Mushroom Man

I think I have a mushroom man in my room.

Yes, he’s here, somewhere. For some obscure reason he wouldn’t leave. He has a wife waiting for his house though. She must’ve been lonely these days. Shouldn’t he supposed to care about her?

I’ve seen her, his wife. One day when I was smoking on the balcony I saw her walking across the street wearing an expensive brown dress. She’s somewhat stunning. Long hair, tall, curvy. Probably around her thirties. The wind blew as she struggled to keep her hair. It was rather a sight, like a gleaming oasis in the midst of a burning desert. To tell you the truth my neighborhood is on the poor side of the town, so you would never find a pretty woman walking around with pretty clothes. That’s why the image stuck in my mind. That image of her in a brown dress walking against the wind. It would be nice to have a wife like that, I often told myself.

Anyway, the mushroom man had been here from January six months ago. He came on a quiet noon when I was playing Bill Evans’s songs from Bluetooth speaker in loud volume. He shouted from below, telling me the music disturbed the neighborhood’s peaceful time. I apologized then lowered the volume.

“Wait,” he said. “Is that Jazz?”

Yes it is, I replied. He pondered on something for a while, asked, “Can I come up?”

“Sure,” I said. “The door’s locked though. Wait, let me open it for you.” I grabbed the key, went down the stairs, and opened the door. I know you shouldn’t let someone you don’t know into your room. But in that peculiar moment it was just impossible to reject him.

At any rate he came to my room. I asked if he like jazz. “Yeah.” He said. I believed it was my first time having a mushroom man in the room. Yet he seemed comfortable, like visiting an old friend’s house. He scanned my book shelf with care, grabbed one book, and started reading. I figured he’s not up for a talk.

“Alright, make yourself at home, then.”

I sat on the floor, continued listening to Bill Evans from the Bluetooth speaker, now in a lower volume.

He’s been here ever since.

Most of the time he just read. Novels. Cold, gloomy novels. Hunched over at my desk, crossing his legs and eyes focused on the pages. He’d hold that pose for a long time like a creepy sculpture. Occasionally he would make a little move, reminding me he’s still alive.

He’s the slowest reader I knew. I mean, like, really slow. In the morning I would go to campus, hear some classes (or explain some bullshit), and when I came back late in the afternoon he would barely progresses for ten pages. I’m serious about this. It’s like he takes his reading to a divine level of intensity. He’d bite, chewed each sentence; took time to grasp the essence of each corresponding meaning. He criticized it in every way possible. Then fought his own objections with the strongest argument he could came up with. He probably did that over and over again, until there was no space left between him and the sentence. Only then he could progress to the next sentence. That might be the reason of his slow reading. Just an assumption though. It’s not like I have asked. We barely say a word to each other, and I’d like to keep it that way.

His being in my room rarely bothers me. He’s very silent that most of the time I would forget he’s even here. I do my business and he does his. But every time something strange happens to me (like if the planets are lined up properly and the blue moon is shining through the window like tonight), his image will come to mind. Then all of the sudden he’s the only thing I can think of. Somehow it feels awful having a mushroom man stuffed in your room. It’s like being suffocated by air.

In times like these I always tried to figure out the meaning of having a mushroom man in your room. His presence must signifies something. I don’t know yet what it is. Probably something important, like something big is going to happen—or is already happening. I’ve been trying to figure out what it is for a long time, but I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Whenever I found myself in the middle of this frustration, the picture of his wife would often sprang to mind. His wife is sitting on the sofa. The smooth brown dress wraps her curvy figure. She gazes at the window, watching the rain, waiting for a husband who never came. That image relieves me. Because even though there’s a mushroom man in my room, and I don’t know what it means, I’m sure he would always have someone to come home to.

***

Six months before the mushroom man came I was planning to move to Iceland with my girlfriend. The idea first started as a joke. We had lunch together when there was a news on TV about some violent demonstration happening in the capital. We make fun of it. Just a small, harmless, after-meal jokes. We ridiculed things and agreed this country is doomed for eternity. “You know what, we should move to Iceland.” She said. “It’s quiet over there. Not a lot of people, not a lot of problem. We wouldn’t have to worry about the society anymore.” She then started talking about Iceland. She knew an awful lot about the country that she could answer everything I asked with detailed information. But everything was just our usual conversation, an idle chat after lunch. After it finished I moved on with daily life without a slight sense of what was coming.

