Two. Ashes instead of dawn

I woke up in the armchair after what was, surprisingly, a peaceful night. For a few minutes I simply stared at the ceiling without a single thought. My entire body ached from spending hours on the hard chair. I could barely feel my legs, and my head throbbed with pain. I got to my feet and looked at the fireplace. The fire had burned out during the night. Not surprising. Maybe it was for the best. If the flames had somehow spread, perhaps my wish would finally have come true, and my name would have appeared in yet another newspaper article about another tragic death. I wandered into the kitchen and lazily started making coffee, watching carefully so it wouldn’t burn. The smell slowly filled the room, forcing my mind awake and coaxing my thoughts back to life. Pouring it into my favorite mug, I stepped out onto the porch. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel like smoking. The half-empty pack of cigarettes stayed behind on the table beside the fireplace. The morning was bitterly cold. The calendar hanging in the hallway read January 24, which meant the frost would be staying for quite a while. Some people were still celebrating the winter holidays. Others were already impatiently waiting for spring. I couldn’t have cared less what season it was. For a long time now, the only things I’d been capable of feeling were sorrow and emptiness. No one I could have spoken to would ever understand the kind of pain I carried inside me. Eventually, I stopped trying to explain it. The first sip of coffee spread through my body like warmth itself. For a brief moment, everything relaxed. Maybe that was the only thing capable of waking me up… assuming I managed to fall asleep at all. I stood on the porch, leaning against the railing. My house hid me from other people’s curious eyes. The coffee in my mug slowly disappeared while time kept moving without asking whether I wanted it to. When I finished the last sip carefully avoiding the coffee grounds I savored the final trace of warmth before walking back inside, leaving the mug on the porch. I wonder if I’ll bring it back inside today. It had become a strange little ritual. Coffee belonged on the porch. If I came back later for another cup, I’d take the mug with me. If not… it would stay there until tomorrow. I went upstairs to find a book. I wanted to spend the morning reading. Instead, I got lost inside my own library while searching for something I hadn’t already read. When I finally found a novel that seemed unfamiliar, I settled into the armchair and disappeared into its pages. The next time I looked up, it was already afternoon. At 1:31 p.m., I stepped outside carrying another mug of bitter warmth in my hands. The forgotten cup from the morning had finally found its way back inside. By the time the clock crept toward three in the afternoon, I gathered enough strength to leave the house. I wandered through the quieter streets of town. If you kept walking far enough, the houses eventually gave way to a small forest. It had become my refuge. Whenever the world became unbearable, I escaped there. To the dense thickets of blackthorn that somehow always seemed to need my attention as much as I needed theirs. That day the sun shone brighter than usual. The walk to the river was peaceful. Too peaceful. Then I saw the water. Without thinking, my hand reached into my coat pocket for the worn cigarette pack. I slipped one between my lips. The wind was fierce, but I shielded the lighter with trembling hands until the flame finally caught. Smoke filled my lungs. I knew that thin gray ribbon of tobacco smoke only gave me relief for a few minutes. It had never been enough. It never would be. Still, I always returned to it – to the fragile white cylinder slowly burning between my fingers while suffocating smoke curled into the winter air. I accepted it as naturally as breathing. Those few minutes… weren’t they what I’d been waiting for my whole life? Eventually the cigarette burned down to the filter. I lit another one. Then another. Walking across the frozen river. Anyone who saw me would probably call it reckless. Or suicidal. The strangest part wasn’t the ice beneath my feet. It was time. Everywhere else, time crawled like a snail. Here – it raced faster than light. Before I even realized it, I’d reached the middle of the river while thoughts poured endlessly from my exhausted mind. Eventually, I forced myself to turn around. Not because I wanted to. Because I wasn’t sure the ice would survive my weight. What amused me most was watching everyone else gravitate toward crowded places. I despised them. Every pair of eyes felt fixed on me.Every whisper sounded like it was about me. Every stranger seemed to know something I didn’t. That’s why I always chose the abandoned forest instead. The silent river. A place where hundreds of people had drowned before me. I could become one of them. But that wasn’t the answer. The answer – or at least something that looked enough like one – was the fourth cigarette glowing between my lips. Everything felt different that day. The cigarettes kept dying after only a few drags. My thoughts, however, found a second wind. They sank their teeth into me. They burrowed beneath my skin, tearing through flesh with filthy fingernails and leaving wounds that never truly healed. Every memory reopened old scars. Again. And again. Until every wound bled fresh. Every thought carved only one name into my soul.

