Veronica and I were on the sofa in the dimly lit room. The dark room couldn’t prevent me from looking into Veronica’s eyes. She had beautiful eyes. The more I looked, the more I got lost in them. I started running my hands through her long hair, feeling each one slipping out of my hands. And she was looking at me. It was just us now, her and me. Her soft, smooth hands touched my cheek. Her warmth flowed into me. I wanted to kiss her right now. I kept looking into her eyes. We were staring at each other without making a sound, just looking at each other, loving each other. Then I realized something in the middle of the darkness. Veronica’s eyes occasionally drifted to my lips. Without thinking any more, I kissed her.
It was the best part of my trouble-free life. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
We both leaned back and started to watch the ceiling. The dimness of the room was the result of the light leaking in from outside. Even though we were on the fifth floor, light was coming in from the street. There was only one thing in the room that flashed every three or four seconds, the cigarettes we smoked. As I watched the ceiling, I started to feel that I was sinking into the sofa. I was gradually being drawn into it, feeling pleasant. The thin strip lights hitting the ceiling from the window were getting longer and shorter. The world seemed to revolve around me. I was getting high from the heroin I had just inhaled. I felt happy. I laughed once or twice involuntarily. I didn’t know what was so funny, but it felt good to laugh. I was very good. I had a smooth life… And a beautiful girl next to me. Everything was as it should be. I inhaled the last puff of my cigarette and pressed the cigarette butt into the ashtray.
“Should we go somewhere else?”
I turned to Veronica. She was leaning her head back, smoking a cigarette. I closed my eyes tightly, trying to regain consciousness. I opened my eyes wide and focused on Veronica. The light from outside was wrapping around Veronica like a thin ribbon.
“You want to go out?”
She kept looking at the ceiling. “I mean, why not??”
I sat up straight and stared around the dimly lit room, Ve-ronica’s words going round and round in my head. I was looking at the table in the centre of the room where the cigarette packet, the lighter, the heroin packet and the card were lying haphazardly. My eyes were fixed on the heroin. I saw no reason not to go out.
I got up immediately. “Let’s have fun’’
I could see Veronica looking at me, and if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that she had a big smile on her face. I went back to the room, pulling the jacket from the coat rack in the corridor and Veronica pressing her cigarette into the ashtray. I neatly sealed the heroin packet and put it in my inside pocket, along with the cigarette packet and the lighters. As Veronica got up, I went to my bedside. There were three stacks of banknotes under the box spring. When I went back to the door, Veronica was wearing her jacket. We quickly left the house and went down the stairs. When we stepped outside, streetlamps greeted us in the darkness of the night. We headed for the metro without delay. Even though I could walk properly, Veronica took my arm. I wasn’t complaining about this situation. I loved having her by my side.
“Where are we going to?”
Where were we going? That’s a good question. We could go where we always go, or we could discover a new place. ‘‘I discovered a new place the other day.’’
“From Kevin?”
I don’t understand your attitude towards Kevin. “Come on, Veronica, Kevin’s a good boy.”
“You shouldn’t hang out with that guy.”
“Let’s not think about it now. Let’s make a change today.”
Accepting the change, we were walking along the pavement, cuddling. When we reached the fourth street, we could see the subway station. As we were climbing the stairs, the subway we were going to take was coming. We immediately separated from each other and started to run. Neither of us wanted to miss the subway. When we entered the station, we quickly passed through the ticket office. When the subway doors were about to close, we threw ourselves inside. The subway started to move. It was as if they had never seen people getting on the subway in a hurry before. As we walked between the carriages, we managed to find an empty seat. I immediately sat by the window, and Veronica sat next to me and leaned against me. Soon Veronica took out her mobile phone from her pocket. She started scrolling up and down on social media as she did every free moment. Except for a few people on the subway, everyone was on their phones. It didn’t matter how far they had to go to get the phone out.
I turned to the window. I wanted to look outside, but the night and the subway lights didn’t allow it. Although I saw sparkles outside, I mostly saw myself. My messy hair was the way it always was. Maybe it wasn’t. That was the best thing about it being messy. When I got bored of the window, I looked at Veronica. She was scrolling through the same app in the same way. Sometimes she laughed at the images and videos she came across. In the new video we came across, a young man held a deck of cards close to the screen and started shaking it. We were watching him spending that money in his luxurious life… Small finger movements… A voice was giving a motivational speech while random pictures were flowing in the background. Do you want to get the money, do as I say. Another little finger gesture… There was no end to it.
When we reached the station, we were the first ones to get off the metro when the doors opened. When we set foot on the pavement, we were hugging again. We were walking towards the venue. According to Kevin’s promise, we were going to have a lot of fun at the venue. He kept saying that I should go. I hope he’s right.
