WHITE HELL
by
Marcin Rusnak
My hell is dirty white and dry
as dust. It is flat like a disc and stretches indefinitely in all
directions. The unmoving sun blinds my eyes and burns my skin, covers
it with painful blisters.
I would cry if I only could.
The shoes are scraping against the salt-whitened sand. I hate it, this
horrid taste that persists in my mouth. I feel like vomiting, but there
is nothing I could throw up. Salt is itching and stinging in every
single cut and I truly cannot count how many of these mark my skin. The
pain is acute, and so are the hunger and the thirst that have
accompanied me for as long as I can remember. They torment me, but not
enough to make me lose my mind. Oh no. This is my hell and I am here to
suffer.
Every now and then I come across tire prints. The tread is clear for in
my hell there is no wind and a pattern once printed in the sand stays
there forever. The track is thick, most likely of jeep tires. I have
tried to walk along it, but sooner or later the prints always
disappear, and I stand amongst the whitish sands, under the still,
merciless sun, in my private hell.
‘Don’t give up,’ I hear her whisper. ‘Please, don’t give up.’
I am not alone. Patti is there, and so is her tender voice. Whenever I
hear it, I feel an iron band close around my heart. There is her
shadow, too, right next to mine – a dark slender shape. I can see it
when we walk together. It is far more graceful, as if Patti did not get
tired at all. I drag my feet on the sand, scuffing up clouds of dust
with every move, and I lurch and sway like a perpetual drunk.
I am tired. Exhausted.
‘Don’t give up, my love,’ says Patti.
I stop and turn towards the place where she should be standing, from
where her shadow falls.
I see emptiness. Sand and salt. Only sun-scorched desert as far as the
eye can reach.
I fall to my knees. My throat is parched, so my scream is more like a
pathetic squawk.
If I could only see you. For one short moment, just one tiny glimpse. I
would look into your eyes and…
…and say I am sorry. I am sorry that you died because of me.
Then I calm down. I look away and begin to stand up. I brush my hands
against my incredibly soiled trousers and the salt gets into the cuts.
It burns, burns like hell.
I take the first step, the cruel beams of the sun are fondling the back
of my neck again. But it is better now, I am all right, because once
more I can see your shadow next to mine.
‘I love you, Patti,’ I say.
‘I love you too. Don’t give up. Walk. Walk to me.’
And so I walk. Across my private hell, a desert full of salt.
***
My hell has four bare white walls. There is an armchair, and a bed, and
an awful lot of complex machinery that from time to time produces
awkward sounds.
And there is you on the bed.
‘I love you,’ I say once again. ‘Please, don’t give up.’
I am holding the inert fingers in my hand and staring at the face that
I love so dearly. I am thinking of your eyes, hidden under the eyelids,
about the smile that used to provide my life with purpose.
I am sitting in this white hell and cursing every single moment of our
trip to Tunisia: your idea to go on an excursion and see the desert,
the jeep’s breakdown, the entire day of senseless wandering in the
salt-painted chott. I am cursing the thirst that made us lose our
senses, and the sun that nearly killed us. I am cursing you because you
did not leave me then and you did not save yourself.
I am squeezing your hand, and tears are running down my cheeks. I
cannot leave you either, although everyone says that you are not coming
back to me. I cannot leave this hell of mine.
That is not the worst part though. The worst part is that you have no
idea that there, in the desert, you saved my life.
The worst part is that if you do not wake up, you will pass away
thinking that I died because of you.
THE END
Marcin Rusnak was born in 1984
in Wrocław, Poland. He is a Ph.D. in literature and a teacher of
English. In Poland he has published two books and a number of short
stories. He has a wife, a son, and a head full of stories
E-mail:
Marcin
Rusnak
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