The Secret of My City

A flowering garden. The cherry trees and the pear trees are blooming. White flowers against a pure blue sky. The smell of spring.

I don’t want to move a muscle, that’s how good I feel.

I know she’s there next to me. But I can’t look. She laughs and says something to me and asks what I think.

Silence. I can’t say anything back. I can’t get out a single word. I don’t even understand what she’s asked.

Who am I?

I don’t remember anything. How did I end up here, who am I, what’s happening to me, why can’t I say anything, why can’t I move, why can’t I laugh back at her, why can’t I even look at her?

The intonation in her voice changes, becomes wary. She’s scared. Maybe I’ve done something wrong?

I fall. Fall onto my back, unable to stop myself; watching, as if from the outside, as the snow-white blossom of the blooming garden disappears from my sight and all that’s left before me is the sky, only the sky, only the pure blue sky from one edge to the other.

• • •

I wake up. Darkness. Night. I’m lying on a bench in the park, covered in newspaper. I sit up and rub my eyes. I get up and wander forward. Nowhere in particular, just forward. My city is all around me. Streets and pavements, avenues and bridges. I’m with you, my city, always with you, whatever happens.

I am alone, my city. You’re all I have. There’s no one I can go to, no one else I can ask what’s going on. There’s only you, you’re the only one I can trust. Will you tell me, will you help? Tell me the truth, not hide anything from me? I trust you, my city, I trust you.

I walk forward, smiling at the dark night. Either my memory has disappeared forever in the whirlpool of oblivion or I have.

I walk out of the park. The city streets are deserted. There’s not a single person. I walk a couple of blocks before I realise that this is totally weird.

There are no people in this city.

I’m completely alone. I’m wandering down empty streets, examining deserted pavements in surprise.

Maybe I’ve died? Died a long time ago and this whole thing was just a prelude to the purity and peace of life after death. It’s very peaceful here. The city is clean and not derelict, but there’s not a single living soul in it. Now, without people, the city is like a huge sculpture. The silhouettes of the houses, the lines of streets, the bends and breaks in the walls. Here’s an interesting question: if the city is a sculpture then what does it depict? If the city is a monument then who does it commemorate? As we go along the same old routes every day, crossing the same streets, we stop noticing the world around us. If you change that journey or put up a big bright barrier on that usual route, then people will stop in surprise and examine this new element in the familiar surroundings. They’ll look round the whole street, which they’ve walked down every morning, walked down a thousand times, and only then will they see it for the first time. You only notice new things. But isn’t the huge familiar world also worthy of our attention, just as much as some tiny detail that disturbs the established order of things? The world is surprising and beautiful all by itself. It doesn’t need some barrier, it doesn’t need to be shaken up to be magical. It’s people that need that barrier. Every one of us could at any moment of our lives stop in our tracks, look round, and see the world afresh. And be amazed at how many sensations accompany every moment. Pay attention to the world around you. And the city deserves that attention just as much as any other point in reality.

A beep. A car horn. I jump back.

A car roars past a metre away from me. A million sounds hit my ears. I look around in amazement. I’m in the city centre and there are dozens of people all around. They’re hurrying about their business, passing right by me. Nothing special has happened. I just saw the city how Mutt sees it. The city with no one in it.

• • •

I’m walking along the street. I don’t know where to or where from. I’m completely lost. Sometimes I stop and look at the sky for a long time. Sometimes I get out the photo of Lady F and look at her eyes. She’s smiling. If I look for a long time, it’s like she’s next to me. It’s a black and white photo but I know the exact shade of her skin and the colour of her soft lips, I know how those green eyes smile. I know exactly what she looks like and how she moves when she turns to me and laughs.

All the answers are inside me. I’m like a character who’s forgotten his lines, but can’t help but play his part. If you could just remember, remember everything as it really is, then you could get past this supporting role with its inevitable tragic finale, escape the circle of light and start living how you want, free from the fixed bonds of predetermination.

What if I’m just a character in a play? In a film in which I’m not even the lead. I’ve got every right to think this, don’t I? My every action is already written, decided from the beginning and I can’t change anything. I’m fated not to remember my life before the beginning of the play and to die when the curtain comes down. The circle of light, the circle of my fate is limited by this predetermined role which I can’t change in any way. The character’s spiritual turmoil doesn’t change the lines that have been prepared for him because they’re just a part of the role he’s fated to play. I stop at a shop window. I lean my hands on the black surface, looking at my reflection.

