Cafe on the bridge

Martin was sitting in a train station crowded with people. His icy fingers ate, they were felt, and his brain, dull from the cold, could not think clearly. How long did he stay here? An hour, two, or maybe all day. He lost track of the hours, just like the watch given by his grandfather, he did not fulfill his promise to him, he was sorry. Although, was it just regret for the lost thing that belonged to his relative or was it really regret that you lost a part of the person who was dear to you. Martin could not discern this in his soul. Or maybe they stayed at home? In that cold apartment on the outskirts of the city. And with dark windows looking in and hiding the owner of the home. People passed by, wandering and lounging around pointless. Seeing no way out, and not wanting to return to work, to the homes and affairs that await them everywhere. Nowhere can a person hide from the responsibilities that hang like a stone around our necks and that endlessly push us to act. Martin continued to sit in the same place, only now he began to distinguish the glances of passers-by that they threw in his direction. Their sad looks that they threw at Martin like throwing a coin to a beggar only irritated the man. Why did they suddenly decide that something must have happened to him? Why can’t he just sit here at the station? As if you only need to sit and think at home. It’s as if there is no other place in this city and in this universe except at home, where you need to sit and think. Martin himself had a different opinion. He was definitely sure that he needed to relax and dream at home. There is nothing else you can do at home. You can’t quarrel, you can’t think about bad things when you cross the threshold of your home, you need to leave everything that has accumulated that day on the threshold of the house and come into it with an empty head. An empty head is better than a head with bad thoughts. Passers-by still passed by, casting their glances at his feet. The man did not remember what made him come here and not leave until dark. Come early in the morning, when the sun is just rising, and sit here all day. Leaning back on the bench and closing in on himself again. Wrap yourself in a scarf that is looped around your neck, cross your legs and cross your arms. Close your eyes, trying to disconnect from reality. Hoping to bring peace to your soul. But where does calm come from in the midst of noise and chaos? Nowhere Martin tried everything, but he still couldn’t find the answer to his question. No matter how hard he tried to look for it. He rummaged through all the nooks and crannies of his soul, but he lost this answer. Martin felt that he should at least start thinking about where to go now. He can’t sit here all night, and besides, the watchman who has been watching him all day looks at him askance. He will soon drive you away and get angry, but the watchmen are people like that, they forget anything. Or who made him come here. Martin began to waste the whole day from the very morning. In the morning his neighbors quarreled again, how he did not like to listen to their quarrels. And someone’s child was screaming. Maybe they forced him to come here? No, definitely not. It is stupid to leave home just because your neighbors and children are arguing. Martin straightened up and shook off his fatigue. Sitting here is not the best choice. Need to go for a walk. Throwing away the remains of cheap coffee, unfinished after lunch. He goes out and pulls his coat tighter around him. The snow is still falling and only the lanterns lit especially brightly today make the man understand that dusk has just descended on the city. There are still a lot of cars, they stretch in long tracks along the roads, and motorists endlessly press their horns in the hope that someone will hear them and the traffic jam will clear up. Martin maneuvers freely among the cars, because they are standing on the pedestrian street, ignoring the rules. Someone shouts obscenities at him as Martin turns around. He takes a closer look. Everyone is angry and exhausted. People get up in the morning exhausted and in the evening the same picture. Martin passed this same road today when he was going to the station. Martin passes the road. People scold him after him, but he only waves at them. He does not care. He is deaf to such things. There are many free places where you can park in the city, but Martin, passing by each one, always remembers the same picture from the windows of his apartment. Two men are his neighbor. One who lives above, and the other below. They constantly quarrel over one parking space, and both of them are not too lazy to waste their minutes of life on such nonsense. There is a second place, but it is next to the trash can. And no one wants to go there. Neither in summer nor in winter. And Martin catches himself thinking that this was one of the reasons why he left. But what is the second one? Martin turns to the lanterns. How well the light falls on his pale face, and