Then several weeks later she told me it’s actually possible to move to Iceland. She had an uncle there who runs a small touring firm, and due to the booming number of tourist they were in dire need of extra help.

“I just called him the other night, asked if it’s possible to work for him. I talked about us and tried to convince him how we could be useful. The discussion took some time but fortunately he agreed. It’s actually possible. You and me… Iceland.”

The news sent a good jolt to my heart. This is too sudden. She looks at me with excitement, like she had been looking forward to do this for a long time. I suspected something must’ve happened recently, something personal enough to keep it from me. I was thinking all about this for a time that her joyful face began to wear off.

“Come on, it’s not like there’s anything waiting for you in this place. We could start fresh there. Leave everything behind, begin a new life. Plus Iceland is beautiful. You love beauty, right?”

She was right. I don’t have anything waiting for me here, it’s a nice thing to start anew, and I adore the beauty of nature. But the idea to actually set foot and live in a different country is uncharted in my mind. I couldn’t apprehend it properly and that scared me to the bone.

“Hey, it’s alright.” She put her hand on my lap. “We could at least try it for a month or two, see if things work out. If it doesn’t we could get back here. I believe the experience of working in Iceland would look sexy in our CV.” She said with comforting smile.

She then told me I had a week to make the decision. In those days, I spent a lot of time sitting alone in the dark; thinking. This is it, I said. It’s a big, big decision... Should you do it? On answering that I almost split myself in two. A metaphysical blade cut me in half. One part wanted to stay, another wanted to leave. I was stuck in between for quite a while, and it was painful.

What convinced me was a dream about Iceland. It was a long dream that I don’t remember much. But I remember the sound of a waterfall. I stood in a vast landscape, facing a cluster of hills. The sky was cloudy. The earth was black. There was a horse-like figure in the bottom of one of the hills. A centaur carrying a bow and arrows. He tried climbing the hill to shoot an arrow into the sun, but every time he was about to reach the top, the earth below him would shifted, then he would lose his step and fell down to right to the bottom. He tried to climb again and again yet the same thing kept happening. Somehow I felt sorry. I could help climbing it for him. But then I realized the hills was actually a giant sleeping snake. Its body was grey as stones, and its whole skin covered in ancient moss. The snake’s eye rested at the peak. It would open every time the centaur came near, no wonder he can’t reach it. I just watch the centaur failed round after round. Very frustrating scene to witness.

I woke up from the dream with a strange feeling of conviction. I knew what I had to do. The dream revealed something important that I had ignored for a long time. I immediately called my girlfriend.

“Let’s do this.” I told her.

“Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

 “Great!” She yelled excitedly.

She had to arrange everything. So I had to wait until the final exam was over. There was no studying for me in that exam period. I was instead busy myself learning the basics of Icelandic language, just in case. I spent the week reciting words, writing notes on basic conversation, polishing my pronunciation. When the exam period was over I went to see her. She told me our plane would fly in a month, in early January the next year.

Unfortunately, it didn’t actually happened. We never get to Iceland. The plan failed because we broke up just before the New Year’s Eve.

***

I’m sweeping the floor when I notice the shadows in the room appear darker. In this time of the day sunlight supposed to shower the room with smooth brightness. But the shadows that once was a harmless cast is now thick as oil. I glance at the mushroom man who is reading on the chair.

“Hey, check this out, the shadows looks darker.”

The mushroom man doesn’t hear me. “Hey, do you notice this? I think there’s something wrong with the shadow.” I repeated.

He take a second to note where he is in the page. Then he turns to me. “The shadows? Yeah, they’ve been growing for some time.”

“What?”

“It’s my fault, sorry, I grew shadows for a living.”

What?

“It’s nothing. Please don’t mind it.”

And he’s back to reading. I wait more explanation for the matter. Yet, with eyes nailed to the pages, he shrugs lightly. Like telling me, “Oops, can’t help it.”

It’d be too much hassle to push the issue any further, so I just continue sweeping. It take me several rounds to get the entire floor clean. When I’m done I give it one good scan. It doesn’t look like my room. The growing shadows shrouded everything, and everything gives a feeling of stagnation. All the while the mushroom man kept reading his damn book like nothing’s happening. To hell with it, I tell myself.  Then I went to the balcony to have a cigarette.

