Eyes Closed

The sky became covered with dark clouds. A bright moon shines through this grey fog. Street lanterns reflect as glare on the wet asphalt. A wandering dog is sitting under the narrow canopy of a restaurant, hiding from the rain. The door opens, and the monotonous blows of the raindrops get instantly replaced by music and dozens of voices. Several guests are coming out the restaurant. The door closes. Voices and music subside.

Street lights, visible from a small window, dissolve in a glass of whisky. Voices that eventually grow louder, someone’s laughter, muffled music. All this has become so familiar that now it is synonymous with silence.

Even the rain outside the window that sometimes gets overlapped with the sound of someone’s footsteps from the opening door, seems somewhat louder. Every beating echoes in my head. A bartender behind the desk serves another drink. A smile, a nod and in a moment someone’s hand is already reaching for a new pint of beer. A woman makes her way through a group of people to the bar and asks the bartender to pour her a glass of white wine. Another smile, another nod.

---

Each weekday is similar to the previous one. If it was possible to rearrange Tuesday with Thursday, I would not notice any difference.

A morning, which starts at six. Breakfast. Same way to work by bicycle. Another nine hours in four walls, where everyone knows each other, but nobody is visible to anyone, like I am right now in this restaurant. Every weekday I’m invisible to myself.

For some time now a pain has settled inside my head. It accompanies me everywhere. Only at night, when I am able to fall asleep, I forget about how much my head hurts. But every morning the pain returns to me.

---

Tonight after work, I sat on my bicycle as I do every other day. At the crossroads, I looked at the traffic light waiting for the signal, to drive straight to my house. However, something inside me made me turn the handlebar sharply to the right. I pedaled as fast as I could. Signboards of cafes, hairdressers, bakeries and bars flashed past me. I drove to the station and decided that I would take the very first train that would take me anywhere. So I went in an unknown direction.

Now I’m in a town where no one knows my name. In the restaurant where no one is looking in my direction, as if I’m not here. I still have a headache, but the pain has become more acute now. This pain is like a cry inside of me that can’t break out.

Suddenly I have stopped caring how far I was from home, what time it was now, as well as what day of the week it was today and what the weather was outside the window. Nothing mattered to me. All questions and thoughts were erased from my head, like unnecessary notes, leaving a blank sheet of paper.

The voices around me were also gone. I closed my eyes, I wanted to dissolve in this silence. After a moment I heard the sounds of music. Someone is playing a very beautiful but sad melody. At some point, I opened my eyes and looked in the direction where the music was playing. The musician’s eyes were closed as his fingers stroked the piano keys.

I haven’t noticed how my headache disappeared together with all the thoughts, leaving no trace, as if it had never existed at all. It seemed to me as if I woke up after a long sleep. I looked around. Some people in the restaurant are smiling at me as if they had known me before. They don’t need to know my name.

---

I am outside the restaurant, leaving behind the sounds of the piano and the clinking of glasses. The rain has already passed. The wind waves slightly branches of trees. Everything around me seems so real as never before. Or I only had to open my eyes.

Photo /manyweekslater