The Rain

Autumnal rain made the rare traffic in a small village even more quiet - almost emptying the streets. There were no people on the sidewalks; only a few cars were driving through the puddles.

I was standing in front of the local school, by its main door under the wide roof. Maples, surrounding the square in front of the school, had turned from green to golden-red, fallen leaves had made the grass under the trees more colourful. Light breeze made the maples to wave slightly. Usually I didn't like autumns - falls made me sad -, but this autumn was unusual. This autumn was different.

From behind the corner of the school's workshop appeared a young woman, holding the umbrella over her head, and made her steps towards the school-building. She was walking carefully, trying not to step into any puddles that were spreading here and there on the sidewalk. She gave me a short glance and for a moment there was a swift smile on her lips.

I put on my glasses, then pushed my hands deep into my pockets to cool down the shiver of excitement. She was getting closer and closer.

Setting one foot in front of the other gracefully, she stepped up on the stairs. After she leant her umbrella against the wall, she edged a few steps nearer and stopped, looking me into the eyes.

"Hello!"

For years I hadn't heard her voice, years I hadn't seen her. But I had been thinking about her a lot and even imagined our next meeting. And now it was happening and thank for a little help I had got from my younger brother, at least it seemed to have started the way I had hoped. Even the rain appeared to be a present from the gods.

She looked at me questioningly. She had changed. She seemed to be older, more mature, even more beautiful as I could recall.

And I remembered her well. She was my first and only true love; when I needed to understand her - only a short glance at her eyes was enough; she was my only soul-mate.

"Why did you call me?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "To see you, to talk." Years ago it was our main meeting place on these stairs.

She looked me suspiciously. "Why?..."

"We haven't seen each other for a long time. I was..." I hesitated for a moment. "Away. Most of the people I used to know, most of my friends have disappeared somewhere, or they do not notice me anymore. I guessed... I thought that at least with you I can speak again."

She was staring at me calmly. Somehow I compared that look with the one people use to look at the mentally unbalanced. "More than seven years has passed since we last saw each other. Even more time since we could talk normally. And now you're just reappearing from only god knows where, and you expect everything to continue."

"I hope."

"I have changed," she said quietly and lighted a cigarette.

"I know." One of my eyebrows has risen, seeing her smoking.

She shook her head. "No, you don't. I have changed, I have my own life you know nothing about, and where you can fit in no more."

"Why?" I was surprised. "That, that I... That I was away, doesn't mean that I have changed horribly. I haven't." We were staring at each other for long moments, without words. "I remained the same person I had been. The one I had been. The one you had trusted, the one you had loved."

She lowered her eyes. "Exactly. You are the same you were then, seven years ago. You have your own world," she answered after a little silence.

I smiled - I found hope in her words. "Yet you loved being there. You have told me this."

"True. But while you were gone, I stayed to live there. Time has gone by." Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. "I am so, so desperately sorry - you can't even imagine, how much I am – but this same period of time has given you a chance to stay in your amazing, beautiful world. But these seven years have taken you away from our common world, seven years are between us now."

She took her umbrella and - without rising the cover against the rain - walked down the stairs. She went back on the same way she had approached, but she missed the puddles no more.

There was still rain in our worlds, still, small-dropped and cold autumn rain.

But that rain was so different for us...

It is necessary to understand everything?

Because of some strange, incomprehensible state I got onto the top of the Eiffel Tower। To the top itself, to these red sparkling lamps.Paris spread in different directions, but I didn’t care! Paris or not - I was interested why all these police and ambulance cars are swarming down there. Some people - they seemed so small from here! - waved to me. I waved to them to answer.

