Internal Convers(at)ion*

Mona quickly opened the front door and disappeared within another minute or so. I entered the apartment on the second floor of Waverly Street.

The door led directly to the kitchen and then to the day room, where I was allowed to wander among several red rocking chairs, a tessellated coffee table and a variegated sofa, as if among the secret powers of Shaolin.

On the grain-coloured wall behind the couch, a red-yellow-blue-green-black-and-white yantra looked at me with its inner eye, magnetising my senses and asking me to enter through one of the four gates.

I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I rested my left arm on the reddish wooden frame of the old window overlooking the garden. I waited.

I took out a pack of Marlboros and lit one impatiently. I blew out smoke. Then I saw her again. She entered the room through a burgundy curtain, like an actress on a stage. Aren't we all sometimes?

This time it didn’t escape my notice that she was wearing a raglan sweater, a plaid mini skirt and black pumps. She had an oval face, tortoiseshell cat-eye specs, and lips painted red.

She looked like a Hungarian princess, fitting into the surroundings of trinkets screaming from every corner about their undoubted historical value. If it weren't for the single syrettes that surprised me on almost every surface I looked at, I would probably have taken her for a representative of blue blood. After all, that's what I came here for.

My red suspenders standing out against my grey long-sleeved shirt took her interest. She came up to me and started shooting with them like with a slingshot. It gave her so much pleasure that I couldn't bring myself to stop it. Like a little girl who had never had the opportunity to play with boys’ toys, assigned to a sandbox and its girly trifles. I liked the idea of giving her what she wanted at that moment.

She reached my hair. She started stroking the black curls as if I were her pet. Maybe I could become one after our meeting. In the corridor behind the room, I noticed posters of ballet dancers. Was she the one?

The turntable must have simply stopped spinning because the needle was still on the record and had not been put away properly. I wanted to know what melody it contained, but she stopped me in my tracks.

She took two syrettes from a grey shelf in the corner by the window, breaking the seal with the needle. One for her, one for me. Medicine. The muted telly screen growled at us with forbidden darkness.

We moved the sofa in front of the yantra and lay down on it, facing the painting. We took turns selecting a colour with the laser pointer and then focusing on it until we felt all the emotions permeating our souls.

I – red. I felt hot coals on my face. It burned with an inner fire and spread throughout my body. I felt my feet burning from the heat. My heart started beating faster to the rhythm of the shooting stars.

She – yellow. I saw her radiant face in the afternoon sun. She circled the air with the index finger of her left hand, pointing to the window where the energy of the universe was shining through the bright veil of day. She didn't have to say the words. I knew it all.

I – blue. I felt a deep, unexplained connection to the sky, as if I were a bird. I could spread my wings and see myself from above. I was nothing. Compared to the entire universe, I was merely a smudge scribbled or painted on the earthly canvas. It meant nothing to anyone, and yet I was filled with dull hope as I floated freely through the vastness of the universe.

She – green. She picked a large leaf from the sunflowers in the vase at the coffee table and showed it to me. Then she started tearing the greenery into small pieces that landed on the motley carpet. At that moment I couldn't see anything. The leaves of the sunflowers and the weaves of the carpet came together in a mysterious dance that no one else could know about.

I – black. I drowned in a black hole with no door. The humidity was intense and I began to sneeze involuntarily. She held my trembling shoulders until my sadness could dissolve within her.

She – white. She touched my sore eyes. Every little detail of the cluttered room came into view and I could see again. I kissed her red lips. They tasted bitter. Mine were probably the same. That's why we fitted together like pieces of the same puzzle.

I lit a cigarette and let her take a drag. She seemed more relaxed than a Buddhist monk in his own temple. We were broken out of our trance by a resonant rattle in the kitchen. While we were wondering what could have caused it, the head of a black cat emerged from behind a burgundy curtain. Feeding times just changed from one to the other.

*In chemistry, an internal conversion is the transition from a higher to a lower electronic state in a molecule or atom.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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