“One… Two… Three…”
She was lying on the bed, her hands were turned by palms upwards, and her eyes were open wide. She was breathing slowly and looking at the ceiling.
“Four… Five… Six…”
The phone rang. She turned her head towards it, but didn’t pick it up.
“Seven… Eight… Nine…”
She slowly lifted her arm and looked at her hand. The fingers were long, thin and almost transparent.
“Ten… Eleven… Twelve…”
Something clicked in her head and she fainted. All has plunged into darkness...
It was already dark when she woke up. She opened her eyes and looked around. Walls were painted with different sparkling spots from cars that were passing by. Every object in the room cast complex shadows. The air was night, fresh and light.
She made a deep breath. She felt her lungs filling with oxygen; she felt how it was spreading all over her body. An exhalation. She was breathing slowly as if something heavy was lying on her chest.
She lay like this for twenty minutes. She was breathing slowly and was looking at the streetlight on the opposite side on the avenue.
When she felt that her breathing was normal and easy, she sat on the bed and slowly put her feet down on the floor. The floor was cold and smooth like a glass. She moved her feet a little bit over the floor to get used to the cold.
She reached to the switch of a bedside lamp and the room was immediately filled with warm, soft, yellow light. The room now looked ordinary: the same wall-paper in an easy stripes, an armchair, a computer table with a laptop on it, shelves with books. She arranged everything as in the IKEA catalogue.
She rose from a bed; her head was still a bit dizzy. She walked slowly towards the kitchen, leaning against furniture. She reached the bedroom door and groped around the switch on the wall and the entire apartment lighted up. She closed her eyes tight and immediately turned off the light. She could easily find anything in the dark. She turned the light on only for the sake of propriety.
She walked to the kitchen. The air was filched, stuffy, it smelled with some food, but she couldn’t understand what exactly. The smell struck in nostrils a strong stream, almost knocking her down. The flow was warm and comfortable. Now she was glad that she wasted money on a warmed up floor. She rushed to the window and opened it wide. And she began to breathe heavily almost like a drowning man.
The street smelled with rain and gasoline. The smell was sour-sweet, fresh and pleasant. She leaned against the window sill and looked down. She thought - “I wonder how long it will take me to fall down?” She quickly moved away from the window, as she got frightened by that thought.
She came up to the fridge. The light from the fridge illuminated her face. It was pale, shadows under the eyes, as if she hadn’t been sleeping for a week or so, lips were weather-beaten, long but thin scar was shining on her forehead with a white-pink stip.
She got out a pack of juice and started drinking straight from the bottle. She started drinking quickly but she remembered that it was harmful, so she slowed down.
She turned around and looked at the clock on the wall. It was ten thirty. She put a pack of juice on the table and walked slowly back to the bedroom.
Her head was still a bit heavy, but she didn’t want to sleep, so she switched on her laptop. She decided to check her e-mail. There were two unread e-mails. The first – advertizing of a new cream for those who want to be slim and shape. The second from Roberts Simmons. She read it.
“Dear, Ms. Lotts,
The company “Dorothea Hearting” has considered Your CV, and is glad to offer you a position of the leading expert on legal backing of low-income citizens. We are glad to see you at our office on Monday, the 20th. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.
With best regards, Robert Simmons.”
She closed her computer and leaned back in an armchair. That was a letter that everybody dreams to receive. You send your CV, and in the very first company you get a positive feed-back. And everything is truly marvelous. They offer you a salary that you even never dreamed about. Insurance – check. Vacations – check. Office location – double check. And the main thing is that the job is really interesting.
But she didn’t feel the excitement she should have felt. She was absolutely empty with any emotions. Literally, there was emptiness inside her.
Yesterday she would have jumped with happiness. How quickly everything can change in one’s life. Not in a month or week, couples of hours are enough. Several fatal hours.
Yesterday she has been successful, happy, beautiful, smart, charming, irreplaceable and unique. But today she was pathetic, sad, sick and devastated.
Yesterday she would have enjoyed everything: a sunny morning, birds’ song, running water in the bathroom, a glass of wine, dinner with friends, new handbag or a pair of shoes.
Yesterday she had been living. Yesterday she had a life, but today it was taken away. It was taken once and forever. And she would have no chance at all to take it back.
