6 Diamonds

I got up. I felt like dust, unwashed, unseen, unheard of. It felt good. But it couldn't last. I walked to the shower. I turned on the water and waited. I put my foot in first to test the temperature. It was hot. I took in a deep breath and went in. I'm fucking screwed. I have no chance. The water hit my back. I took some soap and tried to wash. I did wash but I didn't feel clean. Why did we have to do this? Maybe I can be sick. No, he would probably know if I was pretending. Alexander knocked on the door.

"Get out we need to hurry."

"Fine asshole. I was just washing my hair.

"Jeez don't be like that." I got out of the shower. I dried myself and got out. I sat on the bed for a second. I was tired, I am always tired. I slapped myself. Today was a day of no failures. We left the apartment. It was cold outside and my hair hadn't fully dried. My hair felt like little icicles. We left the apartment building and through the square and through the streets to the familiar little house on the hill. We knocked. We knocked again. No answer, nothing. We knocked a third time. Katya opened the door. Alexander nodded at him, I nodded too. We walked inside. Through the maze of clothes and food, through the kitchen and into the little room in the back. Anastasia was waiting there.

"Fuck we're so screwed aren't we," I said.

"Trust me, we will do fine," Alexander said.

"Yeah jeez, Mikhail believe in the dream team."

"Oh yes, the dream team of a girl who can't sing, a boy who can't play the bass, another boy who can't play the guitar, and a third boy who can't play the drums," I said.

"You just don't want to perform pussy." Anastasia laughed. The same laugh, a throaty obnoxious, stupid laugh. I laughed too. We started to practice. Again and again the same songs, the same emotions, no difference, no matter. Hours passed. While we played after every song Alexander would check his watch. Again and again, he bent down to check his watch and then we'd start to work on another song. It went like this for a couple of hours. Finally, in the end, we looked at our instruments like gluttons look at a lack of food. Disappointed and thoroughly tired we sat there looking at Alexander. He looked back at us.

"Do we have to play more?" Anastasia said.

"No, we don't have to play for about thirty minutes. And speaking of thirty minutes we should probably go."

"Should we rent a cab or something, go in style?" I said.

"Ah yes, cabs the epitome of style and yes we are because none of us have a fucking car," Alexander said. As we talked we walked and walked until we got to the sidewalk. Alexander called someone on his phone. We waited, we waited again, and then a car pulled up. Inside was a man. A normal man. A man that is utterly inconsequential to this narrative. We talked in the cab, about life, about how screwed we are, about how none of us care about this silly thing. I care, Anastasia cares, Alexander definitely cares or he wouldn't do this and most of all Khatya doesn't care but that's normal for him not to care. We got there. On the outside, it was painted blue in dull contrast to the gray of the city. Two men were smoking on the outside. They looked at us. Alexander looked at them.

"Oh hey it's Alexander" one of them said, he had a wispy little mustache that became a wispy little beard.

"Well fuck me dry and call me dirty it is." said the other one. He was taller than me by about two feet and had a great big beard. He would've been intimidating if it was for the fact that his voice was higher then a little boy. Katya laughed. The man looked at Katya, Alexander looked at Katya, Anastasia looked at Katya, I didn't look at Katya.

"I shouldn't have done that. You're probably going to be my enemy for life now aren't you."

"Yep. I can't help if you have such a dickish face."

"Ah, the curse of being an asshole," I said. The two men opened the door.

"Oh hey Anastasia didn't see you their behind small cheeks." the one with the big beard said.

"Small cheeks. My cheeks are very large." I said.

"Your buttcheeks are? I didn't know you were that kind of guy." Anastasia laughed. Alexander laughed. I laughed. It was dark inside. Only lit by a couple of lights hanging a little above each table. In the center of the bar was a wooden stage with lights trained on it. I looked at the wooden stage. Alexander looked at it too.

"I regret coming here," Alexander said

"Well, no turning back now. This is the end of the line isn't it." I said. A little man with a pot belly ran over to Alexander and patted him on the back.

"If it isn't my favorite teen pop group. How do you do" the little man said, his voice was deep. Everyone here seemed to be a very colorful character. Colorful characters are totally my favorite. He led Alexander by the shoulder to the back of the bar where there was a great big curtain. He led us behind it and we looked at what was a rickety table and four chairs. We each sat in one of the four chairs.

"So you guys are on, do you need any refreshments? Or anything more your taste." He looked at Alexander. I looked at Alexander.

"Wow Alexander I didn't know you didn't like alcohol," Anastasia said. Alexander looked at her. Then he looked at me for some reason.

"What did I make you turn off alcohol as far as I know you love the stuff," I said. The pot belly man laughed and went over to a little bar in the corner of the room and brought out a bottle of vodka. This time though the vodka wasn't shit. We drank and drank and Alexander drank the most. He looked at his clock.

"Fuck we have ten minutes till we go on. Any last words?"

"Yes, I think I do. If we ever make it out of this. You will all have to personally shoot me. I demand two bullets from each, I don't care where just not on my dick please." We laughed, Alexander the most. After we stopped laughing the silence crept up on us. Soon we were completely silent. Waiting. The pot belly man had left a little before. Talking about some man with a gun. We all just waited around. We are screwed. I'm going to be embarrassed on the stage and some man with a gun is going to shoot me because of how bad I am. I can't play any instruments, any song I do will be terrible. I'm a screw-up, a mediocrity, none of us will ever do good in anything. Anastasia laughed. Katya laughed. I laughed. Fuck it.