I sit on a plastic chair, put on earphones, and play Bill Evans from my phone. I grab a box of Dunhill from my pocket, lit one. As I exhale the world turns slightly towards the way it supposed.

I’m thinking about the shadows. Does he really grow shadows for a living? That’s what he said he do. Yet I never saw him do anything other than reading. Could shadows grow by itself? Probably. Or probably shadows grow wherever the mushroom man is around. That would be easier for him. And, by the way, if he really does grow shadows for a living, there must’ve been people who bought shadows from him. Wow. How much a shadow would cost? Can you scale shadows like other goods? Anyway, just what kind of people would buy shadows? Wait, that’s a stupid question. The world’s filled with just that kind of people.

My thoughts just go on and on, not concentrating on anything. I’m just enjoying the weather. The sky’s a little bit cloudy, not too hot nor cold. Occasionally the wind would blow a gentle breeze as if suggesting you to chill down. The sweet deep tune of Bill Evans shifts the flow of time just to the right tempo. It’s like reality came to a halt. It would be shameful to waste this worrying about trivial things.

“To hell with it.” I tell myself as I blew smoke from my mouth.

***

I broke up a month before the mushroom man came. It was a simple break up. Just a chat from her; “I think we should end this,” and the relationship was over immediately. A year long journey closed with a single sentence. It’s like a magic trick. One moment it’s here. You cover it with a red cloth, recite a short spell, and, poof, it’s gone.

The memory of the day we break up chiseled deeply. I could recall it anytime I want—or didn’t want—with the clearest detail. It started late in the night when she called asking me to pick her up at the campus. I just about to sleep but she sounded uneasy. So I went with motor bike and found her half crying at the canteen. Red eyed, she told me with a coarse voice that she didn’t want to go home. “So where should we go?” To which she gave no reply. Then we sort of drove around the town randomly. She buried her face on the back of my shoulder the whole time, making no sound. Though I could feel tears slowly drenching my shirt.

Eventually we went to a cinema, watched some cheap horror, and ate dinner on some random luxurious place. She ordered a spaghetti with creamy broccoli pesto, I ordered a plain fried rice. All was her treat. By the time we finished eating it was two in the middle of the night. Her mood got better and we were talking about our friend’s pet beaver. Then something crossed my mind. I asked, “By the way, how about Iceland?”

That question stroke her in a way I did not expect. She stared intensely, like trying to drill a hole on the surface of my soul. There’s some quality of death in the way she looked at me. Then, like something snapped inside her, she casually checked her nails.

“Do you know I had a polar bear as pet when I was little?” She said.

That’s not the question. But I can’t upset her.

“You haven’t told me.” So I replied.

“Yeah, I got her from a zoo where dad used to work. They had a couple of them. No… Wait,” she counted something. “They had two. One adult female and one cub. I got the cub.”

She grabbed a box of Dunhill from her purse, and lit one. Yeah, she is a smoker. “My dad took care animals for a living. He used to bring me to work, taught me stuff about the animals. One day he showed me the polar bear cage. He said they shouldn’t even be there at all. You know, like they’re evolved to live in a vast environment. A land with lots of snow and walking space. By keeping them in captivity we punish that deep instinct to wander. At the time I wasn’t sure what he meant. He told me to just look at them until I get it.”

She took one big draw of Dunhill and blew it. The grey smoke swirled around her hair. I kept silent, wondering what this is all about.

“And dad was right. Once I looked at them—I mean, really looked at them—I swear I could see there was something wrong. Perhaps you could call it some kind of awkwardness. It’s like they no longer were a polar bear. Something’s been ripped off from the essence of their being. I begged dad to send them home because I can’t stand watching them. I told him they’re in some kind of pain. Dad said he can’t, he don’t have the power to do that. I didn’t believed him. When you were a kid you felt like your parents could do nearly anything. So I kept begging, and dad kept patiently explaining the same thing to make me understand. Then I started to breakdown. There was this great sorrow rising inside me. Felt like whole world slowly twisted in this dark terror. I cried, violently. It shook me the point where I almost blind of tears. Dad escorted me to the car where I slept out of exhaustion. When I woke up I was in my bed, tucked in warmly.”

She press out the cigarette on the ashtray, scratched the back of her hand. “Wait, I forgot what I’m trying to tell you.” She said.