From early childhood there has been a question tormenting me: if I jumped very strongly from the top of tower, would I be able to jump away from the base of the tower or I tumble against the iron body of tower before hitting the ground. The cars from the fire department joined the police and ambulance cars। They are fools: if a man planned seriously a jump from the tower to commit suicide, then the entire French army would not be sufficient for his rescue; but if he is not intended to complete that, only one person would be enough - the policeman, who would arrest the ‘jumper’ for the disturbance of law and order - therefore the present friendly assemblage below wasn’t anything else than the expenditure of the money of taxpayers।

Thank God - I didn’t belong any of the two groups mentioned above - I simply wanted to know how my leap would end and to find out there was only one possibility। I waved my hands and jumped.

For the last hundred of metres I was rolling uncontrollably against the skeleton of the tower। My clothes and face were covered with rust, when after I-do-not-know-how-many-somersaults arose to my feet. I took a cigarette from my pocket and lit it with my cigarette lighter. “With the appropriate wind this would have been even more successful,” I said to the approaching policemen, doctors and another persons with important, but frightened faces. Then I hada glance at the cigarette in my hand. “This is the only ’sin’, which I still could not get rid of.” There was silence around me.

“Are you nuts?” cried one medic in a white tunic finally।

“No, I am not। Only a little bit curious. But now if you’ll excuse!” I said forcing my way through the crowd in the direction of my car. “I must go to change my clothes.”

Ignorance - the stronges weapon, which men can use। If you teach a man physics and he understands through the superhuman efforts why that apple fell on Newton’s head, then he will forever connect this in his way of thinking that things fall downwards. Nothing can reconvince him. And as confirmation of that - the spot on its coat - which was obtained from the random overflown bird. In the dazzling light of his firm knowledge, he does not note even this simple truth that he had never ever before been shitted on. “Once you already accepted the knowledge and thinking of main society, then you have to live by that,” I said to the policeman, who sat by the other side of the table.

They did not let me go and so I had to sit opposite the inspector with the dull expression on his face and I guessed he had such dull thinking as well। I had been trying to explain him for the last 5 hours the meaninglessness of accusing me with disturbance of order. I had died after the jump from the tower, they would have considered me as unhappy and lost spirit; however, if I had got injured after that, I would have been a super-happy person - born in a jacket of luck - in their eyes, and all nonsense like that.

But I was okey।

And now I became a criminal। There stood an empty chair next to the wall. “If I jumped from this chair, would I commit a crime?" The Inspector shaked his head non-understandingly. “Then tell me if you please - in what kind of damned law the altitude limit indicated, and where is it written that a leap from higher places than that limit would be punished by law?"

All is based on how questions are asked। For example - my day was definitely ruined. Not only the unsuccessful leap; I had to have a conversation with the narrow-minded official, who cannot understand with his best desires that the majority of his problems in life come from misunderstanding of simple facts.

They were forced to free me.

Descartes

Man loved Woman. Actually he wasn't so sure in it as he tried to dissect that rationally, yet every time he was forced to be apart from Woman, he felt sharp biting in his soul. His Mind and Logic tried to convince him in absence of soul, but at the same time these two couln't explain him the origins of that real, physical pain he felt.

Man sat on his old, well-worn sofa and thought. Man thought often, that there were days when his discussions between his Ego, Logic and Mind went so hot, that time passing by passed as well these eight hours he should have been at work. Luckily Man had a good job: his work contained much thinking , too, and for his bosses were open-minded, Man was able to do his work-thinking later in home.

"I think, so I am," Man thought about Descartes. These words were on the wall in his cabinet, framed. Woman didn't like that. By her understanding Man was lost in his thoughts so often that it seemed to her she was living alone in their apartement. Woman had once hanged to wall a parafrase "You think, so You aren't... here." Man was angry then, because Woman's logic was strange.

"If I think, then I am, am I not?" he grumbled then. "I wouldn't be able of thinking, if I wasn't."

"Yes," Woman nodded, "but I can't feel that You are. While you think, I feel myself alone. Alone here, in this bed, in this room, in this house."

"But I am here. I think right beside you. Don't you feel that I am?" was Man amazed about Woman's stupidity.

