My worst best friend

 Sometimes, after it's all over, people say things like: I had no idea he would be like that, it would be like that, he seemed like such a nice guy, how could that possibly happen, how did we end up like this?... And I cannot help myself and roll my eyes. Really? He was a walking red flag from where I am standing. So, I am a judgmental person. I know that, no big revelation there. But am I really a person to judge? Is this truly so bad, to jump into something with hope for the best, with expectations a little too high...? And is it really worse than what I did? It cannot be. At least there is a reason, an excuse. It must be better than jumping into all that crap with your eyes open and willingly. I mean, I knew what kind of person my best friend was just from how and when we met. 

At first, I thought we were just regular desperate classmates, bored to death in a class that could later cost us our futures in the school; and study buddies later became friends. So far so good. It did cross my mind at the time, what a lucky coincidence, us sitting together. I asked him about it jokingly later, when we became friends. Of all the people to sit with, he picked the seat next to me. It wasn't a trick question, I wasn't expecting much from it, it was just a little reminiscence of how we met and how glad I was that we did. I did not have many other friends at school around that time. Still, I should have known not to ask that question when we were drinking, if I did not want to know the truth unedited. Or maybe I did, maybe the narcissist in me hoped it would be for all the wrong reasons. I honestly never thought of him as more than a friend, but who does not like to be thought of a little differently... 

Now, this all would have been nice and lovely and nothing to it, if only we both weren't in relationships at the time. And yeah, they were both as unhealthy as they come, but they were relationships nonetheless. And to be honest, who realises their relationship is unhealthy while they're neck-deep in. However, before this starts to sound like something it is not, we did not do anything inappropriate for a couple of friends, we might have met for the wrong reason, but went the right way from there. The only thing I do admit to doing at this time is lying to my boyfriend. But sometimes, in a toxic, controlling relationship with a crazy jealous person, what else is there to do? He would have never understood the fact that we were truly friends and nothing more, and I would never hear the end of it. I mean, he was not a bad guy, not intentionally anyway, but we were very young, first love and all, long-distance for mos of a year, and he was the kind of guy who likes to see himself as a protector, even when there was nothing to be protected from.

Now, the actually interesting stuff happened a little later, fast forward let's say two years. We are the kind of friends who tell each other everything pretty much. And yeah, friends shouldn't judge and all that, but with some people, you would have to gauge both your eyes out at very least not have the idea, that they might not be the best kind of person overall. And I knew this and was very much ok with this. I knew what my friend was like when it came to relationships, and I knew he was the kind of person I would tell a friend to run from if they met. But hey, I was not looking for a relationship, I mean, definitely not with this guy, I did not find him one bit attractive nor anything more than a friend. And at the time, he was one of my only friends and I could not afford to lose him.

See, dear nonexistent reader, if you already got this far, you should know, this was all the year when all went to shit. In February that year, I got offered a job I really wanted. It was recommended to me by the friend this is all about, and although we would not be working together, we would be at the same company, in the same building. I was ecstatic! Not because of the friend part, but this truly was an opportunity of my dreams. Well, of course, no surprise there, my boyfriend at the time wasn't. Some men only want to see you succeed, as long as you don't overshadow them. And also, there was that thing where I dared to prefer my future, this job that would open doors for me later on (and boy, speaking from the current perspective, did it!) over coming over to see him as often as I did before. I mean, no one ever thought to have a problem with how much time he spent on school and building his future... But that is a rant over the wrong person. The point is, I had my dream job, I was single, my Tinder profile was on point and life should have been one hell of a party from that point on.

However, things never go as planned, do they? By the time summer came, life has gone truly to shit. You see, the lovely thing about getting a job in your college town, even if it is a dream job, is that it means you get to spend your summer there working. It also means that if you are the only one with such a job among your friends, you get to spend it there all alone. Luckily for this story, and very unluckily for my mental health, my best friend at the time was local.

 

Cry for love

        What is even love supposed to be like? Is it fire, burning us alive, feeling so intense, so delightfully painful? Is it calm water, bringing us peace, calm? What is passion, if there is no love? What is love, if there is no passion?
       I'm scared of the love I've got - of the love I give, of the love I get. If it's such calm water, what keeps it from softly rocking me to sleep? Can love be so lovely and perfect it breaks your heart?

