CONCERT MAX

Max jumped off the bed as fast as he could. Forcefully brushing his teeth, leaving bloody marks on them, he remembered what he saw in a dream. That was Ellen, a “Grammy” star, for whom he did a concert in Moscow. But in a dream her flight landed in Marrakesh. He also saw how she called him by phone and shouted in a strange language. Her angry speech was accompanied by pleasant oriental music, which turned out to be his third alarm.

Only now, he noticed how exhausted he was. He felt like his brain was drained and loaded with unnecessary stuff. He leaned on the sink. It was a party yesterday. Something related to eco-movement, in the honor of their investor. Max wanted to complete his work before the meeting. Instead of that, his head got down on its own and he felt suffocating, deafening rush. The white tile, which he selected so dearly, greased in a sheer black smudge.

Max headed to the kitchen, feeling empty. He smelled the female perfume. That quivering, pure scent led from the bedroom, filled up the whole flat. He took out some cigarettes and started smoking, spreading a bitter stink.

Lena. They have been living together for half a year already. Her and him, in this spacy, deserted flat. Max shivered. How good all this started! His father recommended him for a job in a promotion agency. He has a chance now to proof he was worth it – to prepare Ellen`s concert. His hand was flinching as he was moving a steaming, grey cigarette. Lena. Where is she? Right. She decided to be fit. Instead of being on that sleazy treadmill, she`d better serve her beloved Max some coffee. She`d better sit with me for a goddamn moment. But not. I am talking to myself, alone. I am sick of this stupid comedy… Is this ashtray always placed here?

Max looked at the freshly washed ashtray and, feeling the flash of memory, painfully striking his unbalanced mind. He could not see its root.

Was it yesterday? Or a day before? Or maybe never?

It was always, - replied Max to himself and put a steaming, hot roach out.

 He heard a roar of the keys. Lena, wearing a short dress, with enormous sport bag on her shoulder, kicked off her heavy shoes and with no sound ran over the bedroom. In less than a minute, she returned, with all clothes fully changed, without the mobile, electronic watch and a bag. He glanced at Max from a distance, and then, silently smiling, slipped away to the bathroom.

Max, slightly waggling, walked over her and opened the door. Lena was standing with her back to him, totally wet to the waist, spitting toothpaste in a sink. Max touched her naked stomach, hugging her, and Lena squeaked. She got scared and started to yell at him very loudly. He disliked something about her voice at that moment, but he could not explain what exactly it was. Lena pushed his hands away with a force, which was meant to say something important to Max, but he could not decode it. He felt that the pain in his head is pulsating again – maybe it was Lena`s scream or maybe some unspoken thought. Max walked back to the door and questioningly blinked.

-         Are you busy tomorrow? – He waited till Lena started to talk in a more peaceful way. – My dad is arriving tomorrow. He doesn`t have the key.

Lena paused for a minute and  looked somewhere in the corner.

-         I have yoga class. Tomorrow is Saturday. Why don`t you stay at home?

Why don`t I stay? Oh, yes! Ellen`s concert is next Friday! Heinous Ben decided to visit Moscow in the end of the tour. So generous of him. However, it seems like all this shit is going to end with a Max, not-deciding-anything person, dead of insomnia and nicotine intoxication before Monday.

-         I can`t do this, I got loads of stuff to do before Monday. Is meeting today. I have all my weekends planned in the office.

Lena stared at him, waiting till he finished his complaint.

-         Get away then! You can work from home. – She was giving him that advice almost without intonation, but with sudden spark of sadness.

Max shrugged his shoulders. He petted her hair with no word and left.

On the meeting the director confirmed that Ellen is finally decided to perform in Moscow and that the team needed to start advertising campaign, and that Max needed to complete all the paper and accommodation work. – OK, I got it, - said Max, no able to receive any information because of the rising pain in his head.

He locked himself in a tiny white cabinet with broken blinds and started to work. Firstly, he filled in the agreement. The template was sent beforehand and the document did not take much effort from him. Max, really delighted that at least a part of his job is done, snucked into the backyard and lighted a smoke, with fulfilling pleasure. His arms stopped shivering and his mind cleared up, when he received a message from Lena.

“I am with Ulyana. Serge picks me up and drives home”.

The pain, faded for a moment, started to whip him again. His eyes were penetrated with more reality, than they could accept. All the things around him started to look very strange and foreign to him. He blinked again.

The stale air of his cabinet mixed his mind up one more time. Why am I doing this? – He asked. – I don`t want to.

He sat by the big monitor with slices of dust all over it. Max hated to clean his workplace and, as he was usually absent-minded, he always collected all the keys – both personal and emergency, so the cleaning lady never could get into.