Who knows what’s really going on with mirrors… Maybe thousands of curious viewers are watching us through them, from outside the circle of light. The people for whom we’re playing our parts.

“Hey,” I say, bringing my face up to the reflective surface of the glass. “Can you hear me? I want to know the truth. I need to. Can you tell me? You, my silent viewers. If you exist. I don’t want to play a part. I want to escape the circle of light. I want to be with you guys, living a real life, a full-blooded, fully legitimate life, just like you. Do you hear me?”

The dark window stays silent.

• • •

Sunset thickens over the city. The world is painted in shades of scarlet. My legs are screaming. I’ve walked the roads for miles today and climbed over dozens of roofs. I didn’t go home. I haven’t slept much and eaten practically nothing in the last couple of days. I’m free probably. Right now, at this moment. What do I need this freedom for? How can I use it, if I can’t see what path I should take? I’ve been down every road, searched every corner of myself, but I haven’t found any leads, every time I hit this thick grey fog. I’m lying on a roof, not moving, enjoying the way the sun slowly hides behind the horizon. She said that sunsets suit her. She’s right, I remember. The orange urban sunlight always turns the heap of grey buildings into a magical city of the sun. It’s a magical transformation. I’d like to watch it forever, to dissolve in it and become part of that magic.

I’ve been all over and I’ve come back with nothing. I’ve spent day after day turning over the memories of the past days and weeks in reverse order until I get to that silent grey emptiness, but I can’t see any dark little corners or even the edge of some maze that I’ve forgotten to look in. Sometimes my memory throws up strange, indecipherable pictures from the unknown, distant past that’s gone forever. Phantom visions in which I can’t tell what is really my memory and what I’ve just imagined, what’s just flared up in the beams of the bright kaleidoscope of imagination.

I see the shore of a sea on which the waves have frozen and an instant of the sunset descending from the heavens and rays of orange light glittering on the foam, a raspberry road on the fluctuating surface of the water. She’s there next to me, I feel her hand on my shoulder, and I don’t want to move in case I accidentally dislodge it, and I can still feel a small stone under my right foot but it’s not hurting me, quite the opposite, I like squeezing it under my bare foot and feeling how it rolls around pushing small ticklish indentations into my sensitive skin.

I remember the golden-orange city before us. Down below, beneath the bridge, our long, long shadows – it’s as if huge giants with long arms and legs have gone to look down on the city from up high. The flashes of distant windows, too far away to see. They’re so far away that they look like black dots, and the buildings they’ve been drawn on are no bigger than matchboxes. “Put out your hand,” I say. “Look you’ve got a house in the palm of your hand.” The sunset is behind us; we don’t see, but we can feel the sun slipping down, and one by one the black dots turn into tiny, bright sparks as the orange wave of light engulfs them. I remember the darkness, the endless world of closed eyes, in which there’s nothing out of place, not a single fault, not a single crack, only the living perfection of her soft lips, the warmth of her hands and the quiet beating of her true heart, her trust, her tenderness, her love.

I remember the blossoming garden in which millions of little flowers tremble in the slightest movement of the nonexistent wind. The magical scent of spring and that feeling inside that you are so big that you don’t even fit inside your own body, that you’ve got it all ahead of you, that everything will definitely work out. I squeeze her hand and I realise that I can’t express it, that there’s nothing I can say because there are no words strong enough to get it across, to get even one step closer to the real sensation, and I can only hope and wish and believe that she feels the same.

I remember the bright lake before dawn. The lonely jetty on the dark water, the black silhouettes of the trees making jagged lines in the distance. Silence, magical silence. The bright peace of a summer night and a tiny little hand in mine. I can’t turn round to look, but I know that she’s there alongside me: it intoxicates me, fills my heart with magic. There’s so much in my heart, so much of everything, that I don’t understand how one heart can contain so much excitement, tenderness, peace and wonder at the same time.

She’s in all of these memories. When did they appear? When did they come back? Maybe they’ve always been there… And at the moment a memory comes to me, penetrating, burning like an icy ray. A real, fresh memory, a cold, calculated thought. They weren’t always there. My mind hurries and before I can even get to the chain of cause and effect, I already know everything, remember everything.

