Martian Alchemy

[Saaremaa]

It was already late. I was freezing my ass off waiting for that damned bus but it seems it still can’t be seen. I zipped up the jacket up to my neck, as I the cold started to become intrusive. I looked around the bus station, looking at the people waiting. Most of them were bored and tired, waiting for the bus to come so they can get home. In the middle of the people there was a small boy of Bantyric origin probably, as he had a certain way to pronounce some letters, similar to the Celtic language. He was selling evening newspapers. His continuous yelling in a broken language about the war between Eha and Ott Andrus started to annoy me. Luckily, the bus arrived in the station, and after a small stampede, as the passengers getting of the bus were pushing the ones who wanted to get in. After some moments I found a free spot on a chair and sat there. I looked outside mostly, leaving the thoughts conquering me. At some moment the bus again slowed as he had another stop.

I looked at the people entered the bus and I saw him. He was tall, blonde hair with honey eyes, a grey jacket and a black scarf. He had thin lips and that gave him a slight air of superiority. When he observed me literally staring at him, I quickly looked again outside the window. He slowly came to me and seated himself near me. I believe I could have felt his warm through all the winter clothes. When I observed that he was looking outside the window on the other side of the bus, so I had my chance to take a better look at him. My god… his face was so beautiful… or more like a magnet from which I couldn’t move my glance from. When he turned he saw my looking at me and smiled. I responded. Or at least I believe I did. I know that my mind at least ordered my lips to smile but I don’t know nor did I realize if I actually did it. My heart was beating faster and faster and I felt a heat wave hitting me. The bus was again slowing down. This time, it was the station in which I had to get off. Again everyone ran towards the doors of the bus when it stopped, barely letting people to get off it. After I escaped the stampede I started walking towards the flats in which I lived in Kuressaare, I felt someone grabbing my hand. When I looked back I saw him holding my hand. Another heat wave struck me and I felt my cheeks burning. I tried to hide it as I immediately thought that I will blush.

“Hi, sorry. Can you tell me where the King Hendrik Boulevard is?”

“Yes, sure…” I stopped a little. After a while of processing I observed that it was actually the boulevard on which I had an apartment with my sister. For fuck’s sake…I’m an idiot. “Sure, I’m actually going there myself, you can come with me.”

He smiled and we started walking together. The silence started to be awkward. I was looking at him when he was looking away and I was continuously asking myself what is he actually thinking of as I believe I observed that sometimes he was looking at me also. Or maybe it was just my crazy, sick and deceptive imagination.

“So, you live in this neighbourhood?” he asked breaking the silence.

“I’m Paavo by the way!” He started laughing. Only after again taking a second to return to reality I observed what I actually said. In dismay, I tried to mutter something to repair the situation.

“Your head is in the clouds.” He said as he stopped laughing. “I asked you if you live in this neighbourhood, now what your name is, but if you started this, my name is Jaak.”

“Yes, sorry. It was a long day.” After another few minutes of walking in silence, he stopped.

“This is the place I was looking for.”

I looked up and was the code of the flat. B-66 was written with red paint over the main entrance door. After looking at it again I observed that it’s actually the block of flats. For fuck’s sake, I really am tired. One I enter the flat I will go to sleep.
“Yes, this is the place where I live.” I said with half a voice.

“Really?”

“Yes, I believe I kind of know where I live.” I said hoping that it was sounding more like an idiotic joke rather than an ironic comment.

“Yes, I believe you do…” he said smiling, showing his white teeth. I tried to smile back but struggled to concentrate more on unlocking the door without doing another gaffe than looking at him. As we entered, we went to the highest floor, the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] one and I observed that he was shocked when I took my key again to unlock the door of my apartment.

“You live here?”

“Yes, it’s my sister’s and my apartment. Wait… You came to see my sister?” He couldn’t respond as I opened the door and my sister immediately started greeting and hugging him. Fucking Riina. Always giving her retarded parties in which she invites some friends and behind a mask of understanding and friendly love she always chooses the guy who would stick it in her for the next period of time. Bitch. I went to my room without saying anything to her.