Ester Morris.

Memories of Ester Morris had eaten a hole inside me. It kept growing until it became a rotting hollow, reeking of decay, guilt, and helplessness. I could feel that rot spreading through me, infecting everything it touched. The worst part was that I kept feeding it myself. Every time I let myself remember the color of her eyes, the sound of her laughter, or the warmth of her hands, I made it worse. The wound should have healed long ago. Instead, it festered. And with it, so did I. My thoughts found a second wind, slowly rotting me from the inside out. Her hazel eyes, warmed by soft amber flecks, were forever etched into my memory. There had always been something painfully gentle about them, as though Ester looked at people with more kindness than they deserved. Especially me. That thought alone was enough to kill me every single day. In my dreams she always appeared exactly as she used to be, with dark, almost black, wavy hair falling just below her shoulders. I remembered every little detail. I remembered the way it brushed against my face whenever she leaned closer. I remembered the scent of her shampoo lingering on my pillow. I remembered the warmth of her hands finding mine, even in complete darkness. Sometimes, when I woke in the middle of the night, I forgot – just for a moment – that she wasn’t there anymore. It felt as though all I had to do was reach out, and my fingers would find her shoulder. As though she were still lying beside me, sleepy and warm. As though she’d laugh softly, roll over, and kiss my temple. Then reality would return. An empty half of the bed. Silence. And me. I remembered her so vividly that remembering itself became torture. Every memory was both a gift and a punishment. I missed her so fiercely that sometimes it felt as though longing had forced its way between my ribs and grown roots somewhere deep inside my chest. It was my fault we fell apart. I pushed her away whenever she tried to help me. I shut myself off whenever she wanted to understand me. I stayed silent whenever I should have spoken. I was convinced that if I’d been just a little braver, just a little less broken, she would have stayed. Instead, Ester left. And I was left alone with the memories of the woman I loved more than my own life. With every passing day those memories hurt a little more, because I could no longer tell what I missed most – her… or the version of myself that had once been happy beside her.

25.01

I walked into the house at exactly 6:18 p.m. I remembered that number perfectly from the clock hanging on the wall. I took off my coat and went upstairs to my bedroom, where a box of quetiapine sat waiting on the bedside table. I walked right past it. Still lost in thought, I lay down on the bed. Without even realizing it, my eyelids grew heavy, and I drifted into a shallow sleep. Somewhere inside that dream, everything was impossibly peaceful. I was lying in the grass, holding Ester’s hand. For the first time in what felt like forever, I was exactly where I belonged. Nothing hurt. Nothing frightened me. If only I’d known what that dream meant… I looked into Ester’s warm hazel eyes while she laughed. Her laughter was bright enough to echo across the entire meadow. Maybe everyone in the world could hear it. I didn’t care. I smiled back, drowning in her eyes, just as I always had. My gaze drifted, as it always did, to the tiny mole on her left cheek. Ester was extraordinary. She never tried to save the whole world. She never seemed to know the perfect thing to say at exactly the right moment. She simply stayed. She was simply there. That was what made Ester Morris so extraordinary. My Ester Morris. I would never have let her go. I sat beside my little ray of sunshine, soaking in every second of her presence. She laughed. She talked about something—I wasn’t even listening anymore. The sound of her voice was enough. Then something changed. At first I noticed the smoke. Thin gray strands began crawling across the meadow, wrapping themselves around the grass and around our legs. There was more of it every second. It slipped between the trees, swallowed the sky, and slowly suffocated the air itself. Then came the smell. Cigarettes. That bitter, familiar smell of cigarettes. I turned toward Ester, wanting to tell her something—anything at all. She was gone. Only the empty space beside me remained.

“Ester?”

My voice disappeared into the smoke. Somewhere ahead, laughter answered me. At first it sounded exactly the same. Her laughter. My favorite sound in the entire world. But something wasn’t right. It lasted too long. It grew too loud. Too unnatural. The echo stretched it, twisted it, broke it apart until it became something unrecognizable. Something that sent ice racing down my spine. My heart climbed into my throat.

“Ester…?”