I stand up above the city, my arms crossed on my chest. The sun has gone over the horizon, but darkness has not yet thickened above the city, not yet covered it in the black blanket of night. I stand with my arms crossed. Alone. I have to go alone. I won’t be frightened. I know where my answers are waiting for me.

• • •

A rusty metal door weakly lit by a solitary torch. Electric light paints a dull circle on the tarmac. My shadow is washed out, its contours torn apart in the night by the conflicting lights. My torch flashes and my shadow disappears completely. The door to FridayZZ is shut again, but even from here I notice the smell of burning coming from the club.

I’m alone.

I go up to the door. There’s no wire on it, no lock. No one has come here since the three of us were here last time. I put my hand on the doorknob and the soot immediately crawls onto my skin, smearing my fingers black. Oh well. I pull the door and it gives way, opens with a gloomy iron creak to reveal a black crack before me.

I go inside, into the darkness.

No one. Silence and darkness. The numbing smell of burning. My head is spinning, but I keep myself together. I put one leg in front of the other cautiously moving into the black depths.

Bright lines dance in the dark. My eyes gradually start to adapt. I’ve got my torch in my pocket and I clasp it in my damp hand, but I don’t want to turn it on. Soon I’ll be able to make out the corners and surfaces of the walls. Tiny quanta of light penetrate my pupils and draw the ghostly world of the vanished club. My knee hits something soft. I freeze. I’m not scared.

I squat down and lower my hand. It’s the leather cushion of a bench. It’s torn and covered in soot. I remember this cushion. I remember. My head is spinning.

I open my eyes. I see the night sky. There’s something disgusting in my throat. Shouts, people are shouting somewhere nearby. Crying. Lots of people are crying. “Help!” People are desperately yelling all around. “Help me!” Something bad has happened, something really bad. I try to remember, try as hard as I can, and I want to get up, but neither my memory nor my body wants to do what I say.

I whisper something but my cotton-wool lips refuse to talk. I really want to sleep, but something very important is stopping me, something very important and very bad.

Someone is leaning over me. I know him. Of course I know him. It’s Ben. He says something to me, and I even hear the words, I hear my name, my real name, but I can’t figure out what he’s saying. My head is spinning. There are glints of orange on Ben’s clothes. He shouts furiously at me, asking me something, but I don’t understand him. “Sorry,” I whisper to him. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” Not a single sound. Nothing. I can’t say anything, I can’t move, and even my lips won’t obey me.

I come to my senses. Blackness. Bright lines in my eyes. Looks like I lost consciousness. I’m alone in the darkness, in FridayZZ, the empty abandoned club. I need to keep going. I start to remember. Terror forms a lump in my throat. I don’t understand how this could have happened to us. Reality refuses to enter my mind. It’s me who won’t let it in, just as I haven’t let it in before now. But I still want to remember. I have to remember.

One step and then another. I know there is a wall up ahead. Words and phrases come to the surface, meaningless webs of letters written on walls which I can’t link together. Now I know that there’s something to them, that they mean something, but for now I won’t let it through to my conscious mind. Because these words conceal a secret, keep the answers to the questions which have tormented me all this time, and these answers are worse than I want to know. It’s all too terrible. But I have to remember.

I stop by the wall. I lift my hand. I touch the greasy, charred surface. I can’t see them but I can feel scratches in the scorched walls. I can’t read with my hands. I drag my fingers down, it’s a struggle, I press my hand against the burned surface. I feel pain. I know that I feel pain. The whole world is swallowed by pain. I’m swallowed by pain. It’s loud. It’s so loud.

Trees. It’s trees making the noise. Huge trees, reaching up to the sky, that are making this noise like the endless surf of the endless ocean. I don’t want to think. I want to dissolve in that sound, so that I don’t exist anymore. And everything’s gone. It’s like everything’s red. It’s like I see everything through a red fog.

An ancient park. Huge trees reaching up to the sky, so huge that the crowns have intertwined, blocking out the sun. They’ve blocked out the sun forever. It’s so difficult. I’d like to say how difficult but I’ve got no one to tell and no reason to tell them. All I want, all I’ll ever want is to dissolve in that noise forever, so that everything disappears, so that I don’t exist anymore, and there is only this noise, the endless breathing of eternity, and silence and peace and blackness and nothingness. But it’s still hard, the pain doesn’t go, and there’s no escape, there’s no freedom, there’s only this endless black weight, which has already crushed me, and all that’s left is for me to hate myself, my disgusting body, my pitiful nerves and my stupid brain for this unwanted ability to feel and experience, for the fact that I exist even though everything should have been different.