I took off my jacket and put the backpack near the bed. Accidentally, a copybook fell from it. I took it, looked at it and put it in the bookshelf. It was the notebook for the “Quality of Touristic Services” class at the college. I literally thrown myself on the bed and laid there hoping that I can make my mind shut up and with some luck after falling asleep I wouldn’t have to get up…ever. How the fuck could I have been so naïve. Of course he came for my sister. Why the fuck would he care about me, knowing very well that I’m a guy! Fucking Katariina. She was three years older than me, so she was 24. Our parents, with the land they inherited from my now dead grandma, near Ore, they gave it in lease and got the money to give us this apartment with three rooms until us both finish college and then by random draw it will be inherited by me or her. And she is a bitch. She changes boyfriends with every season and continuously invites some of her retarded friends to the apartment mostly to be like the queen of the bitches…everyone around her worshiping stupidity… I can’t believe that that perfect guy is a member of her clique… After some time I managed to fell asleep.

After an hour I was woken up by the loud sounds of the twangs of a guitar. I got up angry and opened the door.

“Riina! Lower that fucking volume!” I yelled with all the energy I had in me. Everyone stopped looking at me, while the music still continued.
“Oh my, my little brother… or should I say little sister.” I started to feel my blood running to my head as the others began laughing. Then I saw him. Jaak was there looking around confused. “Maybe you would be nice and spare us of your pessimistic attitude.” I couldn’t bear it anymore. I returned to my room slamming the door and went immediately to my bed. I couldn’t resist I was so nervous that I started feeling tears running down from my cheeks.

After a few minutes someone entered my room. I looked at him, cautious so he wouldn’t see my red eyes. It was Jaak.

“What do you want?” I asked angrily, but still it annoyed me more that I had to speak with this tone with him.

“I just want to understand what happened over there.” He said as he seated himself on the chair at my desk. He was surprised to see a red book on it and started browsing the book. It was an anthology of texts from Basu, Sorokin and Vyshyvanyi called “About the Revolutionary Process of Edifying Socialism and Communism”.

“What actually happened there?”

“It was just Riina being a bitch.” I needed to be sure first if he was here because he didn’t understood what happened or he was here to continue to mock me. All this tension and feeling him so close to me but still maybe in the camp of my sister, just made me angrier but after a while I observed that I was very tired.

“Can you please leave me alone?” I finally managed to say. He delayed his leaving a bit by continuously browsing the book and then he left it on the desk. After a few seconds he left, leaving me alone, with my failed attempts to fall asleep and my vexation.

 

[Saaremaa]

I took again the buss going home after tutorials. Again, mostly the same people that I see every day. The old woman going home, that drunk who now again fell asleep, some high school girls were laughing loudly because some guy went to a date with some girl and… they were gossiping… Again irritation of the travellers who were eagerly waiting for the buss to stop in the station in which they will get off to go home. Same faces, same irritation, the same dull and monotonous atmosphere.

I met him over the week everyday. I miss him. Jaak isn’t like Riina’s friends he is nicer, cuter and also his IQ is over his boot size number, a thing that I can’t say about those idiots. We should also meet tonight. I believe I fell in love… I smiled thinking of this. I don’t know when my smile turned into a grin or something like that, as I the old woman in front of me started smiling back a little embarrassed.

“Fag!”

“Bitch!” It was simple, those were just my greets with my beloved sister. Usually we say this and we don’t speak anymore. But this time she asked:

“Hm… sometimes I’m wondering how nice would have been to have a normal brother.”

“Hm... What can I say… I would have been happy if I would have lived in Dulwich at the turn of the century, so, with a bit of luck Jack the Ripper would have killed you!”

“Idiot. By the way, I saw that Jaak sent you some letters and I took the liberty to see what did he wrote you. Interesting, I never thought of him to be like you.” I started feeling all my blood going up to my hear, getting angrier and angrier.

“You have no right!” I yelled as I tried to take the letters from her hands. As I was pushing her, she was clawing me with the talon-like nails, fighting like we were smaller than ten years old, I heard the key unlocking the door of the flat. Dad entered followed by mom. Their smiles quickly turned to frowns after they saw us. Yes… fucking bad luck. I knew they wanted to visit us today and they would have stayed for a few days before returning back to Oru. But they fucking came in the most retarded moment.