"Well, shall we go then," Alexander said. We got up, left the little back room, and went into the main part of the bar. It was packed, men, women, something in between a man and a woman. On the stage were our instruments. Our instruments. A stairway of months had lead to this. Angels would sing of our greatness, I would sing, Anastasia would sing. Fuck it. We walked up to the stage. The lights beat down on us like little oligarchs in seats of power. The instruments looked at us, the eyes drifted to our faces, to our bodies, to our minds. We picked up the instruments. Anastasia put her mouth to the microphone. For one whole second, we waited. The moment before the plunge. The lights, the people, the time. I closed my eyes.

"We are the greatest band in existence, and this is Diamond by our great guitarist Alexander Mechislav. The people looked at him. The seconds passed individually tiptoeing around our corpses. But finally, she started to sing. And it was beautiful, it was great, it wasn't terrible. I started to pick away at the bass, Khatya hit his drums, Alexander strummed his guitar. And it worked. The notes came together, joined hands and danced and danced and danced. Anastasia sang and sang and sang. Soon that song passed and another one began, it was great. It was incredible, we were great, finally, we were great. Transcending this, we were great, transcending anything, transcending fucking God. I was a God, Anastasia was always a God. Finally, it was fucking something good, get the fuck out of the way anything. We were good and that was hopefully all that matters. Finally, the seconds that had taken so long washed away in winds of time and the songs that had eluded me and Katya and Anastasia finally came to us in flurries of genius. The music stopped. Most of the bar patrons had left, some had stayed and looked at us. We relaxed our shoulders. A minute passed, Anastasia said something, it didn't matter. We walked off the stage leaving the instruments behind.

"You guys were great holy shit."

"Sign my man tits please."

"Actually I didn't really like that last song." We laughed, some of the audience had come up. I enjoyed it. People enjoying something that I made. I felt light-headed, I smiled. Anastasia looked up at me.

"We finally fucking did it didn't we," she said.

"Yes, we did," I said.

"We did just do that, didn't we. We just did something good." Katya said.

"Yeah I know I was wondering the same thing. How did we actually do something so good?" I said.

"Well here's the thing I'm not going to take credit but I actually am," Alexander said.

"Fine, we submit to your will Alexander we'll never doubt you again now lead us on our humble journey, great leader," I said.

"Thank you. Thank you. Now on the next stop booze and lots of it." There was a lot of booze. Anastasia had booze, Khatya had booze, I had booze eventually the night transformed into booze. I drank some vile vodka, some good vodka, some even better vodka.

"Mikhail you ever wonder if God just doesn't want people to find love," Anastasia said.

"No I mean I've always found love. I mean you love me Alexander loves me, I love me." I said. She smiled like she was patronizing me, but she wouldn't patronize no smile can patronize someone. She turned to talk to Alexander about something. They started talking some more. And some more and even some god damn more. It seemed like they wouldn't stop talking.

"You ever wonder if the government has taken over our food stream and made us all believe we are narwhals," Alexander said.

"I don't believe I'm a narwhal and I think the food stream is not the right way to go for that," I said. Anastasia looked at me or us.

"Yeah, they would hide it in the food system because they knew that where we wouldn't look," Anastasia said. Weirdly she said it. She said it weird. Almost as if she was irritated. I left the conversation. I walked out of the bar. Sometimes I would stumble on the sidewalk. A man looked at me like he wanted my money. I went back to walking. Walking and walking and more god damn walking. I walked and walked and walked. Alexander didn't leave the bar and neither did Khatya or Anastasia. That's probably fine. He'll probably come home right. Right? They would, I know he would one of them will at least come home. And yet they didn't. Long after I had come back home none of them had been seen. Some of that made more sense as Khatya had no reason to come here and same with Anastasia but Alexander, he was nowhere to be seen. I was in the bed my coat on and the layers kept me on the bed. Sweat poured down my sides and onto the sheets below becoming saturated with the stuff. I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes, it was three. Alexander still wasn't back. Still not here. Still not in his bed I don't care. Do I care about him, he can do anything he wants and to anybody he wants. He's in control of his body. But fuck it hurts. He's gone and he won't return until tomorrow. He's probably just staying over and drinking. He's probably not doing anything. I shifted my body on the bed, nothing seemed comfortable. I closed my eyes. Around me people shifted about, voices someone was talking and something was happening. It all just felt wet. I opened my eyes. Little bits of light were flying about in the room. I had a headache. I got up. Alexander was still not back. His bed sat there unabated untouched, unmovable. I got up to get some water from the sink. I drank it. It didn't taste good, it tasted positively terrible. I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair had the dusty feel that came from the lack of a shower, flecks of schmutz had gathered around my eyes and around my eyes were dark circles. A layer of sweat had gathered around my face surrounding it, molesting it, sweat, sweat and more sweat. I took off all my clothes. It didn't get any better, the headache, the sweat, the everything. I coughed, a raspy short cough, no energy nothing was put into it. I went to the toilet and sat down. Nothing seemed to want to move today. It was all pain, pain and more pain. From pain to pain, to more pain. Why hadn't Alexander come back home? Anastasia likes me. She loves me. Why would she do all those things, why would she even talk to me? She has to, I've seen the way she looks at me. That's love I say. Love I say. Did he and Anastasia. Fuck. Why would he do that? Why would anything happen? What did I do? Water ran down my face. A layer of steam had gathered in the room. I closed my eyes. Time passed as if it was tiptoeing around me the water slowly got colder, and colder and colder. Why would I care? Why does it matter? It was cold. The water was very cold. I stepped out. I dried and left the shower. Alexander was still not there. I sat on the bed. The room smelled like piss. It always smelt like piss. Everything smells like piss. Fuck it everything is piss. I got up, I looked outside and strode right out of the apartment.