“Are you sure this is the place?”
As Veronica said, I couldn’t be sure that this was the place. According to Kevin’s guidance, it should have been here, but the building I saw said otherwise. We were standing in front of a building in an alley, whose outer walls looked as if they would collapse at any moment, and some of the floors had lights on. We were looking at the building with the door open.
“I’m a little skeptical,” and I started to move towards the door.
I looked at the sign on the door before I went in. There were two letters on it in different places. I went first and Veronica went in behind me. The yellow light illuminated in front of us as the sensor lamp came on. While my suspicions were growing, a lift was waiting for us ahead. When we entered the elevator illuminated with white light, the first thing that caught my eye was the colorful LunaClub inscription pasted on minus one button. This erased all my doubts in an instant. As soon as I pressed the button, the lift closed its doors and started to go down. As I descended, light music sounded in my ears and continued to increase as I descended. I was very excited about coming to a new place. The lift stopped with a small jolt. When the doors opened on both sides, I realized that the music we were hearing was nothing. The music was loud enough to make our ears explode. A dark, purple atmosphere dominated the place. Veronica and I took the first step into the venue. There was a big crowd dancing like crazy in front of us. All they did was to carry what the music made them feel to their bodies. Towards the front of the crowd, the stage, which was not very big, caught my eye. Four people were on the stage trying to entertain people. The music had already started to take over me. I was already singing along with small head movements where I was. I liked the place already.
I looked at Veronica. I could see everything in her eyes. There was no need to say anything more. She grabbed me by the hand and started pulling me into the crowd. When we entered the crowd, the people around us were dancing, isolating themselves from everything. Some of them were dancing with their partners, oblivious to the fact that we were passing by. As Veronica continued to tug, a very harsh light caught my eye. Although I didn’t pay attention until then, not only people were dancing in the place. The lights… The lights were dancing along with the people. Inside the dark and purple place, colorful lights were going back and forth, dancing with the people.
After finding a suitable place among the people, Veronica let go of my hand and stood in front of me. Besides her beautiful eyes, she was smiling at me very beautifully. She closed her eyes before me and immersed herself in the song.
I closed my eyes. It wasn’t like the eyes I close every day. It all started with a little head movement. I had already passed the point of no return. After that, it was a path to the unknown for me. A small foot movement, a hand movement, and the poison penetrated my whole body. I was no different from the others. Depending on the flow of the music, sometimes I was moving slowly, sometimes fast. No one cared about anyone else. I was free in all my movements. There was me and the music. I felt lost in the music, I didn’t know where I was, I just kept dancing in the middle of the darkness. I was ecstatic with deep, fast breaths. My brain was breaking into a thousand and one pieces as I was mesmerized by the music. There was no world anymore, there was no me, there was only music.
I opened my eyes. People were dancing freely. Then I saw her. Veronica’s curvaceous body in front of me, moving to the music. Her long hair fluttered in the air every time she shook her head left and right. I caught a glimpse of her elegant bare legs beneath her shorts. She was hitting the ground with every movement, taking revenge on the world. I could see peace on her face, as if a piece of trouble-free life had been placed on her face. Slowly she began to open her eyes. When she realised I was looking at him, she smiled. She was offering me a visual feast by running her hands around her waist. Step by step she approached me. When she came right in front of me, she got into my arms. We were dancing as a whole. I was looking into his eyes while wrapping my hands around his waist.
My movements started to slow down independently of the music. No matter how much music influenced me, I was getting tired. I thought it would be good to look at the bar and have a drink. Veronica didn’t seem as tired as me. She kept waving her hands in the air.
I tried to make myself heard by getting close to her ear. “How about a drink?”
She looked at me. I saw her mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. When I was about to ask, she took my hand and signaled for us to go to the pub. When we got out of the crowd, I could see the bar behind the place and the tables surrounding it. We walked past the tables towards the bar. People were drinking and chatting. I couldn’t see anyone alone; they were either with their partners or with a group of friends. The music was not as loud as it had been just now. As we approached the front of the bar, the white light of the bar started to illuminate our faces. Behind the bartenders, bottles of alcohol and thin glasses were placed.
We sat on the empty stools to the right of the bar. I quickly took out the cigarette packet and lighter from my jacket until the bartender looked at us. I gave one cigarette to myself and one to Veronica from the packet. As soon as I lit the lighter, I helped Veronica light her cigarette. After lighting my own cigarette, I started to look at the fancy sign in front of me. It said LunaClub in large and small, colorful letters that had nothing to do with each other.
“What can I get you?”