“What’s happening here?” Asked dad with a sternly voice.

“Paavo has a friend. Good friend, so good that he sends him letters.” She said with a smile on her face. Her face sent me a message that I could decipher as: I won!”. As she gave dad the letters, I started to feel my feet tremble and I started to feel nauseous. I needed to escape. I started going towards the door, I gently pushed my mom aside so that I would have the space to open it and before closing it, I had a look on my dad’s face. He looked angry, as he was reading one of the letters.

“Paavo…” my mom said trying to stop me. I didn’t stop. I went on the stairway running towards the lobby of the block. I don’t remember when I started crying. I just observed that when I was already walking on the King Hendrik Boulevard, I my eyes were already flooded. As I was walking alongside the pines planted between the street and the buildings, I started to feel the coldness of air. I observed only now that I left without my jacket and I had on me only a T-shirt and a sweater above it. When I arrived in the bus station in which I first met him, I observed that it started snowing. Here it all started. I felt that magic… From the moment in which he grabbed my hand, until ten minutes ago. The greatest moments of my life… And Riina managed to destroy everything. Why? I felt tears again forming in my eyes.

“Are you okay?” a woman in her 40s who was waiting for the bus asked. As she finished the sentence, in the same moment the streetlights went on.

“Yes, I am…” I said trying to look as calm as possible. But when I tried to stop my tears, they started literally flooding my eyes. I looked around. For the first time in my life, I never knew what to do… Should I go to Jaak and hope that he could at least let me stay a night, or should I return and face my parents and my retarded sister?

A bus came, the people in the station got in. I remained alone. I looked around. The sky was black and the yellow lights from the street lights were reflecting in the remaining snow. Those strong colours were creating a charged atmosphere. I felt cold, alone and sad. I believe that by now, mom stopped defending me, keeping her love only inside her, while dad was exploding, seeing that his son is abnormal and Riina feeding his hate. My great family…

I startled when I felt someone’s had on my shoulder. I looked at him. It was Jaak. No, it’s not him. It’s just my mind. My imagination… It can’t be him. I am surely imagining things now. I looked again over the shoulder as I still felt that hand. Then I saw him smiling. He was there… I jumped and I hugged him, feeling teardrops forming again in my eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“I called you a few times and when you didn’t respond, I decided to come to see if something is wrong.” And then I told him the story… From Riina’s antics to the perfect moment in which my parents decided to arrive.

“You can stay with me.” He said with mercy in his voice. “I have an apartment just for me. It’s a little hard, but I have a part-time job and my parents send me money, so I can afford it. Right now, it’s very lonely.”

I couldn’t do anything besides smiling. But I felt that trying to form a smile was too much, as I felt exhausted immediately afterwards.

“Thanks!” I said with a perished voice. “But in a few days I still must see my parents and be the target of a rhetoric of hate similar to a Mezhist revolutionary speech.” I said trying to make a joke, at least to make him believe that I am not suffering THAT much… But, what can I say; I couldn’t bear it, knowing that I have to choose from having my soul mate besides me but without a family or a family and a broken heart. As we were slowly walking towards his flat, I observed how tired I was, as I don’t remember clearly how did we arrive and so on.

 

[Saaremaa]

I ascended the stairs to the fifth floor as fast as I could. I was late. I quickly put the key inside the lock but I observed that the door wasn’t locked. I opened the door of the apartment. Inside I saw Jaak’s jacket, Laura’s, a colleague of mine who came with us at the protest against the amnesty bill, where most of us were beaten by the police. She was the angriest of all of us. When we ran to Jaak, and now mine’s also, apartment, she put us all in the living room and started tell us about how fascist this police state is. A remnant of Eha’s royal dictatorship… the police supporting the fascist party… we must fight back… she was right. We can’t let them destroy our lives. We can’t let the fascist party take over the country and destroy anything we fought and hoped for. As I looked around there was another jacket in the hallway. It took me awhile until I recognized it. Mom was here. I shouldn’t get so nervous. She visited us for quite some times. She first found Jaak’s apartment from the address written on the letters. First she came to be sure that I ran here and that I’m okay. After that… she didn’t came for quite some time, but in the end, I believe she accepted me, or at least she loves me enough to pretend that she has no problem with me loving Jaak. She then came quite often bringing us some food that she cooked, helping us with some money and telling me that dad doesn’t even want to remember me and that Riina is… well I was shocked to hear, but sorry for what happened with me. Okay, so she is here now, but Laura is also here… everything I tried to do to show my mother that I’m fine and will be fine and safe will be destroyed if Laura will open her mouth and starts talking about fascism…

