Aestus; A. Zverev

01

Aud had stopped calling him Sasha after not long. 

She had initially liked the sound of his name; the softness of an s juxtaposed to an h and followed by a tranquil a. But not coming from her mouth; not moulded by her lips; not folded and cut and delivered by her voice. 

And so, to her, he was Alex. 

Her Alex. His parents's Sasha, the world's Sasha, but her Alex. 

He hadn't been pleased by this decision of hers, but neither had he been displeased by it; he had barely even noticed it, as if he's been called that way all his life. 

Alex. Her Alex. 

He didn't't know whether it was the Alex bit or the possessive pronoun in front of it which - to his annoyance - made his heart beat a bit faster and his stomach itch annoyingly.

Alex. Her Alex. Hers, hers, hers.

- Alex. - this time, it wasn't the voice in his head, but hers calling him back to reality - Alex. - 

She said it with levity, as if she simply wanted to hear the sound of it, or perhaps to show him that she could say it. That she had the power to put one letter after the other in such an order that formed his name; the bunch of syllables which not only had the power to summon his attention, but also made him the person he was. 

Alex had once read an article - or perhaps it had been a podcast - in which a scary looking Austrian philosopher claimed that names had the power to shape the way one is perceived by oneself and others. Something about 'Dorian Grey effect' and a line uttered by Juliet to her forbidden love which he couldn't quite recall. 

He'd had that same problem all his life; names and informations seemed to grasp out of his hands like colourless water. As much as he tried to hold them tight, they'd always manage a way out; as much as he tried to find them once lost, they'd never allow him to catch them again. 

It frustrated him, it made his fingers itch with anger. 

What is wrong with me? he'd angrily ask himself Why can't I remember? Why can I never find the words to say what I feel as vividly as a lighting hitting the ground beside me? 

- Alex. - she repeated once more, this time with purpose in her tone. 

The sound of her voice soothed him, smoothed the rough surface of his nerves like a comb through hair. 

- Yes? - he didn't turn around to look at her; he didn't need to.

He sat on the floor, between her legs, with a small flacon of nail polish with which she had instructed him to paint her toenails; he'd been doing an amazing job, before his thoughts had interrupted him. 

She was resting on the sofa behind his back, braiding his curly hair and adorning it with the sparkliest and most colourful hair clips she had been able to find at the charity shop. 

- You know how carbon is the main component of organic compounds, right? - 

- Yes. - 

- And organic compounds make up the cells of everything that surrounds us: that rug, this shocking pink hair clip, you, the spider in the corner... - 

- Yes Aud, I get the point. - 

- Ok yeah so, diamond is made of carbon too. It's basically this covalent structure made of thousands and millions of atom carbons each bonded to other four carbon atoms. - 

- Is this about to turn into a one hour long chemistry lecture? - 

- Ok shut up I'm trying to say something actually interesting here. - she scolded him, pulling at a golden curl to get him to be quiet. - So, diamond was formed aaaages ago when the carbon atoms under the earth were crystallised due to extreme temperatures and pressures, or something like that. -