I need to turn round and look. Turn round and look for one last time. But I can’t. Not a single cell in my stupid body will obey. I can’t turn round, I’ll never be able to. I don’t want to accept this. There’s nothing in my eyes. There are no tears. It’s fine. There’s nothing in this world that’s worth even a single moment’s thought. I want nothing to have ever existed. I want there to be nothingness. I want the triumph of peaceful eternity. Darkness, silence, quiet and the night. I want everything to disappear. That’s what I want. I want the whole world to dissolve in this noise. That’s what I want.

I open my eyes. I lost consciousness again.

I kneel by the burned wall. My right hand grips the torch in my pocket. I feel the rustle of cellophane under my left palm. I get out the torch. I point it at the wall. There’s a thudding in my temples. I feel scared and sick. I have to jump, and as soon as I think about it the blood rushes to my head. And there won’t be a pool of water down there. No parachute will open. I feel scared. I feel awful and scared.

I turn on the torch.

They’re names. One after another. They’re scratched on randomly, by hand, one on top of another, by different people at different heights. Names and dates. I start to cry.

“Dima Vasilyev. 12.03.84 – 17.07.09.”

“Katya Niyazova. 04.07.79 – 17.07.09.”

“Viktor Petelin. 05.01.91 – 17.07.09.”

And many, many more names all over the wall. Different people, adults and kids, different names, different ages, and only one thing in common – that one irrevocable, unassailable date. 17.07.09.

I stand up. I don’t raise the torch. I already know what I’ll see there. I’ve almost remembered. I don’t want to any more, but it’s too late. Now I remember. I know what I’ll see when I raise the beam. I don’t want to. But I have to. I have to remember. It’s time.

I raise the torch.

“Tanya Dimitrova. 07.07.1987 – 17.07.09”.

The torch falls. I am shrouded in darkness, and the world disappears in my fingers which have, unbidden, covered my blinded eyes.

• • •

After a while, I don’t know how long, I go to the park. My leg hurts. Looks like its bleeding. I’ve lost a shoe. I was running. It’s light already, very early in the morning. Flowers, there are so many flowers here. I can barely see anything. There are tears in my eyes. All I can do is cry. The huge trees above me weave their crowns together.

I’m going down the avenue. I’ve walked along it so many times in my dreams. And only once in real life. I walk down the avenue. I know that no black dogs will chase after me. They’re nothing. Just a symbol from my crazy dreams. I wanted to stay in those dreams, but I remembered the real world I lived in.

I go down the avenue. The sound of the leaves like the surf. The eternal trees above me. They are beautiful, ancient, powerful trees. But this is not a park. I know it’s not a park. I stop myself from thinking it’s not a park, but it’s not a park. I’m nearly there. Stop. I’m there. Now I have to turn round. Behind me and slightly to the left. The icy ray fixes me. Behind me and slightly to the left. Right then. You know the time has come. It’s time, Max.

I turn round. Polished pink marble. An angel on a black plinth. An angel with her face. And her name below. Tanya Dimitrova. Dates. 07.07.1987 – 17.09.09. And a photo. A photograph of her. A photograph of my Lady F. My Tanya. This isn’t a park. I’ve always known it’s not a park. It’s a cemetery.

I sit on the little bench opposite.

“Hi, Max,” she says.

She’s sitting next to me. She’s the same as ever. Glossy hair. A white toga and a gold belt. Sandals on her bare feet and a bright smile.

“Hi… Tanya,” I reply.

It’s hard for me to talk. I’m crying the whole time.

“Why?” I say. “Why? Why did this happen to us?”

She says nothing, smiling sadly.

“I don’t know, Max. These things happen.”

“Sorry that I haven’t come here for such long time. I’ve been totally lost.”

“It’s what you had to do, sweetheart.”

“Why?”

“Because you were in a bad way.”

“Is that why I forgot everything?”

“That’s why you forgot everything. It was still too soon.”

“Were we together?”

“Yes. We were together. You painted. You were friends with Ben. We had it pretty good.”

“You died,” I say. “Tanya, you died, my darling, sweetheart. There was a fire. And Ben carried me out, and you suffocated. Why, why did he carry me out…?”