“The polar bear you had as a pet when you were a child.” I quickly replied. And why you bring it up even though I was asking about Iceland.

“Oh, yeah, wait a second.” She lit another Dunhill. “So why did I bother you with that?” She mumbled to herself, laughed a little.

“Anyway, a few months later, the zoo went out of business. They planned to sell their land to cover the losses. It became a problem because they had lots of animals they didn’t know what to do about. Obviously they couldn’t left them just like that. So they asked everybody around to help. They even requested their own staffs to adopt some of them. At first dad didn’t want to help, it was pretty tough getting through the unemployment. But they seemed desperate, and dad felt sorry for the animals. So he picked just one animal for himself. The polar bear cub, the one I once cried for. It’s small, relatively easy to feed. Dad figured it wouldn’t be too much bother for us.

“I cried again when dad brought her to our house. Not a sad cry, more like a happy what-the-fuck-is-happening cry. I was astonished, excited, confused. Dad mentioned not to scare her, but I didn’t listen. I hugged her like there’s no tomorrow. I wanted to express that someone in this whole wide world still care about her. Yet she wouldn’t understand my language. So instead I just mouthed this incomprehensible babbles, mixed with loud moans and childish tears. Hoping she would get it. To be honest with you, it was probably one of the happiest day of my life.”

A faint smile appeared. She stared down vacantly as if trying to grasp the fluttering bit of memory around her.

“And that’s that. From that day onward she was officially mine. It’s actually pretty fun having a polar bear in your house. Even though she wasn’t your typical neighborhood pet, she was easy to get along with. I mean, sure, her style of play was a little aggressive for my taste. But, come on, she was a kid. A few scratch and bite marks was normal. Things never went too far.”

Then her meditation grew deeper. She shifts her attention inward. While blowing smoke like piston till the cigarette burned to its butt. She crushed it on the ashtray. Then this came up to from the bottom of the ocean:

“Here is something useful: You could get used to almost anything. No matter how odd it seems in the beginning, your mind will always find a way to make the unfamiliar becomes perfectly normal. It would take some time, but it could happen… It could happen over and over again until eventually you’d question what ‘the strange’ actually is.”

She gave it a pause to light another Dunhill. It took her several attempts.

“In the period I had her I pretty much forgot that she was an arctic predator. The odd mixed with the familiar. My love grew, and I believe it was real. I believe it even now. It was probably the only real thing that ever happened to me. There was this invisible rope that bound us together. I could feel her heart the way she could feel mine. She had this habit of stroking me with her head whenever I was sad. She would jump into my lap. Then I would just hug her soft body. Buried my face and cried my heart out into her fur. Yet, sadly, she grew too fast. Her weight reached beyond a hundred for the year we had her. It was getting expensive to feed her. Then one dad day decided we couldn’t keep her any longer. He phoned lots of people, looking for help. He found this zoo in the neighboring town who could look after her. So we moved her there.

“It was a shame for my part, really. But there was no other way. Thankfully dad let me saw her almost every week. He himself would drove me, and talked to the staffs so that they let me went inside the cage. In that zoo we played just like when we were at home. I didn’t care about the visitors watching us. I pretended they weren’t there.”

She stopped. Not to lit any more cigarette but to observe the still room. It was almost dawn. There was no other costumer except us. The cute lady behind the counter mingled with her phone, looking sleepy. Must’ve been a slow night for her.

“I wanted to visit her as often as possible, yet it gets harder with time. As I grew older and busier her existence pushed further. My visits becomes more infrequent. Yet no matter how many weeks, how many months passed, she would always give me a warm welcome.”

“Then, as you well knew it already, I attended this shit-hole university far from my hometown. During the first year living here everything went straight down the garbage disposal… Life transformed into a chaotic mess; things churned, and the ground beneath me was constantly shaking. I didn’t even know what’s happening. Whatever it is, it went on like that without stopping. Believe it or not, I was practically a step away from entering a bottomless void.”

She had already told me this. That she choose this place because she want to ‘see the world,’ that there’s this huge wide world yet all she did was stay in one small comfortable point. She confessed her first year was harsh but I don’t know what happened precisely.

