Two and two are still four but I'm more unhappy about it than ever.
The Bouman center, across the street from my building, where I've noticed some interesting looking people assemble (and then go cleaning the streets) is -- I've learned in the meantime -- a place for drug addicts (some of whom are without home) to come, register for a few hours work, get a free coffee or tea and some breakfast, then clean the streets in the neighbourhood for a couple of hours and collect their 7.5 euros. This is a place about which I've once had a dream to have seen Maria pretending not to see me passing by, but straightening proudly in her chair.
I've befriended a few people there recently. And, one morning some two months ago I saw Her. I'll call her Sultana. Dark skinned Maroccan woman of my age came there one morning, very tired and quiet. She is a heavy drug addict, the previous night she was too late to register to spend the night in a shelter for homeless people and had to spend the night sleeping out, on somebody's doorstep, out in a cold. There is something about her that draws me to her. We've spent the day together and I've let her get some rest in my place for the next two days. She was sleeping most of the time. I was also scared of her: the moment she opens her eyes, she starts smoking. Crack-cocaine, heroine, any weed or hash or pills she can take her hand on, there's simply no stopping.
We talked the first day; she is extremely intelligent and business oriented but her life is in such a state of chaos she simply cannot get a break. A fashion designer with detailed visions about a whole line of clothes with Islamic style decorations of universal beauty. We discussed a possibility of her renting a small room (and thus her getting some money as an aid from the authorities): this could have been a break she so desperately needed. This could have been a break I so desperately needed too: to have someone with me to whom I can help and who can help me with the chaos in my life: just the fact that I have someone to "use as an excuse" to start picking up the remnants of my life.
But... even my gentle attempts to have some semblance of a normal life, such as having perhaps a breakfast together before she reaches for her pipe and gets high... it didn't work. She was dead already, she just didn't know it yet. And so am I on my own, when I come to think about it.
She left. Again I felt a ray of hope for a brief moment before it was gone. I cracked again, in desperation, ended up in hospital for almost three weeks. Sultana ended up in jail: she was picked up by the police for not paying some penatly or something.
Then we met again and spent the most of the week together. Talked much more, raised our mutual expectations somewhat. This time I decided to afford myself a touristic passage through her world of drugs usage which she says she wants to quit ("in her own way`). Like Maria, Sultana was raised to be religious, but again I felt I am more of a believer than any of them two, but now I understand it. These drugs she takes are so disgusting, often taste like benzine, but the instant fix of high some of them provide is so tempting that I came to think that precisely because they are so appealing (and highly addictive), one should be extremely cautious about using them. That is really the only God addicts are praying to, the only will to live is to get some more the next day.
I was so eager to notice any signs of self restraint in her and one night... I killed her God. I didnīt feel good about it, I felt hypocritical because I had a little bit of cocaine with her at first, but didnīt know what else to do. I pleaded with her to leave some for tomorrow, she had a small packet of white, a small packet of brown and some skunk weed and just started taking them all. Finally, I threw the brown outta window. She went ballistic, but appeared to have calmed down soon enough, what followed later was more of a performance. It was pass midnight, she wanted to go out to get some more, I would not let her. She picked up her bags, threatening to call the police but with her body language signalling her reluctance to leave. Again I felt powerless. I felt she was daring me with the police. Two female officers came, told me I cannot hold anyone against their will (fair enough), and they left all together. That was the last I saw her. I miss her, I feel the chance of us saving each otherīs life has not yet been exhausted. I spent the rest of the night agonizing where is she now, who with, doing what...
That was three weeks ago. The first week I went through expecting to see her again, then I fell back into my own nothingness.
Everytime I met her, I was less scared of her and more scared of myself.
This is a shit post, I felt like putting it here like some kind of introduction before I dump on the blog some more direct reflections of Sultana and myself.
Post je objavljen 13.05.2008. u 12:32 sati.