Today I pulled over onto the hard shoulder of the motorway. I do not know how long I sat there slumped over the steering wheel. Maybe I hoped someone would stop and ask me if I had a flat tyre. In those first moments, in the very first one, when two people meet, fits everything what happens next. Two years, ten years can fit within a second.

Particle by particle, his scent has dissipated from my hair, my clothes and bed linen. I did not throw away his beer bottle – deposited it in a reverse vending machine and, with the money for all my recyclables, bought a lottery ticket. If I win,  I shall buy a house near the Atlantic Ocean and invite him over.

It is midnight, I am at a petrol station. It is raining. I have got no paper in my car. I am writing a love poem on the user’s manual for my washing machine. It needs a plumber. How on earth am I to free my underwear stuck in it? It has been soaking there since Friday.

Today I got to meet Dorothy. She smoked leaning against the wall during the worst part of a downpour. As I was passing by, it occurred to me that she was gorgeous. I realised at once that she was there for the same reason as myself. I did not bother striking up a conversation. At lunchtime, we shared a table. When food was served she did not even lift her cutlery. Eventually, I turned and told her that her meal was getting cold. She laughed. Food – warm or cold – is totally irrelevant when your attitude is zero. In a few instants she was already crying into her bowl of soup. Those tears come when you are so empty that you cannot put anything into your mouth, not even chewing gum, because everything appears unclean, disgusting. Our plates, of course, are being checked, and I’ve received penalty points for only eating out the insides of my pancakes. At dinner, Dorothy was already eating, and I could hear an occasional fork-clink on her plate. I stuffed the food into my mouth, washed it down and dashed out. It was raining hard; I recalled her saying her boyfriend had promised to buy her a puppy if she gained some weight. I added, its breed would depend on how many kilos she puts on. She threw her head back and laughed. I choose a Chihuahua then, she said. She is very beautiful. I like her face – a little angular and somewhat angry. She smokes every ten minutes standing in open air even when it rains. In fact, I also want a puppy. An English Cocker Spaniel. It reminds me of those noble die-hard romantics who would cross to another continent in order to extricate underwear out of a washer. 

When I was a kid, I used to take my afternoon naps on my father’s couch, and, before falling asleep, I would see him mould tiny sculptures. His hands would be lit by a table lamp, and those hands were very nice and slender. He would remove the plastic wrap to uncover the clay, then he would squeeze it into tiny moulds. I used to miss him at the moment of falling asleep. I miss T. now. Except there are no tiny moulds, no hands. It seems that I am in a daydream of something out of reach like that early August morning with T. when there is nothing left – just me, the crumpled bed sheets and my scattered clothes. 

Time relentlessly moves on. Nice, when time fits within one, during which one manages to resist death.  It has dawned. I try to fall asleep on my right side, on my belly, without the pillow, in the fetal position, in the corpse pose. I fail.

Living with anorexia is not easy. You just live together and pretend you are getting along fine. You find a common language. You begin to like the same stuff. You become similar. You start thinking as one. And then everything becomes annoying. You avoid going home, you wonder which day of the week it is, you pretend that you have lost your key, got delayed at work, although you are marooned at a petrol station.

Even if this very instant I feel great, the thought about him. comes back anyway. I am driving my car, wind in my hair, and then this thought hits me and I run a red light; I am sitting on an outdoor terrace, talking to my best friend, there is an insanely splendid sunset behind him, and then this thought appears, this huge, this all-embracing thought – I lose my hearing, I just vanish. I am sitting on a sandbox in the evening, smoking, and this thought turns up.

The cap from his beer says I saw T. on the fourth of June. When I lose my coat button, the cap may serve as its replacement. His first advice, to get some decent winter tyres for my car, set me on a good path. I hope his second incitement, to gain some weight, will set me on an even better one, and I will need no buttons. He said, when I put on five kilos, we can get married. Since then, I have been to hospital four times. I am ordered to just eat mechanically and go to sleep in time but I have no idea what time it is and I know my fridge is empty. It is brutally cold. I have put on my sweater, I am sitting huddled in a down-filled blanket and my teeth are chattering anyway. No chance to fall asleep. I have had some cereal, even if it is not breakfast time. 

He is lodged in me. Very strongly and deeply. I miss his being. Next to him or tightly pressed against him, I felt at home. I loved touching his neck, his skin with my face. It is full of fire, life. I still recall his scars, the map of time. I wonder, have I left at least a hint of me in his silver chain? It felt nice to touch it on my body. To feel it nestled right between my collarbones. To hear his heartbeat, sense it underneath my palm. It felt awesome to lie upon his body. When my bones would leave blue marks on it. His hands are gentle, there is something that they have in common with his lips. 

