Saturday Evening

Saturday evening

It was Saturday evening. He stared outside, in the deep black of the night. He could neither see the creepy blue light of the moon, nor the light of the stars in the evening sky. He only saw the shadow of some dark storm clouds, which swirled around over the city houses, dropping their tears on the already wet street, crying for no obvious reason. That's what clouds do; they cry. They spill their lives by showing their pain to the world and finally they die, vanish. And no one would even care, because there would always be new clouds to take its place. People never really seemed to think about clouds. Even though, they looked so much like them. They live in pain, die and are forgotten, just like the clouds. And just like clouds there are always new people to replace them. Then what makes us care about people and not about clouds? Why are people so much more important than clouds? Is it, because we have feelings? How do we even know if clouds don't? Shouldn't we make a decision to care, or not to care at all? We only do half. That isn't fair, is it?
And as the clouds cried and died and new ones replaced them, the wind awoke. It blew its cold breath through the dark streets and forced the rain to hit his window. As if they begged him for help. As if they wanted him to open the window and let them in, so that they too could enjoy the warmth of a house. They just didn't know that it wasn't always warm in human houses, that rooms could be cold and filled with everlasting anger and fear.
He wanted to let them in, the tears of the clouds, but he couldn't. He couldn't open the window. It had been locked.
He sighed and turned around, looking away from the chilly wet street outside. He could no longer see the world's pain. Not because he felt sorry, not really. No, because they reminded him of his own pain, his own barrier. He felt sorry for himself.
Instead of looking outside he looked inside, at his room. It was just as empty and absent as he was. Every single thing had been cleaned up and polished. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were all colourless and sad. There was barely any furniture, just a simple bed, a wardrobe and a wooden chair. All in all, it looked as if no one had ever been there. Yet he was there. He didn't want to be there, but that didn't really seem to matter.
He sighed again and sat down in the wooden chair, standing near the window. He waited. He waited, but for what?  He waited for... for a voice, a voice in his head that would tell him that this wasn't his fault. He waited for the thought that would convince him that he had done everything within his powers to prevent any of this. There was no voice and there was no thought.
Slowly, as if it physically hurt him, he closed his eyes, to lock out the neat room around him and he finally enjoyed a short moment of silence and relaxation in his mind. Yet that didn't last for long, because soon the inside of his skull was filled with screams, vague images and flashes of memories he didn't want to remember. He pushed his hands against his temples to stop the chaos and to supplant his thoughts. It was in vain. The thoughts didn't leave; they only got worse, louder and more frightening than they had been. He wanted to stand up, kick something, yell, but he couldn't. It would make no sense, no difference.
Eventually, no longer able to control himself, he stood up and started to walk around. He couldn't give in to the urge to obey his thoughts. He had to ignore it, just as always did.
He had to shut up, be silent, and not say anything. You could never say something, never. If you did you'd be punished or you'd punish yourself, because it was always stupid, whatever you said.
Someone banged on the door, didn't just knock, no one ever knocked, they always banged. Well, you couldn't seriously expect much from people like that. He froze in the middle of a step, turned his head towards the door and stared without saying anything at the locked wooden door. He heard the person on the other side searching for his keys and finally, when he found them, put them in the lock and turned them around. The handle slowly moved down, and a guy, not much older than himself, stepped into the room. He was wearing jeans and a simple white T-shirt. His dark hair threw shadows over his pale face, only lit by the dim lamp hanging from the middle of the ceiling. He looked at the guy's face and saw faked pity in his eyes, tamed anger in his face and some well-thought-out, hypnotising words on his lips. 
Without saying a thing the guy walked further into his room. Quickly he stepped backwards, not out of fear, but out of disgust. The guy saw this and looked straight into his eyes.
Look away, he told himself, for god's sake look at your feet, you moron!
He thought he saw a smile appearing on the guy's face when he lowered his head, a foolish smile.
"It's okay," hissed the guy. "Just stay calm, Thomas. You don't need to worry. I just want to talk to you."
He forced himself to look at the guy, then he too, smiled. " I don't worry, Gar. Especially not about you. I can no longer worry, because I know; I'm going insane. That's what you want, right? You and those others. You want me to go insane, you want me to scream and cry and you're right, I'm going to. Does that make you happy? Are you happy to hear that you sneaky plan finally succeeded?"
Gar watched him, worried. "Thomas please, you can't do this, can you?"
"What is it that I can't do, Gar?" he asked, smiling madly. "What is it?" he yelled.
Startled he examined his friend from head to toe. "Thomas, what's wrong with you?"
But Thomas didn't answer, he just stared at his shaking and sweating hands, those hands who'd done things, who'd done this to him.
"Please, Tom, sit down," Gar begged him, "this is for your own good, really."
Still laughing he shook his head. "No Gar, I can't. I can't sit down. I can't let you do this. Nothing can hurt me anymore. You don't know how that feels. You don't know anything. You act like you understand, but you don't, just believe me. I hate you. I hate myself. It's my fault, it has always been-"
"It's not your fault!" he cried out shocked. He could never have known that his friend was feeling this way. He knew that Tom had some mental troubles, which wasn't very strange. He had been through so much, they had been through so much, together. And now, everything seemed to be... gone, Tom seemed to be gone. He'd lost his friend, after all the other things he had lost. They were supposed to recover, both of them. He knew he had to do something, before it would be too late, but he didn't know what. He had his own barriers.
"Gar," whispered Tom, "Gar, it is my fault. I've done this, I swear I have and I... I kind of liked it. Do you now understand how I feel? Do you now know what poison flows through my veins? I'm going crazy, insane and I can't stop it, but I no longer want to . I want die, Gar. I have to die..."
Gar froze. It was, in fact, worse than he had imagined. "Don't do this," he begged, weakly. "Tom, don't do this."
Tom shook his head, which caused his long stringy hair to hit his face. He looked the way he was, troubled. He laughed and cried at the same time. Something inside of Gar tried to convince him his friend wasn't really gone, that he hadn't really meant what he'd said. Somewhere inside of Thomas there had to be something that didn't want to die, something that wanted to stay here, with him, to recover. 
"Will you let me do this, Gar?" Thomas asked. "Gar, you have to let me do this. Don't stop me, because I'll take you with me."
Then he pulled a shiny knife, that had been tucked in his belt, unnoticed. It was just a kitchen knife, but if it was good enough to cut meat, it would also be good enough to open a vein.
With trembling hand he brought the weapon toward his neck. He was sweating and still laughing madly.
"I'll see you on the other side, Gar."
"No!" yelled Gar and without further thinking he threw himself upon his friend. He pushed his head against the grey carpet and seized his wrist. Thomas looked at him, angrily. He struggled and kicked, he yelled and he swore, but Gar didn't let go.
The rage on Tom's face slowly changed into sadness and soon tears ran down his cheeks.
"I'm sorry, Gar," he said in between his tears. "I'm so sorry, really."
"It's alright Tom, but please let go off the knife."