The Dead End

He was a star shining brightly among all the grey specks that always thought themselves to be worthy enough to exist in his universe. He was a god to those whose destiny was to remain dimmishly quiet and still and whose greatest aim was to find a place in this universe that revolved around him, where they could settle for a dull life. He was everything to them; they were exalted that they were born in the same time with him, overjoyous about the possibility to worship their leader.

At least he once thought so...

Now he was the dirt that all these grey specks so happily were trampling on. Even lower than that. The dirt of the dirt.

At least he thought so...

***

Maybe, now he thought, it was the fact that he was always in movement that made all those people to stick to him like flies to honey. He was always rushing, trying to do as many things as possible, being in as many places as he could, and trying to take out the best of his life. He never thought that it will be so short...

He was the only child of the upper middle class parents – of course, he had money to do everything what he wanted, but, to be quite frank, he didn’t have to have it. He always got what he wanted irrespectively of the kind of capital that was needed. Only rarely he asked money from parents, because he hated the feeling of owing something to somebody, even if those two somebody where his parents. He was charmant, intelligent, with quick brains and that overwhelming air of carelessness that made him so adorable among girls. And those girls... Whenever he felt the need for a girl he just had to snap his fingers and a whole lot of them would fall into his lap. It was similar with everything he did. Without any effort he got straight A’s on his diploma and got accepted into the first university that he applied to. After a fight with parents he just applied for an exchange program and went to live in Greece for a whole semester. When he wanted to take time off of all his admirers he just went on a trip to Europe. For a few months nobody heard from him anything, and then he reappeared and told amazing travel stories to only those few chosen ones.

He liked speed, he liked adrenaline; he loved to try forever new things and to forget about them fast. The thing that he dreaded the most was queues. And also slow minded people. Actually he didn’t like all the people whose IQ was just a point lower than his. Or for that matter, all the people who didn’t share his values and who didn’t think that he was the god of this universe.

Once there was a time when various opportunities were thrown at him like shiny toys for his careless mind. He was one of that kind that lightly paces through their lives not caring about anything or anybody. The only orders that he was listening to was his own. He was living for himself. Not caring about what was happening to his closest people. He was the star and all the others were revolving around him.

Until that day... that day that ended his world, his mind and his life that now seemed just a far dream. That day when he stopped existing. The day of the dead end.

***

He remembered that the beginning of this last day of his life was perfect. It was a bright Sunday, the first one so shiny in this spring. He had had a breakfast with his parents in their countryside house and all of them were for once chatting happily with each other, because Dad had got a promotion. And for once he even felt that Mum was sort of happy because he and Dad were getting along rather well this time. He and Dad had a hard relationship. He thought that was because their characters didn’t quite match each other – Dad was conservative, simple and really hard-working, while he himself was a materialisation of carelessness. Also the fact that he got everything in his life easily, without any effort while his Dad had worked hard for most of his life didn’t quite help. But for the last few weeks their relationship had taken a turn for the better and he was a bit happy about the happiness of his mother.

After the breakfast he took his old bike and returned to the city. He loved his bike. That was just another thing that gave him unconditional and unquestionable freedom. He had bought it when he was only 16 and with some minor injuries learned to drive it just in a few days. For a long time he had regarded it as his only true friend, the only thing that would never let him down.

In the city he visited a few friends, and around midday showed up in his own flat located in the attic of some antique house in the centre of the city. The flat faced the yard; therefore, the noise of the streets was not present in this peaceful hole of his. He put down his bags and for a minute or two just laid down on his bed and looked up to that soft blue piece of sky that he was able to see through the attic window. For once he allowed himself to feel something sort of peace – lately he had found a girl that he actually liked, his Mum was feeling something similar to happiness, he himself will be graduating in a few months from one of the best universities in the country, and all in all life seemed perfect. At least a bit more perfect than it already was.

He woke up two hours later and was late already for 20 minutes for his basketball training. Cursing and grabbing his sport clothes he rushed out of his flat for the last time. Without thinking he took his bike and soon enough he was dashing to the sports hall. He noticed that while he was sleeping the city had been refreshed with spring rain. But it was too late to return, put down the bike, and to take a taxi or public transport. And nevertheless, he wouldn’t make it in time at all if he took the public transportation. Thus he forgot all the worries about the slippery road.

It happened when he was some 500 meters away from the sports hall. He had to move one lane to the right in order to take a turn off the highway. At the same time when he did the move, a little green car in front of him in the last moment decided to do the same thing and hit the brakes.

There was no time for reaction. He saw what was happening but the always reliable brains refused to process the information that the eyes were sending them. He knew what was going to happen before it actually happened. But no reaction followed.

He hit the car in a full blow – he hadn’t even considered slowing down a bit.

The next thing he knew was terrible fear in his stomach while he was flying over the bike, over the car. And then there was nothing else than terrible pain. It was nothing what he had ever experienced before – the pain was so overwhelming he couldn’t breathe. It was like his body had shattered into million pieces and among all those million and billion pieces, one shiny little crumb was his mind. And then also this always reliable substance went away. He succumbed to the blackness that swallowed him. And still hasn’t left him.

***

He remembers the first few moments after he woke up very sharply. He woke up. He couldn’t move. The one thing that he remembers clearly is the instant fear. Nobody was there to wait till he awoke. He was left alone. For the first time in his life he felt terrible fear on a point of agony and in a mixture with loneliness. That feeling will be engraved inside him for as long as he will exist.

The next is clouded in his awareness. He doesn’t want to remember. Or to ever think about it.

He laid there for a month. Then he began to learn how to eat. After another month he began to learn how to sit. After another endless period of time he began to learn some movements with hands. Everything was so slow – his movements, his mind, even his breathing. As if he would be hoping to die from breathing too slowly and not getting enough air in his lungs.

His mother and father visited him from time to time. And they were the only visitors. It was shocking. It was as if suddenly he would not exist anymore. As if he had never paced this earth. All the friends were gone.

He was left alone. Crippled. Slow. He was nothing. He was dead.

With years the fog didn’t clear away. It was always there – like a reliable pain-killer. His awareness was clouded with constant pain and self-pitying thoughts. He was empty. There was no human inside him, there was just the body. The human died on the day of crash. There were no thoughts. From time to time his awareness experienced repeated flashes of rage, of fruitless questioning, then blackness again, then self-pitting again.

He was in a state of apathy for three years. Then this apathy turned to rage. He was weak. He couldn’t even do some harm to himself, let alone others. He never stopped asking himself of how it could be that once so strong and full with life and energy, he now was trapped inside his dead body – weak, drained and just a shadow of nothingness.

In a sense he had become everything that he once despised. And now he had to accept it. In that one moment when he was the most sick of himself and of his self-pitying, he started to laugh. He laughed and laughed about his once so perfect life that he at that time didn’t cherish. About his non-existent values. About his non-existent friends. About himself – his blindness, his stupidity. He always thought that the main drive, the main source of movement is outside world; the only place where to put energy, where to achieve his aims, where to live – outside world. Now he was dead to the outside world. He wanted to move, but the only movement he was able of was inside himself.

And there was nothing worth of movement. Everything should have started here. From the very beginning it should have started from inside. But it all was blank. He was empty. Everything that he once was, now had gone, and he was left with nothing.

And he laughed again.