A woman’s rhythmical screaming woke me up in the middle of the night’s silence. It sounded like a grief from a far away apartment block. I had a feeling that someone had just died. It must have been either a mother or a wife mourning loudly. The sound was very disturbing. I felt uncomfortable and attentive to every detail around me. I felt a slight quiver, a leftover illusionary feeling from the recent earthquake. …And then a sound of something knocking against my window.
The large window of my bedroom faces darkness. From there emerged an outline of a bird that convulsively kicked my window. I imagined it was an element from someone who had just died. The mourning had stopped.
Gradually I became aware that there was something flying in my bedroom. Something small and dark. I guessed it was a bet. It would have been a bigger panic I suppose if not that mourning. I covered my head with the blanket, got off the bed all bent down, switched on the light and opened the window. At the exact time when I was opening it, I realized that it had been locked. The bet flew away in the darkness. I locked the window back.
If the window had been locked, that meant that the bet got into my bedroom from the balcony door in the living room that I had left open. And entering the living room was like entering an old church inhabited by bets.
After a brief midnight shock and momentary understand that I HAD to cope with this, rolled in the blanket I crawled towards the switch and kneeled down on the floor. I switched on the lights. Patience was the only method now to get over this. One by one they flew into the darkness outside the balcony. I looked around and concluded I was on a safe side. Got up and walked towards the kitchen table and suddenly another one flew on top of my head and back. It seemed like an endless chaos. Again I kneeled and waited. The bet flew around the room and could not find his way out. It was only by chance that he appeared outside on the balcony and then somewhere at an unknown location when I locked all the doors and windows of my 11th floor apartment.
Scared in a particular way I still left the lights on and went to the toilet. Several drops dropped from the tap and I turned to the other remaining several drops of the bath tap to wash out the soap.
Going back to my bed I had trouble breathing and finding a place. I thought I will never drink and smoke. A sudden sound made me jump for the last time that night – pipes gradually and suddenly filling with water.
