Diary Entry Two: By River to Nepal
THE SUMMER, THE WINTER, AND YEARS TO COME
Quite fickle times were the ones, upon which we firstly met. I, in the midst of the existentional crossroads, trying to get a grasp upon my life, and She, sunken deep into her work, in the mid-space, and in the time and place, where she would not stay for long. Such complex she was, that even my deepest analysis could tell me a very little. For she was in my eyes the life itself, animating the most noble of characteristics a person can represent, I simply could not perceive her as an abstract problemma. There always was to her the most extraordinary potential, that I have ever witnessed.
It was in summer, which was for both of us hectic, but melancholic at the same time. We soon got into these nigh-long dialogues, despite the distance and time, that was constantly stretching between us. You must know that I adored completely everything about her and eventually realised that that, what I seeked over this melancholic, careless summer, I eventually see in her. For that, I was quite fond of her company, as then I would feel sure and would somehow know, what is eventually a right thing to do. And although her presence was always rather subtile, she happened to be always there.
With retrospective, however, I am not completely sure, if it was due to a wrong time and so a place, or there was another cause whatsoever, but the fact is, that I somehow presumed the temporarity, which then haunted me every second further.
Despite the logic, there came a winter, which I will always recall as most peaceful and hopegiving, that I was ever fortunate enough to live out throughout my life. We chose to go against the time and the distance, and we even managed to abase it in a way. Back then, the deafly silence of winter’s nights, and even its freezing cold was somehow soothing, and with Christmas coming, nights were stretching to a timeless dimension, in which we could be together, eventually. Then, even the briefest moment was one of these, that would lay a permanent impression upon one’s memory.
Nevertheless, ultimately, it all came to a sudden overexcitation, for she chose another life, and I, even more different one. These differences, which we fought against, headstrong, eventually turned to a twist, and the distance has stretched to be second to none. At last, it was over a bouquet of blue roses, upon a cold and silent midnight, with the greatest of snowflakes lazily landing over my shoulders, as if they tried to console me, when I uttered that “Maybe in another time and place”, that happened to be the last words that I ever told her. And I can still recall every detail of that after-fall into the silence, that something torn out of me, that oppressive emptiness and the definite, absolute irrefutability.
She simply disappeared from my life, in fact, from a second to another, and I then gave myself completely into my work, with only two things left after her, a book and a traveler’s map of Nepal, that she gave me on Christmas, after our night conversations about where to run from the world, if we happen to want to leave everything behind. For next several years, we hardly spoke to each other, although I occasionally catched, but only a slightest indication about her present life. From time to time, I would find myself over the traveler’s map, lost in thoughts, purposelessly studying it for hours. Yet, I was at utmost peace, for she was at last living the life she so heartily wanted and was quite fond of her work. I happened to safely start to pursue my specialization, soon enough to begin recalling that particular winter as something that could hardly ever happen in my life. Even more, when although we divided, we could not blame each other for nothing whatsoever. Then it just simply blurred into a dreamy mist of maudlin memories, shattered by reality and logic.
THE STORM
...that night, I had a dream.
It was once again in a summer, though a cold, rainy and somber one, when one of my cases led me under the moutain tops of Switzerland, where I came to prepare a finale for the case. Upon registration at my hotel, I catched a glance of the registration book. There it was, her name, registered a couple of days before. It struck me for a moment, for I could not guess at the time, what business could she be there after. I was off after my work at once, again. I thought it over, if I should go to see her or not, but I decided not to, for I concluded that it would not be very thoughtful.
After the preparations done, the case would then move very well without me, so I decided to enjoy a lone stroll through the beauty of the place. My joy was never to be fulfilled, for a sudden storm struck and from minute to minute it seemed to be not so short one. I went to the tavern, where would all the residents come to hide from the sudden, ravaging rain.
I somehow mystically managed to seat myself in a warm corner, although the tavern was full as never, with bartender off himself with a joy. Apparently, power went out, as there were candles on each table, offering but a dim light, which was in a way comforting, in contradiction with the cold and heavy rain raging outside. The fireplace was lit and soothingly cracking, adding some kind of poetry to people’s bleak mumbles. I was just sitting there, probably for hours, with folded hands to keep myself warm, lost in thoughts. From time to time, I instinctively glanced over the tavern, in expectance to see her somewhere in there, but it did not come to it.
Then, all of a sudden, the doors opened and let in a burst of wind and rain, with a man upon the doorsteps, soaked to the bone. At this time, it was strange, for it rained since midday and from a glance through the door I could see that light was falling down rapidly. He rewarded himself with a bourbon and sat behind a table, but he still beared somewhat grave impression. Then I managed to pick up a fragment from a conversation that he held with some randomers making inquiries. And what I heard got me petrified on the spot, giving an instantaneous contraction to every muscle, guts inversed, heart stopped. Some woman, with her father, drowned upon a riverfall several hours ago, as they got struck, kayaking, by the storm. He was there with a rescue group, trying to retrieve the bodies, but they did not succeed.
I was off onto my feet at once, knocking over the stools as I, still with marble legs, was rushing out from the tavern into that heavy storm, leaving their worried, silent faces turning on me behind. As I ran for the hotel, knowing that this cannot affect the emotional level at all, I reasoned and reconsidered every possible scenario and every possibility whatsoever, but only to come to a half a dozen outcomes, neither one in favor. Yet, at that moment I was hardly at a quarter of my run to the hotel. I began to grow cold from deep within, as I heard the distant thunder, suggestive, as if it was somehow grieving. That was the exact moment, when I for the first, and for the last time truly wished to be wrong. Then I remember just endless run, that I slipped a few times, and the rain restlessly washing off a mixture of mud and my own blood from my hands.