I left my jacket on the hanger and entered the living room. The first thing I saw was mom approaching to hug and I felt a slight strangulation. Then Jaak followed and then Laura and mom finished the whole unending process of hugs with another hug that I believe it could have broken me in two. It was strange, as if I left for months not for a few hours.

“Paavo, I’m so happy that you finally returned…” said mom as everyone seated themselves on the sofa again.

“Mom, I just went to the classes at university…”

“I came as soon as I heard the news. There were some fights between the socialists and the fascists in the Titaani neighbourhood. I just wanted to be sure that you are well and I wanted to see you.”

I’m okay, mother…”

“Whoa. Shut up.” Laura interrupted our dialogue. “We forgot about Eskola he was to make an appearance on TV and Radio today.”

“The analyst who said that our political system is now made of only two parties?” asked mom.

“Yes. Jaak, turn the radio on.”

As Jaak turned it on, he moved to the frequencies of the national radio post. The talk show already started.

“Mr. Eskola, the press says you took the student’s side. Is it true, what do you have to say about it?”

“The right-wing press presents the protesters as blood thirsty. Look at the newspaper of the National Salvation League: <<”Those barefaced thugs are not happy if they destroy our capital, now they want our blood, because we fight to make sure that our country is not to be sold to regimes like the ones in Vangala or Kyiv.”>> I sincerely can’t accept that students, the future intellectuals of our nation are called thugs, they are mocked for being young and not only that, but because they fight to keep a criminal and potential mass murderer in prison they are called traitors and communists who want to destroy Saaremaa…”

“Potential mass murderer? Come on… those are exaggerations,” Alexander Koppel the leader of the National Salvation League interrupted Eskola.

“Mister Koppel, when someone plants bombs with the intent of killing people, I find it correct to call him a mass murderer. We already know that the parliament and most national institutions go through a phase of fascism and because of that I am sure that Olev Meri will be acquitted and maybe even secretly congratulated for killing the student Koit Sisask.”

“This is just demagogic slander!”

“This! This is demagogy! In your own party, people are talking about supporting the Yujiner monarchy in massacring its own people. That is demagogy. And not only that, but also support the regime’s declaration of war against Carentania, Havenshire and the invasion of Vangala!”

“The monarchy needs to protect itself from the red hordes. It’s called a pre-emptive strike.”

“Then the same can be said of the Solaris attack on Nicosia... that is was just a pre-emptive strike. That the crazy theocracy and its people needed to be protected from having a better life, so why shouldn’t they destroy it mo…” the emission died as a blackout occurred.

“Retarded shit!” shouted Laura angry.

“He is right. Eskola is right.” I was shocked to see my mother supporting the left-wing political analyst. “Don’t you see what they insinuate? They support Yujin’s attacks. And they say that by demonstrating against them they already change the nation into a Vangala or betray the nation or things like that. I hope it’s not true, but I am afraid that they will win those elections. Alvar tried to change too much and this antagonised many people. But I am afraid that if they win, they will try a thing like that on Kyiv and because they are so retarded, we are so easily manipulated, we will suffer much from it.” I observed that she had tears on her eyes.

“We will try to make sure that it won’t happen. We will do anything. We have a historical responsibility for your generation who suffered from the royal dictatorship.” Said Laura with a stern voice.

“And what can you do other than join some demonstrations that can get you killed?”

“I will to refrain myself from doing anything. Anything.”

“Big words, darling. But the best thing you all could do is to take care of you. This is all that we can do. Paavo, please give me the jacket.” I went there and gave it to her. “It’s good to meet you Laura, Jaak sorry for coming uninvited but I was concerned about you all…” She left a few minutes later. I observed it. She was crying.