No answer. The smoke grew thicker. And thicker. Soon I could barely see my own hands. Then, through the haze, a silhouette slowly emerged. A woman. Someone painfully familiar. My breath caught.

Mom.

After all these years, I recognized her instantly. I couldn’t see her face. It was as though she didn’t have one at all. And yet I knew. I knew it was her.

My mother.

She stood motionless in the middle of the smoke, and the sight of her filled me with terror. Because people don’t come back after disappearing without a trace.

“Mom…” I whispered.

She didn’t answer. She only looked at me. And for some reason, in that exact moment, all I wanted to do was run.

I jerked awake.

The air caught somewhere in my throat. I gasped for it desperately, as though I had just surfaced after being held underwater. My heart slammed violently against my ribs, each beat sending a sharp ache through my chest. For several long seconds, I had no idea where I was.

Mom.

Ester.

The images were still so vivid that I was certain if I turned my head, I’d see that silhouette standing in the corner of the room. My whole body trembled. My T-shirt clung to my back, soaked with cold sweat, while goosebumps raced across my arms and neck. The bedroom was dark, yet I found myself scanning every corner, afraid that someone – or something – might still be there. I brushed a trembling hand across my face and felt moisture on my cheeks. Tears. Even in my dreams, they refused to leave me alone. Outside, everything was quiet. Only the wind occasionally stirred the old branches, making them scrape softly against the windowpane. I gripped the edge of my blanket until my knuckles turned white.

Nineteen years.

Nineteen goddamn years.

And my nightmares still knew exactly where to strike. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall. Her face appeared before me again.

Not my mother’s.

No…

Ester’s.

I remembered her laughter. I remembered the warmth of her hands. I remembered the way she looked at me, as though I deserved to be loved. That memory only made everything worse. Because after all this time, part of me still believed that one day the front door would open… and both of them would come home. I stayed where I was, staring blankly at the wall. The hours crawled forward, but my mind refused to think. There was only the wall before me and the strange emptiness inside my head, silently marking every passing minute.

Hour after hour. Morning eventually arrived, yet I still couldn’t bring myself to move.

At 7:49 a.m., I finally forced myself out of bed and staggered into the kitchen. My legs felt unsteady as I started making coffee. The first desperate sip escaped my lips with a shaky breath of relief. The anxiety that had wrapped itself around my chest after the nightmare slowly began to loosen. The world stopped swaying beneath my feet, and my thoughts gradually settled into something resembling order again. I opened the medicine cabinet, swallowed a pill for the headache, and stood leaning against the kitchen counter for several minutes. I wanted to shake the dream out of my head.

My mother.

Ester.

All of it.

Eventually, I walked into the bathroom.

It was small but familiar – a pale tiled floor, an old mirror hanging above the sink, a wooden shelf stacked with neatly folded towels, and a cast-iron bathtub whose surface had been scarred by countless tiny scratches over the years. Frosted glass in the narrow window allowed only a faint gray morning light to filter inside. I pulled off my T-shirt and carelessly tossed it onto the washing machine before stepping out of my shorts. The room was cool, and after such a suffocating dream, the chill actually felt comforting. I turned on the faucet. Hot water rushed over my shoulders almost immediately. At first, it felt wonderful. Then it became too hot. My skin began to sting, as though thousands of tiny needles were pressing into it all at once. I closed my eyes. Suddenly my head felt strangely light. The room tilted. The air thickened, and every breath demanded effort. My heartbeat quickened. I reached for the edge of the bathtub to steady myself, but my fingers slipped against the wet porcelain. The room drifted away. The light dissolved into pale white blurs. My knees gave out beneath me.