“It’s not his fault. It’s not Ben’s fault. I’m telling you, definitely. Absolutely definitely.”

“I can’t, Tanya, I just can’t…”

“You can, my love. Now you can, I know it. Back then you couldn’t. That’s why I came to you. But now you can.”

“What’s next, Tanya?”

“Next…” she smiles. “Next is whatever you want. How you’re going to live from now on is up to you. But you are going to live, I know it. You don’t need my help any more. You love me, don’t you?”

“I love you… Very much… With all my heart.” I’m choking on my tears.

“I love you too, Max. And I really want you to keep on living. You have so much to look forward to! Please never forget that, OK?”

“Yes...”

“Great!”

She puts her hand on my shoulder. Golden sparkles burn my skin. I want them to burn right through it so they stay inside me forever.

“It’s time for us to say goodbye, Max…”

“No!”

“Yes, darling.”

“I can’t do it without you!”

“You can. Now you can do anything. I’ll always be with you, you know that.”

I’m crying, just crying. I no longer exist. All that’s left is tears and endless sorrow for her, my little girl, my one and only, light of my life, gone forever.

“Come on Max, you’re being a baby! Remember what you used to call me? ‘My Lady Fortune’, remember? I’ll always be with you! Do you believe me?

I nod. I can’t say anything.

“Max, I’ll always be with you, I promise! But you need to go. It’s time. You need to go. You need to paint, live, create, love, work. The time has come. It’s time. Go. I love you!”

She leaves. All that’s left is me. And her, there in my heart.

• • •

What am I doing this for? For what?

I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want anything.

I’m walking quickly down the pavement in some estate. My mum lives not far from here. I got here on the bus. My car is sitting outside my mum’s building. Thinking logically, they can’t be looking for me all over the city. But if they are still looking for me, then there’s no point in thinking up plans. They’ll catch me whatever.

“Hi, Max!”

I raise my eyes in shock. A strange woman just said hello to me. She looks at me in horror.

“What happened to your leg?”

I look down. One of my feet is bare. I’ve lost a shoe. Ages ago. My sock ripped and got lost somewhere. My whole leg is covered in blood. So what? I don’t care. She, it seems, does.

I don’t say anything back, but hurry up and walk on quickly.

She anxiously asks another question as I walk away, calls to me, but I’m not listening. Turns out I don’t have a lot of time. I go even quicker, I’m almost running.

That same building. I hurry up the stairs to the top floor. Ten floors, you get out of breath. The stairs to the roof. I open the hatch.

I go out.

The sun hits my eyes, I squint. It’s incredibly sunny here.

It seems as if I was here yesterday. I sat right here, on the very edge, swinging my legs and looking down with a stupid smile on my face. I carefully sit down on the edge. This is exactly where I sat then.

The sun. The bright sun behind my eyelids. It’ll be sunset soon. Just like on that day. It’s all so fresh in my mind. It’s like it was an hour ago. I remember how my mum shouted. It’s like I can still hear her shouting. And the echo. The imperfect echo from the jagged surfaces of the city. Reverberation.

So what am I doing here?

I know, don’t I? I’ve always known. Then, and now. The answer’s right there. Somewhere on the other side of my scarlet eyelids, at the point where the rays of the sun meet beneath my skin. Right then. Right!

I feel a strange tremble all over my body. And the cold. It’s so cold. The wind whistles. My mother’s shouting sounds really weird. Yeah, reverberation. It’s as if another shout is copying it. I know the answer. I need to force myself. Just go back to that day.

You know, Max. You know. You knew then, and, yes, you know now. You wanted to jump. You were in a bad way. A very bad way. So bad, that it seemed that nothing could ever get better.

Almost as bad as right now.

So that’s it. This is the end of my path. There’ll be no more answers. It was all in vain. The real answer is there in the terrifying downwards plunge. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what it’s all been leading to. The long path to the rooftop where it will all end. This is what my ‘path’ was. I don’t know. I really don’t know. My mum is shouting. A strange echo. I can hear it in my ears. Right now. Like it was a minute ago.

“Lady F… Lady F,” I whisper. “Lady F, I really, really need you. I’m begging you. I miss you so much. I’m completely lost and I don’t know where to find the truth. Help me. Please.”

Silence.

