ELEVENTH - Man who disappeared

Mariana's diary

Sunday June 18, 2006? Monday June 19th? Who knows?

Time: ???????

While I am writing this, I am sitting on the grass with a small flashlight that I have placed on some tree roots next to me. What I see when I look up from the paper is Gazebo. I don't know what it is about that ugly, skeleton-like building that attracts me so much. I don't even know why I'm still writing this. Maybe it's because I'm afraid I might disappear, especially now that it seems like a very possible option, so I want to leave a record behind. Perhaps this is also because thoughts that are coming out of my head, either through words or through paper, always seem less scary and bring relief than when they are only in my head. Anyway, I'm still writing.

When Mickey and I got into my car, it got really dark quickly, like we fell into a deep hole. I found a flashlight, which I keep in the glove compartment (don't know why they call it that, I've never kept gloves in it) and placed it on the dashboard to shine light around the inside of the car. It looked weirdly solemn, like we were preparing for a special ceremony. I can't explain why we did it, but we started kissing. Maybe we felt the need for comfort or tenderness, or maybe we simply accepted that we might not make it out of this place alive and were simply making the best of our last alive moments. Strangely, it was fantastic. In such a situation, when you see no way out, when you are claustrophobically stuck like a rat in a bag, one would not expect to be able to relax and enjoy at all. But as usual, we humans underestimate our own kind. We are very capable of adapting to all situations, bad or worse , wherever ours belongs. In that general darkness, we were reaching for something soft, warm and comforting, and at the time, that was enough for us. It was like our minds during the dark times thinks: "well, I found something nice and pleasant to cling to, so I will take as much as I can." As misfortune strikes and time passes, we slowly learn to tolerate more and more and find solace in it more and more easily. I guess that's normal. I guess it's the urge to survive, to exist.

After some time, the length of which I cannot and do not care to define, we were reclining over the front seats calmed down and sweaty. I suddenly became aware of a sinking feeling in my stomach, like the feeling you get when you're in an elevator going up. And it felt like the car was swaying slightly. I looked at Mickey and thought I saw confusion in his eyes.

"Do you also have the feeling that we are going up?" he asked me, while gently pushing me away from him. I wanted to confirm, but almost instantly, the feeling stopped. Suddenly, it was as if we became aware of where we were.

Mickey had quite a bit of trouble fitting his very long legs into my miniature car and now I was suddenly aware of how much acrobatics he had to do on the front seats because of his height. He explained in an apologetic tone that he had to stretch over the back seats or his "spine would snap" and somehow jumped over in the back of the car. With a disappointed sigh, he barely made it across the back seats, trying to adjust himself so that at least his spine was somewhat relaxed.

I wanted to move to the back to be with him, to still feel the scent and warmth of his skin and to feel warm and snuggled and forget that we are both in this hell. I didn't dare to do that. I was waiting for him to call me. Mickey and I had only recently met and if the circumstances hadn't been the way they were, we probably would never be intimate at all. I know I couldn't. Now I needed confirmation that he needed a hug and comfort just like me, that he didn't want to be alone at this moment. If he really wanted to be alone, I wanted to leave him alone, I couldn't deny him that. God, I felt so miserable! I wrapped my hands around the steering wheel and leaned my face on them, so he wouldn't see that I was crying. I was hungry, I was cold, I felt alone and I was terribly afraid. Like I suddenly woke up without warning in a dark dungeon and I don't know who threw me there and when, if ever, they will let me out. Am I going to die here? Is it possible to get out of this place? Are we all already dead and now falling into the vortex of our own sins?

I was totally screwed. I needed to put all the blame on someone, and that someone could only be the only person around at that moment. At that moment, all that mattered to me was that it wasn't my fault. I lost sight of the fact that I was not a minor, that I was sane (which might no longer be true) and that no one could control my actions. I temporarily "forgot" of the fact that I deliberately drove to this area, which I don't know well enough, aware that I can get lost and aware that my car is not reliable. I lost sight of the fact that I consciously went to the "Stella" bar with the intention of getting out of my busy everyday life, to go out on my own somewhere where no one knows me, and (it's pointless lie in my own diary) to see a young man whom I really liked and who I was attracted to, despite the fact that I was in a relationship with someone else. In a moment of vulnerability, it was most important for me to place the blame on someone else, especially since that someone else had secluded himself on the backseat of my car as if we had not been very close just a moment ago. I knew it wasn't fair, but I couldn't stop raging inside. I almost started to argue and blame him for everything that happened, when I heard his voice behind me, which sounded very sad, very dreamy and very gentle, like he felt that he needed to say something right now. He won't even allow me to hate him, when I need to blame someone else for what I did to myself, for what neither of us could influence or foresee. I knew I wasn't being fair, but luckily, the moment before I almost rained fire on him, he felt the need to say something.