“When it was over I was changed into something different. I was still me, of course, but a huge chunk of me was gone. Sucked away unsalvageable in that bottomless void. I lose a lot of weight, cut my hair short, stopped put on elaborated makeups. My parents were shocked when I came home in the second semester holiday. They worry something bad must’ve happened. It wasn’t a surprise they thought that way. I mean, even I could hardly notice myself in the mirror.

“I had chance to visit the zoo that holiday, yet I didn’t go. I was ashamed to show her the thing I had become. I was afraid she would reject me. Or worse, that she wouldn’t even recognize me. Too much had happened at the time. I can’t afford to add that in the whole bunch. It would be too much—I mean, it would be too much. So I didn’t go. The next holiday came and the same feeling still lingers. It went on like that until eventually I found myself stopped going altogether.

“And then I met you. Probably we already talked about this; about how you helped me rebuild the world, made me feel like everything could actually work—for that I will always be grateful. What I haven’t told you is that somehow you assured me to meet her again. You never know, do you? It’s about the way you live, your demeanor… Sorry, I know you hate it when I talked about it. But please bear with me for a sec. That thing somehow convinced me of something. Something important I have ignored. So I told myself, “What’s the worst could happen?” and went my way to visit her.”

“That was in August just six months ago. I drove the car myself without dad. And, you know what, she recognized me! She had grown enormously, about three times the size I last saw her. She looked like an authentic arctic carnivore. I was shocked by her appearance that this strange thought suddenly comes to mind: She could actually ate me alive. Her big sharp claws could strike me down to the ground, torn my skin apart. She could then stomp me at the chest to devour my gut. It was a terrifying thoughts. This being who was my best buddy became something dreadful to me. I put some distance between us. I fed her from outside the cage, never went inside the whole time. She had this disappointed look in her eye. Like she wanted me to come in so we could be together again like the old times. But I was too scared… I was cruel, I know. I regret it now. I wish I could change last August. I want to be by her side. To hug her, bury my face in her fur and cried my heart out.”

While saying that tears really did fall out from her eyes. She was shocked by them, tried to remove them by hand. But the more she tried the more she crumbled. Her hand started to shake, throat choked. She was desperate to regain composure but the tears just couldn’t seem stop. “Need some water?” I offered my glass.

She shook. “No, thanks. I just really missed her.” She took a few tissue from a box nearby. “Excuse me for a second.” She looked at me while she wiped the tears, forcing a silly smile the whole time. It took some time for the tears to stop. Then she continued.

“Obviously, I couldn’t visit her anymore. Dad called today, he told me she died this evening. There was inflammation in the abdominal organ due to infection. It’s common cause of death in a zoo. Wounds would occur and animals were too big for the staff to notice. By the time they tried to cure her, it was too late.”

Her voice was flat like someone reading the newspaper.

“She died.” She flicked her finger. “Just like that.”

***

That’s pretty much the way it goes.

After that she ordered a cup of coffee, and drank it in silence. She lit her last cigarette to help the coffee bring some senses into the world. The room was quiet. I could hear the ticks of a vintage clock on the wall. The cute lady behind the counter was sleeping uncomfortably. My girlfriend said nothing till she finished. Then we left.

On her front door I managed to ask once more about Iceland. It took a couple of seconds for her to register the question properly. She replied with this:

“Actually there are some polar bears in Iceland. They’re not native to the land though, they got there by floating on ice from hundreds miles away. Unfortunately, they don’t belong there. They pose threat to the people, and it’s extremely expensive to bring them back home. So Iceland make it official to shot Polar bears on sight.”

She had a confusing air. Like she was looking at me but didn’t actually see me. “In short, they kill polar bears in Iceland.” She added.

She waited for me to say something, yet I didn’t know what to make of it. Then she uttered a short thanks, and went straight inside.

That was the night we broke up. She sent a message shortly after I arrived at my place. Told me that we should end this. I stared at the chat until I fell asleep trying to figure out what it means. When I woke up I found that she blocked me. I tried to reach her social media, but there was no trace of her account anywhere. Probably she deleted everything. At the campus she acted like she doesn’t know me. Wait… No, she didn’t act that way. It’s more like, to her, I no longer existed.

***

It’s in the middle of the night. I’m sitting on the floor listening to Bill Evans with earphones. The shadows in my room really do flourish it now look like a pitch black crayon. I can almost feel its greasy touch. Bill Evans is performing an intense piano solo when the mushroom man asks me about something. I can’t hear clearly, so I put the earphone off.