Then…there was only darkness. The cold came first. Not ordinary cold. It was a hollow emptiness, as though my body had forgotten what arms and legs were supposed to feel like. Slowly, the sound of running water began returning to me. Droplets struck the tiles. Somewhere nearby, the faucet continued to pour. I opened my eyes. The world looked unfamiliar, blurred around the edges. For several seconds I simply lay there on the bathroom floor, trying to understand where I was… and how much time had passed. Then I felt it. The cold. Sharp. Merciless. It pierced my skin with thousands of icy needles, ran along my spine, and spread through my body in heavy waves. Goosebumps covered my arms, my shoulders, my neck. It felt as though someone had trapped me beneath a sheet of ice and forced me to remain perfectly still while the frost slowly seeped into my bones. Then, just as suddenly as it had come… the cold vanished. Before I could even understand where it had gone, heat replaced it. Violent. Piercing. As though hundreds of glowing-hot needles had sunk into my skin at once. My entire body burned. The air itself became too heavy to breathe. The sensation raced through every nerve, making my heart pound wildly while a deafening white noise filled my head. It felt as though I was freezing… and burning alive… at exactly the same time. As though my own body no longer understood what was happening to it. I didn’t realize what had happened until I noticed the water swirling toward the drain. It wasn’t clear anymore. It was turning red. A diagonal cut stretched across my wrist. Ugly. Raw. Painful. The blood was warm. Thick. It seeped out quickly, spilling across my palm in deep crimson ribbons before disappearing into the stream of water. All I could do was watch. Watch it flow away. Watch the water slowly fade into a pale shade of pink.

10:20 a.m.

By then, I didn’t even know what to do with myself anymore.

The morning dragged on with unbearable slowness, as though someone had stretched time on purpose and left me alone with every hollow minute. Mixing medications that should never have been taken together had been a terrible idea, but there was nothing I could do now. They were already working their way through my body. Out of sheer boredom, I’d already stepped onto the porch four times just to smoke. The study held an entire collection of cigarettes. Slim ones. Strong ones. Different flavors. Different aromas. Sometimes I’d sort through the packs as though I were about to try something new. I never did. I always reached for the same ones. I’d already finished another mug of Americano, so I decided I needed something—anything—to occupy my mind. The library was wrapped in its usual comforting half-light. Tall bookshelves stretched from floor to ceiling, casting long shadows across the room. A cup of green tea sat cooling on the heavy oak desk while the wind outside swayed the tops of the trees beyond the large window. The cut on my wrist stung viciously. My hands still trembled. I ignored both. Settling into the armchair beside the desk, I spent a while simply watching the landscape beyond the glass. The house was quiet. It hadn’t always been this way. Once, the silence had been alive. Footsteps drifted in from the kitchen. Someone left coffee mugs in the wrong places. Someone laughed at terrible jokes or argued passionately over books. Now…only silence remained. I took another sip of tea before turning my attention to the shelves. A book with a dark green cover caught my eye. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d opened it. Standing, I pulled it from the shelf. A thin cloud of dust floated into the air as I opened it, and the yellowed pages carried the unmistakable scent of old paper. I opened it at random. Words slowly became sentences. Sentences slowly became a story. As I read, I thought about almost nothing… except the nearly forgotten sadness that this night wouldn’t be my last.

Around 6:17 p.m., I finally closed the book.

The emptiness inside me had only grown heavier. My body wouldn’t stop trembling from anxiety. Deciding not to tempt fate any further, I wandered into the kitchen. I hadn’t eaten all day, although every part of me wanted another cigarette instead. I turned on some music, tucked a cigarette behind my ear, and opened the refrigerator. I was wearing loose black trousers and an oversized cardigan the color of dark chocolate. The sleeves had stretched so much that they nearly swallowed my hands. My hair had been carelessly tied up, but my curls, as always, refused to cooperate. A few loose strands had escaped and kept falling into my face, brushing against my cheeks and slipping into my eyes whenever I lowered my head. Absentmindedly, I tucked one curl behind my ear and looked back into the refrigerator. What should I make? After several minutes of indecision, I settled on buckwheat with meat. Grabbing something small to snack on and lighting the cigarette I’d tucked behind my ear, I set the buckwheat to cook. One hand held the cigarette. The other arranged slices of meat in a frying pan. Soft jazz drifted through the speakers. I didn’t recognize the singer’s name, but his rough, weathered voice somehow belonged in this house. Outside, darkness slowly settled over everything. Inside, the kitchen smelled of coffee, cigarette smoke, and spices. I placed the cezve on the stove and leaned against the counter, watching the window gradually fog over. Fifteen minutes later, dinner was ready. I carried my plate to the table, poured myself another cup of coffee, and put on an old black-and-white movie. People on the screen fell in love. They fought. They whispered beautiful words no one ever says in real life. I watched more out of habit than genuine interest. Another hour and a half slipped by. The house remained silent. So silent that sometimes I thought I could hear my own thoughts echoing inside it. Eventually, I threw on my coat and stepped outside onto the porch. The freezing air struck my face immediately. The wind slipped beneath my clothes, raising goosebumps across my skin. My curls escaped my collar and danced wildly in the night air.

