The Contradictionary Truth of Life

CHAPTER I

Unstoppable images of his eternal memories flashed through his once more broken mind. Panting a little, he pushed his hands against his temples in a fruitless attempt to stop the mental pains. He no longer wanted to think back, he no longer wanted to regret every single fucking mistake he had made. Good things had come out of them, hadn’t they? Maybe, but they were spoiled, were turning black by his failures, HIS failures. He always had to screw things up and he couldn’t bring himself to fight back and make it better. He couldn’t climb back and start over. He wished he could, but for some reason he was too much part of himself and too less part of anything useful.
Eventually, when he felt he could breathe again, he moved his hands away from his temples and stared at the damp tar of the street before him. He could smell the scent of rain on tarmac, warm rain on tarmac. It was still raining, but the pouring had stopped. The weather had currently taken a short breath and must be ready to blow out again soon. At least that meant that no one would find him here and he wouldn’t be confronted with his embarrassment, which was caused by something he could hardly understand himself.
He diverted his eyes from the asphalt and looked at the cars that were parked opposite of him. They were ugly and very squared. Their presence somehow bothered his restless mind, thus he closed his eyes and let his hair hang in front of his face. He felt the gaze of the woman who lived on the other side of the street upon him. She saw him here more often. He wondered what she was thinking. Did she feel sorry for him? Or was she awaiting the right time to call the police so that they could reassure her that he was indeed insane and take him to some place far away? Anyway, he was absolutely convinced that she had no idea of his inner darkness and she’d better not. They would tear any human apart and they were doing that to him at this very moment. There was just no way out. Well, not a way he preferred to take. It would hurt those he loved. It would make people talk and whisper about him for years. It would kill him. The word joke made him chuckle a bit. Physical paradoxes…
A cold wind penetrated his jacket and the rain kept soaking him. He was drowning in the outside world. And at the same time drowning in my own mind. He shivered and tried to retreat even further into his jacket, but the fabric of his clothes stuck to his skin. He could of course just go back in, but that would mean confrontation.
He let out a sigh, his eyes still closed, and thought. He thought and thought and thought, until he stopped tasting the droplets of rain, that had dripped out of his hair, on his lips. It was dark. Not grey but black. The night was growing old while he was wasting his time on the edge of a sidewalk. With one hand he felt his other and felt it was cold, like a corpse. He knew that his fingers could cool off till about ten degrees Celsius without any damage. He needed his fingers. He didn’t want to lose them, so he stuffed them into his pockets and sat motionless. As he looked up he saw that the woman had disappeared. She had been replaced by a young boy. He was sitting on his mother’s kitchen blade, holding a toy boat in his hands. His feet were in the sink, which was probably full of water. The boy was playing and spattering water all over the place. Why was he up so late? Where were his parents?
Then he looked at the cars and realized that his neighbour’s car was gone. Had they gone out and left their kid alone? Like his parents had done to him when he was the same age? At least they had taken the decency to drop him off at his grandparents once in a while, which he had hated and still did.
He saw the boy wave at him, with a happy innocent smile on his face. He smiled but didn’t wave back. The boy showed him his boat and again he smiled. The boy laughed and used his hands to bomb the window with sink water. He raised a thumb in reply.
An angry nanny appeared from behind the boy and threw him a death-wish look. Then she picked up the boy, quickly dried his feet and took him out of the kitchen. The boy kept looking at him and waving and he kept smiling back. Then the night was once more lifeless. He was lifeless too, so they fitted perfectly well together.
He looked up for a while, examining the grey cloudy sky. The rain would come back and with it the cold. He didn’t care. He just didn’t want to go back inside. Yet he longed for a warm shower. He ignored the longing.
He realized that the feeling in his hands had gone away and concluded that he was probably gonna be sick for a couple of days. The prospect of not having to work or do anything made him feel a little better. He didn’t hate his work, he just didn’t like the prospect of work, once he got started he no longer wanted to stop. It was a strange kind of obsession he admitted, but again; who cared. Some names sprang into his mind, he also ignored them. He refused to show the world directly of what was happening to him. He knew he gave them the wrong impression of who he was. If they’d only just stop being so fucking blind, only then he could finally be free.
No one will ever know my pain.
“Honey, what are you doing out here?” a soft voice whispered in his left ear. He didn’t look up. Even when her hands with their sharp nails, like a hawks claw, stroke over his face and cut in his neck, he didn’t look up.
“You feel cold”, she said, while she rested one hand on his forehead, “you’re going to get sick if you stay out here.”
“I don’t care”, he answered. “I don’t fucking care.”
He knew she smiled and in his mind he saw her bright lips curl up a little.
“Just come back inside.”
He looked up. She shivered as his eyes pierced through her soul. She closed her walls and he turned his eyes away. He had never been very comfortable looking into people’s eyes, because for some to him unknown reason they never looked away again.
“I don’t want to go back inside.”
“Why do you want to be so alone?”
“Because I have to think.”
“You can do that in the warmth of our house, can’t you?”
