MALAKAI
Part 4 : Malakai Escapes.
- Maybe my mother was right, maybe I am broken.
- Or maybe she’s drilled that thought so deep into you, that it became you, and now you can no longer tell if that’s how you’ve always been or if you’re simply the result of her not loving you for this long.
- Maybe. Who knows? Really. It doesn’t matter anyways.
- It doesn’t matter?
- I don’t think so, no. One moment I was a child, and the next I was suddenly, aware? It’s not like growing up “suddenly”, or turning into an adult in the body of a child. It’s more like meeting yourself so soon that the realization is so brutal it leaves you numb and unforgiving. And as time goes by, it all stops to matter, you’re no longer scared of anything at all, you no longer care who lives and who dies, you live temporarily. I feel the pain when it surges, the happiness when it comes, and in between, I simply don’t.
- But that’s no way to be living.
- If that were true, I wouldn’t be living it, wouldn’t I?
Malakai sat on the left side of the bed, back turned to the stranger sitting on the right side of the bed. They’ve been talking for a while now.
When Malakai realized that someone was lying next to her, she decided that tonight she wasn’t going to ignore them and wait for the terror to kill them. She decided to talk. After all, if you knew your world was ending, you wouldn’t spend the last moments laying in a bed wondering who was next to you.
-They will be here anytime soon.
- Who are they?
- I don’t know. They’ve been coming every night, they shoot me and whoever is next to me. Tonight, it’ll be you.
- And what do they want?
- I don’t know. I never dared to ask, I always pretend to be asleep until it passes.
- So what’s different about tonight?
- I realized something.
Malakai paused, stood away from the bed, undid her hair and let it run loose around her neck. She took in a deep breath and walked around the bed. She crouched in front of the stranger and explained:
-I realized that, people get to live, without thinking about it. It’s almost like we coexist in this same world, with its same crap and disasters, in these similar realities and routines, we all go about our day jobs and come home to families and friends that nurture us, and yet, some of us have to think about living. Some of us, are conscious of being alive and that makes life not so spontaneous anymore, all those relationships become intentional, calculated, every day becomes more and more like a task. Nothing flows smoothly anymore. Some of us don’t get to live without thinking about it.
- Do you feel like that?
- I do. Every day.
- So how do you cope?
- I usually write.
- So write some more. Why give up now?
- I am not giving up. You wouldn’t understand, trust me, the feeling of writing your whole life, pouring your being onto paper, to end up realizing that your writing simply sucks.
The thumping of the boots echoed through the hall. She knew they were coming, this time she didn’t resist. She saw the terror on the stranger’s face, unfamiliar, yet comforting, to know that one of them was feeling something.
She waited, the silhouettes barged through the door and bullets rained over them.
Time stopped.