I cannot remember what I ate during these past few months, but I recall exactly what I had with him. I remember how I drove to collect our takeaway dinner from a café next to the Užupis Angel. I charged it on his card – its PIN was his date of birth. As I drove back, beer bottles were clinking together on sharp turns. Upon arrival, I opened the passenger side door, and one of them dropped out and shattered on the pebbles. I thought I would get a sound slap on my fingers. When I slunk in through the front door, he and my son were listening to some music. He did not get upset over the bottle, he said absolutely nothing.

I remember how on Christmas Eve we sat cuddling on the edge of our bed. I stroked his hair. At that instant, I fell in love with his eyes. I have never seen his handwriting. Nor his signature. Only his work calendar. That calendar appeared important, elegant. Whenever I need a password, I always use “Room 1061”. I do not want to forget the very beginning of that feeling. Ever.

Today I am in a hospital, in the Eating Disorders Unit. In the restroom, on the door it says “please, do not vomit”. Shadows from branches are dancing on the wall. I recall the first cigarette with him, in a smoking area of the theatre. I was very anxious he would notice how my hands were shaking with excitement. His way of speaking was reminiscent of his gait, his stride. That time he inquired about my age, he said, it could be even seventeen. I miss his voice. I do remember, how he briefly held my hand, at night, as we walked from the hotel to my car parked in a courtyard. It was the only stretch we ever covered hand in hand. I noticed that his steps were soft and quiet, like a lion’s. 

I would love to smoke. I cannot light up, because a skin layer has peeled off my finger tips. It hurts when I touch anything. My sense of touch has dulled down. I would like this to be a valid enough reason to call somebody. Ask them for a light. It is evening. It is summer. As I went for a walk, I made a circle. Rokas was playing basketball. I have got no clue which section he is in. It occurred to me it would be fun to toss the ball a bit. It is twenty-something outside, I have a woolen sweater on. I am always cold. The daily ration of butter is one fifth of a pack. Normally, I use this much in a month. I dumped the last three packs of butter into the dustbin, because they had lost their patience for staying in my fridge till their expiration dates. Along with the mayo and the pasta sauce dating back to 2018.

My body temperature is 39 C, I’m burning with desire just to see him. I would love to touch his palms with mine. I have got a map, this gives me the idea of a car trip across America. Most likely, because I am running 390C and I miss him. Even now, I see life as a jigsaw puzzle, which he had shown to me. If I win a lottery, I would like to win tickets for the longest airline flight. With only him and me on board. Together we would never crash. He smells of butterwood. And butterwood reminds me of South Africa, of Table Mountain, of giraffes and endlessly vast deserts and beaches. I recall when he lifted me up by my waist. I recall his touch. A part of him has remained in this home. His steps have spilled over the floor, his kisses have soaked into the pillows. These walls have heard our conversations. At will, I can re-create how he breathes in his sleep. I fall asleep in the bed where he had slept. I touch the books and objects he has touched. In fact, I think that heaven is only for the dead. We, the living, are imprisoned in our memories. Our memories are our hell which has to be endured.

A cypress grows in my backyard. Brightly lettuce-green. I had a wish to plant something for our first meeting. I thought, I could think about him while watering the little tree, and no one would find out. I planted the cypress. My son thinks it is for him. He always comes up to caress its branches, saying “nice; I love you”. The sky was magnificent, my son was standing barefoot before the acacias, staring at how the rain started to drip on his feet.

Today I woke up in an antique twin bed. In a manor worth two million euros. I remembered – I am on call for filming, and this is not my home, not my bed, and not my linen. I had lain down in one of the rooms to rest and just dozed off. I dreamt that both of us were on a train from London to Paris. I held a paper map. We dine in Paris. Before that, we step into a second-hand bookstore and I proceed on a long search for a book by Norah Lange. He finds it and pays for it in cash. We smoke on a bridge and laugh. It is raining. We have no umbrellas. Earlier, we are here, in Lithuania. It is September 1st , the streets are packed with kids in school uniforms. And our girl is here. I dream he is bringing her back home from school, while I play basketball with my sons. I see them together next morning. Before that, we had been to see the production he is in, and she laughs the laugh which sounds like windchimes. Her broad shoulders, her chestnut hair draped over them. Her lovely voice. Her eyes resemble his.  