He refused to answer. Just go away, go away and stay away.
“Damn you, I won’t go away. Look at what you’re doing to yourself,” she cried out.
He breathed slowly. Who says I’m doing it to myself? Who says you aren’t? Who says my mind is not?
She kissed him on his cheek and he felt a blush down his neck. Why couldn’t he just dislike her at all times? He turned his head and kissed her lips. Her lipstick made the kiss sticky instead of wet.
“I love you”, she said quietly, “just come inside.”
He sighed.
“I can make you feel warmer.” An attractive smile appeared on her face.
“Fine”, he said. Then he stood up and allowed her to drag him back inside.
Once inside he started shivering. He felt goose bumps on the skin of his arms and his teeth clattered. She lead him to the couch, pushed him down and sat next to him. She stroke her hand through his wet hair and held her face really close. He could smell the smoke in her breath and feel the warmth of it on his skin. She kissed him again. He kissed her back. Her hands with their claws opened his soaked jacket and he took it off. He threw it in a random corner, not diverting his attention from her. God, I hate you. He ignored the voice, because he wanted her too badly, even though it was wrong for him and for their baby and for everyone around him. It was simply wrong. He touched her naked shoulders with his hands. They tingled as the feeling returned to his fingertips. She withdrew a little, startled by the cold of his hands.
“You’re cold,” she said.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I know.”
She doubted a little but pulled her shirt over her head anyway. The white of her flesh was so flawless, so pretty. They kissed. She tasted like danger. She tasted like sweat and noise and evil, pure evil. He liked feeling terrified, because it tended to give him a rush in the end. It was better than any drug he had ever taken. The feeling of being genuinely scared was all he needed right now. He just had to feel bad for himself. He just had to have a reason to kick at the world and hate everyone else instead of himself.
She put her arms around his neck and sat on her knees on the couch. He turned a little so that they could face each other. Her head tilted some and her eyes blinked slowly. “You know… I wished you didn’t detest me.”
“Why?” he said, almost chocking on his own voice. She knows? She knows.
“Because it would mean that,” she went silent for a bit, “that we could be a normal family. The three of us.”
“As if that’s what you want.”
“How do you know what I want?”
“I want you.”
“How do you know what I want?” she repeated, this time insisting.
He ignored her and ran his hands over her chest.
She took her arms away from his neck and pushed his hands softly away.
“You don’t. You detest me. Like I just mentioned.”
“I don’t detest you,” he lied, “I just… need some time and space for myself.”
“How much fucking time do you need?”
He shook his head. “I thought we were going to-“
“No. Fuck you.” She stood up and walked away, not even bothering to put on her shirt again.
He inhaled deeply, like he had taught himself. He wanted her so badly right now and she wouldn’t give herself to him. And that was exactly how she played with him, how she managed to keep him around. She just knew. Fuck you.
He stared out of the window. Darkness. Suddenly he felt very drowsy. He wanted that shower, but he wanted her more. He decided to take the one of the two things that he could get and dragged himself to the bathroom. With difficulty (because his hands were trembling) he undressed himself and looked at the image in the mirror. He couldn’t wrap his head around why she wanted him to stay in the first place, was it their baby, or was it something else? He knew what it was, yet he denied it to himself and turned on the shower. He waited for it to become warmer, while he was trembling in the cold bathroom. Once the damp covered the glass of the shower he stepped inside and tried to ignore the pain of the warmth that was attacking his frozen limps. He didn’t know how long he had stood there, but the crying woke him up out of his trance.
Quickly he turned off the shower, stumbled out and grabbed a towel. Hastily he dried himself, not worrying about his wet hair. He put on his underwear and ran into the baby room. Why was he so scared? She’d never hurt her own child, would she? But she didn’t care too much either. He took the crying baby in his arms and rocked her slowly. After some time she stopped crying and with her tiny hand against his still moist skin she fell asleep again. He smiled to himself and kissed her softly on her forehead, then he put her back in the crib. For a while he just sat there, staring at his child. She didn’t look like her mother at al. He felt sorry for her, but at the same time relieved. He touched her gently, making sure he wouldn’t wake her. He had never, in his whole life, cared this much about someone before. He was just afraid that the kid, as she grew older, would start to dislike him. He could perfectly well recall the memories of himself as a teenager, but his parents had been different. He’d never do that to his baby, never. Whatever the costs.
He started feeling a little uncomfortable in just his underwear, thus he stood up from the chair he had been sitting on and walked over to the wardrobe. He kept a blanket in there. After taking the blanket he wrapped himself in it and sat back down. His breath slowed down as he observed the infant in the crib. She made him feel so calm, so self-conscious. She was just more important than anyone, more important than he was to himself. Well, most people had been more important to him than he was to himself, but each of them had at least once taken advantage of that. He recently started trying to care about himself a little more, but he would never care more about himself than about his baby.
His eyelids felt heavy and a sleepy calmness spread itself through his limps. I’ll always love you. You’re my life and if I have to die to prove that, then I will. Then he fell asleep, with his cheek against the wall of the nursing room.