A Quarter Life

The Puff

The car stopped.

Mike looked outside. It was the road in Indianapolis.

The roads were quite smooth, and empty.

He asked, 'Janet, why did you stop?'

He looked at her, she didn’t look normal.

Suddenly she collapsed, her head fell on the stirring. The horn kept buzzing, he was shocked.

He quickly get off the car, get her lay on the back, quickly drove ahead.

He kept driving, he kept looking behind, at her pale face. He drove until he got a hospital.

He was waiting outside the room. He was tensed. He was very tensed.

He never wanted it to end that way. That was the reason he always wanted her to be far away from him. He knew, he was a jinx, a f*****g jinx.

She wasn’t one to blame, he was. He knew that she would get in trouble. Yet he dragged her to this. He compelled her to leave everything to find the purpose of his meaningless dream.

The doctor asked him, 'Are you with her?'

He said, 'Yes, I am.'

The doctor sighed, 'Well, let's talk in my room, okay? Did you wash your hands? Please wash before coming.'

He couldn’t understand, what was so important?

He washed his hands and went to his room.

The room was quite arranged and clean. He could smell disinfectant already from the door.

He sat on the chair. The table was of clear glass, not a single scratch.

He asked, 'Okay doctor, what has happened to her? Is it just unconsciousness?'

The doctor kept silent. He could read the bad news in his eyes.

The doctor sighed, 'Well, I am sorry, it’s the virus. She will have to be admitted here. We can't say for how long she will be alive. And I would suggest you should also test your blood, as you were in contact with her.'

He couldn’t hear anything afterwards. He was taken to test room. His blood sample was taken for tests. He was then kept in waiting room. But he still couldn't feel anything. He was numb, from inside, from every aspect.

He went to the washroom, looked himself into the mirror. He was asking himself, 'Why, why, you piece of s**t? Why did you have to land in her life? Why are you so selfish?'

He couldn’t answer that.

'You think you deserve to live? Hell no. You should die, even more pathetically, more cruelly. You should be hanged in a metal chain, hot metal chain.'

He was silent.

'What was her fault? To listen to you? To help you? To love you? And what did you return? Your own f*****g bad luck. You are a traitor, a betrayer. Remember that.'

He cried, silently. He had to. He couldn’t deny his fault.

He washed his face, and went back to the waiting room.

The manuscript was beside him. He couldn’t understand what he should do. He took the manuscript and started reading from where he left.

“We had to train from morning to evening. But yes we were not alone in the training ground.

Like this rotten, disgraceful world, we trainees were classified, divided into two classes. One was us, the punks, they called us 'ding's, it was a disrespectful word, we knew that. But yeah, we were criminals whatsoever, no matter how petty the crime was.

The other class was called, 'Outstanding' one. Why? Because, they were qualified group of trainee, who willingly came to join the army, the fittest ones of the State. They looked pretty smart, they would come to the training ground quite early.

Sergeant Cohen would train the both classes. But you know, capitalism was the rule. He would act less like a trainee, and more like a servant to them. And to us? To us he was strict as hell. We all could sense that.

Reeve wasn’t comfortable with them. He would find out their faults instead of doing his own training. Well, he had a weird philosophy. He used to say, 'You know there should be no capitalism, no racism, no bad 'ism's, why hate black? Why hate gays? Hate everyone, everyone who tries to oppose you.'

I had no obligation on supporting him.

He used to observe them. He didn’t hate them, rather he hated their behaviors. He said, 'Look at them, lousy fuckers. They think war is a soccer match. They think they will walk in the battlefield and boom, the war is won. They don’t know the value of blood, they don’t know the value of scars. They will never know until they go through the pain.'

Well, he was quite right, they did behave like some retards. But hey, they were rich spoiled brats, of course they needed some lessons to be straight. But in this world of capitalist bastards, who would go ahead to annoy them?

Reeve did it, but silently. One night, he went to the 'outstanding' quarters. He painted the walls with a color spray.

In morning everyone saw the painting. It wasn’t a Picasso one, in fact it was a quote. It said, 'outstanding is useless without ding. Don’t believe me? Who are you then? Outstan?'

It was sarcastic revenge to break their pride. But they knew the burn they got.

After this, the Sergeant injury things happened. I would see Reeve train and burn his repentance off from the window, every night. But one night there was difference.

I was feeling sleepy that night, I looked at my wife's photo. God I loved her very much.

I kept the photo in my book, and went to shut the window. I saw Reeve, on the ground, doing push ups. His sweats were sparkling in the dim lights of the ground.

I suddenly saw some bushes moving, from behind. It was strange. I thought I might have mistaken. But when I saw three men emerge from that bush, I was in a worry. They suddenly grab him by the neck and mouth, and carried him. I at once ran to the grounds, didn’t care what I was wearing.

When I was on the ground, I saw a glimpse of them, they were carrying him to the garage, the garage in the 'outstanding' quarter.

I got more worried. It was them, the elite ones. But why would they do such a thing?

I followed them, to the doorway of the garage.

I was at the outside room of the garage. They were in the inside room, the tool room I would say. They were tying Reeve with a pole.

I didn’t remember their names. But I knew they were the 'outstanding' people.

Reeve was okay, they didn’t hurt him.

One of them lit a cigarette, and said, 'So, tell me punk, what the f**k is your problem?'

Reeve said nothing.

He took a big puff and said, 'You know, we never thought you people different, we all are same here, a fighter, a soldier. But you know, our etiquette, our regular behavior was our habit. We were working on our habit. But you punk, you had to ruin our temper for your misconception?'

Reeve was silent, me too.

He told the others, 'Search his pockets, let's make him compensate.'

They searched him, and found some money and a cigarette, a single stick of cigarette.

He said, finishing his cigarette, 'Put the money back, I think our punk friend won't have any problem compensating with a cigarette.'

They lit the cigarette, it smelt nice.

Reeve suddenly said, 'It has a switch.'

Everyone wasn’t ready for that.

The guy with the cigarette laughed, 'Well well, our guest of honor is now an entertainer?'

He looked at the filter. It really had a switch, to switch up the flavor.

He laughed, 'That's nice. And which flavor does the switch have?'

Reeve smiled, 'Heavenly.'

He was happy. He switched the flavor and took an enormous puff. I saw Reeve closing his eyes, and the guy releasing the puff. But yeah, the switch was heavenly. I saw the guy, and his accomplices, falling to sleep, in peace. And seconds after, I myself was in a deep sleep. Oh, the heaven, of the heavenly puff!

I felt no sleep peaceful like this. But then I asked myself, I still hadn’t gone through the biggest sleep of my life, the death.”