The sea. At sunset. A woman in front of me is blocking the sun. She inquires, if there are any homes right on the seafront. Tells me about her house in Finland. Her mom, a the age of five, was escaping from the war. They settled down in a farm by some lake. The girl wanted a plot of land on the lakeside. And got it. Now I understand, why she had asked if there were any seafront homes around here. She is proud of hers, which she had inherited. I step further into sunshine, holding a bottle. With two cigarette butts in it. This could be a message in a bottle of sorts. For somebody on the other shore, in a house on the beach. 

Five in the morning. Identical twins were travelling by train. Dawn broke. The train was rolling by, it seemed, a never-ending garland of freight cars. It gained more speed. When I think of T., my heart starts racing with my thoughts. I like all the words that can describe him. Greasy words, like melancholic, extravagant. Lovely, heart-felt words like tender, friendly, loner. Words, which have no ending, such as "what if", "why not", "otherwise than usual". 

Yesterday I overslept the start of the night shift. In the night I heard someone knocking on the terrace door. It was the driver who had been ordered to wake me up. I put on my coat and slammed the door shut. The thought that hell, it was not him, kept me sad all day. This feeling, this strong heartbeat. It does not disappear, it does not go away. If all this could fit into a message in the bottle, someone would open it and set it free.

I am in a forest, on a parking lot. Every climbing or descending plane reminds me of the places we have never visited. This evening is him. Its last vestiges stroking the backs of trees. I am lying in a tub. He is the autumn, the autumnal earth I tread on the way to the first floor from the basement. He overwhelms the most tender moments of existence. The evening gown is studded with glass beads. Each time I move my hands I hear the sound of rain. His image, drop by drop, melts from my memory. His hands, touch after touch, fade from my clothes. It all wears off my skin.

The two of us. We existed, and at the same time it appears we even did not. We had never been in a snowy mountain cabin. Never seen a snowfall. Snow-covered land reminds me of blank sheets of paper. Something untouched, unwritten. I love icicles. The sound when you snap them off. I like to hide my hands in snow, then find new warmth in my coatpockets. I have been wondering what I like in him the most. Perhaps his voice. His shoulders. His dark eyelashes. And all the rest that makes him what he is. 

I recall, the war was raging, and we were in a hotel bed, in another city. He blindfolded me with his palm, so I would not see the sights shown on TV. His hand was warm, it almost covered my whole face. I wished we would stay forever thus imprisoned in the room together. Those few mornings while we were away, early, at about 6 AM, I would go out with my son to the woods. The images and words of war kept whirling in my head, as we circled the hotel which was on a river bank. It was raining, the spring was chilly and windy, my hands froze like hell. Every hour brought us further apart. I wanted him to sleep as long as possible, so that his fatigue-filled exhalation would go away.

Occasionally, my eyes search for him in this city where it is impossible to get lost. I remember when we sat on the sandbox and I hugged him from behind. He was building a sand castle. It was August. I recall, how he once sat on the ledge of my house and said that crickets were chirping in the meadow. He turned to that side. I loved the moment when he just sat in darkness and stayed silent.

I was in the park on Saturday. In the evening, it was raining. My son walked through the puddles. After leaving the park I saw the old town hotel. I remembered last winter evening, when it was raining hard and I entered this hotel to see him.

Evening. Fresh-fallen snow. Last year at this time I was getting divorced. Then our Christmas tree remained upright in the back yard, left to sport its antique ornaments. Actually, I smashed one of them in anger against the house. Later, it took me a while to pick up the greenish shards. This year it is somewhat different. I have no Christmas tree, the ornaments are down in the basement. To warm up the winter, I light my fireplace. I put the logs in one by one, douse them with lighter fluid, strike a match. Then listen to the gentle crackling. 6 AM. I hear my neighbours’ car doors being slammed. First one car, then the second. They drive off. I have two hours left to sleep before my job at a dubbing studio. I try to drift away watching the house next door, still decorated with Christmas lights. They illuminate my ceiling and my arms. 

On the mornings when I drive my sons to their kindergarten I see the baby hatch installed in a side wall of an orphanage. In the afternoons, I see the kids who are growing up parentless play outside or linger by the fence which separates the orphanage from the kindergarten. They watch how parents arrive to pick up their sons and daughters, hug and kiss them. They see them get into their cars together and drive away back home. While the orphans stay to languish at the fence. 

Evening, snowfall. I am swaying on a swing in the woods like a six-year-old.

I swing and wait for something to occur to me.

For someone to approach and ask me what I am doing on a swing late in the evening.

Nowadays new houses just keep popping up on garden plots. People move in. Ever more lights go out at night. I am peering into darkness, into night. My elder son, when he stares into the dark, always says that there are monsters in it. Looks like I am trying to spot them. I remember T. Is his work calendar about to end? Does his toothbrush have soft bristles? I wonder what he is having for supper and if he ever wears his rings.

