To Loneliness

I felt the cold sneaking up my spine one vertebra at a time. It was the first evening of autumn and the wind was blowing slowly. A branch of a birch knocked quietly on my window and the dry leaves rustled like sandpaper. I was sitting alone at the table; hand wrapped around a steaming cup of tea and a pair of old, shabby woollen socks on my feet. The only light in the apartment was the last shimmer of the sunset that was slowly fading grey, behind the half way down pulled curtains. Thoughts drifting with the wind I stared at Loneliness who was keeping me company at the table. I offered him a cup of tea but he was already warm. I listened how the autumn ran down the window.



Loneliness was a loyal friend, he never left me alone. He was a talented listener, I told him everything and in the end, I had no secrets hiding from him. I, on the other hand, did not know much of him. I didn't know his age or roots. Once I dared to ask him that and he answered that, that kind of things had no meaning in this kind of relationships.



I don't remember the time we first met. Maybe we met in the dark of the local pub, maybe we are friends since childhood, I don't know anymore. The only thing I remember from the beginning of our relationship is when he told me not to become too attached of him. However, the warnings remained wandering into my deafened ear canals in vain, for he had some mystical attraction that, in the years of friendship, made me to fall in love with him. For him I gave up all my other friends, relatives, acquaintances and strangers who say at the buss stop what a beautiful weather it is today. I did not need anyone else but Loneliness, it was easier to breathe that way. I rejected everyone and gave myself completely into his hands.



I swore to love and be faithful him eternally. I didn’t matter his cold distance and dry sarcasm which, to be honest, made me cry more than once. To my confessions of love, he always answered with an amused sneering. Loneliness was an insipid lover who burned with a pilot light but still I did not afford to lose him, I didn’t afford for anyone else. I hang on to him like a tick and closed my eyes stubbornly from all the coldness he loved me with.



Loneliness helped me to clean up my apartment from all the needless garbage. Teenage diaries, photos from abroad, summer cottage, parties; full of faces I did not recognise, letters from people whose hand-writing I didn’t remember, address-book full of strange names, telephone that lounged dusting on the table in vain. Dishes were saved two of each, one for me, one for Loneliness. Bedcover had to go, for Loneliness didn’t mind the undone bed, greasy hair or filthy teeth.



My dusty and small hall was filled with white-enveloped letters and brochures. There was no hand-written text, which was a relief; I didn’t have to write back. Sometimes, when I felt like Loneliness was too far away from me I wrote him love-letters to toilet paper, it was our decay romance. I turned the letters carefully from the seams, tucked them into an un-whitened envelope and wrote on the top with a black marker the words ‘to Loneliness’. I dropped the letter without a stamp into the near-by mailbox. Loneliness never wrote me back but he always returned.



The first snow fell and melted away like a fast-forwarded silent film. The days I sat on the window board watching the ant society that I no longer recognised as my own species. My black and white film behind the cool window continued the same from the birch bubs of April to the next and the safe, musty air in the apartment wrapped around me more and more gentle. I listened to the tic-tac of the clock, it was two’ o’clock again, day or night, I could not tell the difference anymore. The days ran away from me and I could not keep up.



After New Year came the day when I became tired. I was bored with myself, Loneliness, routines that had no meaning and days that kept on running. Then, I decided to fall into sleep.



I found myself lying on the floor barely breathing. The door to the balcony was open and January was slowly sneaking towards my toes like a lurking feline. Quietly deep inside of me I was maybe smiling when I finally shook off the warm and musty air around me, I no longer needed that comforting lap. I felt how the hours of lying on my spine were starting to form a chain of bruises on my skin. A fine shiver run through my body but it didn’t have the strength to pull me back to reality. With glazing eyes, I stared deep to the emptiness and I did not hear anything but the silent echo of my slowing pulse far away.



Suddenly I woke up to a warm touch on my skin. I opened my eyes only a little and turned my heard towards the heat. The creature next to me had the most beautiful face I have ever seen and his hand on my neck made my pulse rice to a scary numbers. He drowned into my eyes and let his hand wander on my skin like an artist’s brush painting Mona Lisa. He breathed the smell of my skin and talked with a voice, which was like the finest silk and warm honey. This mysterious creature handled me like the most fragile and saint promise; his kisses were caress of the ocean’s waves and the smell of cherry-blossom.



I felt the pleasure squeeze my chest like the first love of a virgin. I never wanted to let go of him, he was like a bath of milk on my skin. I felt everything else fade away and I only wanted to fuse to him. I felt the air fade away from me and his hand dived between my ribs. He wrapped his fingers around my softly beating muscle and pulled it slowly out. My ears were buzzing like listening the noise of the ocean from a seashell and I felt a huge nirvana running into my body when he kissed my heart. Finally, when he had ate my heart I pressed my heard between his shoulder blades and fell into darkness.