Wires

»Miha..« »..pills..« »..lying..«
Miha. Pills. Lying. Miha pills lying. Miha pillslying. Mihapills lying. Mihapillslying mihapillslying mihapillslying mihapillslyingmihapillslyingmihapillslyingmihapillsmihamihamiha Miha
The words are repeating inside my head like an echo of sort. The phone in my hand is madly shaking. Somebody wants to talk to me. Mihapillslying. I don't feel the sun burning anymore. Mihapillslying. Nino is moving towards me. He is saying something in an upset manner. Probably to me. Everything that comes from my mouth is Mihapillslying. Nino does not understand. He grabs my shoulders and harshly shakes me. Mihapillslying. He is talking to me worriedly. Mihapillslying.
Suddenly I snap and feel the warmth of sunlight once again. I turn around and start walking. My knees can hardly hold me and I feel an emptiness inside, not the pleasant one but the forbidding, terrifying one. Void. I can not access and remove it, as it does not exist. The simple absence of anything. The inside of my head is banging and burning. I hear quick steps behind me. Nino. I start answering him, something about the train station and Novo mesto and the hospital. Where is the train station? Can you find your way to the hospital? Do you have any money? Where are you going to stay for the night? What's going on? Who is in the hospital?
Too many questions. Mihapillslying. The knees can not hold me any longer. I feel the white pain in my head, but all I see is gray. Mihapillslying. Nino seats me down, right there, in the middle of everything. I don't move. Mihapillslying. I see people all around me. I don't react. Nino comes back, supports my chin and gives me water, like to a child. I hear steps moving away.
The water fills the emptiness. I see colors instead of gray again. The banging in my head is slowly stopping. I still don't recognize any words. Nino holds my hand and takes me towards the parking lot. Gravel is screaking underneath my feet. »I'll drive you,« I make out. Tears fill up my eyes. Like a belated reaction. Gratitude, shock and memories. I never cry.
We arrive to the green truck. I open the door, sit down and put the seat belt on. As if in a dream. Nino sits down beside me. »You've forgotten Dinna,« I don't understand. He gets up without a word. After a while he returns with a black case in his hand. The guitar. Dinna. Exactly. On his shoulder there is an orange backpack. Mine. In the other hand he is holding a plastic plate filled with strawberries. »Ana says, you have to eat the strawberries. Loti and Peter are sorry you are leaving already, they gave you some cash. For a hotel. Do you know where you're going to stay? What about Tina? Has she called you?
Too many questions once again. Because I don't know the answer, I start eating the strawberries. Mihapilllslying.
»What has happened?« The truck brattles and shakes. Gravel screaks, Nino is focusing on driving. When we make it to the road he turns to me again: »Karin, what has happened?« I am looking straight before me, speaking quietly and mechanically, I don't recognize my own voice. »Miha took pills. Now he's lying in a hospital and they don't know whether they'll be able to save him. He tried to kill himself. Just kill himself. And then he'd be gone. He has tried before.. to talk to me.. just killed himself..« I lose the train of thought. My voice starts trembling, but I get myself together and keep talking: »He tried to speak to me. But I wasn't there. I wasn't there..« I lose the voice in the silence. I start shaking uncontrollably. Suddenly, I start screaming: »Every time, every bloody moment I needed him, he was there; now he needed me. Where was I? Where the hell was I? Where, where..« I lose my voice again, this time in sobs. I can not talk any longer. I swallow the tears down my throat and start sobbing silently. I start shivering. The truck is softly humming.
»How could've he just gone and taken the pills? What about all of us, staying behind him? What about us? Didn't he know, we'd cry?« I'm talking madly and I realize it. For a moment I see my own reflection. I am pale and there are still tear tracks on my cheeks.
For a while we are driving in a complete silence. Slowly I calm down and start thinking clearly. Only after I have told Nino, what had happened, it hit me as reality. Before, it was mihapillslying. Terrifying, but bearable. Now Miha nearly killed himself and it was all my fault.
Me and my bloody selfishness. He was ALWAYS there for me. ALWAYS. Now he needed me, where was I?
»Do you know the right song?«
What sort of nonsense is this now? A song? Now, when Miha is halfway between here and nowhere?
»No matter how hopeless it seems, the right song always helps. Always, Karin,« Miha. I could hear him so clearly, as if it was him sitting beside me, not Nino. And then I remember. Two months ago, at the cemetery. He was sitting beside me on a wall, at least ten meters high.
»Karin, if I'm ever nor dead nor alive, this is what I want you to sing me.« And then he started singing. I was not thinking about what he said, neither was I interested why. He always said things like this, there was no reason to worry. The song was beautiful, even if a bit scary, and his voice was gorgeously echoing over the view in front of me. No reason to worry, not even the tiniest bit of reason for it. Miha would never me halfway dead or alive. He was the life itself, he had enough life for himself and for me.
But I know, I would have found a reason to fear, had I only looked in his eyes.
Nino stopped in front of the hospital. Squeaking of brakes and then silence.
I nod to him, grab the black case and the backpack and run towards the big, square building. I have no idea where, I just keep on running, up the stairs, up and farther up, then I turn, left, down, up, right, left up downleftupupdownrightupupupup
I suddenly see a familiar head, but yet so strange. Pale and dead. Only now I feel the weight of the case. Quietly, as if in a graveyard I step into the room. It's white and empty. On a chair in the corner there is Tina. She blankly looks at me. In her eyes I see the blunt, cruel pain, the one that's eating me as well.
I grip on Dinna tightly and sit on a chair. I stare at the stranger's face, lying in front of me. There are so many things I would like to say. So many pointless, unimportant things we would laugh about so little ago. So many unimportant little facts, he would smile about. I would kill to see that smile, at least a shadow of it.
But now is not the time for this. I remember the wall and the cemetery and the most beautiful voice in the world.
I open the case and pull Dinna out. I slide my hand gently across the strings. Tina flinches.
Then I start playing.
You've got wires, going in. You've got wires, coming out of your skin.
My voice is trembling, I don't know whether I can handle it. My fingers are hitting the strings without any control.
You've got tears, making tracks. I've got tears, that are scared of the facts.
Tina stands up, I can hear her steps.
Running, down corridors through, automatic doors, got to get to you, got to see this through.
up the stairs, up and farther up, then I turn, left, down, up, right, left up downleftupupdownrightupupupup
I've seen hope is here, in a plastic box. I've seen Christmas lights, reflect in your eyes
Tina sits next to me. Through the door I can see a purple head. Patricija. She only came now. She does not dare entering, she can not understand the blunt pain, felt by mirror twin only, never the corpse bride.
You've got wires, going in, you've got wires, coming out of your skin.
The eyelids of stranger's face shake a bit. Not a lot, just enough to make it familiar again. They moved.
Tina has seen it too. She smiles.
I see it in your eyes, I see it in your eyes, you'll be alright.
Alright.