it's full of blood, the sleeve is up and the skin is bandaged. Red bandages.
"i see you grew so much bigger, you look well. When you were a child you were so skinny. Are you in high school now?"
i look so bad, from the accident and…but her eyesight must be even worse than how i look now.
"Uhm… i finished. i'm in college now."
"Yes? How fast the years pass."
A moment of silence takes over us and stretches to infinity. She told me…
"The story…"
The woman takes a mouthful of her tea and swallows it all in one. She sighs.
"you still remember the story?"
"i was…"
After a long pause she helps me out.
"Light. you are Light, in this story."
"i am…? Well what is going on, i don't understand? What role do i have? What do i have to do? i don't know anything. The tower will be ready in less than a week and i don't know how to stop it. The whole planet is in danger, especially now, when i have something good in my life, and it's about to be taken, and i don't know what to do but watch helplessly, and i'm so scared, and…"
The woman watched all this, terrified, her shaking becomes even more violent. she then yells at me, interrupting me.
"The story…! It's just a story…"
Silence. i don't have the power to make a noise. The woman, she's just waiting for me to… How is it just a story?
"i was at the tower. i saw it. i met with Olsana…you, you were Olsana…i…"
"It's just a story."
The woman looks at me so lost, so weak, so full of sorrow and compassion.
"It's just a story. A story that my father told me when i was young. Then, i was going through…what you also went through, and this story helped me. i thought…that it would help you too…"
"It can't be. i don't understand what is going on."
"your parents know you're here?"
Another moment of silence. i don't know what to say. There's a noise so loud in my head, i can't fucking think, i can't figure out what is happening… i give up. i stop trying to think about it, about anything, i stop trying to understand it. i look at the woman, she looks at me, waiting. i try to look around the room, lay my eyes on different objects, to analyse all the details in place, all the signs, the specks of dust, anything just so my mind won't go where i don't want it to go. The two portraits are still there, the one with the old women in her young days and what seems to be her husband. But he looks so similar to the old woman, are they brothers? The father? The father!
"your father told you the story, right? he sure knows more about it. Please, i want to speak with him, just a little."
"you can't. he…"
"Just tell me where he lives! i need this information…i need answers…i need…"
"he's dead! god dammit. Don't you see how old i am…?"
"i'm, sorry…"
"Either way, you wouldn't want to meet him, believe me."
"Why?"
"Because he…he…wasn't getting along well with others. his wife left him not long after she gave birth to me. i was all he had. And he lost me too…"
The woman stops. she sips again from the tea, carefully, but there are no vapours getting out of the mug, and then she just waits, this time not for me to do something. her gaze is focused somewhere far, somewhere in the past.
"And then why did he made a story, about you? And about me too?"
"he didn't made…the story. This story he knows…from his father, and… Don't…try to find out more, about our past, about yours… i don't know what answers you're looking for, but you won't find them, especially in our family. you won't find them at all. i'm sorry…"
"Didn't he have a desk? If he worked from home, i guess that he had a place to keep his notes."
"Yes, it's in the room at the end of the hallway, the closed one. i hadn't been in there since…he came back. And he took, i don't know what from the room and left, that time forever. In that room we held our sessions, in which i was remembering…"
The woman sips from the mug.
"Can i look inside?"
The woman looks at me, she seems indifferent.
"Go, the door is locked, the key is in the door."
i get up from the bed and walk to the end of the long hallway. At the end is the bathroom. On the right is an open door, seems to be the old woman's bedroom. And on the left is the locked door, with the key in the hole. From inside comes in waves, a stuffy smell. i grab the door handle and with the other grab the key. Both have a thick layer of dust that covers them. i turn the key and push down the handle. The hand slips off the handle. i look at my palm, it's full of clumps of dust. The handle looks so different now, a new colour altogether. i grab it again, tighter, push the handle down and push the door open.