the man squints, he doesn’t care. Someone pushes and shouts at him to get out of the way, but the man doesn’t even intend to do it. He feels good here too. Just stand and look at the lantern. If he bothers someone, then let him go around him. This is a common part of the sidewalk, and everyone can do whatever they want here. He stands like that for about five minutes, and then takes off and quickly moves on. Martin walks through a long street lined with flower shops and merchandise. I offer him to buy flowers, sweets and decorations. He passes silently, moving between groups of people. Walking around and leaving the block. Where do flowers come from in winter? Oh, it’s not surprising that this city has everything. All year round. Where do they get such beautiful flowers and why do they torture them with the cold? He quickly walks down his face with snow covering his entire head, making it appear white. He shakes off the snow and warms his hands with his breath, pushing them deeper into his pockets. And on the roads there are small streets leading from the main streets of the city. A real struggle is unfolding. Snow and cars. People help those stuck to leave, services arrive, but traffic is paralyzed. The whole city stood up. Everyone got up. The only people who are lucky today are pedestrians. Which are becoming more and more numerous. They fill the streets, and cars left on the roads remain abandoned until the snow stops. Passing under the windows of the apartments, Martin hears a concert from the open window. This warms him up a little. How he loves music. We managed to catch a French concert. Straight from Paris. He wants to stay and listen, but he fails to do so, his legs carry him on their own, not knowing where he is going, he breaks away from listening to the music and walks forward. A little more and he will reach his home. Approaching the entrance, he thinks several times, turning the same thought in his head. And he comes to the conclusion that he doesn’t want to go home. He has nothing to do there. An empty space that cannot be called home. A bookcase in which everything was read a long time ago, untidy dishes, and medicine, for which he went outside today. What happened next? He himself forgot what. And what difference does it make now? He looks around at the building. A four-story house with peeling paint. And neighbors quarreling among themselves. For nothing. His neighbor on the right wing is coming out of the entrance. Madame Julien. A woman in her early forties, aging before our eyes. But at the same time she doesn’t want to admit it. She follows fashion, thinking that it will make her appear young. The amount of powder on her neck makes her look even older. Hanging eyelids, and hair sticking out in all directions, Shadows and lips lined with red lipstick. She was once a beauty. She performed in restaurants. She sang from the heart. But as it happens, age came and younger ones took her place. And she went to the panel. — Good afternoon, Monsieur Rossel — She’s taking out the trash. Her smile looks like a creepy grimace. And she smells like cheap tobacco, which she buys in change from the shopkeeper across the street. Her yellow teeth smell rotten — Hello — Martin is polite, but he doesn’t want to continue this conversation for long. “It’s snowy today,” she says, he agrees and looks around, assuring himself that he still has time to be here, but backs away and walks away from the house and from Madame Julienne. He hurriedly crosses the street, and halfway there he remembers that he is in the wrong place. He turns around and goes to the pharmacy to the old pharmacist, whom his father still knew. Died from inflammation of the bronchi. Martin remembers how sad he was at the funeral, and how much he cried when he realized that now he really had no one left. His father’s death made him sullen and closed off from people. He walks into the park, running past couples and drunks. That today, sitting under the moon and snow, any rich people are happy He entered the pharmacy in a bad mood. It cannot be said that everything was bad in Martin’s life, but there was still something that did not suit him in this life — running around. Either their times have become so vain, or people have turned into creatures that do not know what they want. And that’s why they try to do everything in their short life. But if you ask what is included in this “everything,” no one will really tell you anything. This is the name of the universal kit. Consisting of; education, wife, work, and friends, well, in the best cases, children and that’s it. And in recent years, all this has become so unified that Martin got the impression that human life has become like a universal soldier’s ration. Every year it becomes scarcer and scarcer. And if you want something more, you need to go into debt. Because it is impossible to live well without plundering the state. Approaching the desired shelf, Martin sighed. Having handed over the medicine and paid, he went back with a severe