Dripping Red

It was a night like many others. I was staying in my yoga position, sipping my wine and watching the cigarette smoking itself in the ashtray while my best friend, and my confessor was talking. I paid little attention to what she was saying, because my head was full of other stuff.

I was always smiling for others and worked for them to be happy. My work was involving emotions, love, sadness, angryness all the package if you want to say like that. And trying my nest to deliver them to my readers I thought it will make me happy. Receiving four awards for the best novel in the past year, I thought it will make me realize that I have done something with my life. But, it didn’t. It just made me to always wonder for a familiar face in the crowd. A face that will make me smile and my heart to flutter. A face that will be looking just to me, to the person and not to the author. That face, which will make my heart skip a beat just by presence.

But unfortunately this subject always made me argue with my friend regarding what means fulfillment of my life and what should make me happy instead.

I could still hear her talk, when I took another sip of my wine. Rotating the glass in my hand, looking at the red liquid it reminded me of blood, and a shiver went down through my body. I put the glass down with a face full of horror and I said something.

- Are you happy? I asked Sol, while raising my eyes to her watching her staying in the same position as always with her legs raised up on the arms of the chair.

She took the cigarette package from the table and pulled a new one out and with a strange face looking at me she answered.

- Yes, of course. Why shouldn’t I be? I live 8000 km away from my parents, having a dreams job, my best friend and lots of money. What else should I want?

- Love… I said while getting up to empty the ashtray.

- Love is underrated. Why should I get a guy when I can get a dog? But dogs are hard to raise and they need attention, exactly like children. That’s why I don’t want children also.

- And to whom will you let all your money when you die? No children, no family… I sat down again, but now I let my head lean on the back of the sofa. Looking at the ceiling and thinking again to everything I have done with my life.

- I will donate them. After I will do all my bucket list, of course. I still have some things I need to get done.

- But, is it worth it? I answered again and got up to get another wine bottle.

- Did you drink too much? What’s with you today? I think I should leave and let you sleep. The wine got to your brain and you think about weird stuff.

- I am not drunk. I am just wondering.

While opening the new bottle I spill a little on the white counter. The drippings reminded my again of the blood. The same shiver, more intense this time. I came back an looked at Sol. She was still having the same concerned face and turned around to sit properly in the chair while putting the cigarette in the ashtray.

- I don’t know how you feel and why do you feel like that, so sudden, but we had this discussion over and over for the past year. You don’t need anything more to be happy beside yourself.

- Maybe that’s you. I think we need love to be happy and also I think we need to be able to give love back. Otherwise we will just live in a dark world where we will drink wine every day and smoke cigarettes until 3 am and then go to bed to wake up doing the same old routine. And where we will be in 50 years? Old, ugly, alone, with no one to care about us or to visit us and probably somewhere in an asylum. Good life that we had back then… with a tragic ending, right?

- You exaggerate. I think you didn’t have sex for a long time! Tomorrow let’s go to a nice club and find you a nice guy to bang! Good enough?

- I don’t need sex! I need someone to care! Sex I can get anywhere! With a phone call apart from this moment, but this is not what I mean.

Without realizing I started to yell, I got up and looked on the big window. At that time the lights were making the city to look magical. From a 25th floor building you could see almost everything and it was amazing. Those were one of the points I took this apartment in the first place, the view. It calmed me and it helped me work and create masterpieces. But after a while, it was just my refuge from the sad life I was living.

- I will go! Sleep and let’s meet tomorrow! I will bring you favorite coffee in the morning! Please don’t do anything stupid, like calling your ex or something!

She hugged me and left. I stayed at the window maybe another 15 minutes before I took the bottle of wine and the glass and went to the bathroom. I let the hot water to fill up the bathtub and I took of my clothes. Pinning my hair up in a bun I entered slowly letting my body to adjust to the hot water. I light up a candle that I always have in the bathroom, I filled up the glass of wine and I put some music on my phone. With my eyes closed I listen to the beats and the dripping water.

I was thinking… like every day for the past year, what did I do wrong? Maybe focusing too much on my stories, maybe living more inside my books than my real life? But I was never staying inside my home crying for being social and having friends. I had plenty of them. Fellow authors, university buddies and other people from my country. I was never alone and never sad. That’s what I thought. Until it hit me so hard one day that I couldn’t raise myself up again.

I opened my eyes and took a sip of wine, looking at the liquid feeling the taste… it took me one moment to put the glass down and take the razor from next to me. I wanted to feel it, to see it and to smell it. It was again the shiver down my spine, making my body tremble even inside the hot water. I took the blade out and I saw its sparkle in the light. I put it next to my pulsating vein at my left arm and I pressed as hard as I could while cutting deep into the skin.

I could see the blood coming out… the red warm liquid dripping in the bathtub, starting to change the color making it pink. I put my hand under the water letting the blood flow free. I took the glass and drunk all the wine at once, closing my eyes, feeling the dripping and hearing the beat…. I closed my eyes…