June 1998 ........................ [load original version ]

The night at the Second Avenue came inconspicuously, the same way as usual. Once a perfect neighborhood, the Second Avenue no longer has any epithets that could describe her brighter side. Dirty streets and boring old ruins represent all that is left of her. Fulfilled with black emptiness, the Second Avenue proliferates the mysteriousness that no man dares to explore. And truly, all that can be felt and experienced among its rusted walls is a constant drift that goes by the one and only direction of the wind, towards deeper darkness.

Time goes by, but the present isn’t really the best period for existence. The pedestal of truth, although often and dexterously hidden away from a human eye, has been viciously disturbed as someone defied the privacy of forgotten past. Almost perfect silence has been interrupted by a mizzle. Footsteps approached; far away in the distance, yet too close to be real. Unusually close. Nobody comes to this neighborhood anymore. At least no one did, not until now.

The sound of an empty can echoed behind the corner of a nearby departed house, where silhouette of a group of people showed up. They moved toward the place where used to be the highest building of the Second Avenue. The head of the gang differentiated himself from the others. He wore black long coat whose shine appeared under the light of a bloody full moon, a moon that desperately tried to hide itself above the clouds. Headphones in his ears were noticeable, although they were camouflaged by a wild, tousled blonde hair that looked like everything else but. He was walking weary.

Suddenly he stopped in front of the huge door of this place that used to be the City Hall. He took another whiff of Lucky Strike and threw it away. He was listening to Radiohead and, while watching the moon, he sung the lyrics:

“I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll. This time, I feel my luck could change…”

Then he crashed on a cold concrete and hit his head to a wall. The other three guys ran to help him. They sat on the ground beside his weary body.

“Alex, you ok?” One of them asked.

“Yea… Yes…” he took his headphones out and turned off his walkman. He was quiet and looked thoughtful.

“Well… Why did you brought us here?” confused faces focused at Alex, who himself didn’t know what he wanted to say. He was thinking about problems such as a lot of money he just lost by gambling. His mind reminded him of past days he spent at the Second Avenue with his friends Klaus, Michael and Christian. Life stopped having any meaning for him. That is why he brought them here, to a place where they spent the early moments of their youth.

Moon has disappeared, it hid behind the dark shadows which shaded every hope and faded the happiness. A megrim of a man then found its peace, leaving behind the unsolved mysteries. There was no way back.

“How did this become such a bad place?” Alex asked himself, while the other three kept quiet. They knew what this was all about. Alex was tortured by life. He was obsessed with destiny, which he so stubbornly tried to control. He was obsessed with time he has left until his journey to the other, hopefully better world. He was tortured by a brain tumor that was destroying his brain cells, one by one, as each day went by. The reality has also disappeared. Unitizing the dream and realism into one, the entity of two led into the extreme, to a place forbidden to a human eye.

They remembered all the moments that made their childhood seem better and more interesting. Then happiness disappeared too. The time has run out for the ones who are curious and anxious. The world of perfection is waiting for those who wish to stay, and they did. Yet, the only requirement for fear detraction is the ability to observe. They had it, because they liked what they have seen. Devastation, disaster, nothingness, it’s all the part of every human being today. They’ve observed, and they saw the reflection of themselves in everything. Now the fear was gone. The unknown destiny, hand of God and the split of a second were all the necessities required to understand the importance of nonexistent reality. After all, life is just an overrated value without a known purpose. Why is it all so important then?

Without an answer, they just sat there and enjoyed the blurred reality. Alex wasn’t talking anymore; he didn’t have enough strength to endure throughout another night. Bright light approached him carefully from the distance and motherly whispered his name.

Alex silenced some time before the dawn.

A dark shadow covered each memory but, no matter what, they were coming closer to their final goal. Everything that makes life and death as an everyday occurrence of our time, took them to insanity as the only way out.

Step by step, they were disappearing into sunrise and the pain was disappearing along. The bridge that connected all those moments of reality and lonely past, whelmed into depth of the unexpected truth; leaving behind a pale trace of existence.

On the peak of knowledge, yet with a fraction of understanding, they have disappeared, just like they never existed. They surrendered themselves into the eclipse of their own dreams, hoping they found the meaning of life. Now there’s only a silence. Rain stopped falling, drift has drifted away. The Second Avenue is finally alone again. Another sunrise hit the sky, new hope is born.