"Sorry, Mariana," he said, and he sounded so tired and sad, "I'm not that young anymore, and this car isn't meant for tall people. My spine hurts terribly, so I had to stretch. Now it looks like I was rude to you. If you want you can jump over here to the back with me. I wish I could hold you a little longer.''

"Oh, I didn't think you were rude at all" I lied, without even a blink, but at that moment I really thought so "I just feel tired and distracted. And I really want to go home."

"You know," I added, searching unsuccessfully for something to tie back my hair, which was falling wildly over my face, shoulders, and back, "I don't think any car is meant for people THAT tall."

In all that mess, I couldn't find anything resembling a rubber band or a hair band. My hair stuck to my face and neck, it was all tangled and got in my mouth. This kind of hair goes perfectly with my face and character, so I never wanted to cut it short. While looking for something to tie it up I found a bunch of things that I hastily stuffed into my bag, just in case. A bottle of water, pain relievers (maybe for Jasmine, she needs them!), tissues, a pack of band-aids, an umbrella (so folded and compact, maybe it could double as a bat in case of self-defense), pack of chocolate bars, a bag of peanuts, a bottle of perfume (no use in this case), a few old rags and a box of cookies that was leftovers from the party. Finally, under the front driver's seat I also found a fantastic, though ancient, tool box with excellent, strong and long, steel wrenches and screwdrivers. This might have been the most useful of all things I've found. From the spare clothes I brought, I managed to dress more decently. Before I turned to address my companion, I heard him behind me making vague sounds. It was his voice, undoubtedly, but somehow strangely altered, strained, as if he couldn't get the articulate sounds out of him. I felt tingles of horror as it sounded like he was trying to shout to warn me of something, but he couldn't. I knew something was wrong, that something was terribly wrong, but I had no idea how bad it was.

I screamed so hard the car shook. I almost stopped breathing, and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my chest. The man who was reclining on the back seat of my car, the man who until a few minutes ago had held me in his arms, now had no arms! There was nothing under his shoulders! Nothing at all! He was trying to tell me something, he was mumbling, and then I realized with even greater horror that his eye sockets were dark and empty, as if someone with surgical precision had pulled his eyeballs out of their sockets, without any other damage around the eyes or in eye sockets. There was not a drop of blood anywhere, no visible tissue, not even damaged skin where the arm stumps ended. There were just perfect rounded stumps! In a moment of panic attack induced lucidity, I realized that it didn't look like someone had ripped his arms off and ripped his eyeballs out of their sockets, it didn't even look like they had been carefully removed without a trace. It looked like they simply disappeared, as if they had become completely transparent, like air. I realized with horror that he wasn't simply turning invisible after all, no. I saw his torso hitting the backs of the seats and the door in a way that would be impossible if he had arms, if they were invisible. I realized that he couldn't see either. He was blind. He couldn't even speak, because he didn't even have a tongue anymore. He was disappearing. He was disappearing slowly, piece by piece, before my eyes, and I couldn't help him at all. He tried to say something to me with the last bit of his tongue, but I barely understood one word: "I'm disappearing" and maybe he also mumbled: "too slow". When he began to lose his feet and the lower part of his legs, he became quite silent and still on his seat, resigned to his fate or dead.

His legs had not yet disappeared beyond the knees, when within a second he suddenly disappeared entirely. It was as if he had slipped into the air! I stared at that void in the back seat, not understanding what happened. My upper body and head were pressed uncomfortably against the roof of the car in an attempt to get as far away from him as possible, and a few moments later I hit the floor of the car very awkwardly and painfully with my legs up, over the driver's seat. On the way, I hit my back on the steering wheel. When I managed to get up from that barely possible position, I reached for the car-door latch made of flimsy plastic and nearly broke it when I pulled it and pushed the door outwards. I didn't get out of the car, I crawled out of it.

Outside, the air was pleasant and fresh, and the full moon was shining in full force. For a while I sat on the road next to my car, panting and repeating the words "Oh God" out loud, unable to get up on my feet. Of course, a person cannot disappear. Especially not in that way, slowly, piece by piece, as if it were evaporating. The only thing possible is that that person, that Mickey, that Mihajlovic, didn't exist at all. Maybe I lost my mind, wandering hopelessly for hours on these dark, desolate roads, so I simply invented a companion so that I wouldn't feel alone. Maybe I didn't make him up entirely, but I created him after a real guy who I actually met at that business party, where he played keyboards in his band "Omen". As a child, I used to invent characters, imaginary people, writing naive children's stories in my notebooks and decorating them with my own illustrations. Some of those characters were repeated in several stories, almost like series, but even then, I was well aware that they didn't exist. They were my comfort, and my refuge when I was feeling lonely, but I never saw them, nor spoke to them. I was aware that I had created them in my head and I knew I would never see or hear them. This guy seemed real, but then again, real people don't disappear before your eyes. I wondered if the others were real, or were they just illusions?

