You…
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Half an hour before…
The door was locked as when I left, and when I came in, it was as if I was never away. Seven hours you’ve been sitting in the same place, probably left to go to the toilet once or twice, and the cup of coffee and the empty plate told me you had paid the kitchen one or two visits. The smell though, it told me it wasn’t to wash the dishes or anything of the sort. Paper sheets were lying all around, there were only a pair of scissors and a pen visible on the desk, all the rest was covered with paper.
- We have to talk – I said.
You looked at me as if I was interrupting the most important event in your life.
- I’m busy – you said. I opened the window to let the dirty New York air in, and it seemed to me as if it was the air on a midspring day in a cherry garden compared with the stank inside. It was summer and New York isn’t exactly the best place to spend it. If I hadn’t been tied up to my job I’d probably have taken you to the country for a couple of weeks, let you feel the nature, take you away of that wrecked piece of machinery you spent your days behind. I was starting to hate the thing, as if it had stolen you from me. But I should have known this was about to happen. We did, after all, meet online only two years ago, and it hadn’t gotten better since…
- Yes, since last Christmas – I said. – The thing is, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of it all, you need help. Sometimes I get the feeling you love that thing more than me!
You know I’m not a romantic. Never been, never will be. But a man, neglected because of a machine? I always knew that time would come, but I was hoping I’d never live to see it. And look at me now, I can’t even say the word. C-O-M-P-U-T-E-R. You don’t even throw a second look at me when I come home in the evening! And yes, I understand you are working, you need to make the research to write your next damned book… If they were worth it I’d probably be able to understand why you throw your life away for them, but they aren’t! No one wants to read the things, not even me, not even you. So why bother? I have been asking myself this for quite some time and I still don’t know. And I didn’t know back then, so I asked you.
- Because… What else would I do with myself?
Then you looked down to the thing and you went on typing whatever you were typing when I came in. I looked at you for some time, then I got to the bedroom, took my stuff and went for the door. Then I hesitated. The wrecked thing was mine. I turned back, came closer to you and told you so. You said it was yours now, because it had become your life or something like that. I didn’t listen, I was too angry to listen to that kind of bullshit. You took two years of my life, and the only thing I could do to make you suffer was to take that machine with me wherever I was going, and throw it in a container around the building as a used gun. Because I knew taking it would probably kill you, as it contained your whole work, your whole life.
So I bend over you and took the thing out of your hands. The stupidest thing I’ve ever done. You looked at me, then you looked at your free hands, then you looked at the computer. The next thing I knew, a piece of metal was getting deeper and deeper in my stomach. There was a moment of pain, then it became so bad I stopped feeling it. It was like a dream, I let go of the computer, saw you taking it and then I fell backwards. I hit my back on the chair next to the coffee table, then I lay there and didn’t move except for the trembling of my hands holding the scissors. I looked down at them, saw the blood and wanted to throw up, so I decided looking at you would give me less problems. It didn’t. It was worse. You were sitting there, you still are, and you were typing something. I tried to say something, but when I felt my mouth full with blood I decided it wasn’t that smart, and I was done doing stupid things in this life, so I shut it again. I just lay there looking at you until I felt so tired I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I closed them, partly because I thought I wouldn’t want to creep anyone out (isn’t this the worse part of every criminal movie? the dead body with the open eyes, looking at it’s killer?)
Then I saw the tunnel with the light at the end and for some reason I thought of flamethrowers. Then it was dark for a very long time, and then I saw the tunnel again, but somehow the other way round. When I woke up, I saw the nice face of a blond nurse looking down at me and I thought I wasn’t in heaven, cause otherwise she wouldn’t be wearing so much cloths.
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You won’t be able to read this, although I’m blogging it. The thing is, you are dead now. Too bad, so sad, blabla. I don’t give a rats ass actually. I did love you in a way, but you did try to kill me, and this tends to work as a fire extinguisher even for the strongest love, and mine was more like a candle than a fire. The funny thing is, you died because before I almost died I unplugged your damn laptop and as the battery was long gone, you lost all your work.
Funny thing is, if you hadn’t taken those scissors out of my body to put them in your own, I’d been dead now. But should I say thank you? Or should I hate you?
I’ll put up with “rest in peace” and do make sure you never come back, please…
