Town of the doomed souls

Epilogue

I followed her down the dark street, watching the streetlights wrap her in its ghostly aura of mystery playing in her fair hair and making them look like the dawn haze. I was hungered for the touch of her skin even for one brief sweet moment. God, how many centuries I was dying at the thought that I could never do it again, that I'll never be able to cheat fate and reach her through the intangible matter of time that separated us.

'Camellia ...' I whispered at her back. 'My Camellia ... Turn around...' I begged, reaching out for her with my ghostly hands. 'I am here, right beside you ...'

But her steps clattered evenly on the pavement and her little heels flashed in the dark empty evening streets - she did not hear me, hurrying home from work. She could not see my eyes burning with eternal hope for a miracle. I was nothing but a waft of wind for her, a breath of nature, some transparent gas in the lower atmosphere, something that exists around invisible and taken for granted. I was something that one cannot see or touch or experience in any other way. With all his five senses a human is blind and deaf to the ones like me.

'Turn around! Turn around! I'm here!' I shouted after her at the top of my lungs, knowing in advance that it was all in vain. 'Hear me! Please, for once in many years, hear me!'

'Oi! What with the yelling?' a sleepy voice came out from under the bench at the front porch. 'Stop with this 'hear me' over and over ... already!'

I turned around shocked to see a man with a three days' stubble on his face and an empty bottle pressed against his chest. He grumbled as he was struggling to his feet.

The clatter of the heels slowed for a second; she looked over her shoulder at the strange remark in silence. Her eyebrows went up and making out a drunkard under the bench, she shook her head before opening her handbag in search of a key.

'Can you hear me ...?' I asked cautiously, afraid to believe in this miracle I prayed for just a moment ago.

The answer to me was a loud snoring.

'Hey! Hey, you! Can you hear me?' I yelled into his ear.

'What a nag....' He grimaced, waving ma away like I was an annoying fly.

'You can hear me ...' I muttered in surprise 'But that's impossible.'

'Possible - impossible ...' he murmured thickly, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground.

From the porch there came a stout woman with a kitchen towel in her hand.

'You scum got drunk again! Get up you useless swine, people are watching!' She shamed him, hitting his shoulder with the towel, 'Get inside, now!'

'Wait,' I could not resist, 'he hears me! He can help me!'

But she like everybody else didn't even look up.

'He cannot help,' the man said, trying to get to his feet under the heavy hand of his wife.

'Who? Who are you talking to? You're seeing pink elephants already!' The woman railed at her husband slapping him at the back and he fell to the ground again.

'She'll go away!' I pleaded. 'The girl! Stop her! I need to talk to her!'

'Hey, girl ...' He mumbled barely lifting his head.

She turns around, suppressing a smile.

'Stop, I need to talk to you...' he muttered.

'Not you! Me! I'll talk and you'll pass my words!' I yelled.

'And I'll pass...' he nodded with his head on his chest and wheezed again.