I was about to order my usual beer when Veronica interrupted me. “Can you make that cocktail?”
She was pointing the phone at the bartender and showing him a video. I looked forward and looked too. It was one of the videos he had watched on social media on the subway. All three of us were waiting for the video to end.
“I’m sorry, madam, this cocktail is not on the menu..”
Veronica’s face fell a little, but nothing had changed for me. I was going to order my beer and drink what I wanted. Veronica had ordered another cocktail instead of the one she had shown me on the phone. The bartender took my beer out of the fridge. He came in front of us with a few ingredients. He took a glass from behind his back and ice from under the counter. He put the beer in front of me with the glass. He mixed the other ingredients one by one and made Veronica’s cocktail.
“Enjoy your drink.”
I was singing along to the music with my hand on the table and smoking my cigarette. I was calm and peaceful. I closed my eyes. The music kept playing in my head. I took a deep breath and opened my eyes again. Veronica was on her phone. A notification fell on her screen from above, it was from her mum. She clicked on it to reply.
“Are you going to text your mum?” She looked at me when I asked. She couldn’t understand what was wrong. “Weren’t you complaining that your family didn’t care about you, why would you text now?”
“Because they’re my family.”
“If they don’t care, you shouldn’t care. You’ll only wear yourself out.”
She was just looking at my face. I wasn’t sure she understood what I was saying. “Do you realize what you’re saying?”
This was the point at which the argument would escalate if I continued. I didn’t want to ruin my day by arguing with Veronica. She just couldn’t see that I had her best interests at heart. Even if she couldn’t see it, there was nothing I could do about it, it wasn’t my problem. I quietly went back to my beer and cigarettes, whereupon Veronica wrote back to her mother without making a sound. She was the one who would be sad again tomorrow.
I was taking the last sip of my beer. When I put the bottle on the table, I looked into Veronica’s eyes and her words made me very happy. “You want to dance some more?”
How could I say no to this offer? I’d had my beer and rested. I didn’t know what time it was, but isn’t that what we came here for? I was following Veronica. We left the tables behind us and came to the crowd. The music surrounded us, capturing us with its magic. We dived into the crowd with the excitement of the music.
We started to move towards the lift together. People were dancing around us like crazy. Although they had been dancing for so many hours, they didn’t seem tired at all. When I pressed the button of the lift, I was following on the small red screen that it was coming from the third floor. When I saw the minus one on the screen, the white light of the lift hit my face within seconds. We got in and started to go up. It stopped with a small jolt like the first time. When the doors opened, only the light of the lift illuminated the corridor. The sensor lamp was triggered with the step we took into the corridor.
We left the apartment and headed for the metro. “We should come back here again’’
I took the cigarette packet out of my pocket. “You’re right, are you going to smoke too?”
“No, thanks.”
I brought the light closer to the cigarette on my lips. After a few quick puffs, I managed to light the cigarette. Veronica was beside me, thinking about the beauty of today.
I didn’t want it to remain only in my thoughts. “Today was a beautiful day.”
Veronica looked at me. She knew it, too. Her eyes were shining. “As always.”
As always, I filled my lungs with cigarette smoke. I liked Veronica’s answer. As always, today was a good day.
Veronica called me halfway up the stairs. “Throw that cigarette away, already.”
I quickly took two puffs from the cigarette and threw it on the edge of the pavement. Veronica had left me behind because she kept walking. I was trying to catch up with her with fast steps. We started to wait for the metro at the station. I was looking around. There weren’t many people waiting at the station. There was nothing to look at. After waiting a little longer, the lights in the distance were the harbinger of the subway. We moved to get on the subway with the people. We went inside before the people and sat down in an empty place. As we sat down, I saw Veronica taking out her phone out of the corner of my eye. I took my eyes away and started to look outside. I could see myself as well as the city lights. I was looking into my eyes, seeing things that were there. I was happy and at peace. All that was left was to make things grow with Kevin. Then I wouldn’t have to chase the money.
After leaving the metro station, we started walking to Veronica’s house. Veronica no longer felt the need to give me directions. I had learnt the way as I drove her home. As we approached the house, I noticed the flickering light behind the curtain.
Veronica had to explain because I was looking at the light too long. “Mum’s watching TV as usual.”
After kissing Veronica and saying goodbye, I headed home. I walked home after a few subways stops. I passed under each streetlamp one by one, watching the movement of my shadow each time I passed. I took out a cigarette from the packet in my pocket. It must have been after twelve o’clock. I couldn’t see anyone on the street. I lit the cigarette and inhaled until my lungs were full. Instead of putting the lighter in my pocket, I played with it in my hand. The breath I took made me feel alive.