She was slowly swinging in the armchair.
Just a couple of hours. Sometimes you think that two hours is nothing. You’re at work and there’s two hours left till the end of the working day, and they pass so quickly that you even don’t notice that. It takes you two hours to get to the office, and you also seldom notice that. You watch a movie, and its two hours long, and it’s nothing, you even don’t pay attention to that.
But sometimes these two hours can last as long as a lifetime. Within such two hours people die, wars declare, the whole cities are wiped out.
Yesterday she had such two hours. Within those two hours she had everything: all the emotions that she had ever felt in her life at once filled in her heart and head, all the unsolved questions and problems at once demanded solutions. Within those two hours she died and revived. She had given birth and lost her child.
She was already thirty when she got pregnant. A lot of people said that she was too old to give birth to a child, that it was risky, that is wasn’t healthy for her and for the child. That something might go wrong, and it would be too late. But she made it. She kept the child. She did so, as she was supported by the most important people in her life: her parents, friends, colleagues and her husband.
It was hard for her. Really hard. Every single day she hated everybody and everything. She hated her parents, friends, her husband, doctors, and colleagues. But most of all she hated herself.
She was told that everything would be fine, that all these would soon pass. That it was only temporary. But that lasted for seven months, as long as she was carrying that child.
She clearly understood that it wasn’t good. That she should love and be happy. That she should be grateful to everything and everybody, and especially her husband for his love and support. But she couldn’t have done anything to herself. Those bad feelings were so deep in her, that she couldn’t get rid of them. Nothing helped. Neither psychologists nor medicines, neither work nor entertaining. All was the same.
She left her husband. She told him that she couldn’t bare this care any longer, that his was killing her with his affection, that it was better for her to be on her own. She quitted her job; she stopped talking to her parents. She cut off all the lines: no telephone, no internet, no e-mails, nothing at all. And she was left alone in silence of her apartment, in her own little world, in her own life.
And then the big day came. She gave birth to a little creature, little girl with slight hairs on her head, with cute baby smell. She was happy. She was reborn. The world around her got its colours and smells back. Life. She was alive, she was living, she was loving, she was feeling, just she was there.
But two hours changed her life. Within those two hours everything bad that could ever happen to anyone on Earth happened to her, as if the entire world for those two hours forgot about its problems.
Her girl lived only for two hours. She even didn’t have time to imagine any name for her. She was so small, but the world around that little creature was so cruel, that faith even didn’t get her a chance to fight. Someone up there decided everything in advance, and he didn’t ask her for any advice. He even didn’t ask her what she was thinking about all that.
She hated herself for living, for breathing, for walking, for eating, for drinking. She hated everybody, and most of all The One above. The One, who decided everything. The One, who played such a prank.
When she got back home, everything was the same, as if nothing ever happened. The whole world didn’t even care about her, the weather was completely ignorant to her, the Sun was shining as brightly as if ever could shine, the birds were singing as cheerful as the ever could sing. People in the streets were smiling and laughing. Everybody didn’t care a damn bit about her problem. Nobody sympathized her. And she hated them.
She locked the nursery once and forever. She was preparing that room for new life, for beloved life, for the only one who ever meant something. She could step in to that room. She couldn’t see it.
She was slowly swinging in the armchair.
The new day was starting outside the window. Dog-owners already took out there pets for a walk. People already started waking up and preparing to go the works. The life was going on. The new day stated, the new life began. For others. For her everything was over yesterday.
She was living in the past. She was living within those two hours. Those two hours when she was really truly happy. She was thinking about them over and over again. Minute after minute. Hour after hour. Day after day. Month after month…
“One… Two… Three…”
She was lying on the bed, her hands were turned by palms upwards, and her eyes were open wide. She was breathing slowly and looking at the ceiling.
“Four… Five… Six…”
She saw a smiling face of a nurse in a white gown over her head. She didn’t hear what the latter was talking about.
“Seven… Eight… Nine…”
She turned her head to the window. She saw a backyard of the hospital that she was in for three years already. It was green there. It was summer.
“Ten… Eleven… Twelve…”
She closed her eyes, and again those two hours appeared in her head. She was crying...
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