Pocking around the blue bowing on the monitor, Max dreamt to go home. He explained this wish to himself as all that he needs in life is his pillow.

He shook his perspired hands off and opened the website of a fashionable, luxurious hotel, required by heinous Ben. It was only one lux room left, whereas he needed two – one for Ellen and on for Ben. Max decided to call a concert agent, far more gentle person, than Ben.

-         Hey, Sue, hello. I can`t deal with that lux rooms. Yes. Right. The agreement is in your mailbox. Have a look. Yes. I will leave one lux and one business room. Fingers crossed that they cancel the booking! All right, Sue. Take care. Yes, the agreement is completed! Bye.

Max came back to his flat with light, renewed heart. All the light was off. Lena was not there. Max called her. As the line beeped, he touched a piece of chocolate that he bought for Lena. The bar was completely melt. Lena did not answer. Max sighed, had another smoke and flopped onto his bed.

Sue`s call woke him up.

-         Hello, Max, I`m calling you to talk about the agreement, - Sue was chattering so fast, that Max lost the division between words when he finally realized the language in which she was speaking to him. – Could you, please, check the investor`s account. Ben has got some questions about it.

Max panicked, when he figured out that Sue`s Ben is the heinous Ben, a creepy manager of Ellen, demanding as much attention as a “Grammy” star.

It was frequent enough in recent times, that Max was loosing some subtle details in his work. He usually forgot about them quickly, but that were constantly returning to him afterwards and spoil his existing. He poured out the agreement sheets into the bed, checked all of the requisites. Account number? He took the laptop and dived into the search.

Lena fiercely walked into the room with dark, decisive look. She looked up to the bed, full of A4 agreement paper. Her face jolted, and she dig up the lingerie drawer with the awful sound and started to toss off all its multi-colored contents to an empty bag.

-         What are you doing? – Max habitually closed his laptop, observing her.

Lena turned her sorrow, choked face to him.

-         I am leaving you.

Ben called. Max answered.

-         Hello, Ben. I`m checking. Yes, I`m checking the bank account. I will call you back!

Lena was already packing her clothes in front of the open wardrobe.

- How far are you going?

- They are waiting me in the car, - Lena was dividing her words, trying to sound dry and unfazed, but her shoulders were repetitively shaking.

Max saw this all as a farce.

-         What will your farther say?

Max knew that her parents wanted her to marry this year.

Lena sniffed. Max knew she was crying.

-         So what, are you leaving forever? Or just fucking around?

Lena went through the door. The big heavy bag was beating at her legs. She stopped in a bathroom and, as he herd the plastic clicking, he realized that she is gathering all her cosmetics.

Max rose from the bed. He heard a telephone again. It was director assistant.

-         Hello, Max, - he greeted him with a long yawn. – It seems to me that you messed up with Ellen?

-         No,no. I`ve sent Sue an agreement and Ben had some questions about a bank account.

-         Whis one? NN`s? – He named their investor.

-         Yes.

Max heard the crackle of the closing bathroom door, the running water and a grief weeping of Lena. He forced himself to listen to the assistant, but he had already missed a half of his words.

-         Max, I`m telling you once again, look carefully at what you`ve send. If it was a personal account, we are in a big trouble. You are in danger most of us all.

Max moved to the papers. His heart was jumping out. Finally, he had checked. He made a mistake.

-         Hello, Ben, it`s me again. I wanted to say… I`ve sent you invalid bank account, I need to change it.

-         No, Max, thank you. We have called your director already, and it`s all fine.

Max broke a sweat in one second. Falling apart from the pressure, he walked through the hall. All the lights were turned off and the door was open. The keys were left in the floor.

Max locked the flat and set near the keys. A call. Director. He was shouting a lot, insulting him, saying that he is a lazy, incompetent bastard. Max listened to him with no interruption and then found out that he was dismissed.

Around four, he snapped out in a hall, sitting near the door and feeling cold. He went to the kitchen. He breathed in the smoke, but the thoughts, flying in the darkness, didn`t came up to his mind and oppressed him. He made some coffee, placed the cup on the table and sat on the sofa, seemingly waiting for something.

He did not know how much time had passed. He heard a sound as if someone was talking to him. The fear, like glue, thickened inside of him. He looked at the wall and saw a large collage with a face of a young woman, made from magazine cuttings.

He stood up in a hurry, tore down a picture and placed it by the table. A fickle chair had dropped. The glass was broken. Max pulled a picture back and got a chair for it so that it will not fall again. He looked at the picture with great attention. He stood still. Then he took the grounds out of the coffee machine and went out to clean it. In the bathroom, he was watching as blackish brown grounds are devouring the white surface of a flush. He moved. Looking over a shoulder, he saw a stranger close to him. The sharp horror went through him and the insanity bloomed irreversibly. Slowly, breaking his cold, sweating neck, he raised his head and saw a man. He did not knew this pale, bloodless, elusive face. After a moment, when he figured out that that man is his own reflection in the mirror, he smiled and came back to the kitchen.