Stumbling along the road, trying to get back to my feet, I suddenly became aware that something else was wrong. The van of the band "Omen" has disappeared. When I realized what that meant, when I realized the weight of my position, I threw myself on the ground and began to hit the hard road hard with my hands. I felt almost no pain, although afterwards my hands were scratched and bruised and they tingled uncomfortably. After that unnecessary fit, I crawled back into the car, like it was a shelter. I sat there for a while, with my hair covering my face, lost in thought, lost and useless to everyone around me.

My hand went to the ignition key. If Mickey does not exist, if Pope and Jasmine do not exist, then neither Dick nor Sergei exist. Then there are no reasons for me to stay here. It's time to go. I turned the key, but for some reason, the engine just groaned and shut off. I turned the key again and the same thing happened again. After that, I couldn't get even the engine start, not even a "cough". Is my car really broken or is something preventing me from leaving? Paranoia was gripping me and I realized that I didn't know what was real and what wasn't. My thoughts were in chaos, my stomach cramping, my muscles were too tense, my vision blurred. I was pressing the horn on the steering wheel until my hands hurt, got out and kicked the car over the rusted and rotting parts until pieces of rusted metal started to pour around. I think I was screaming for a while, calling the names of those who disappeared, who were lucky enough to disappear, who may never have been at all. There was no one to see my performance. In the end, I left the car, got off the road and headed to the only place I remembered: towards Gazebo. On the way, I picked up a flashlight and a bag of things I found in the car.

When I got between the trees and heavy branches blocked the moonlight, leaving me only a narrow strip of light from the battery, I asked myself why I was doing this. I should stay in the car and try to start it. Why am I looking for that creepy Gazebo? I was so terrified that the lamp was shaking in my hand. The only thing I could see were the segments of trees and sparse grass under my feet, everything else was darkness. I realized that I was alone in an unknown forest, on an unknown road, completely lost and exhausted, in a night that would never end. If I weren't feeling fear, hunger and fatigue in my whole body, I would think I was dead. But the dead don't feel, do they? Although no one has come back from the dead to confirm that for us. At that moment, even some poor, depraved and sick human being, some desperado, deranged madman, maybe even a murderer, would seem like good news to me, I would welcome anyone. If a human being appeared out of nowhere, I would jump into their arms, even if they pulled out a weapon and said something like "money or life!". For a moment, I was afraid that Gazebo was a figment of my imagination too, like all those people. I couldn't find her, and I needed her. I needed her to confirm to myself that I am not crazy, that there is at least n something I actually saw. I will enter Gazebo this time, I thought, and this time I will touch her. But that doesn't prove anything, does it? Didn't I touch Jasmine and Pope and didn't I make love to Mickey a short time ago? All the people who don't exist. I stopped, wavering. I should get back in the car.

I was startled by a voice from the depths of the forest, sounded like a scream. It lasted a short time, it was barely recognizable and distant, but from that sound, I froze in place, terrified. Slowly and cautiously, I pulled out of my bag the largest of the heavy, steel wrenches that I had picked up from the tool box. I stood for a while with a heavy wrench in my hand, waiting for the sound to repeat. Nothing happened.

I wanted to just curl up somewhere in the grass, try to fall asleep and wait for dawn. But Gazebo would have to be close on the left from where I was standing. And she was there! When I saw her, I stopped in my tracks, surprised and terrified by her hypnotic power. Why did I leave the safety of the car? Why did I go into this forest alone, looking for an unprotected, open building where I can't even seek shelter? Why, after those strange voices that chanted menacingly a while ago? Why, when the beings that Jasmine claimed attacked her, could now be all around me, surrounding me and about to attack me?

But if these beings are nearby and can see or hear me, I thought as I approached Gazebo, why wouldn't they attack me immediately? Why bother with any kind of strategy, if they even have one? They were outnumbering me by far and they were far stronger than me. Maybe they're waiting for me to doze off so they have easy prey. I sat down by a tree in the immediate vicinity of Gazebo. There was thick vegetation all around me, so it seemed to me that thanks to the darkness and the dark bushes that surrounded me on all sides, I was well hidden. Now that I've written all of this down, I'm going to turn off the flashlight so its dim light won't give me away, and then I'll let myself rest for a little while. Maybe there will be a day when I wake up, and maybe it will all turn out to be just a dream.