Evening. I am in London by the river which is four times wider than Neris. Last week I saw a white dove, dead on dirty snow. Today, in London, I have seen one more. A dead symbol of peace. I am looking at some doves on the bank as they pick through gravel with their beaks. It is sunset and apartment block windows are burning red. I do not know why, but something seems to relate February with September.

At times I do not trust my memories as well as things I occasionally find in my pockets. I believe, a decade or so ago T. wore a silver earing. For me it is such a significant detail that I want to prove its reality to myself. I remember, fifteen years ago I went to theatre to see a play. T. wore a white shirt there. It seems, during the last two years I have been seeing him in places which have absolutely nothing to do with him. I offered a cigarette to my friend and he laughed: who smokes these? And I was so eager to find out, who smokes these? What does it tell you about that person? I smoke them only to remember him on one early August morning on a sandbox playing with my kids’ toys and crying to me.

I dreamt how he hugged me from behind, crossing his arms on my chest. His cheek touched mine. When I woke up, I realized it actually was a dream, because in it he wore my t-shirt. I know he could never fit into my t-shirt. Even had he ripped it in that dream I would not be angry. I check just to know if he has left his scent on the t-shirt. Seems all it takes is to inhale, and a bitter-tasting kiss appears on the tip of my tongue. 

After my performances I leave a package of coffee from Sicily at his makeup mirror. I sign by the name of Margaret. I sit down. I peer at the mirror and try to see myself through his eyes, to touch myself with his look. I turn out the light and quietly close the door before anyone spots me. I walk, I smoke and I recall our encounter on stage exactly two years ago. I used to drive through red traffic lights, just like I ignored anything what stood in the way of our feelings. 

I want to wear the clothes in which he used to see me. I recall some actual moments. I greet him in my black fur coat, and he wraps his arm around me. I am not sure if it is the moments or the clothes that keep me warmer. I recall a film shoot in Vilnius. I park my car next to T.’s house, because the street is packed solid. I step out and furtively peek at his window. The white window curtain is tied into a bubble. 

I cannot believe that I came across him in the city last evening. When I cupped my palms over his eyes, he recognized and hugged me. As we drifted apart, I watched him in the crowd for a while. His body was engulfed in darkness but the cinema screen would occasionally light up his moves. Quite soon he left. My heart wished to catch up with him in the stairwell. Yet I remained sitting on the window sill. Cannot there be a more beautiful goodbye than the one when I notice him on the rooftop of a building and my heart leaps out and down and just goes bouncing on the sidewalk? 

The bus is struggling through the dark. Rare snowflakes. I am crossing the Latvian border. My dear friend lives around here. I remember the last time I saw her – it was in summer six years ago, at a seaside café. I was outside, waiting, when she came, dressed in black uniform, one hour late. We sat on a bench and it was raining, the white tips of her shoes had coffee stains – perhaps she still used to drink four cups of it at work. We were looking at a walkway full of cheap noisy shadows, her senses seemed to be withdrawn from the present. For some reason, I told her that crocodiles had not changed in the course of evolution. I asked her about the sea, but she only kept staring at the walkway full of performers in plastic outfits until it was time to return to her job in the café. It was still raining when I hurried to the station. This was the last time I saw her, and I am not sure if any good came out of it.

As I look at the windows of residential buildings the sense of home slowly returns. The time spent in Tallinn settles down in my memory. A man in the hotel left when I asked him to turn off the light and kiss me goodnight. He just killed the lights and sent me an air-kiss. I said, this doesn’t count, but I suppose he did not care, and we were over. All along I had been thinking of T.– that I prefer his body, his smell, his lips, his touch, his hair, his voice – all along… Events which took place now become the events which have just passed. I had a sudden nosebleed at the hotel in the morning. I was listening to the news. The red on the towel just kept spreading, acquiring the contours of a world map. I twisted it into a ball and tossed it into the remotest corner of the bathroom. 

Tonight a roe streaked out in front of my car. Exactly at the spot where, on the night after I had first met him, I saw a roe. It – maybe the same one – dashed under my wheels, easily and gracefully symbolizing the finality.

He left something in my being. Sometimes I sense the closeness of his thought. I have come to believe that I am present in this world. And, perhaps just for the sake of being, this possibility to take a deep breath in real time is what proves my existence. There is no old ketchup in my fridge anymore. I have never been to the hospital since. Being this person, I realized I am alive. When we perish, I wish that for a second he would also recall that it was a joy to feel alive together.