headache. The smiling old man accepted the money, and they talked a little about his father. The pharmacist asked a lot about how often he goes and visits his father. And Martin said that often. But in my heart I knew that I wouldn’t go there. He is too afraid to go to the cemetery. Watching the end of people’s lives. They lie in plain sight in the city. Martin would not want him to lie the same way after his death. There was nothing on the bare ground, no cover, and everyone knew what had happened in his life. Death is personal. And he didn’t want to lie among others; he really loved solitude and valued too much the little freedom that he had. My heart was heavy after the conversation with the pharmacist. The man said that he would retire soon, but it was still a pity that he would not see him again. There were fewer and fewer people in his life who still remembered his other self. He’s not the same as he is now. Gloomy, gray, and sad, but trying with all his might to grab onto this life. Martin understood that this news was unlikely to please him ever. Although this man was of an ardent disposition, he was still a good conversationalist of the kind that few remain. In general, people have forgotten how to speak. To speak for real, opening each other’s souls, everything is under some kind of locks, everything is so vague that, even after living with a person for fifteen years, you are sometimes surprised by some of his things and habits. Martin left the pharmacy. The snow had already stopped falling, and Martin decided to walk along the long street, and turning a corner, he made his way through the junk of the people who lived here. Baby strollers, sleds, old things. Even the chairs were covered with snow. Martin felt uneasy about the rottenness. All his thirty-five years of life he could not stand it when things just stood there, abandoned by everyone. He believed that sometimes there are more memories associated with things than with people, and it’s simply not fair to treat something like that, which happened to you with reliability and without attaching you, the snow was reflected in his eyes, as well as in the eyes of the rare passers-by with whom he crossed paths. All these were people without souls without energy; there was no one in this city who could calmly tell him that life is wonderful. Every single person he met when he moved here at the end of his twenty years of life are people with empty eyes, souls and pockets full of money and who only talk about bills, loans, and running around. At the same time, everyone strives to snatch more money without realizing that happiness does not lie in them. Of course, it is better to die in a soft bed in an expensive hotel than to die in an attic apartment. But walking like this through the cold streets, it’s better with someone than alone. He wandered around and punched a little more time. He only woke up on the bridge, when, looking into the muddy water, he remembered his friend who committed suicide that winter and rested in the same cemetery as his father. He jumped into the icy water, and no one could understand why he did this. After all, it seemed like he had a life “according to the canon”: a wife, children, a great job and friends, but he was missing something. But even a year later, Martin couldn’t understand what. Loneliness came over him at that very moment. It always arrived on time according to its canon. And she has always been the mistress of your life. It gently took his hand. But Martin decided that today he would definitely not remember sadness and the funeral. He will go to his favorite cafe and sit there. The owner knows him well and will not mind. But something occurred to Martin. He looked back at the muddy water and looked at the city at the tall skyscraper buildings. The cars didn’t stop driving. On people, I saw myself as if from the outside. Doesn’t he already walk the same way, with his whole body hunched forward? Isn’t he just living like everyone else, letting life slip through his fingers? However, these thoughts led nowhere, and he moved on. Returning to my thoughts about suicide. Why do people commit suicide without any explanation at all, and is this an escape from reality when other methods do not help? And what other ways are they? Martin recalled his youth when he ran from life in the hope of dying. He threw himself into drugs and alcohol. But, as luck would have it, nothing helped. They pumped him out. And he realized that if he was not destined to die, then he should try to live, at least try to see among all this darkness a piece, an island of joy and happiness. After all, if no one saw this happiness, then everyone would commit suicide. And then he left everything in his city and came here. He found little happiness here, but it was better than nothing. Wandering to the cafe, he ate and made his way through the crowd of onlookers. And when he found himself in the cafe, he exhaled and finally realized where he found himself. In a city of crazy people and crazy loneliness.