The second cup of coffee landed on the table.

-         So, a magazine girl… You`ve seen everything. What do you think?

A collage in a broken frame was looking at him as usual.

He bent over to drink his coffee.

-         Honey? Who are you talking to? I`m still here. – Max heard a voice so clearly, as if he was speaking himself. He jumped over the door.

There was still no one in his flat.

-         I am still here, I`m here. Well, we are not finished speaking yet. I want you to know – I will never leave you if I didn`t have reasons. Never. You should know it.

Max was quiet.

-         I left but I am still here. Help me to come back.

Max sipped his coffee.

-         If you fulfill your promises, I will come back.

-         Sure, but sorry… How would you know if I did this? I mean… You left.

-         Stupid fool! Do what I`ve told you!

Max pondered.

-         But what shall I do? I don`t remember a thing!

-         Firstly, you clean the window. Secondly, you take me to Kolomna. Thirdly, you buy me a new perfume.

-         Can I kiss you before I go?

-         No. You clean the window.

Max took smelly rag and washed it under the icy water and opened the window. Something was bothering him while walking. He looked down on his legs and saw that he was walking barefoot on the glass from a broken frame. He decided to deal with it later and sat on the windowsill, hanging a part of his body outside. The sun was rising, red as a giant grapefruit. Deftly balancing, he did not control any of his movements, he stratched with an oily rug. He was scrubbing the frame and nearly fell down from the ninth floor, but he experienced no fear. He needed to clean the window, so he cleaned.

As soon as he finished, he grabbed the collage and took it to the bedroom. He put the picture on the pillow and laid down next to her, onto yesterday agreement`s paper. He felt the bliss. After many weeks of slavery work, he was finally able to stay at home and just lie in bed.

-         Now you can kiss me.

He turned to a pillow, where he placed a picture. Nothing changed. All of a sudden he felt flooded by gold, glittery and warm feeling of unity. He now knew she is here. He needed to return her.

He got up and put on his pants. As an actor, rehearsing that scene for hundreds of times, he lifted the frame with picture and went outside.

The Suburb met him with a strong wind. Feeling the lingering pain in the arm, he went through the station to buy a ticket. It was twenty minutes left. He looked over.

A little stall was waiting for him.

-         Give me the best perfume, - he said.

-         For whom? – Asked a cashier, staring at his bloody arm.

-         For my beloved girlfriend Lena.

She glanced once again.

-         500 rubles.

Max snatched a white box from her arms, threw a red banknote to her and ran to the train.

Hypnosis –what an interesting name, he thought. Torn up the box with strong, bony fingers, he released a tiny bottle.

-         You are doing well, honey. Now you get me out.

-         Yes, Lena, my dear.

-         I am not Lena. If you take me to Kolomna, Lena comes back.

Max confused for a while. The voice, Lena gone, collage marked with his blood, - all elements made sense to him. Hesitation was painful.

Squirming on his seat, he noticed a girl in front of him. She was wearing a short dress and a fishnet tights. He pointed her knee with a finger. She looked at him with a great displeasure.

-         Put your hands back, - she said.

-         What if I don`t?

-         I will scream.

-         You scream, - said Max and, lacerated his hand with aid of frame, splattered his blood all over her haunch.

The girl screamed. People turned around.

-         Come on! – Max was having fun. – Louder! – Wheezing, he cried out himself. - AAA!

It was dark outside when a solid veteran ticket inspector pushed him from the train. He found himself in an unknown place. He was still holding a picture under his arm and a perfume in his pocket.

Someone called him over. He turned and saw two young people walking through a black trace between two houses. They were asking him, what time is it.

What time is it really? Max himself wanted to know, but did not move.

-         Give me your phone and we`ve done, - said one of them. He seemed to be in a rush.

Max said no word.

-         Are you fucking deaf? One of the people moved towards him. Max pushed him with all of his strength and ran away.

He did not know, how long he is running, if those people were running after him, if they took his phone, if they were existing creatures at all. He ended up in an unfamiliar roadway and fainted down.

Next morning a car stopped near him.

-         For God`s sake! – A man got out the car. He energetically pulled out a phone and started to type a number.

-         I`ve found him! I`ve got nothing to say…He is lying on the ground. Blood all over the body. He`s stinking with something…Holly shit, is that perfume? Come over my office, I will be here. Come over! I`ll be here. Come over.