9

00:17:00

For a lot of people, this would be impossible. Imagine spending days on your own, minding your own business, being disrupted by your work matters and family phone calls, which started to be less and less frequent. It was boring at first. But then he got used to his everyday routine, he ordered Lego blocks, 3D puzzles, little scientist sets and organized his free time according to his childhood dreams. He had always been an introvert boy but an introvert boy he could be now on an everyday basis. So for two weeks when she was away he was utterly capable of coming back to what he was used to doing for the past few years. He wasn’t lonely when he was alone. Quite the reverse, when the panic attacks started he felt extremely lonely among people. Maybe in a psychiatric ward, he would feel understood, possibly the queue at the psychologist’s would enable him to meet people with relatable problems. Instead of undergoing long and complicated treatment, he decided to mollycoddle himself and protect forever from the things which made him anxious.

She came back in a good mood. She looked refreshed and definitely bigger, as she barely could zip up her winter coat. She asked him how he was doing. She bought him a couple of mountain souvenirs and a casket of wine. He thanked and again had to get used to the noises she was making. He built a Lego castle and put the souvenirs inside as the tokens of won battle. She took a shower and watched a TV show. She even told him good night, as if she cared that his nights were good. He was glad that over the mountains and far-off places she chose him. He didn’t have any feelings for her. He simply felt this masculine pride of having something that others didn’t have.

Two things happened in March. They say that misfortunes tend to go in pairs as if one unfortunate event wasn’t enough to break you apart.

Mother died. No, it wasn’t a car accident. No, it wasn’t suicide. Apparently, she had been sick. Cancer. She had been suffering for some time, but she didn’t have the guts, or maybe she didn’t have conscience to tell him this. She arranged her funeral in Norway and in Norway was she buried to take from him the burden of burying her and having been forced to leave the flat to take care of her body. He wouldn’t be able to organize the funeral. He wouldn’t stand the mourning looks of his family members. He wouldn’t stand the view of the body. Or would he? Mother arranged for herself to be cremated. Everything was paid in advance. To his account, a significant sum of money was transferred from his mother’s savings and the insurance company. He became a sole owner of the flat. He became an orphan.

He thought that he wouldn’t cry instantly. But the news hit him after a week. He ordered sedative drugs from the online pharmacy. Two nights he calmed himself to sleep. The last one he cried like a little baby. He was glad that she decided to go to Norway, as here she wouldn’t make her dreams come true. He also suffered from the fact that she put her ashes into a Norwegian soil as if a bigger amount of her life was a bad joke played on her by fate.

After two weeks he lost his job. It wasn’t such a tragedy. The company was undergoing structural changes and it was cutting costs. His duties were given to someone else. Anybody after a short training could do what he did. It wasn’t the lack of money. But it was the rejection he didn’t need at that time. All of a sudden his days at home were twice longer and the time devoted to cultivating dark thoughts became even more numerous. Now he was being bored at home. Bored and still mourning the passing of a parent. She was also there. And so was the grapefruit. Grapefruit was now a bigger grapefruit. Possibly a melon.

‘I heard about the death of your mother,’ she said one day through the keyhole ‘Are you OK?’

‘And what do you think?’

He sounded rude. Irritation and grief started controlling his attitude.

‘I don’t know. I never lost anyone. You know better.’

She was right. She didn’t know what it was like to lose mother twice. Once to a different country. Second time to a fourth stage cancer. He didn’t even see her suffer. She thought him too weak to deal with her disease. Her death. Her funeral. She didn’t think highly of him apparently.