Faust

Loop

        I fell asleep. Or I dozed off for hell knows how long before the lack of shock absorber of the taxi pulled me back to reality along with a sudden stop in front of the Central Park entrance.

        "23 and a quarter." The cabbie hissed through the plastic board with modified corners between us. I check my belongings one more time and if the violin case was moved before throwing the last of my change through the gap below.

        It took me till I got off, slammed the door and the driver already gone with the southern wind, tires protesting against break to realize he had dropped me off a block away from Kirov St.

         The street of upper Noch is as discomfit as ever, straying from the sinister and glamorous fiesta of Lesnaya and the sense of class and proper city design with building layout of downtown. This place feels like a hibernating resentment, a thin wall between your mind and the noise of another world. You can hear and see the trails of noch here as well, just not as blunt as the rest.

          A couple of yards by the tiled path of Central Park, a bench under a lamp pole is the only noise louder than the distant sound of bike exhaust pipe roaring in the radius. A small group is shooting the shit under the lamp light, with their feet on the bench handle or with their back on the rear.

         I stepped on the sidewalk and was about to cut through the park but one of them, the one lying on the bench with a jacket over his face and torso stopped me. The deep blue and dark green militaristic shoreline jacket looked damn familiar. I didn't see any silver bracelets but still, I turn right and walk along the park. No need to test neither of our temper.

          Walking under the night and a half asleep neighborhood sure as hell gives you time to focus what to do with yourself, more precisely, what to do with dinner. Just as the idea connected to my empty stomach, I see a couple of trailers by the old entrance to the marketplace on that small plaza on pavement that leads to a dead end. Surprised they hadn't been clamped by the uniforms in the past months.
***

7:40 I bump my front door open, the damn thing was bind in place as tight as a priest's mouth during confession before immediately threatening to tear as it swung wobbly like cardboard.

Sense of enervation hits when I shut the door behind me. The compressed wooden floor creaks with jaded and distorted screams as the sensor lights up every ring of the spiral stairs.

With each floor up I can feel my muscles unbinding my bones, easing up the tension that's been piling up all day long while my right arm, shoulder, and thighs ache.

The violin case is half empty but feels heavier than ever as the stairs squeal and crepitate through hollow space.

         3000k lamp lights above every doorbell in the building illuminates warm yellow lights at the top of each round, encouraging me to go just a little further or have someone build an elevator at the well.

A black panel door with bronze knocker is the most common feature of any apartment in euforia but the sight of your own doorstep always hits you with intuition. Like seeing a friend that never ages.

          I twist the knob and push open the door with fortified layers in between. Pitch black and the steady beeping came as soon as I step in, leaning the violin case by the closet and go as usual.

Typing in the code illuminated every corner of the open space with white lights from the modern chandelier in the air, aluminum twigs sticking out at 90 degrees with incandescent bulbs at the end.

           The place is as much a mess as I left it at noon. I locked the door and picked up the case. Kicking my shoes off on the porch, I put the case by my TV and made my way upstairs.