Prologue
“Do you know the fear of falling asleep? The body becomes horrified, because the earth is parting and the dream begins.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Artur entered the apartment, after a long fight with the keys. The boy staggered and leaned against the wardrobe in the hallway. He closed the door behind him, not worrying about the locks. He wanted them to find him. Still holding onto the smooth wood, he took off his shoes, almost falling down three times, then hung the soaked leather jacket on the back of the chair in the kitchen. Outside the windows, marked by drops of rain, a gale was raging. On the radio, which had been playing at the party from which he had left hastily, the host announced, in an obviously artificially learned and forced speech, that orcans were passing over Lodz. Artur, during a drunken walk from Widzew to the mid-city district, did not even notice the raging wind that was breaking the trees and tram rails. There was a much larger confusion dwelling in his mind.
She was dead. She had been for three months. Her presence was limited to the cemetery of memories, from which, like on the Day of the Final Judgment, skeletons of visions from the past were awakening one by one, covering themselves with unbearably clear bodies of dreams. The drunken youth thought of Her dark-gold hair, turned ginger from dried blood, like autumn leaves, when he scribbled with a pencil on a self-adhesive sheet amazingly confidently. He dug the details of Her green irises from memory. Arthur knew well what he wanted to do, and somehow, he did not change his mind. Perhaps it was a merit of alcohol? Perhaps the grim weather outside the window? Maybe he just believed that it was necessary and there was no other way. However, it was impossible. Even when drunk to the degree of staggering and talking gibberish, the boy still believed that he did not believe in anything. There was no God or destiny for Arthur. Life was created by accident, it is governed by chance, and chance, in turn, has no cause, so it is not guilty of anything. She had also died by accident. All their joint decisions, intertwined with all the circumstances of blind destiny, had led to Her death. There should be a good side to all this, because Arthur did not feel responsible for this tragedy and did not blame anyone for it. She had died in an accident, a random event which did not matter, because nothing matters and nothing has a purpose. Her death, however, had an inexplicable meaning. She had changed everything. And that was exactly what had led Artur to this moment. Everything affects our decisions. All events and circumstances. Everything we encounter changes us irreversibly. With no exception.
The young man pulled out the highest drawer of a nice, decorated cabinet and dug into it for a moment. Finally, next to a stethoscope, some tweezers and vices, he found a small, silver foil. With a steady expression and a gentle smile underneath it, Arthur went to the bathroom and turned on the light. The boy sat heavily on black and white tiles, as if he had come back from an exhausting journey or after a very long day of work. A shift, lasting a lifetime. The drunken young man rolled up the left sleeve of a navy blue sweater, then unwrapped the foil to reveal a disposable blade, and pressed the blade to his wrist. He did not pay attention to the vibrating phone in the background. He cut his skin along the vessels, then the subcutaneous tissue. Blood began to pour from the wound. A pleasantly warm trickle of the most beautiful red that Arthur had ever seen in his life. The liquid did not spurt, so the artery remained intact, but the size of the puddle, which was already beginning to cover his left thigh, satisfied the man who had laid down the blade and with a flimsy, pale smile, leaned against the bathtub. The red flower on the floor of the bathroom blossomed more and more when Arthur slumped aside, bumping into his own blood.