When I finally managed to get to that ill-fated hotel, with every muscle burning, raging, for from my subjective perception of time, stretched by an abnormal speed of reasoning, it felt like hours until I got there, although it was roughly only couple of minutes, the receptionist was dazed by my sudden and mud-bloody appearance. I only managed to utter the name, as my lungs was hungrily inflating. Her impression changed to a compassionate and worried one, as she said only that “I am sorry”.
On that very words, everything has just, and simply shattered. Every possible causality, but a one, faded in an instant, leaving but a crippling darkness and cold upon my chest. With fragment of a second, everything gained so absurd, meaningless and strange character, as from a odious nightmare. I just stand there, speechless, with crushed spirit. The woman, standing in front of me laid her hand upon my shoulder, but her touch disgusted me in such a fashion, that I had an acute urge to damn her on the spot, for her repugnant compassion was making it all more real from a second to another, athough I was very well aware that she means well. But I could not bear it. In just a moment, I developed such hatred towards the world, the people, the very essence of existence, that I just turned on the heel without a single word.
I was once more in the centre of that ravaging element, yet I did not feel a cold, nor my aching feet. Inside, I was only of that splitting, atrocious emptiness. As I ran down the hill, on which was the hotel standing, although completely purposelessly, I got the impression as if the storm itself was leading me. It was dark, but suddenly, I heard something, as like it was adding a context to the splutter of the storm. I catched a glance of the river’s current.
Next I remember only the mere impression as I ran beside the river. The rain became even stronger in the meantime. As I scampered along the narrow, muddy and deep-dark path, I could not see the end of it, and it seemed to be stretching further every moment. The tall, dark, threatening silhouettes of trees on both sides seemed to be trying to reach their limbs to me, heavily sloping in the gale. For a moment, I would swear that the rain became somehow salty, but it could be just tears of rage, silently running my face.
At last, I saw it. The vigorous and hulking mass of water, relentless, endlessly plunging down to a fall into an impenetrable darkness of cauldron filled with a sinister mousse, splattering skywards back through its immense current. The sight was terrific, and the voice of it, such deep-drawn, it readily repressed the storm itself.
As I stand there, in absolute finiteness, with nowhere further to go, I began to have great difficulties to even breathe, with my insides fastly contracting with acute anguish. For I always perceived death as an abstract, as a neutral principle and very essence of existence, but back there, I could feel the violation upon linear causality, maimed and ragged, and the threads of reality lost. I was raging, with shoulders trembling, the rain felt as if it was shattering my very presence into the tempest. The concept of the memories that suddenly simply could not be addressed, and would not be ever again, caused such a crippling pain to me, crawling from deep within, that I just sat there in the morass, carelessly, and I was not even able to utter a cry.
I remembered that I had the traveler’s map with me, which I somehow always carried, and as I got it out from my coat, soaking wet, I just helt it upon my chest, in convulsion, and got completely lost in vacuity and these senseless, obtrusive queries of “what if” character. I could not defy one of them, the one of if I was able to prevent it in any way. Whether it could be avoided, if I was back then to decide to go see her. Whether I was able to do something, anything whatsoever, though I know she would certainly not want, nor let me to.
Then I remember the exact moment as I was standing again, on the very river’s edge, silently watching the immense mass of water, violently shattering on its rock-bladed reef, and less than a hundred meters away, a lightning hit, its voice merging with the din of these titanic waters. Yet, to my sensation, it was not a strike of mercilessness. It left a strange imprint on me, as if it was in fact a smite of a fierce sorrow, the strike of a vindication, peccavi and acceptance of responsibility, as a finale of this majestic, uncouth symphony of remorse.
Apparently, I then tried to step into the river, for I remember multiple strong hands, these of lumberjacks, which dragged me from it. They were clearly after me since I left the tavern. Later, I noticed that I lost the traveler’s map there, and I completely closed myself.
THE SILENCE TO WANDER AFTER THE STORM
There is not much left to say. There was the funeral, but I could not get further than the funeral home’s parking lot. The bodies were never retrieved, and I would not bear this kind of act of acknowledging.
I took a lecture on freshwater algae at the university instead. But as I sat there, in a cold corner of a room, illuminated by an uneasy and irritating light which was in complete contrast with the gloominess of rainy afternoon outside, I was not able to concentrate. These faces and their voices were just too strange and otherworldly, that I held an absolute aversion towards them. I left and decided to take a stroll through the park.
As I rambled, the cold, harsh rain was lashing my face. I lighted myself a cigarette and started to wander in thoughts. For in that very park, we once were together, in hopes, and tranquil, despite the rain, cold, time or place. Back then, there was a tent with a theatrical exhibition, and as I was standing on the exact place where it stood, I could hear her voice, in every tone of detail, and when I closed my eyes, I could even see her smile in the rain. I somehow instinctively got out my phone and just stood there, looking at her contact photograph, with a painful lump in my throat. I could not get hold of that the number no longer has a holder, that it is just a bunch of numbers, the relict. I stood there for an hour, completely lost, overwhelmed, uttering silent, painful tears of sorrow and joy, as I could recall every detail of that day of the tent. The rain, the music and the soothing silence inside the tent, her enthusiasm and zeal, her face, her perfume, her touch and her presence. I wished, from deep within, to stay in that very moment. And it was exactly at that moment, when the fear of oblivion became the greatest for me.
I am writing this down not to somehow close the matter and be able to forget. On the contrary, I am perpetuing it, with the heaviest heart one could bear, as I am departing for Nepal to find myself once more, so when my mind will begin to flaw and my memory to fade, I could recall it, and at last, truly wish that that “another time and place” will eventually come for her. Even though we will not be ever able to recognize each other and even though we will not ever truly meet again.
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