Bitter-Sweet Madness

The day before the wedding mother sat me down and said…

“I know you’re planning to do something tomorrow. But don’t! You had time enough to prevent this from happening. I tell you, tomorrow is not the time!”

“Mum…”, I tried to interrupt her.

“Don’t ‘mum’ me! You would just make a fool of yourself! He’s not the kind of man to change his mind shortly before the wedding. He’s not the kind of man to leave his bride in front of the altar. He has a heart. That’s why you still love him.”

She paused. I felt some kind of anger growing inside me, but I was not able to speak, not able to shout it out. Wasn’t she right?

“You have to let him go.”, she said. “Maybe you shouldn’t even go to the wedding. If it’s your destiny, you’ll be together again, one day. One day, but not tomorrow!”

When I came back home, I laid myself down. I felt tired. Through the window I saw the night coming closer. Inevitably. The green leaves, trembling softly in the wind, were loosing their colour. Yes, I was planning something. My heart was planning something unknown to my mind. That heart knew something my mind couldn’t grasp, or didn’t want to. As long as it didn’t, there would be no responsibility to be taken. I was listening to two voices inside me, none sounded like my own.

“You should use me.”, said the brain.

“You should do what you feel”, said the heart.

“What is that she feels?”, asked the brain.

“Without him, it’s emptiness.”, answered the heart.

“That’s a really dissatisfactory answer.”, said the brain.

That’s a really dissatisfactory answer, I repeated. With or without him, there was always emptiness. Two weeks ago. Only two weeks ago, he was lying here in my bed, watching me, asking, what did go wrong. Everything and nothing, I had repeated, you’re here.

“She’s easier to handle, isn’t she?, I had asked then and given him a scornful look.

“One can’t handle you at all.”, he had answered. “You can’t yourself.”

That’s when I had jumped out of the bed.

“Get out! Immediately! Get out of my bed, and my life! You are the reason, Tom! You are the reason for what you just said. Why did you come here at all?”

“Why are you angry?”, he had asked, approaching slowly. “The reason is very simple. Because I missed you and wanted to see you.”

I was crying.

“Clara, I had asked you first. Long ago. Be fair, it was your choice not to forgive me.”

My choice, I thought, still lying in my bed and watching the leaves turning black. The clock said 9:58. Still more than twelve hours left. There was too much time not to make a plan. A real plan. The heart suggested it, the mind would have to follow even though all I could think of were dissatisfactory answers. But I was sure, that those dissatisfactory answers could produce a satisfactory plan. Like people did in the movies, I would enter the church when the priest says:

“Speak now, or forever hold your peace" and shout: “I want to speak!” Everybody would turn around to see who the intruder was. Only Tom would already know. And I would say:

“The groom was unfaithful!”

No, rather:

“The groom is unfaithful!”

No, no, no. That was bad. Rather:

“The groom is the only man I have ever really loved.”

Too risky. So what?, they would say.

“The groom doesn’t love the bride. He loves me.”

Awful.

“Really? Why then, is Melissa the one wearing the wedding dress today?”, they would ask.

Right, the wedding dress, maybe I should arrive there in a wedding dress. I laughed. I watched too many movies, really. As far as I knew, “Speak now, or forever hold your peace" was irrelevant in modern wedding ceremonies. But I could make it relevant.

I was definitely going crazy.

I stood up and got me a bottle of wine from the kitchen.

Red wine on the wedding dress.

I could ask to see Melissa before the wedding and then ask her to drink to her and Tom. I would ‘accidentally’ spill the red wine on her dress, and say: “Oops, I am so sorry, Melissa.”

With every gulp my imagination produced fancier fantasies. I could kidnap the priest, lock him in in his room or somehow block the door while he’s in the toilet. That would be funny. But sooner or later they would find him, sooner or later Melissa would get a new dress, so all of these plans were not effective. All of these plans were only an ironic way of fighting the reckless beast of pain raging inside me.

“This was our last night, Clara.”, he had said when he was leaving the morning two weeks ago.

“Are you sure, Tom?”, I had asked, “You’ve never been good at monogamy.”

He had just turned around and walked away.

The silence around me was now as frightening as it had been that morning. This is what you’re going to hear for the rest of your life, I thought and drank the last drops of wine. This pain would abate, but my pride, my silly pride would always revive the pain. Would I ever be able to forgive Tom? He said, he had been drunk and it had been ‘only’ a one-night-stand. It was now more then two years ago. Shouldn’t I gradually calm down? Yes, it was my choice not to forgive him, but it was his choice not to wait for me to forgive him. He’s not that kind of man, to make the same mistake twice, my mother said, not knowing that we were still sleeping together every now and then. He’s not that kind of man, you can ever forget, or even hate, I thought. Wasn’t that worse than anything else?

That night I was running towards the altar with a bottle in my hand, screaming “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!” and my mother was running after me shouting the same. The corridor seemed endless. The distance between myself and the altar increased, although I was sure that I was moving forward. When the priest suddenly said: “Excuse me, I have to go to the toilet.”, I opened my eyes realizing that it was just a dream.

This time the clock said 10:40.

But it’s not dark anymore, I mumbled. It was day. It was 10:40 a.m.

“Oh my God, the wedding! The wedding, I’ve missed the ceremony!”, I screamed and jumped up from the floor, where I had slept.

I rushed to the cupboard, tore it open, and randomly grabbed a piece of cloth. I still had my yesterday’s clothes on, so I started dressing and undressing at the same time. This wasn’t easy to manage, and unfortunately, or fortunately, I stumbled and fell down.

Slowly I sat up and then started to laugh.

“What were you trying to do?”, I asked myself. “It is too late to implement any of your ingenious plans.”

This plan had been made without me. Somebody must have realised, that waiting for my plan would have been like waiting for Godot.

When my cell phone rang twenty minutes later, I knew it was my mother.

“How was it?”, she asked.

“I haven’t been there”, I said.

“Oh, thanks God! That was a good decision, honey.”

“Decision!? I didn't decide anything. It was the wine that decided..”, I wanted to exclaim first. But then I thought that maybe that was destiny, too. So I said:

“Yes. It was a good decision.”

Not really mine by chance.

When the beast of pride, now still hungry for revenge, falls asleep one day, I will reach a state of mind that will give me back my peace.

That's the theory.

Theory is a simple thing.

I can clearly imagine the day it will happen.

I am being a little bit ironic.

Right now my live is completely beyond theory. It's because Tom used to take me far far away from it, and I'll have to walk a long way back. I know, I will miss the cosy little place of madness he showed me. I still don't want to feel the day I will not care about him, or not care about the things he did to me. All in the name of the precious theory: “He is bad, catapult him out of your mind.”

At the moment it feels like calling for help and getting the answer: “The state of mind you're calling is temporarily not available.” I guess I am dialling the wrong number, but it doesn't matter much. I generally got too used to bitter-sweet suffering – since I have met Tom, I forgot how to live without. By now, I am perfectly aware of only one thing: Until some good sounding theory becomes feeling, I will have to put up with the virus I caught when reason couldn't reach me because Tom enclosed me like a human shield. We've both been playing with that virus, but if we really quit, if it really ends here, we'll have to give up our sweet practical madness for some theoretical reason. But – maybe one could already notice – I have developed some sympathy for the virus...