Pancakes At Midnight Pt. 1

 

    I stood in the kitchen, my eyes glued to the front door.

    „Come back“, I thought and begged in my mind over and over again.

    I've waited and waited, every night I've been expecting the lock to turn, then I started leaving the door unlocked, risking everything, but I had told him many times that I would risk everything for him, and now I am doing exactly that - every night – for him, for his return – risking it all.

    I've been waiting, leaning against the sink, staring at the door; so much so that I've started hating the brown of it. I was tempted to repaint, considered changing the door entirely because it was making me sick, dizzy, but if by any chance he stumbles upon this street, takes a look at my building, decides that it's time to go back, it's time to go home, and he stands in front of the door which wouldn't look the same if I changed it entirely or just a little bit, he might not recognize it, or he might think some other people are building their happily ever after behind the door, so he might not reach for the handle and find the door unlocked, and then be angry with me for living life so recklessly. „Why do you do this? Please take care of yourself, don't mind me,“ I can hear him say. He might never return if I change anything. The street is the same, the building is the same, the door, too, and so am I, although I try my hardest not to change, not to give into this madness that life now is without him around.

    I said to him once „We share the same soul. It was split into two pieces. I don't idolize the human in you, but I recognize the me in you, and I am pulled towards you. If one day for whatever reason you're not here anymore, I will stay here and I will feel you if you are close, you will pull me just like you did before. But please don't go. Don't let that happen.“

    Does he remember it? I hope so, that's all I can do – hope. It kills me, though, every night, as the door remains closed, as my eyelids grow heavier with each passing minute, it kills me that I am hoping in vain. It's been almost 7 years now, and I die with hope every night, I don't even sleep in my bed anymore, I put the sheets away, the room is cold and empty, windows open so maybe the ghosts of our whispers late at night as we drifted off to sleep will find their way from these walls to his ears, and he will remember.

    „I love you so...“

    „I love you more.“

    „Don't ever go.“

    „Don't let me go.“

    „I promise I won't,“ said in perfect harmony. And then we slept.

    I die letting go of hope every night, and I wake grabbing to it every morning. I wake up crumbled up into a ball of human bones and flesh and emptiness, reach out next to me to find the awful texture of a carpet and nothing more. Maybe I could find the remnants of his presence somewhere in there, while we were sitting there drinking and singing terribly and I shushed him because it was late and we weren't in a house in the middle of a forest where no people lived.

    „Be quiet,“ I put my hand over his face and took a sip of wine. And he said nothing, he just took my hand and brought it to his lips, kissed it way too many times for my drunken head to keep up with, and I drank and looked at him the way you look at the sky when it's pink. „I want to spend the rest of my days with you.“

    I was weak and soft with him, he knew very well all of my weak spots, all he had to do to disarm me, or calm me, or even anger me to the point I couldn't stand him. His gaze, childlike laugh, a kiss on the forehead, that's all it took to turn me into a puddle that used to be an ice cube in the middle of the road on a hot summer day.

    With hope I die – hope that he will return home after I fall asleep, and with hope I wake – hope that when I do I will smell breakfast and coffee and hear his insane music tickling my brain. But he never does, and that's never there, only silences, the clock on the wall which never stops, and the pain in my stomach because I refuse to eat. Aware of my unhealthy life which can't even be called life now; please understand that I am only half alive now, and the pain of a loss of this part of me seems will never lessen.

    The night when we drank, when I confessed, but he already knew, that I want to spend the rest of my days with him, after finishing all the wine we had, we'd realized we were starving.

    „I have something for you,“ I told him. „It's a secret, the ghosts of this place can not know. Come and I'll whisper it to you.“ As he approached me I placed both of my palms on his cheeks and kissed him for what seemed like years. I often revisit that memory while I am sitting on the floor, still staring at the door; the ugly brown now like acid to my eyes.

