***
Marcel took a break from reading with an effort and rubbed his forehead with a drenched handkerchief. It was, for sure, exactly the book he needed. Someone else could read it to the end quickly and carelessly, and throw into the trash such a ridiculous read, but not him. Now, he knew very well how easily he could get to the very depth of its content and that fate had revealed to him the epilogue he had been dreaming about. He had wanted to leave the world full of happiness and free of pain. Was there anything better he could do to end his suffering?
Teresa would never know what he had experienced, just as she had never been able to understand the emotions arising from his incomprehensible passion for reading. Her feet were attached to the ground, and it was this difference in their characters that became the main reason for their separation.
Marcel got up from his chair and walked to the window. The outside view from his rented studio was not very nice. At night, the gray building next door had rectangles of lighted windows here and there, and during the day, it looked even sadder.
Marcel opened the window using all his power, surprised by how little strength he had, which made him realize that his disease was consuming him from the inside slowly and relentlessly. It was now time to end the show that he called life and so he returned to his chair and resumed his reading, the smooth flame of the candle gently rocked to and fro by a stream coming in through the open window, allowing it to throw light and dark streaks across the yellowed pages of the book.
***
Teresa tore the envelope in her hand, a copy of the results of the blood analysis for Marcel which came in the mail to her address as requested. Little did she understand the columns printed on the white sheet, so she was eagerly waiting for ten o’clock, when it would be possible to make a phone call to Dr. Sawicki to resolve the mystery of the coded page, and when she finally heard his voice on the phone, she was sweating with excitement like a mouse.
***
To one court in the French province, the young traveler arrived from the north, speaking in a language incomprehensible to anyone. His name was Marcel. Of course, he was welcomed with dignity, as the hosts were in the habit of meeting other passing guests this way. No one inquired about his destination or the place from which he came, as excessive curiosity would be tactless on the part of the hosts. Instead, after dinner, he was courteously appointed to the guest room, where he was supposed to spend the night.
Marcel opened the window wide so that fresh air could fill the room, put on a nightgown prepared by a servant and went to sleep on the canopied bed, not extinguishing the candles. He closed his eyes and waited for what was to come, as he was completely sure that it would. Later, at some point, he realized he was not alone in the room. He felt on the skin of his face a gentle touch of her fingers. He heard quiet and tender words spoken softly by a passionate lover, and then, there was the happiness for which he had always dreamed but never thought possible.
***
Teresa ran down the sidewalk between the gray housing estate blocks, hardly able to wait until she could see Marcel and share with him the good news from Dr. Sawicki.
She didn’t love him for a long time; her marriage to him proved to be a big mistake just as Marcel turned out to be an incredible nerd, hovering over nothing but books. She never understood how he could drown himself in reading and let real life leak uselessly between his fingers.
When, finally, she decided to part ways with Marcel, moving him out of their shared apartment to his own rented studio, they both breathed a sigh of relief.
Still, Teresa felt it her duty to care for a man who, after all, was still her husband in writing, knowing that left alone, he would not be able to handle even the simplest matters of everyday life.
Now, she ran up the stairs of the building where he lived, playing in her mind the words she would say to him when she finally saw him.
"Do you know what the doctor said? He said it is anemia, very advanced, but only anemia and nothing more, and that a strong vitamin treatment will put you back on your legs. It was only because you did not have the proper diet, you do not eat like everyone else, only feasting on books that do not contain any vitamins.”
Excited, she rang the door once, twice, but no one answered.
"He is reading some of his stupid stuff again," she thought in disgust. Because of him, she had acquired a strong aversion to books, bawling over at the mere sight of a bookstore she used to go to on the other side of the street. This was the only change brought into her life by her ridiculous marriage.
She dug from inside her bag a key, which she kept “just in case” and turned it in the lock.
Marcel was sitting at the table, his hand resting on the book open on the last page with the words "The End" at the bottom. The breeze coming from the open window gently moved it and the room was nicely soaked in the golden glow of an invisible sun that gave a happy look to Marcel’s face, even though it was livid and swollen, a black, velvet ribbon cutting into the skin of his neck.
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