River of Darkness

Look I know you miss her, man

But you can’t keep doing this to yourself

She’s moved on

Meanwhile you’re out there just

Walking the streets at night

Alone, in a river of darkness

Looking through the window, the subway tunnel looks very much like a river of darkness. A river of alcohol in which I’m slowly sinking, but whatever; I don’t care anymore. Screw it.

When two people move away from each other permanently, in a way they’ll never see or touch each other again, then, and only then, you lose something. And when you lose something, it’s forever. Unfortunately, this is the way things are, while some dive in the promise of a new life in an idyllic red planet, other drown themselves in gin and cocaine. She chose the first option, I had the second.

“Either we go together, and build a new life there, or we won’t go”, she said. But words are wind, and some promises are made to be betrayed. But the pain does not change, nor does it change my desire to see her again, even if through a computer screen. But my wishes no longer have priority for her. I realized that in a bitter way, after one month calling and being ignored, my calls flying through outer space to find just emptiness, I understood, she doesn’t want to talk to me no more, she’s happy in her new home.

I understood, but I did not learn. That is something else. Probably, tonight the gin will make me call her again.

“Could I find you there?”

I don’t think I could, none of the roads that I can take lead to the colony. Unless you have a lot of money to buy your passage, the only way to leave Earth is passing the aptitude test. I wasn’t able to do so, that is why I was left behind.

Finally River of Darkness is over, but what happened to the radio, going off the air again? Oh, I’m tired of it. Fuck it, I’m turning this shit off.

I wonder how many vows of love were simply put aside when the prospect of having an active role in the new era of mankind shone only to one of the two. I must not be the only one to suffer the fate of being abandoned, but maybe I’m the only one who cannot cope with it without having to drown in alcohol and drugs. I’ll wind up dead.

Just now I noticed this girl on the other side of the wagon, with these beautiful moss green eyes, just like hers. She seems to be somewhere else that’s not here, absorbed in whatever’s playing now in her earphones. How I’d love to dive in the sea of these eyes tonight, instead of drink until I drop. What a strange thought to someone who never believed in love at first sight. But against any belief that I might have, maybe I should talk to her, ask her number, invite her to hang out, to some party in Synth City or a drive-in, and forget who have forgotten me. She’s beautiful…

Oh, shit! She caught me looking at her. What do I do? Talk to her? Say hello? I better not, I’ll do what I do best: look away and run to my own thoughts. After all, I guess I would just end up using her to have a relief of my pain and longing. Or maybe not, this time, I think I really felt butterflies in my stomach.

Oh, great, the girl is already jumping out the train, there goes my chance. It doesn’t matter, I’m almost at my stop, and I have another way to get comfort tonight, and I will surely call her once again…

***

Once again, driven by a feeling of longing and abandonment, a video call crossed the ether of space, just to be unanswered.

After crying until he could no longer do it and end up sleeping, not from tiredness, but from sadness, he woke up the next morning with a steady decision. He took a hangover pill, threw what was left of cocaine and gin into the toilet, and flushed it. He had his breakfast and went out into the streets.

On the way to work he came across a huge outdoor in the side of the highway, an advertisement of the eye hospital that announced the new synthetic model, capable of producing tears. He wondered to himself why anyone would want artificial eyes that could cry, but nonetheless, took his way to the clinic.

Half an hour after getting to the hospital building, the surgery was done. He had replaced his brown natural eyes for two red ones. On purpose, and against the doctors’ will, he chose and older one, unable to cry.

The first thing he saw with his brand new eyes was the morning news, broadcasted between advertisements in the wall of a skyscraper. Reporting the terrorist attack in the night before, in which a mad crowd had hijacked a subway train and attacked a station in the upper city.