She’d disappeared. She no longer exists. I can’t open my eyes. I want to, but I can’t. It’s all so strange. My head is spinning. It’s like I’m on a swing. Up and down. Up and down. Why is everything so strange? Why has the world gone mad?

She’s not going to come. She’s not going to come, Max. You know that. There’s no point in lying to yourself. She’s not going to come anymore. She’s just a ghost… or… a hallucination. You thought her up. You imagined her. So that she would save you. A simple biological mechanism. Your self-preservation instinct sensed a threat to the organism, flicked the right switch in your brain and a dose of neuromodulators splashed into your bloodstream and… Ta-da! I’d like to introduce you to the wonderful Lady F!

That’s the whole secret. A hallucination. You invented her so that she would save you. Because you were afraid to die, even with all the pain you felt. Because you’re just a coward, Max. Look the truth in the eye, coward. Because if she’s just a hallucination…

What have I got left?

I haven’t got a job. I never really had one, if you think about it. What kind of job is that, being a night watchman? I don’t have a girlfriend anymore. She died. And I couldn’t save her. Oxana? I don’t love you, sorry. I never loved you. And my mum wants to put me in the loony bin. And with good reason.

Lady F. I used to have Lady F. That’s why I didn’t jump that day. She is just the ghost of my Tanya, my wonderful, radiant, dead Tanya, a mental projection, a mirage, that I invented to calm myself down.

Now there’s nothing holding me back. I’m free. I’m free to jump. It’s lucky really. Do you remember her? Do you remember, Max? Maybe you need to take just one more step and you’ll disappear from this dirty world and soar above the heavy earth and be united with her in the sun-filled sky above the exhausted city.

There you go! There’s my sun! You waited for me, my city! It’s time, and I’m taking that step. I’m going to be a part of you, I’ll turn to shards of sunlight on your pavements, to soft mist in the park, to tender morning rain. Here we go!

I’m glad that I’m going to evaporate. I’ll disappear.

This is the peace I’ve wanted for so long.

My mum is shouting. And there’s that the strange echo. It’s me shouting with her. Why am I shouting?

Because I’m falling. I’ve been falling the whole time. It’s simple, Max. Just don’t look down. But that can’t be. All this time. I remember what she said. I remember very clearly. Not for something, but because of something. That’s what she said.

“Basically, Max, I don’t like asking ‘what for’. It’s a stupid, pointless question. All the most wonderful things are not done for something, but because of something.”

“Really? Say there’s an engineer building a dam. What does he build it for? So we can have electricity.”

Lady F smiles.

“I’m not going to argue, Max. You’ll think differently later. Which is kind of linked to ‘what for’, by the way.”

“By the way,” I repeated back at her mechanically.

After that my hand slipped and she caught me by the arm and held me up. I looked down. It was all very real. The warm concrete. Sunset. My mum shouting below. It was all very real. Like right now. Because you know. You know, Max. Because that was only a few seconds ago. Because there’s no Lady F and there never was one. You invented her. And that means she didn’t catch you.

Which means you fell, Max.

That’s your secret. It’s not an echo. It’s you shouting. Open your eyes. Open them.

No. I can’t.

• • •

“Maxim, no… No!”

A woman threw herself onto the tarmac, broken down in hysterics. There were ugly smears of grey dust on her legs, sticking to her clothes in crumpled blotches.

“Let’s go,” Sergei muttered. “Let’s go, please. Come on, let’s get up. Move over here. Look away please, nothing to see here. Kirill!” Sergei suddenly roared fiercely. “Get me that effing tranq!”

The woman didn’t even shudder, but kept writhing around, trying to crawl closer to the edge of the curb, on which there lay a bare leg, twisted the wrong way, a serrated white shard jutting out of the skin.

“Christ’s sake, Kirill. Get me that tranq, now! Or you’re getting two shifts this weekend, I guarantee it….”

“Maxim!” The woman suddenly shrieked horribly. “Maxim! No, no, my baby…”

People started looking out of their windows. A baby girl pulling a bike on a rope stood there with a strange expression on her face, unable to look away. A young woman looked out of the doorway and covered her mouth in shock. A passing car slowed down.

“Let’s move to one side.” Sergei tried to her drag her away one more time. “Please, madam… Kirill! She’s so strong… Yeah, you keep going,” he waved at a passing car. “Someone take the kid away, I’m begging you. Why’s it always on my shift, eh… Hey, Kirill, have you called the ambulance?”