    He kissed me back and my heart dropped into my feet, like a falling elevator when wires couldn't hold its metal weight any longer - the wires of my heart snapped, and it fell into my feet holding me firmly on the ground. I held onto him, drunk out of my mind, on wine, on love - on so much love - and hope.

    „I know you would rather not, but I am really craving them, so...“ I squinted at him and suddenly I felt so small, like a child, „...could we make pancakes?“

     He smiled at me - I could see in his smile the feelings he had for me, but tried to contain so  stubbornly, the tenderness in that short moment - and he stroked my hair and tucked it behind my ears, „Anything my love wants.“

    „It doesn't matter if it's midnight and we are not really in a condition to do this?“

    „Not at all.“ After saying that he hugged me like I was about to run and he didn't want me to.

    We got to the kitchen and pulled out eggs, oil, flour, all the ingredients to make pancakes. And it was messy, but we left it as a tomorrow's problem. The flour was on the floor and the counter, some made it to the bowl, some to our noses and hair, and we forgot to separate egg whites and yolks, added too much vanilla, some pancakes were burned, so we tossed them, some were messed up, but we loved them extra for that, like we loved every imperfect thing together. We did it – with a lot of „oops“ and „oh, no“, but we did it.

    It was almost sunrise when our stomachs were full, hearts even fuller, and we held onto each other and slept on the floor. With nowhere to be, nowhere to go, nothing to do, we slept for hours and woke up in the late afternoon. Our heads pounding from the hangover, I went to get us water, he kissed my head, I returned the medicine, it always helped. I brought leftover pancakes with me, cold and messy, and we laughed because, even though we were out of our minds, unable to think or stand firmly on the ground, stumbling through the kitchen we'd made pancakes at midnight.

    „Pancakes at midnight. We did this.“ Holding the plate I said and then looked at him. „We have a home, we have a plate of terrible pancakes, and each other. Can we do this forever?“

    „I want nothing less than forever. Like this.“

* * *

    And now my counter is messy, and it is tomorrow's problem, and the smell of frying filled the apartment, sticking to the walls, and cushions, and piles of clothes I had no strength, or will, to  put away; with a glass full of wine and a bottle open next to me, and an extra glass out keeping it company, I am staring at the door, like I did every night. I made pancakes every night. I played his music every night. I've been keeping myself sober enough to notice if the handle on the door is turning, but drunk enough to forget the fact that it hasn't turned once in the past 7 years. But I hope. I wake and I sleep with hope never letting me go. And I'm never letting it go.

    Pancakes at midnight...

    Pancakes at midnight...

    Pancakes at midnight...   

    Pancakes at midnight...

    Pancakes at midnight...

    Pancakes at midnight...

    Pancakes at midnight...

    Every night for the past 7 years. Every morning untouched. I toss them, make new ones. Throw away, make again. And so the tradition continues tonight, too.

    I lay them out on the table, leave out a glass next to a bottle of the same wine we drank when we did this for the first time. This was our way of being intimate, close, together. I keep it alive. I sit on the floor and lean my back against the coffee table, and I look at the door - stare. Just like I refused to blink when I first saw him in the fear that if I did he might be gone, so I fear now; if I blink I might miss the handle turning. So I stare. And I stare. My glass is getting emptier, my nostrils full of the smell of too much vanilla in the pancakes, and I don't blink.

I'm not sure if I am going insane, if I am completely losing my mind in this moment - I get tense, like a cat when it hears someone passing by the window it sleeps in; my gaze widens and I stare at the door even more, trying to see through the evergrowing, boring, ugly brown, glass dropps onto the carpet as my hands turn weak, my legs do too, and for a second I catch it – the handle turns, I stop breathing, the wine drips down my foot and onto the carpet, leaving blood-red stains, but my mind doesn't care about the dry-cleaning now.

    I blink for a second and tears rush down my face, like waterfalls, but quiet, and everything goes quiet. Why did I have to blink? My chest now full of knives and swords of all kinds, I open my eyes and stare at the door, tears falling down, I have no strength to control them – „Don't do this to me, please.“