"No!" said Woman, turned her back and fell asleep.

Man was thinking. He had a problem. Woman had told him in the morning that she is moving back to her mother's, because she wasn't strong enough to live alone. And again - Man didn't understand her and that's why he was thinking now. He couldn't catch, how it was possible to be and not to be at the same time. "That's impossible," Logic said. Man agreed.

"Maybe Woman thinks, you're not good enough for her," Ego offered. Man didn't agree with that. If it were so, Woman might have left long time ago, not now - after twenty-seveth year of living under the same roof. "Maybe she's a bit slowly?" whispered Ego, more likely to itself.

"No!" Man shouted. "She's a very good person, very good Woman. Yet she has always been talking that I am not."

"Have you considered possibility that she might have an authism?" Mind asked, scratching its head.

"Ehh... What is that?" Man asked.

"I do not know exactly, but I think I read from somewhere, that there are some people who does not distinguish well what happens around them, living like in their own world. They wish to make them understandable to others, yet they don't know that no one understands. Well - something like that," Mind told.

"I don't think so. I understand her well. Mostly. But sometimes she say that I am not. That she does not feel that I am."

They stared at each other for a long time, everyone tried to go into problem from their point of view. Only Ego blushed slightly - maybe was ashemed of his last remark. Once Mind shivered like it got the idea, then fell back to its position. There reigned the silence, full of heavy thoughts.

"Actually... She has never told that you aren't," Logic started carefully like being afraid of breaking the silence that had been around them more than half an hour.

"But she has," Man raised his eyebrows. Three pair of eyes were looking at Logic which made Logic wish to hide under the chair. At last it found itself.

"No, she has not. Womas has always told that she feels like you aren't."

"So?" Came the question from three mouths at once.

"She doesn't say that you are not. She says she feels like you are not."

"But I feel that I am," man laughed. Ego smiled as well, but Mind fell to its thoughts.

"No. You know that you are," Logic argued. "But can you feel that?"

Silence covered them once more. But just for a moment now. Everyone raised their heads, looked each other with shining eyes and they knew that something has changed.

Man jumped up and run to the words of Descartes. Using his waterproof pencil, he wrote new line there, went to the phone and dialed Woman's number. Fifteen minutes later, after he had finished his call, he smiled widely and looked to the board on the wall again.

"I think, so I am. Descartes
I feel, so I live. Man"

The last cigarette

"Smoking damages your health!"

A text like that is on many packets of cigarettes. During last times they added some more extra notes, basic truths that we all know, yet ignoring them when lighting the next cigarette. It doesn’t hurt me - so usual apology from a person, who cleans his lungs by coughing every morning. I don’t know, maybe not everyone coughs - I do it half an hour every morning.

If there had been notes like ‘Smoking can kill’ on the packs when I started to smoke, maybe I would have considered quitting much earlier. But - apparently not - teaching passed me as easy as the water leaves goose’s back.

"It can," I would answer then with a grin on my face. "So can the bus, if you’re not careful." My carefulness was the volleyball I used to play then. For balancing - so to say.

"Yes, it kills," I say now. And I do not mean lung-diseases.

*
Cigarette in the corner of mouth, so usual it was. I didn’t dare to smoke publicly close to my home. Didn’t matter that the school was left behind long time ago, I still had a bad feeling, when some teachers saw me with a cigarette. Ok - mostly I didn’t give a damn what they thought even in classes, but there were few of them I respected. And somehow - all these respected teachers lived in my home village…But in the other corner of Estonia it was so nice to walk and smoke, imagining how cool I was. "Cigarette makes me an adult." Thinking now, that opinion gives me the sad grin only.

Strange that you didn’t share that opinion. Yet we were best friends since childhood and I could tell, that every crazy thing I tried or did, you did them, too. But why did you not keep on smoking?We did the very first cigarette together. There - in a potato-farm, when one of our classmates took out the pack of ‘Ekstra’ he had stolen from his father. We were hiding from teachers behind these muddy boxes and all the boys from our class did their first cigarettes. We sticked together then.