“Yep,” Kirill said as he came over.

“At last,” Sergei wiped the sweat from his brow. “Not a pretty sight. What did he go and do this for? Just a young lad.”

A white minibus with red crosses on the doors drove slowly into the courtyard. Kirill waved his arms quickly, as if the driver wouldn’t notice the crazy commotion and the crowd that had gathered round.

“It makes no sense, of course,” Kirill said.

“Of course,” Sergei said. “But did anything in his life make sense?”

Did anything actually?

My social life? My normal day to day functioning? Not very convincing.

What was my life?

The ordinary, good, fantastic life of a fantastic guy. The sort of life people can only dream of. What else do I need?

I had a girlfriend who I loved. I had friends. A job. Basically, everything was good. Peaceful. And then, in one moment, everything disappeared. And I disappeared too. So, was I ever even there? Did I exist to start with? Maybe not.

You were just one more good guy, like millions of others. A tiny part of a faceless society, a little cell in the enormous organism of the city, handily linked with other cells just like you by the neurons of societal bonds. When these bonds break, the cell dies. It’s normal. It’s natural. That’s no fault of mine. It’s no one’s fault. It’s biology. It’s inevitable.

Of course it’s going to be painful for those that are left behind. But what are you going to do about it? The laws of nature are the same for everyone. With the death of the next cell a few more bonds will be broken. But then it will heal. And everything will be forgotten. If the pain is too strong, then another cell will die. So what? By getting rid of defective cells the organism of the city continues to survive, come what may. That’s how it works.

Leafing through page after page of the diary of my memory, I can say that I don’t see anything exceptional, anything special, anything precious in myself.

Nothing that makes life worth living.

Which means that this is the end, my friends.

Is it time for us to say goodbye? It is. I’m grateful that you’ve listened to me for all this time. Thanks for your attention. Sorry if I’ve let you down.

Now I remember everything. Everything without exception.

I see the dull pages of my life turning before my eyes, one after the other.

My flat. Now I know when I started renting it and for how much. The boring routine of a grey life.

My job. Hi there, Snowy!

My friends. They’ll probably take it badly. Sorry. It’s not my fault. Really.

And there’s Ben with them… How could I have forgotten about that? Ben and I… We really were friends. We were the best artists in the city!

On the next page there’s a painting. That silhouette on the White Tower was painted by me. I painted my girlfriend, from a photo. I painted my Tanya. It was one of the best paintings in the whole city. Even Ben was impressed. I remember it clearly now.

Another page and another painting. And another. And another. Now I understand: those paintings which I thought where vaguely familiar, which I kept coming across on walls across the city, they were painted by me. There’s dozens of them, if not hundreds. Some big, some small. Some good, some not so good. In the centre and on the outskirts. They’re a part of my life, a part of me.

I’m an artist. I can make things. I can make art out of nothingness. I can create.

There’s so much more I could do! Somehow I’d like to tell the story of everything I’ve been through! About what I know, what I remember, what I’ve seen with my own eyes and felt in my own heart.

What a shame it’s already too late.

Or is it?

I’m an artist. An actual artist. And a pretty good one. I believe it. I really believe it. I can imagine anything.

Bright light. Nothing but light. Only the white sun from one side to the other.

I open my eyes.

I’m lying on a roof. I jump up, look around. What happened, god damn it? I just saw… I just saw…

“Hi!” Behind me.

I shudder and turn round sharply. My head starts spinning. Am I asleep? Or something worse than that. Looks like I’ve finally gone mad after all. A very familiar guy is looking at me with an ironic smile and a curious expression. I recognise him before he reaches me. I’ve seen him very often, almost every day. I’ve seen him in the mirror. It’s me. Literally me. Another hallucination? The fever dream of a dying mind? Or someone… pretending to be me.

“What’s happening?!” I ask, edging backwards.

“Careful!” he remarks with a smile.

“What’s happening? Have I died?”

“I don’t know,” he… I say with a shrug, “you tell me!”

I look round. We’re on that roof. I pinch myself. Don’t think I’m sleeping. I try to touch the wall around the stairwell… and my hand goes right through.

I stare, not believing my own eyes. My brain refuses to accept that the laws of physics have been broken. I try again. There’s no resistance. It’s like a mirage. Only now do I notice that everything feels easy. There’s no pain in me, no fear. Only silence.

“Awesome, right?” he asks me.

