December Pulse

Chapter 1

Wednesday, January 15 — 3:30 a.m.

Here you are again…

I never knew you before, yet you were the happiness and pleasure I had never tasted in my life.

Don’t tell me to wake up like every other night. Leave me. Let me stay and contemplate your simple, confident smile… the sharpness in your eyes… your small nose… your features so close to each other, so close to perfection. Your dress and your scarf, wrapped in a sky-blue shade—as if you already knew my saying: “The most beautiful color is blue.”

I fell in love with the queen and the servant that coexist within you; your enchanting presence and your gentle simplicity… I don’t know how you managed to combine in one blend the femininity of women of the fifties, the waists of the sixties, the legs of queens of the seventies, the taste of girls of the eighties, and the elegance of princesses of the nineties—along with a unique presence that future women will be described by as a compliment.

Your scent… unmatched by any beauty in the world.

Your sacred charm before which even the language of flirtation bows in helpless surrender.

I don’t know how long we stayed there, but I swear it was the happiest time I have ever lived. I never imagined paradise could exist on earth like this.

Don’t tell me to wake up… why do you insist I wake up?

I am not dreaming. I have never touched such truth with my heart before.

And if you are right… and you were only a dream—then may reality itself become illusion.

A whisper:

“Adam… wake up. Wake up… come on… wake up now.”

Silence. Darkness.

My ears woke before my eyes.

What is that sound…?

Slow footsteps.

The faint jingle of keys.

Breathing… and the heavy snoring of someone above me.

The drip of water from a tap behind me.

I feel as if I am still dreaming. I have never in my life been able to distinguish the thin line between dream and reality… and what if reality itself is the dream, and the dream is reality?

Moments passed, and my mind kept asking: where am I?

I turned quickly to my right. I closed my eyes, then opened them again several times to make sure I had truly awakened.

My right side was anything but pleasant…

Iron bars. A cell.

My God… who is this madman who dared to put me here?!

I rushed toward the bars, grabbing them tightly—until a yellow flashlight hit my eyes, almost blinding me. A rough voice followed:

— “What’s wrong with you, prisoner?”

“Prisoner?! Have you lost your mind? Do you even know who I am?! What am I doing here?!”

He replied in clear shock:

— “You’re asking where you are… after fifteen days in prison?”

I lost control. I started kicking through the bars—or maybe I was kicking my own feet, I don’t even remember. I went insane. I felt nothing until a heavy strike from a metal baton hit my head.

It was like a sedative injection…

and yet, strangely, it made me admit that the nurse’s thick hand—whom I always complained about—was actually very gentle.

I woke up again from a slap on my face.

My head was throbbing violently, as if it were a pregnant woman in her ninth month, being kicked from the inside by a child desperate to come out.

I was in a room with white walls. Three windows. Three beautiful nurses. A doctor. And two guards.

The doctor interrupted my daze and began questioning me, telling me I had temporarily lost memory of recent events.

I snapped back at him:

“Damn you! In another situation, I would have crushed your skull. Look—I remember everything. I remember yesterday as clearly as I remember the kiss of that purple-haired nurse just moments ago. Don’t forget to erase the traces… and remove her hair strands from your clothes—so your wife doesn’t kill you.”

I turned to the nurse:

“Don’t look at me like that. Keep leaning toward him with that indifferent pose of yours… as if none of us notice anything.”

The doctor interrupted me angrily—not with words, but by holding something in front of my face.

Photographs.

Recent ones. Taken from my personal account.

I didn’t remember any of them.

Another breakdown hit me. I couldn’t control myself. My legs felt too weak to carry an 80-kilo man, and I collapsed.

Ten hours later, I woke up again in my cell, as if fate had sworn I would see no good that day.

There he was again—the giant cellmate who had covered the walls with his name:

“Fredo… Fredo…”

As if the fool was trying to memorize his own identity.

He turned toward me, staring as if I had assaulted his wife and dishonored his entire lineage. I ignored him and walked to the filthy toilet, its smell reaching China and back.

When I finished, I turned around to find him standing in front of me—leaning with one hand on the bedframe, one leg crossed like a prostitute waiting by a roadside bus stop.

The same thought crossed my mind as anyone in my place:

Is he looking for a fight? I don’t mind.

He didn’t answer. Just a mocking smile. A sly, silent gaze.

I didn’t care. I went back to my bed.

Suddenly—he threw his dirty underwear onto my face and gestured for me to clean them, as if I were a slave bought for him by his mother.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds, holding back the rage of three tribes combined.

And calmly… almost lovingly…

I picked up his filthy clothes, walked to the left, and dropped them right where I had urinated earlier.

I won’t describe what happened next. I think you already imagined it.

A brutal fight lasted five minutes.

And in the end—more precisely, in my end, and at the very last moment of what could have been my life—I said:

“Wait… you gain nothing from killing me. But you will certainly gain something if I live. I will escape… and you will escape with me.”