Failed attempts at living simple life[part 10]

I don’t know what love really is. I’ve never experienced true love and I’m 22 for Christ sake! Ask me now to write an essay about love and I’ll start with “Love is...” and finish 190 pages later with “... something like this.” without writing anything else. I had my first crush on a girl many years ago and ever since that crap happened I couldn’t fall “in love” with another person. I just can’t trust anyone except myself... When I think about this, it may be the reason I got where I am at the moment.
School went by me pretty fast. High grades at history, good grades at the others as well, my final was successful and then I went to high-school. I really can’t remember much about this episode of my life, there’s really nothing to mention. Different class mates, different teachers, I was a weirdo most of the time so nobody quite enjoyed talking to me, no friends, nothing. I haven’t even heard anything about Adi in those 4 years. I was back where I started from: loneliness. It sucked pretty bad to be honest... Actually it sucked so bad that I even gave up on history and started watching a lot of TV, started listening to music and other crappy stuff, instead of reading like I used to. I also started smoking while in high-school. I saw everybody quite happy while smoking so I thought I’d give it a try as well and I have to admit it’s pretty cool. At first I was experiencing a warm dizziness and it was new for me. Obviously I didn’t always have money for smokes, moments when I was irritated by everything around me, even by the birds. I was getting addicted, I knew, but I couldn’t stop for a second and say “Alexander, smokes suck, they really do! You’ll die faster and spend a lot of money on basically nothing at all, you’re going down the same road many did and that road ends with loneliness.”
If it all comes down to the quiet in the end, why not enjoying the noise ‘till then?! Life is already a bitch and it keeps reminding me how cursed I am so why not enjoying the little things while I still can?
I was in the 12th grade when finally a good thing happened to me. Sandra received a phone call one day – oh, I forgot to mention one important detail: she gave up on drinking and bringing home strangers and drunks. Apparently she accepted the idea of being alone for the rest of her life so she is treating me a little bit better as well because as far as I know, I’m the only person she has at the moment, the only person that will have lunch or dinner with her, the only person that will listen to her even if I don’t care what she’s talking about. I figured one thing: revenge and hatred come easy but to be able to forgive a person that treated you so bad requires tons of guts and power. And I am a powerful boy, I do hold the power to be extraordinary so why not forgive her?! Anyway, I was saying about the phone call. I have a grandmother! A relative! Her blood flows through my veins and better yet, I could find out how my parents were like.
Happy-happy, joy-joy! Well, think again! C’mon Alexander, haven’t you learn you’re destined to misery?!
I went the next day to meet my grandmother. Woke up early in the morning with my heart pumping out of my chest, with strange butterflies in my stomach and with the energy of a cheetah going in for the kill on an uber fast gazelle. Sandra wanted to come along with me even thou I didn’t really want that. We took a bus and went to an old people place. Except the nurses, nobody else had less than 70 years so you could consider it was the last ‘home’ for most of them. Anyway, one of the nurses said we will find my grandmother in room 308 but that we should wait until 4 in the afternoon, when she’ll be awake. “Well, sure, no problem! I just hope my heart won’t make its way out of my chest until then.” We went for a coffee, a really long coffee, but at least we had smokes. The strange part was that Sandra’s eyes were filled with worries and that we didn’t talk about anything for five long hours, not even a word. When the time came we went back to the place where my grandma was ‘living’. I was moving so fast that I had to slap myself when Sandra told me to slow down. We climbed up to the 3rd floor of the building and looking around I could sense the silence, the calm surrounding the place. I guess for most of the people this is really a good place to spend their last years of life, to make the transition to the eternal silence.
On the door there was only 1 name written although there was room for 2 more: Alexandra Daria. “That’s her name! I’m named after her!” I wanted to knock but Sandra hold me and she just opened the door. Inside the smell was quite awful, like that room was staying closed all day long, like air refused to enter, the curtains were pulled so it was dark as well.
-I wonder if she’s awake… Sandra said.
-Alexander?!
“I skipped a heartbeat and chills climbed up my spine reaching my heart and making it beat like faster than I ever felt! She knows me! I can’t believe she was waiting for me all of this time! Can this be happiness I’m feeling right now?”
-Yes grandma, it’s me! I am so happy to see you!
-No, you’re not Alexander, go away! She replied.
“What the hell?”
-I am, I am your grandson!
-I don’t have a grandson you stupid boy! My son, Alexander... I haven’t seen him in a long, long time and I need to see him before...
“I am named after my father then or maybe he was named after her and that would mean... Bah, I’m loosing myself in stupid details!”
-Before he died, he was married. Do you know with who and what was her name?
-No. Daria said crushing all my joy.
-Uhm... What about Alexander, your son, how was he?
-It doesn’t matter.
-It matters to me! I am his son and I never had the chance to meet him! I don’t even have a photo of him!
-Listen kiddo, my son was never married and he had no son. I don’t know who you think I am and I don’t care who you are. So get out of my room or return with my Alexander. In case you cannot find him, write him a letter and tell him where I stay, that I’m dying and that I want to see him for one last time.
-Your son, Alexander died almost 18 years ago. Sandra said.
Then it was silence. The same silence you can experience in the deepest point of a cave. We all turned into stone statues and nobody was making a noise...
-Let’s go Alexander, she’s obviously insane.
-Hell no Sandra! She’s my only chance to find out who I really am, I won’t give up without an answer! Daria, listen to me! My name is Alexander and I have almost 18 years old. At my birth both of my parents died so I never got the chance to meet them or to see how they looked like. Please, it is really important for me to know some details about my father. It would make me happy, it would give me reasons to continue with this struggle called life, it would give me reasons to fight for something better and hopefully it would give me a role model to look up to. So please, look at me and tell me how my father was like!
Still nothing, not even a sound.
-Daria, look at me! I raised my voice. Grandma! I reached my hand out for her shoulder to turn her facing me. I grabbed her and pulled gently and she turned. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, open in a strange way. I felt Sandra making a weird face and putting her hand over her mouth and then she grabbed my shoulder for a second. In the next second she was out on the hall screaming loudly:
-Nurse! Nurse, come quick!
Daria was dead.


To be continued...