I look at him dumbstruck.

“Does this mean this is this real? Is this what death looks like? Who are you?”

“Can’t you see?” he smiles. “I’m not going to give you an answer. They’re watching us. You and I could ruin everything if we start throwing that sort of line around.”

“Damn it, but… Then how come …” I snap back at him. “If it’s all… Then what else is there to say?! It’s over. That’s it! The final curtain. There’s no way out…”

“Really? Is that you telling me that? I seem to remember you finding it a bit easier to break character before!”

I look at him in silence.

“But isn’t this…” I ask. “Isn’t a beam of light supposed to appear now and take me up, or I dissolve in a whirl of flashing sparks? Or something like that?”

“Sorry, Max,” he says seriously. “No. Any minute demons will appear… and the earth will open up beneath your feet and the flames of hell will swallow you...!”

Pause.

“What?” I ask. “What..? You’re… you’re joking, right?”

“Mmhm,” he laughs. “I’m joking. You see, you know me pretty well!”

“Know you? I know you? I just mean… it’s all so weird!”

“What else did you expect after all that?”

“So no one’s going to appear or anything like that?”

“Well I’ve appeared!” he laughs.

“And who are you?!”

“I’ll say it again: can’t you see?”

I sit on the edge of the roof. At the last moment I suddenly get scared: maybe I’ll fall through? If I’m a ghost. No, doubt that….

“So what happens now?” I ask.

“What would you like?”

“Honestly?”

“Yeah, honestly, go on lay it all out! Just go through it in order. No need to hide anything!”

“Well, OK then, let’s go through it. Everything single thing?”

“Uh-huh. Everything you want.”

“I want… I want Tanya to be with me again. I want to paint. And I want it to be good. I want a nice creative job. To always have enough money. I want everyone to like me. And to never have to worry about anything. That’s it, probably. The rest doesn’t matter.”

“You’re finished?”

“Yep, I think so.”

“Fantastic,” he nods. “Now watch this!”

He clicks his fingers, staring right at me. My heart stops. Several seconds pass in silence.

He laughs.

“Sorry… I couldn’t resist again!”

The whining starts again inside me. The blissful quiet is gone.

“That’s not funny!” I shout. “I’m in bad way! Can’t you see that?!”

He nods. He looks at his hands.

“Sorry,” he says. “I mean it, sorry. These wishes of yours… I guess you realise that I can’t bring Tanya back. You know that. But maybe I can help you with the others. Painting, for instance. You do paint!”

“Yeah… On walls…”

“And what’s wrong with walls? Stone’s just as good as canvas. If you want to paint on canvas – go ahead. If you want to paint better – paint. What’s holding back?”

“I don’t think it’ll be any better. I am what I am.”

He chuckles.

“Hey, how many amazingly smart, talented people do you think have been fooled by that phrase! ‘I am what I am…’ It’s about the journey, not the destination! You just need to keep going forward. Just keep going. What if it hasn’t worked out after a year? So what? That means it will after three. That not enough? Ten then. And what’s ten years… What’s ten years…”

“Oh you are a smart one aren’t you,” I say with irritation.

“Me?!” He holds out his hands. “Take a closer look! Max… You... Max, you’re a nice, smart, talented guy. You’re a great painter. You can create. So you’ve got a goal. You can give it a go. No one fully understands the journey that the artist takes to become an artist. There’s no recipe. Everyone becomes an artist in their own way. There’s no method. There’s no algorithm. It’s magic. It’s a journey, and each one is different. No one knows where it leads. No one…”

I look into the distance. The contours of the buildings form a jagged line. Funny, if someone’s looking at my roof from over there, they won’t even see me. I’ll merge with that line, turn into an invisible point on the enormous path across the horizon.

“So,” I ask, “what happens now?”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“You tell me.”

“Me? What... what’s happened to me?”

“Take a look for yourself.”

He nods toward the edge of the roof. I go over and carefully look down. He comes over next to me. It’s quiet. Very quiet.

“Answer just one question for me please…” I say.

“Well?”

“Is she real?”

He looks at me, smiling.

“Of course,” he replies confidently. “Of course…”

For a long time we keep looking into the distance, watching the sunset that’s about to happen, saying nothing. Then he breaks the silence.

“So? What now?” he asks cautiously. “Do you know now?”

“Yes,” I say. “I know.”

THE BEGINNING