Epilogue
"Can't you hear me? COOP! HEY! Look, it's snowing, finally!" Slowly I become aware of where I am right now. Then I get a firm push, "Everything okay? Don't you pull some stupid joke on me now!" The noise seems to fade somewhat, it is still difficult for me to focus. It's a woolly kind of feeling, like I just woke up from a deep sleep after pulling an all nighter, involving a lot of beer. "Aye, what...?", I respond, because I'm still struggling to get my grip back on this reality.
We are standing by the window, in the front of our livingroom, outside it is dark, yet light. The big white flakes of snow whirl, illuminated by the street light, quietly down and paint a beautiful picture of winter. It's nice and warm in here. In the background the radio is playing, but I cannot seem to make anything I know from it. "What a wonderful sight, isn't it?" And I 'hm hmm' in agreement. Surely experiencing inner peace right now.
"But what do you think of it?", I hear her ask, and yet it seems like it is totally unrelated to what I have just experienced. She points out to the christmas decorations in the room, in a way as it is sometimes presented in shows on TV. "Lovely," I say sincerely.
"Are you just saying that to be done with it, or do you really mean it?" She looks at me like she wants to look through my eyes into my brain for the truth. "No, really, I love it, nice hat by the way." Refering to the christmas hat she is wearing. And I start to laugh out loud.
"You're making fun of me!", And I get a punch on my arm, while she pulls the red-white woolly christmas hat from her head and throws it, clearly annoyed, onto the floor.
Quietly I pick it off the ground and put it, a little slanted, back on her head. "It looks good on you, so leave it, I just thought about a TV-series that was on a long time ago, called: 'The laughing shaving brush', remember?" She looks at me with that: 'Oh, you better tell me something good now or...' - look and says slowly: "Yessssss and ...?"
"Well, in that series somebody would say: 'Nice lamp by the way', out off the blue... And we had an English highschool teacher, Eddy Shoestring, who did this during a test, when everything in the classroom was silent. And then he started to laugh out loud. That made me laugh too, back then. But not everybody apparantly watched that show at the time..."
She does not say anything and looks back at how the snow is putting everything quietly under a soft fluffy white blanket. Now I would like to take a walk outside, through the silence of falling snow, broken only by the soft cracking sound of my footsteps. Cold, but in a nice way, a cold one can dress for and enjoy the fun of winter.
"Do you want to go out for a walk?" For a moment there I had almost forgotten how well she knows me. She can read me like a book. "Yes," I say softly. “And I'll be back..." While I look at her with a smile on my face she slowly turns around and walks towards the kitchen.
Quietly I grab my coat, scarf and gloves, still somewhat dizzy and shaky. "Are you sure? You still look a bit pale." She says as she puts the kettle on. It makes a loud gurgling noise, which seems even louder in the wintry cold. Like every sound seems to be louder in this concrete house, once it gets sub zero outside.
"Are you going to be out for long?" She asks as I walk towards the front door. "No, hour and a half, at the most, will do my usual one." That is all I need to tell her, we have come to understand each other more with less words throughout the years. Must be like thirthy something by now.
After I quietly closed the frontdoor behind me I stand still for a moment to look at the light from the lanterns in the South playing with the snowflakes. It feels great, the cold snow melting on my face. Outside it is quiet.
Christmas lights everwhere in- and outside of the houses. TVs turned on everywhere. Everything seems to unwind as quiet as the snow is falling.
While I'm turning towards the sidewalk I take a look back to our front window, put my thumb up and wink. Then continue to walk on the crackling crunching snow towards the route I usually walk every day.
Still I have no idea what has happened, not even sure if this is definitively the place where it is really the 'here and now' that I'm used to. Nor do I know what all those other experienced realities were. And as I move on I take a look around if I can see Grom, our little furry meowing friend, walk anywhere. But he is probably sleeping somewhere in the attic right now.
No voice in my head? No, happy ... However, I'm still somewhat uncertain. Because I cannot explain, don't even want to try too. And who would believe me anyway? "The men in the white jackets will soon come to help you Coop...", that's what probably would happen. And I start to laugh out loud, it echoes between the concrete houses of the South
And while I'm closing in on the road to the first forrest on my route, I start to sing silently: “... When I'm lost, I need a sign, She leads the way and I'll be fine, and nothing really matters … She completes me, how she sees me, right or wrong, it's so clear she's all I need here, all I need is her ...”
No overdrive music inside my head anymore, no more endless repeats this time of some parts of songs. And slowly I regain the confidence that the chaos finally has left my mind.
Across the street somebody is walking a dog, he does not look happy. Still I greet him with a frolic smile. And I take a turn to the woods that have become so familair to me, softly humming the song that is so close to my heart.
And nothing really matters ...
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- 50/50 payout post
Part of quoted song lyrics inspired by Mr.Probz's - "Nothing really matters"
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