        Two weeks passed since I wrote those words and saved them for later. I thought I'd finish this little rant later but there's no point now. It wasn't the perfection that broke us, it was simple prosaic distance. No romantic reasons for broken souls - the dry pragmatism hurts maybe more than the heartbreak itself.
         The fact that there's no heartbreak hurts too. If there was time (which I'm certain there was) when I believed this was it, shouldn't I be in pieces? Shattered? Yet I'm numb, sickly fine. And I disgust myself because of it. We fell apart so slowly, calmly, silently, that I missed the whole falling. And the feeling of broken heart that is missing is breaking me in a whole new way.

Oh the irony of hurrying to buy a pack of condoms before a date and getting dumped instead ...
C'est la fucking vie

Mother's love 3

                The younger police officer wasn’t sure what to feel when he stayed in the flat alone. Was he crazy for not being able to let it go? He hoped the other officer wasn’t mad. He seemed unforgiving, and frankly a guy no one would like to be on bad terms with. None the less, he couldn’t just forget it, not even now. And what the heck, it already cost him enough not to investigate a little when he had a chance. He was in the flat alone. Although it didn’t feel that way, while the body was still there. It was judging him. He felt as if the dead man was asking him “Really? C’mon, man, I’m dead and you just stand there, doing nothing? Well thanks a lot…”

                That was it. The officer closed the front door and looked around, trying to take in everything at once. The place looked like a happy family home. Only the officer wasn’t a man to trust the first impressions. He liked details, the often told a clearer story. The nice flat could belong to anybody, he needed to get closer to its inhabitants, to get to know them a little. He started with the two personal computers he found, but soon realised they weren’t going to be of any help. Both password protected and neither of them seemed to react to the child’s name/birthday or any other likely choices.

                The more surprised the officer got when he realised that there was a tablet computer in the flat too, but there was no password needed to get in. And thank God for people who never log off apps like Facebook. Soon he was reading the man’s conversations, looking through the photos he captured, emails he received, documents he downloaded. The picture that started appearing in front of him looked nothing like his partner’s. What’s more, it started to look to him as if someone was better off without this guy. He had to talk to his partner and although he wasn’t very excited about the conversation, he felt some guilty pleasure from the told-you-so part that would come eventually too.

                *****   

                “Have ya lost your mind?” saying that the older cop wasn’t happy about being called in the middle of the night would be an understatement.

                “Ya wake me up just to tell me this? Have ya been watching too much TV lately, boy? This is not some stupid Sherlock Holmes drama, this is reality, things like that don’t happen, not for real! And what’s the proof ya keep telling me you have? Some stupid fight over online chat? Christ, boy, do ya know he often my wife and I fight and has she killed me? Nah she has not!”

                “I know, but I told you, there are these photos, those email of hers and bank…” the young officer tried to make his partner listen, but with no success whatsoever.

                “Yeah, yer stupid theory about those emails! They mean nothing, ya hear me? She moved some money, that’s what people working in banks do! Just because her junkie boyfriend says she stole it doesn’t mean it’s true! Christ, let me sleep, boy! If someone calls says there’s money missing, then we look into it, now you’re just being nosy!”

                At the same time, the woman, who called the police that night, looked away from the steering wheel of a borrowed car and checked that her son was still asleep. He looked like a little angel, she thought. Sleep well, sweet baby, mommy’s here and no one could take you away from her. Mommy will always protect you, she won’t let anyone touch you. Don’t worry, daddy won’t take you away from her, mommy promises. He wanted to take you away, but mommy would never let that happen. He knew that I won’t let him near you when we broke up, and he thought if he told everything to police, they would take me away and he could keep you. But mommy would do anything to be with you, my sunshine. Mommy will always love you and do anything for you.

Mother's love 2

When the policemen arrived, the ambulance was already there and the paramedics were about to leave.

“She was right,” one of them informed the officers.

“There was nothing we could have done. The man must have been dead for at least an hour when she called.”