Change came the next morning, when we were driven to the farm again. Only a couple of boys didn’t have their own packages. Covering with their palms, everyone showed their treasures, secret smiles on their faces. None had ‘Ekstra’ anymore, all of us had had a trip to the local shoemaker store last night and the colours of fancy foreign cigarettes made us glad. ‘Marlboro’, ‘Camel’, ‘Salem’ - I was modestly equipped with my ‘L&M’. But among those, who had no cigarettes, were you as well.

"I didn’t like it. No, I didn’t feel sick. I just didn’t like it," you answered to my questions when we were already on the field. Why, damn you?

Two years passed by and cigarette has become part of my outfit. I smoked with pleasure.Sometimes you watched me with your teasing smile, but that didn’t bother me. You looked at me the same way when I did the next stupid move while playing chess, or when I had another unsuccessful go at a beautiful girl. You smiled a lot at those occasions.

I looked around if there are some beautiful girls around and - damn you! - you smiled again.

"You better stop hoping! I’ve been here for a couple of weeks every summer, to my grandma’s, and I would tell you if there were any girls with whom you could be successful," you said quietly. Not because you wanted to keep it secret - you always talked like that. Calmly and quietly. I was the one running around and making myself look stupid - I knew it better. I already nodded, then…

I saw a lot of very beautiful girls during the last half an hour.

"What do you want to say with that?"

You just laughed.

"Actually - the weather is nasty and none has a wish to talk. Look at their faces!" you told, when I was already over your last comment.

You were right. The sky was heavy with dark clouds and peoples’ attention didn’t seem to go further than the road under their feet. I tried smiling at them, but I only got one answer out of ten tries - even that didn’t count, that was only a questioning look in my direction. The others didn’t notice me at all. I inhaled the last puff from my cigarette and thrown its remains to recycle bin standing a bit away.

"Three points!" At least something good from my training.

"What, tomorrow back to army?" you asked after a while. I mumbled something. You took it as agreeing, because you already asked the next question. "You sorry you didn’t come to university, did you? You could be able to watch these beautiful girls every day, all the summer."

"You simply enjoy teasing me, don’t ya?"

"You can’t imagine," you smiled again.

I wanted to punch you, but you knew me too well and could jump away from me.The clouds high above us decided to explain their presence.

It started to pour warm summer rain. I tried to close my jacket automatically, but then I found that I had no jacket. I dropped my hands. Yet you - you didn’t believe the weather report last night and were just grinning under your big hood.

"You are lucky!"

"What!" There was a surprise on your face. "Is the soldier afraid of water?" I decided not to answer. Some houses later my sneakers were wet. "Gazebo. I just remembered that song," you said. I smiled - at least once you didn’t want to tease me. "I Like Chopin" was our favourite song for many years now.

"Yep! Let’s listen to it now and play a couple of fast games," I answered."Nah! Not fast - I’m tired of winning thanks for your stupidity. It’s the last time to learn you how to play!"

It can’t be! You could get rid of your sarcasm only for a few minutes. I sought for a cigarette before it’d got wet, but I found the empty package in my pocket only. I crushed it and thrown away. Rising my gaze, I saw a little shop across the street. You noticed it, too. Maybe you felt sorry looking at me.

"Wait! I’ll get you one," you said, already running.

Sound of crash. Thump. Glass. Scream from a passer-by.

You were lying metres away. You didn’t move - and rain poured to your face. I felt bad in my stomach and I sat by the road, leaning my head to my knees.

"I like Chopin." That was my first thought. Your favourite song. My favourite song. Ours. And the beginning of chorus.

"Rainy days never say good bye…"

You didn’t say good bye.

And on the sidewalk, the tears followed the rain …