The hinges squeak so loud, and the door trembles so much as i push it forward. The wood that is fighting with the hinges starts cracking up, this is a fight in which something will sure break, no matter which, the same result will be… The door is now tipped and the lower corner falls and props into the ground. The door falls lightly on the wall inside, leaning broken. It won't make noise anymore.
But the opening of the door triggered a trap left there by time. All the dust in the room rises, a mist envelops everything blocking me from entering the room. my nose is clogged, i put my shirt over it quickly but it's useless. It's so much dust that i feel clots of dust forming in my nose, in my throat, in my lungs. i'm not breathing anymore, just wheezing, coughing and sneezing.
i go to the old double window, made of wood and thin glass. i grab the handle in the middle of the window and try to turn it to the left. The mechanism hardly moves, but after a few nudges it turns fully. i pull and the window opens. The first wave of fresh air hits me, giving me the sensation of sweet water after an insane run. i take my shirt off my nose, it's still stuffy in here, but the dust mist starts clearing and the smell seems to freshen up bit by bit.
i turn back to the room. It's very old, everything is old, covered in dust and decomposing. The first thing in my way is the desk, placed backwards, so that the one who sits at the desk can look ahead outside the window. i go around the desk and pull the chair from under. i don't manage to pull it back too much, after some four spider webs ripped and a few spiders started to move chaotically on it i stop. These spiders all run around scared, but i'm even more. It's a fucking nest of spiders under the desk. The desk has three drawers on the left side of the chair, all have locks and all seem unlocked.
The first drawer has only a brown envelope. In the envelope i find papers, legal documents and an old photo, black and white. In the photo i recognize the man that appears also in the portrait from the living room, and in front of him is a small girl, in a probably white dress or some bright colour one, probably the old woman in her childhood. The man has his hand on the girl's shoulder, he is dressed in jeans, shirt and wears a white doctor's coat over.
i close the first drawer and open the second one. There i find a bunch of black and white photos, and some coloured too, a big pile of them. It seems all of them are of the woman when she was a child. Most are done here in this room, but some are done outside. The photos are strange, the kind of strangeness you see in old pictures, like you don't understand those times. Creepy. And they become more and more… An ink drop falls on the photo i held and drips down on the pile. A tear…? The blackness on the photos extends and eats the rest of them, from one to another, it covers all of them in no time. And it continues extending over to me. Like some kind of live organism, this puddle of ink tries to get me and cover me too. A tentacle rises up but i smash the drawer shut before it touches me. The drawer shakes a little, but stops shortly after.
Fuck. i look at the third drawer and grab its handle. i pull slowly, this time to be sure nothing attacks me anymore. Nothing is moving inside. i open the drawer more and more until it's open fully. Inside i find a book. Black leather cover and nothing written on it. Near the journal i see a coin, big and silvery, shiny, and also an old stopwatch and also a piece of dark cloth, it seems ripped.
i take the journal. It's also full of dust. i hit it hard on the edge of the desk and open it. The pages are yellow, some are decaying, and falling apart if i don't handle them careful. On the first page i read the title 'Sessions Progress Notes', and under i read 'Madeline Șăineanu'. The next page contains a text that goes just for half of the page, the rest of the page being covered in dried black ink. The page structure seems more sensible in the black area, as if it were submerged in black ink and left there for the page consistency to degrade. The text is written with a different ink, blueish one.
'After prolonged hesitations, i decided to start the hypnosis sessions, it's for her own good. i took Madeline and brought her into my office. she couldn't know that she was about to get hypnotised, otherwise it wouldn't have had the desired effect. It's unethical, but nothing ever was of what i've done until now. i have at least to do something to make it easier for her. my purpose, to hypnotise her using a story that on numerous occasions i told it to her in the precedent month. The moment i manage to get her past the relaxation state of mind, i'll try to facilitate the passing of her from reality to the imaginary world of the story. So i will be able to give her an identity. And while she deepens in her trance, i can in parallel start the session. i must start making her well…'
Here, the text ends and the black ink starts, the ink covers the rest of the page. The other pages seem to be written the same way, text up, and below the half of the page, the black ink void. The whole journal must've been submerged in the ink, up to the middle of it. But there is no ink on the leather covers, up or down, not one spot. At some point, the pages start having dates. The last one being '03 September 1980'.
