SONI
my name is sonia. i’m 26 years old, stomach cancer and another 6 months to live. my pride’s name is patrocle. i don’t have any special powers, i checked.
you thought a thousand times at the first thing that you will do if you know that you will die soon, right? but you are calm, this won’t happen to you. you have a great destiny. you are waiting for a miracle, and you know that it will come because all american movies end so.
the disease has opened my eyes. doesn’t matter when you die, after all. so i have tried all. you will see. sex, drugs, treatments…
#1 the fall of constantinople
it wasn’t the news that confused me. i didn’t understand exactly what is going to happen.
the next day, i mean every morning starting then, everything turned inside out. i think you know what i’m talking about. you know how strange are the first minutes after a nightmare. you know how painful is to hurt the back or just a hand, to have traces of the pillow on your face. more than that, to want desperately to smoke a cigarette and you don’t have any, and neighborhood stores will not open until after an hour or something. add all this and you are still far away.
i washed in the sink from the kitchen in that morning.
i have looked better with a coup of coffee in my hand, such as in a bad ad with smiling faces and fulfilled lives. only that i never liked the coffee. the only think at it was the smell. and i wanted to smell the coffee then.
i hadn’t coffee. but i viewed the whole scene and after i left an imaginary cup of coffee on the table, i lit a cigarette.
i was almost laughing. stomach cancer? fifty-fifty chances? me? how the fuck? these are not concerns for a kid of 26 years, i was saying to myself.
exactly in that moment an asshole who was hit by a car three hours ago, came out well from a complicated operation, two of my neighbors awoke grumbly to go to work, a taliban’s bomb wasn’t detonated. in my apartment didn’t take place any miracle. not then. not in the following moments.
i watched in a mirror. i was looking like hell.
although my life is not about that, i couldn’t abstain: the school, the job, the mobile phone, the best reply, my favorite clothing store, lamps or spotlights, the actor, the furniture, the place where i was meeting with dana, the music and so on, all of these seemed a kind of 3d tattoo, with me, at natural scale. me and the ink were perfect superposed.
i repeated my name several times until it lost the meaning and became a bunch of sounds.
i opened my phone. i received over 20 messages from my mother. dana probably didn’t find out.
i was thinking about cancer. i knew an uncle who died recently of cancer. i didn’t meet him. he was a kind of distant relative.
* * *
“yes?”
i was hearing dana’s breath in phone.
“soni, i found out from your mother… i don’t know how to say, what to say.
“don’t say anything”
“are you ok? i mean how the fuck to be ok… do you want to come at you?”
“if you can…”
“if i can?! i’ll finish quickly some nonsense… i leave of absence… and in within an hour i’ll be at you.”
“dana, i hope you didn’t say to anybody.”
“no, no, chill”
#2 the pity box
the bathroom was almost empty and the only things you could hear was the sound of water flowing through pipes in the walls and blood throb around my temples.
the sandstone was cold and i felt it all over my body. i was naked. the skin was scorching terrible and didn’t support any material on me, excepting that towel, which i was keeping more closely and i was biting when that fucking warm from my stomach was waving. and this was only the beginning of cytostatics.
i heard the bell. i threw the agenda in a drawer and i gone to open the door.
“i came right now” i yelled, as the early visitor could hear and wait.
i opened the door suddenly, and then i saw dana, very sleepy, lean against the stairs, waiting for me smoking a cigarette.
“i found a cool movie on the net”, said dana almost happy.
“a movie?”“yes. with jack nicholson and morgan freeman.”
“yeah, and?”
“i thought you want to see a movie.”
“no, dana. i don’t want to see a movie. we’d better go.”
“where?”
“to funeral services shop. you’ll see.”
we found a taxi right at the crossroads of dna ghica. i sat down in front.
i didn’t do this before, we usually sat both in the back. the taxi driver was forty- something, bald and with some white threads through his short beard. he was frowning and serious.
“where are you going?”, asked the taxi driver.
“to the carol with mosilor intersection, please.”
“what happened to you?”, asked the taxi driver.
“i have cancer.”
“lady, are you having fun of me?”
“no. i have the sheets from the hospital in my bag, if you want to show you.”
“no, lady. i believe you. but how?”
“how? pure and simple. from nothing.”
“oh my god”, exclaimed the taxi driver. “but you are making any treatment?”
“yes… from that i don’t have any hair.”
“and with these treatments, nothing?”
“nothing. i went too late. stop right here, please. how much it costs?”
“9 lei.. but don’t pay, please.”
“but it’s your work.”
“no lady, leave. i feel like i did a good deed.”
“oh, thank you so much.” i leant and i kiss him on his cheek.
i welcomed with dana and we both get off.
i pushed the massive door and we entered. above it was a bell, so that our presence was immediately observed. i gotta admit that there was a scary atmosphere. they had a lot of coffins with all kind of pillows, grips, caps and candles burning some of them. back, on the wall, were funeral crowns which looked horrible. probably these were looking good compared to other crowns, but for me was just awful.
“let’s get of here. it’s awful”, dana said.
“ok. let’s go to drink a beer.”
“ok… let’s go”
#3 how i spent the end of the world
sometimes i think that i’m not saying anything new, i feel that we are repeating the same bullshit fror thousand years. the same thing, the blue pill or the red pill.
choose between pepsi and coke,
between strong or light cigarettes,
choose to have a wallet or to keep you money in your pocket.
cash or card.
choose between nokia and sony ericson, vodafone and orange.
choose your friends.
choose between andreea marin and mihaela radulescu, or shoot them both.
stalin or hitler.
lighter or matches.
in the first day of school we should learn that we will die, and after that to learn the alphabet.
i was feeling worse so i was with dana to do my analysis.
i waited several hours to do them.
after 1 month i found out that i don’t have cancer. i was confused.
the door’s bell started to ring.
“who’s there?”“is me, dana.”
“oh, come in.”
“soni, i found this in your mail box.”
“what’s that?”
“i don’t know”
i tored the envelope and i pulled out a sheet.
“dear soni,
i tried to find you but you didn’t answered the phone. i thought you changed your number but your mother denied, so i wrote this letter in the hope that you will read it.
i’ve waited you to my office to talk with you but you didn’t come.
i told your mother to announce you that you should stop therapy because it is dangerous.
i hope you come to the office and i hope that i can stop the effect of hypnosis.
best wishes,
Ph.D. psychologist jack golden“
Copyright Andrei Ruse, traducere Stefan Stan, deznodamant Stefan Stan
„Printre altele, m-am apucat de fumat“ e o poveste care incepe pe o insula din Maine si isi atinge climaxul in New York, loc al unor descoperiri teribile despre trecut, dar si al revelatiilor despre straturi nebanuite ale sinelui. Miranda, fiica unui clasicist pasionat pana la obsesie de perfectiunea traducerii „Metamorfozelor“ lui Ovidiu, isi pierde mama la o varsta frageda. Cum tatal e cufundat in ganduri straine de fetita si in propriile studii, Miranda creste singuratica, creandu-si propria lume din fantasme crescute in salbaticia insulei. Totul se schimba, insa, cand tatal se decide s-o trimita la New-York, la universitate, si Miranda ajunge in mijlocul vechilor prieteni ai propriului parinte. De la ei afla adevaruri socante despre trecutul tatalui, in care se ascunde un iubit, dar si despre felul dual in care ea insasi poate iubi. „Furtuna“ lui Shakespeare si „Metamorfozele“ lui Ovidiu sunt referinte implicite care ghideaza permanent intriga acestei povesti despre descoperiri, transformare si sexualitate.