Officers thanked him for the information and while the younger of the two walked with the paramedic towards the door, further inquiring about the deceased, the other carefully approached the young woman who had called them. She was still crying, obviously in shock. He had to shake her shoulder to get noticed after she had ignored him when he had spoken to her. He could see her jump a little when he touched her. She didn’t notice his arrival at all in her grief.

“Ma’am, is it okay if I ask you a few things? I promise to be quick and considerate,” the officer spoke to her slowly and let her process for a minute. His only answer was a hardly noticeable nod, but as a person who have dealt with many difficult cases and people in similar situations, he knew it must have taken enormous amount of energy on her part. He helped her to a glass of water which she kept sipping slowly and patiently waited for all of her answers.

After talking to her for almost an hour, he had hardly obtained the information he needed, but he could see the woman was in no condition to continue the interrogation. While he called her family and made sure she will be expected and taken care of at her sister’s, the younger officer was asked to help her pack clothing for herself and her one-year-old, who was then sleeping peacefully in his cradle.

“Well, that was quick. Looks like we’re done here,” the older officer informed his colleague when he appeared in a doorway.

The young man stood there baffled. He had been gone for barely five minutes, helping the deceased’s girlfriend and their child get into a cab. While he knew that his colleague had been a police officer for decades and was a renowned investigator respected by the whole police force, he couldn’t help feeling surprised and a bit sceptic. He considered his exclamation both bolt and arrogant, the body hasn’t even been seen by the coroner yet.

“Don’t worry, boy, when you’ll have been doing this your whole life, you’ll have a nose for those things too,” the older officer laughed as he noticed his partner’s unimpressed look.

“Trust me, it doesn’t get any simpler than this. Look at the man. He was a druggie. They say he was clean for some time now, but you know what I say? Guys like him, they don’t change. Oh trust me, I’ve seen plenty of guys like him. They get clean, months later, they’re back where they were. Just like him. Go take a good sniff, will ya? Smell the alcohol? And he’s been snorting, too, the paramedics noticed that the second they saw him and they were right. They think the drugs killed him. They’re right, ya know? Textbook clear, just look at him!”

The young officer looked as he was told, but he couldn’t see it. What he saw was just some guy, no different from him, lying on a couch in his home. He saw a boyfriend, a loving father to a baby boy. He saw a man with tattoos from his darker past, who now had a new life, nice home, and loving family. Man who was clean, shaved, whose hair was cut, clothes well-kept. He really couldn’t see the hopeless drug addict his colleague kept describing.

“How can this be all? We barely did anything. That man just had a kid, I find it hard to believe he would do something like this, it just doesn’t make sense. And there are so many things we haven’t considered! The coroner hasn’t even seen him, this can’t be it,” the young officer protested, incapable of letting it go. He became an officer to help, as lousy as it sounds. He couldn’t help himself, he felt like wasn’t doing enough. He felt like he didn’t give the man a chance.

“Really, we’ve been here for hours, called in the middle of night… what else you want to do? And who are you that you think you know what he would do? You don’t know a thing about him, I’ve seen dozens of them druggies!”

“We didn’t even search the flat. And we should contact his girlfriend, she barely told you…”

“Are ya serious? Have ya seen the poor woman? She’s alone with her kid, she doesn’t need to be bothered by your stupid questions! But yeah, sure, ya want keep working, be my guest. I’m going home, to bed, like a reasonable person. You’re staying right here, since you’re so eager, and waiting ‘till they come for the body. Good night!"

Mother´s love

part of a school work

      “He´s not breathing! Help me, he´s not breathing!” a high-pitched voice was screaming into the headphone of a 999 operator.

      “Try to calm down, ma´am, who´s not breathing?”

      “My boyfriend! He… he… I think he´s dead! Oh my God, he´s dead!”

      “Ma´am, try to calm down, talk to me. Help is on their way, do you understand? The ambulance…”

      “He doesn´t need ambulance! He is dead! He´s so cold, his skin is so cold! Someone killed him! They killed him!”

      “Ma´am, please, try taking a deep breath and talk to me, who are they? Who do you think hurt your boyfriend? Are you in danger?”