And me…What about me?

I simply stood there, staring at the horizon. Admiring the dark sky. Searching for familiar constellations among thousands of cold stars, even though I only knew the names of a few. I already knew this night would be a long one.

26.01

The night stretched on endlessly. I’d been lying awake in bed for nearly two hours, yet sleep never came. My eyes burned with exhaustion. My body begged for rest. My mind, on the other hand, refused to be quiet. Eventually, I gave up. Dragging myself out of bed, I shuffled into the kitchen and turned on some ridiculous late-night television program. The hosts laughed. Talked. Argued about meaningless things. I wasn’t listening. I just needed noise. Anything to keep the silence away. Time crawled forward with agonizing slowness.

At 3:07 a.m., I stepped out onto the porch. The first thing I did was light a cigarette. Somewhere inside the house, the music was still playing. I could barely hear it through the walls as it blended with the whistle of the wind and the creaking of the old wooden boards beneath my feet. The air was clean. Sharp. Cold enough to feel as though it settled directly inside my bones. I inhaled deeply. For a single moment…everything felt lighter. As though the night itself had leaned close enough to whisper that life could still be beautiful. That it wasn’t made only of loss… of guilt… of memories.But the night was lying. Life had already shown me another face. The one where people disappear without a trace. The one where love ends in silence. The one where you wake in the middle of the night unable to tell whether your heart hurts more… or your memories. Exhaling the last ribbon of bitter smoke, I crushed the cigarette beneath my shoe and walked back inside. The old stairs creaked softly beneath my feet. The light spilling from the study welcomed me with familiar warmth. I sat down at the oak desk. Looked at the blank sheet of paper before me.

And wrote this…

[The pen scraped softly across the page, trembling in my hand.

My thoughts were empty—no meaning, no words.

I stared at the coffee, motionless beneath its fading steam, while somewhere inside I dissolved into the loneliness of the night.

My eyes clung stubbornly to the paper, where not a single line was willing to be born.

That’s when I understood that peace is nothing more than a temporary truce, shattered by a single thought.

Every carefree moment is only an illusion, melting like smoke into the cold darkness.

Time, relentless as ever, slowly erases the story between who I once was and who I’m supposed to become.

And while the clock measured another passing moment, I sat in silence, staring into the dark window, as though everything I had ever wanted to live through had already become a distant memory.]

5:46 a.m.

Some television series was playing in the background. It was so absurd that I didn’t even try to follow the plot. The actors’ voices blurred into meaningless noise. One scene replaced another without leaving the slightest trace in my mind. It was simply there. Background noise. Something to keep me from being alone with my thoughts. Because my thoughts behaved like a bomb with a countdown already ticking away. Every passing second brought them closer to exploding again—tearing through the silence, leaving me a little more shattered than before. I stared at the television without really seeing it. The study was filled with the familiar stillness, tangled together with cigarette smoke that had spent the entire night rising toward the ceiling until it settled there in a heavy gray haze. It felt as though the room itself had forgotten how to breathe. As though it simply held on to everything I had left inside it over the years. This room was my sanctuary. And at the same time… my prison. Towering bookshelves lined every wall, packed so tightly with books that they looked ready to spill onto the floor at any moment. Different covers. Different stories. Yet none of them were simply books anymore. They had become noise. Something that filled the space so I wouldn’t have to hear the silence. Near the large window stood an old oak desk. It was always slightly cluttered—papers, notebooks, open books, cups of coffee gone cold hours ago. Its surface carried the evidence of countless sleepless nights, proof that I had existed here. A painting hung on one of the walls. Calm. Almost abstract. Once, I had thought it was beautiful. Now it merely remained there, like something that no longer possessed the strength to leave. My gaze drifted upward. Smoke lingered beneath the ceiling like a heavy curtain, making everything appear slightly blurred, slightly unreal. I let out a slow breath, leaned back into the armchair, and closed my eyes for a moment. It felt as though, if I stayed here much longer, I’d finally begin climbing the walls. But even that required more strength than I had left. Slowly, I opened my eyes again and looked toward the books. I’d rather spend the entire day here. Among pages. Among other people’s lives. Lives that always reached an ending. Unlike mine.