Ptitchitza u niskom letu

The One Before The Last One: the penultimate letter to Maria

R'dam Zuid, 05 March 2008
(in black pen, dying out and changing its mind all the time)

Dearest Maria,

This is a new pen -- fuck it, it's the only one I have near me.

I miss your friendship terribly. My heart has never healed after you but it's OK -- I don't want it to.

You have saved my life again -- I came close to ending it a few days ago.

I realized two things:

1) My life here is ruined,
2) I give up.

I have decided to accept an "early retirement"-- I cannot stand the thought of working for United Nations again and they don't want me back anyway.

It's not a bad offer -- x,xxx euros per month until I live?

I also hate my apartment -- it's beautiful but I"m too weak to make it my home on my own. I'm not giving up on it, nor am I giving up on Netherlands.

I am going back to Croatia, in April to see if I can learn to love life again, like I used to (well before our shadows have ever met). I also need to find some work I will enjoy doing, hopefully something with languages (will also see if I can be of any help to Croatian diplomacy).

Would it be possible to see you again before I leave? It would so much to me. Please consider it.

I'm again without a phone, but the address is the same.

It makes me happier (or better said: less miserable) to hear from Thorman that you are doing fine, that you don't have to leave NL, and that you are happy with your old boyfriend.

Always your friend,

S.

(scribbled upside down, on the back:)
Very tired. Should go home. Where is home? Home is where the heart is? Heart is in Rotterdam. Because. You are. AREN'T YOU?

P.S. Please meet me. For five minutes or five hours. We don't have to do anything, we don't even need to talk. I just want my soul to take a swim in your deep eyes. There won't be dramas, there won't be tears. I promise. It'll be dry. Dry & sunny weather from now onwards.

If nothing else, meet me and tell me you don't want to see me ever again. Just look at my eyes when you do -- that's all that I ask.