The window is kind of blurry.
So is my vision.
It’s been raining for days now.
If you listen to the rain closely enough, it feels as if it’s coming from the inside of you, whispering about the life that is about to happen.
I looked away from the window and at my arm.
The pale, long, lifeless arm. Poked with needles.
Regina made a remark about the rain. She doesn’t like it. “No one will visit now,” she says. I looked away as it’s not my concern. I felt bad afterwards.
My nostrils are fully packed. It hurts. The blood is soaking the gauze quietly.
I can’t sleep. But I have found my fixation. Thinking.
What will become of me?
I stare at the wall. It was dark, but the paleness of the room never disappeared. All those whites of walls, sheets, beds, smocks.
Hospitals are a great thinking place. Like fishing.
You are steady, trying to pull something out of the dark water.
You eventually will. A memory, a conclusion, a sudden fragment of inspiration, or a sense of tragedy.
***
That one time I went fishing with my dad. We caught nothing on the day. But dad allowed me to smoke cigarettes for some reason. I was 16. And we had a beer. The first time, I thought my dad was cool.
The lake was a deep circle of brown, murky water. A fat bass swam in it. “How can they see?” The grass surrounding the pit was just the opposite. Neatly cut, clean grass. No bald patches. Like no one ever stepped on it. Near the surrounding fence, something skipped. A raven. He glittered blue. He looked at me, like only an old man can look.
“Groww” “Groww”
His feathers spiked.
I was chewing an apple while my cigarette burned in the other hand. I threw the half-bitten apple with white, juicy flesh. The Raven got into it. He picked it hard, as he tried to pull a little juicy heart out. The bass swam close to the surface, wiggling their slippery bodies, glancing at the voracious raven. Raven looked back at them.
I wish I had a pen and paper.
I could write a poem about the raven’s glistening feathers and the bass’s murky eye. I had nothing on me but a crushed pack of Camel. Soft. Only two left to burn. Father found this pack by the fence, just as we arrived. Some fishermen lost it.
My father left the beer stall and was walking towards me with a bunch of dead fish hanging from his hand. “We tell we caught these.”
I laughed.
***
The hospital bed is very uncomfortable. And it’s sinking my back into its middle. I haven’t slept much last night. Regina was spreading the honey on a slice of bread.
I wasn’t hungry at all. I looked towards the window; the light broke the shutters. For the first time after four days, I wanna go out. To ride my bicycle in Oberwald forest, or maybe just walk. There is a lake in the forest there. Blue and clear, not like the one from fishing. But I like that one. Because it can’t be brought back. Or the Raven. He’s disappearing together with the muddy pit of water. I don’t really remember how my dad was dressed that day. I know his hair was much thicker with black strands of hair. Now, gray and thin, barely standing.
Everything is becoming thinner.
The blood, the water, the words between the lake, the stall, the daughters and fathers.
“I need to write.”
Good thing, I packed a pencil, a book, and another pencil in my suitcase. It’s right next to me. It keeps me safe.