Stomach ache
I woke into silence. It was still raining outside and my face was in a puddle of drool. My body was heavy and immobilized, sunken into the matress that was gripping it like concrete.
In my dreams, the driver of the rollercoaster-shuttle gave me his keys. He had an urgent matter to attend and had decided that I will drive the shuttle to its end destination. I asked him where I had to go. When he replied, his words were completely incomprehensive. I could hear him say it but didn’t understand. I kept asking him over and over and he was repeating the directions and I didn’t catch not even one word until I was shouting: “But tell me where I have to go!” Finally, he smiled and handed me the keys. “You will know when you get there.”
Now I was awake and I had been sleeping a lot lately so it made no sense to feel so exhausted. I was incredibly bored of this town and had absolutely no strength to change anything to make it more interesting. I knew that every attempt to run away was futile because in another city which I would arrive to - if I took my bike and just drove and drove until I reach a place where people are actually living life, not just exist in their repetitive modes - I would eventually start feeling homesick and get the picture in my head of how beautiful and perfect everything was at home and how much I hate this town that I am in and that I am stupid to have left my friends and my job and my family.
But I still had a terrible grip in my stomach, telling me that I have to leave. It has happened before but had been sleeping inside me for the past few years. Lately, I had been getting more and more annoyed again and wanted to go out and about, asking people: “But why don’t you leave? Aren’t you bored here? Don’t you know that better places than this exist? Wouldn’t you be freer someplace else?” And I know they would just shake their heads and say: “I am perfectly fine here,” which would frustrate me and fill me with envy.
I decided to give it a shot. I pulled my suitcase from behind the curtain, the big, red, long-distance one. I stuffed it as fast and as quietly as I
could. My heart was thumping in my throat and while all other thoughts were buzzing in my head, one prevalent sound like the beating of the drum kept repeating: Get out. Get out. Get out.
The whole mission was built around the fact that I wanted to be left alone. The thought of it made me incredibly scared, but at the same time I needed to strip myself of everything that I like and throw myself in the open sea, where I would have no choice but to swim and where all things I love would sink to the bottom. I needed to rip myself open so that everything learned and consumed would fly out of me, all the strings that attached me to this place would finally be broken and I would be so cleansed and infinitely free.
The problem with my problem was that this never happened overnight. It took time and the bonds never ripped but just faded away slowly and bitter pieces of past would still flow up to the surface of memory from time to time; there was no way to avoid it. But I decided this was fine too, since I have a masochistic nature after all.
I was riding the train, headed who-knows-where, analyzing now the stupidity, now the brilliance of my actions when a thought popped into my mind: Omg, I didn’t even have a goodbye party! I laughed a short and bitter laugh, thinking how many people in the world right now are having a goodbye party and how it did not matter not even one bit. It only made me sadder because endings are always sad and I did not want to think about my passing to another place as an ending but as a continuation of my journey until I settle down. Which I knew I never will.
I took the phone out of my bag, wrote a message “Sorry I left :(” and sent it to everyone on my contacts list.