“What is it?”

“Do you have any snacks?”

I point to the lower cabinet beside him, I had a couple of biscuits in case I got hungry in the middle of the night. He opened a jar, and chew some. This is the first time I see the mushroom man eats.

“Is that Bill Evans again?” He asks with mouthful of biscuits.

I nod.

“Why did you always play him? Your favorite?”

“No, not quite.”

“Then why?”

I shake. “I’m not sure. It just happens.”

Mushroom man let out a sigh and go on with eating his biscuits.

 “A weak guy like you is too vulnerable. Don’t push your way too much, else everything will break.” Say the mushroom man abruptly.

What do you mean? I want to ask that. But I’m not really in the mood for a vaguely weighty chats. Then I put on the earphone again, continue listening to Bill Evans. I closed my eyes, trying to focus. I follow Bill Evans wherever he goes. Down the sea, up the mountain, flying as a weightless bird—falling in, and crushed with, love. Yet a picture of my girlfriend suddenly appear. She is smoking cigarette in the campus canteen. She have this detached expression on her face that is somewhat alluring. Her eyes focus on nothing like she’s trying to solve a complex problem. I observed from afar with a feeling like I had just lost something important, something I’m not aware of. Then the scenery changes. There’s a white a white polar bear wandering around in the vast tundra of Iceland, stranded in a foreign land thousands of miles from home. Some police with a rifle hides in a nearby bush. He has rifle aimed at the polar bear, the muzzle of his gun follows the polar bear wherever it goes. He is waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger. I don’t want it, I don’t want it. Suddenly the scene changes into a warm living room. There’s a woman sleeping on a sofa. It’s the mushroom man’s wife. She is wearing the beautiful brown dress, her hair falls gorgeously onto the floor. I can’t help but notice that she’s actually quite tempting. Fair skin, sensual lips. The hem of her dress lifted just so exposing a pair of racy thighs. Plus she got all the curves in the right places. This vision frustrates me.

I give up, open my eyes, and put off the earphone. The mushroom man is gone from my room.

“Anyway,” I hear his voice from the kitchen.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a girlfriend? Or someone you like, perhaps?”

“No. None of that.”

“Why?” He make sounds of clanking cups and pouring water. Probably he is making coffee. He really does make himself at home.

I don’t want to answer that, so I went to the balcony to have a cigarette. The night outside is quietly immersive. The moon’s shining brightly without a single cloud blocking its light. It make the scattered starts fight in desperation to be seen. Shortly after the mushroom man came with a cup of coffee. We sit on plastic chairs facing the street below us.

“What a nice night.” He said, lighting his own cigarette. “We have a clear sky right here. Usually there’s clouds. Lots of clouds… Orange clouds, a bit dark. Made you think we were trapped in a post-apocalyptic town or something.”

He sip his coffee, and say nothing else. Sounds of crickets crying from afar. Crisp air twirling back and forth. We sit like that for who-knows-how-long until I ran out of cigarettes. I ask him for one but he passes the one in his lips. When I smoke it I notice the butt is wet.

“You know, it’s not right for people your age to be alone all the time.” He say it without looking at me. “You should try loosen up a bit. Don’t be too serious. Try to have some fun. Hang out with your friend, get a girl, go clubbing. You know, learn to enjoy your life.”

I don’t understand what he meant. Just nod my head back and forth. Then I notice something strange. This is way past my bed time yet I’m not even a bit sleepy. Normally my pathetic muscles would’ve shrieked, and the joints of my limbs ached. The usual sign of my body asking rest. But now it feels really good that I could go for a short jog before the morning class.

“Hey, are you listening?”

“Yeah-yeah. Live my life” I replied.

He thought about something, and let a heavy exhale. “I need to go home. Got wife’s waiting for me.” He rose from his seat. “Thanks for the books. Such spectacular stories. You got great taste, I give you that. It needs real muscle to keep up with the heavy stuff. You must be smart.”

“Nah, they’re just books. Nothing much.”

“Alright, whatever.” He gestured me to give the cigarette back. I gave it one big draw before handing it to him. “Anyway, I need to go.”

He goes down the stairs, opened the door and walks away. From the balcony I can see his silhouette covered with smoke as he goes.