      “I don´t know! How would I know?! But they killed him, they must have! He is dead, someone must´ve killed him! How can he…?!”

      Woman on the other end of line was interrupted as a scream sounded, very loudly. Not a scream, the operator realised a bit later, a cry. Baby was crying.

      “Ma´am, are you alright? Is there a child with you?”

      There was no answer.

      “Ma´am! Are you still there?”

      The woman didn´t reply anymore, the operator could only hear child´s cry and a soothing sound, later replaced by a silent, sad lullaby. 

          Jeden úsmev a bolo rozhoduté. Nebolo to také rozprávkové, ako vo filme, keď sa človeku údajne rozbúši srdce a pre istotu aj vyvedie nejakú nekonečnú trápnosť. Bolo to oveľa jednoduchšie, možno tak trochu až majetnícke. Chcem. Budem mať. Musím. A musím, a musím a hotovo. Jednoduché. Skromnosť a iné nezmysly bokom. Očividne som bola niekde úplne inde než on, tak ako by mohol odmietnuť? Dievča z gymnázia, toho najlepšieho, samozrejme, s nepredstaviteľnou budúcnosťou pred sebou. Chlapci ako on by sa pri nás neopovážili pristaviť. Aj keď sme sa stretli v jednom bare, čo v meste veľkosti toho nášho nebolo ničím zvláštne, nedovolili by si ani sa pozdraviť. My sme boli dievčatá z najlepšieho gymnázia, so značkovými kabelkami zladenými k topánkam a popíjali sme ozaj dobré víno. Oni sedeli na opačnom konci, najďalej ako to šlo a pili najlacnejšie pivo na litre. Aj tých pár odvážlivcov, ktorí si kedysi mysleli, že vypijú tri veľké pivá a kníšuc sa prídu ohurovať gymnazistky už radšej len ticho sedelo v kúte.
         Ten jeden však bol trochu iný. Nepoznala som ho, nebol nový celkom, len nepatril k tým starým známym alkoholikom. Sledovala som ho celý večer. Nenápadne, ani si nevšimol, nemal ako, keď sa nik z nich neodvážil k nám radšej ani pozrieť. Nezdržal sa príliš dlho, Ani toho nevypil toľko, nebol tak otrasne hlučný, ako niektorí, keď sa ako také prasce takmer váľali po zemi a celkovo tak správali. Pozorovala som ho, aj keď odchádzal, videla som, ako potajomky z vrecka vyťahuje krabičku cigariet s trochu previnilým pohľadom a akoby si nemohol pomôcť, obzerá sa, či ho niekto nevidí. Vtedy som už bol rozhodnutá, nechala som mu len kratučký náskok, a sledovala ho von. Aj napriek zime som sveter schválne nechala čakať na stoličke. Keď som vyšla von, stál len krok od dverí s cigaretou v ústach a šmátral po vreckách.
        "Prosím," ozvala som sa za ním a zapálila svoj obľúbený zapaľovač. Na okamih sa zasekol, neistý, či hovorím s ním a kým postrehol, že sme vonku úplne sami, vietor mi plameň sfúkol. Zapálila som ho zas, no tentokrát sa ledva stihol plamienok mihnúť a bolo po ňom. Uškrnul sa a zapálil sa sám cigaretu zápalkami, ktoré medzitým vylovil z vnútorného vrecka bundy. Tak som si teda vytiahla svoju cigaretu z plechovej krabičky a zapálila si tiež. Chvíľu sme tam len tak v tichu stáli. Chcela som niečo povedať, zoznámiť sa, na to som tam predsa šla, no akosi som nevedela, čo povedať. Bol príliš tichý. Nemala som nikdy rada zoznamovanie s takými ľuďmi, keby sa radšej ujal toho on, šlo by to o toľko lepšie.
         "Myslím, že ti to zhaslo," povedal mi potichu, že som to skoro nezchytila. Vlastne som si uvedomila, čo mi vravel, až keď mi pri tvári škrtol zápalkou a nanovo mi pripálil cigaretu. A tak sa zrodila najkastrofickejšia lovestory dejín.