"It looks the same to be honest, the first page with the last one."
i hear something and i turn around quickly, the woman was standing behind me, behind the doorway, looking around the room. her hands were holding the doorway tight, as if she didn't have the strength to fight her own hands to enter the room.
"Have you managed to find something to help you?"
"i don't know. your father, died in 1980?"
"No, he died old, honestly, he might still be alive. Ha ha. No but, i don't know for sure when he died, but long after…1980? Why do you ask?"
"i saw this year as being the last one noted in the journal."
"Then must be when he went to jail. And i was left alone, without having a job until then, and without anyone helping me take care of the child."
"The child?"
"Yes, my father made another child, he was 7 years old when my father went to jail. Our father. And i being the closest relative…the only one, it was my duty to raise it."
"i'm sorry."
The woman closes her eyes and shuts them tight as hard as she can. As if she wants to crush them with her eyelids, to never be able to open them again. she takes a step backwards, puts her hand to her eyes and then, massaging them she goes back to the living room. i leave the journal on the desk, close the light in the room and follow her. The woman was sitting on her chair, sipping from the mug, still, with fear to not burn her lips.
"Drink your tea. It sure got colder by now."
i look at the tea, it seems it was cold to begin with. Covered by a thin layer of dust and impurities. i pick up the mug and see the circle, it covered the mark perfectly. As if this is the same mug and tea from our last meeting. i sit down on the now even higher bed without having to jump up on it and look at the woman.
"i don't know where the boy is. After he got out of jail, my father, he came home and took the boy, then he was 17, or 18. Whatever, he took m…he took the boy and ran away. i haven't heard about them since that day, well…not until recently…anyway… my heart won't let me say that i was so much relieved since then, to have to take care only of me, but i can say that i wasn't devastated by the fact that i was abandoned by those two. i felt as if i was finally abandoned by the…long and dreadful family curse, impossible to escape, eh…except me. Maybe i am special…"
she smiled compassionately, looking down at, something…sad…
The whole thing got so awkward, i feel embarrassed. i want to ask what did her father got in for, but i don't want to make the situation worse. Probably it was because he used hypnosis and did shady experiments at home. It said in the journal that it was not ethic what he was doing. In my memories, a doctor appears, a psychiatrist. In one of them he even hypnotises me. But he doesn't look at all similar to the one in the portrait.
i feel like i'm right there, at the end of a fucked up, long and tedious puzzle, but i still can't figure out what the whole image is. And there aren't many pieces left, but it's still impossible to figure it out. Some pieces of the puzzle seem impossible to lift and put in place…hurtful… This seems like the type of puzzle that can make sense only after the last piece is fitted in, and only after then i can understand the image fully.
i look at the portrait on the wall once more, it does look sort of familiar, i scratch my head hard with the tips of my fingernails, painfully…
"Stop looking for answers, there are none. You'll find none."
i look at the old woman. She looks mortified, then suddenly smiling again like a kind old lady, she asks me.
"Are you hungry?"
The clock in the hallway starts ringing quietly, a cuckoo gets out and sings and then goes back in. It does this 5 times. It's already 5 in the morning. i get up from the bed and go to the door.
"No, i have to go, the train will arrive in a few minutes, and i really have to catch this one back home."
The woman remains on the chair. It seems she doesn't have any more strength left to get up. She looks at me, or at least in my vicinity, as it seems her glasses aren't helping her at all, and tries to smile.
"Ok then, take care of you and come by when you have time, or want to drink some tea."
"Goodbye."