Page 52 of Two Marlboros

I opened my eyes wide as a drop of sweat slid down my temple. In front of me was only darkness, which took on visible contours as quickly as those words became an echo in the distance. Above my head was the outline of a painting and just ahead a sideboard, which I was quite convinced I had not purchased in the last few days.

My eyes adjusted to the darkness, the numbness of sleep left my body, and meanwhile I caught sight of a television set, with a cabinet full of DVDs to its left, an armchair and, behind this, a light turned on.

There was a room, there in front of me, but it took me a few seconds to realize that the door had frosted glass and was closed. I realized soon afterwards that that was not my house: I was at Alan’s house, on his couch. How had I gotten there?

I gathered the fragments of memories from the night before and tried to sort things out. There had been the party, there had been Harvey - a sigh came out of me - and there had also been an Alan a little too tipsy to drive home. I was not yet a car thief, so I had stopped to sleep over at his house and parked the car - where?

At that moment it was not important.

What was important was that, in front of me, there was a light on. I turned around to get off the couch, but I didn’t think it was that little, and so - ouch! - I found myself face down onthe floor. I had no time to throw my arms forward, but that was understandable, given the catatonic state I was in.

Someone slid open the frosted door, and I sighed again: Alan was leaning against the doorframe, dressed exactly as I had left him, with a few strands of hair splayed haphazardly and a cup in his hand.

“What are you up to?”

Tensing the hardness of the floor, I wanted to say to him; but my response came to me a moment later.

“I wanted to get up, but I fell down.”

He snorted in amusement, then came over to me and set the cup down on the coffee table I had miraculously not hit my head against.

Coffee. There was no smell of sugar.

He held out one hand and helped me up, brought the other to his head and grabbed the cup again.

“Does it hurt a lot?”, I whispered, pointing to his forehead.

“Let’s just say I’ve had better times.”

Just a handful of faint rays came in through the windows from the nearest streetlight, brightening the room just enough to keep my shins from banging on the treacherous edges and to see the silhouette of Alan’s face beckoning me to follow him into the kitchen.

All that light was a shock. My eyes dulled for a few moments and I crinkled them, then Alan turned on a less bright light and turned off the main one.

He sat down at the table, on the longer side, and I took my place at the head of the table next to him.

He took another sip of coffee, but had a very little one.

“It’s bitter as hell. I could almost keep my headache.”

That hushed tone gave that moment the intimacy of two longtime friends, of two guys awake in the middle of the night talking about this and that. We seemed far away from all theproblems the day would bring, suspended in a kind of worry-free limbo.

I looked around for a clock, which I could not find.

“What time is it?”, I asked.

“Almost four o’clock. Did the light wake you up?”

I shook my head. “No, don’t worry. I was dreaming, but at some point...”

You were saying ‘I want to die’.

Clinging to my body, his fists clenched on my shirt, Alan had told me few things, but clear.

“...Yes?”

Nothing came to mind, but I couldn’t expect much with only two active neurons.

“Never mind, it was just a nightmare.”

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