The irony of the destiny

Nedanstående innehåll är skapat av Mimers Brunns besökare. Kommentera arbete

A door quickly opens and a girl runs out of the room. Her eyes are filled with tears and her face has turned grey. I can hear her mumble something but I can’t catch the exact meaning, but it sounds like “it can’t be true, this isn’t happening”. Just after a couple of steps she falls to the ground in the corridor. She leans herself against the wall, her body is shaking and she puts her head in her hands and starts to cry.
More than a minute, but less than two minutes later, a woman steps out of the room which the girl earlier came out from. She slowly walks towards the girl, she seems to be out of reach and unfocused. She leans over the girl and whispers something in her ear, the girl looks at her, nods in agreement and they hug each other.
- 67, the receptionist shouts.
That’s my number. I take one last look at them both in the corridor which now has increased with another person, before I pick up my briefcase and introduce myself.

May 23, 1998, 6:28 pm. She looks at a ladybird which is creeping across the parquet floor. She has probably been doing that for a couple of minutes now. She follows its way over books that are scattered over the floor and seems to be very rapt by its movements. After a while she gets back to reality, looks at her wristwatch and gets up from the sofa. She walks to the dining room where her father has left some money for her on the table. She picks up the money; place them in her hip-pocket, looks at her watch one more time and rushes to the hall as she was in a great hurry. She smashes the door behind her, jumps up on her bike and cycles away. She know she is short of time, “Gino’s pizza” will close in 18 minutes, which means she has only three minutes to get there and make her order before it will be too late.

Meanwhile, a man in his young twenties is sitting in his perfectly cleaned room. Everything is placed in a certain order; accept for the bottles of alcohol. They are all standing on a little desk, next to a half-eaten sandwich with cheese and cucumber. Almost all of the bottles are empty, and by looking at the man you can make the conclusion that he has been drinking most of it. He is sitting relaxed in a big, black leather armchair, staring at a picture of a red-haired sweet girl. She is holding a puppy, which looks like a golden retriever but its tail is dark, almost black. Memories come up when he sees her, mostly memories from that day:
He had dressed in his favourite shirt, his brand new black jeans and even put wax in his hair. He had finally gathered courage to ask her out. He knew that she would be at the café with her friends, as always on Wednesdays between 12.30-2.00 pm, she must have had a free period from school at that time. He had walked to their table, asked her if there were any possibilities to speak to her alone. She had looked at him with big eyes, and he felt how to blood rushed inside of him and made his face look like a tomato.
- If you want to tell me something you can say it in front of my friends, she said.
- Well. I just wondered... I wondered, he stuttered.
- Yes? One of her friends said.
- I wondered if you would like to go out with me this Friday, or maybe the next, or anytime when it is the best for you.
- And you are? She asked.
She started to laugh, and so did her friends. Then she watched him and saw his wounded look.
- Are you serious?
He didn’t bother to answer the question; he turned round and went out of the café.

Although this accident, he is still in love with her, he loves her. He don’t want to live without her, and now when all hope is gone, he can only come to think about one thing to do. He fumbles with his car keys and forgets to put his shoes on before he leaves the house. He stumbles along to the little red, rusty Ford, and somehow he manages to open it, get in and start the car. On his way to nowhere a lot of thoughts circles in his head.
- Tonight is the night, he says loud to himself.
He has been thinking of this for months now, he is in love with a girl who don’t even know who he is, he is obese, his work is lousy and he will probably get fired, and in addition to this his father left him when he was a little kid and he haven’t been speaking to his mother for over a month because of a money issue. He has nothing left to live for, absolute nothing. He turns left, the way to the high car bridge.

- That’ll be $6.80, please.
She hands over the money, and takes the cartons the man behind the counter gives her.
- Thanks, I hope it will be tasty.
- I’m sure it will, she answered with a smile on her thin lips. Bye!
- Bye bye Sandra.
She goes out from the pizzeria and places the two pizza cartons on her parcel carrier.

He is having serious problems by driving the car and it goes from one side of the road to the other repeatedly. Almost every other car honks at him, but he don’t give them much attention. He gets to a crossroad and turns right, he keeps on driving forwards, and he sees a traffic light turn red.

She presses the button at the crossing, waits till it gets green and when she has passed half of the street she sees a car driving against her in high speed. She is seized by panic, and with the bike in one hand she freezes, she can’t move. She is just standing in the middle of the street, looking at the car and somewhere in the background she hears voices but she can’t understand them.

He is getting closer to the traffic lights when he sees someone standing in the front of him. He stamps on the brakes, but it is too late, the speed is too high and suddenly he hears a “boom” and the car vibrates for a second or two. In pure panic he doesn’t bother to stay, he just focuses on the road and keeps on driving, and driving, and driving…

He doesn’t stop until he gets to a copse far away from the civilisation in the great deciduous forest. Because of the accident, as he wish to call it, his adrenaline has started pumping, which makes him all dizzy and nauseous. The alcohol, the chock and the rushes of blood to his head makes him pass out and he faints with his head leaned against the steering wheel.

The street fills quickly, with ambulances, policemen and spectators. The girl lies immobile on the street, seriously wounded. Some ambulance men get a stretcher from the ambulance which they put her on and lift her into the van with. They look at each other, looking very sceptical and shake one’s head. This procedure is over in a couple of minutes and the ambulance leaves faster than it had got there.

The next morning he wakes up in his car, freezes and with the worst hangover you ever can imagine. He takes his minds back to yesterday and after a while he considers not to tell anyone about what happened. He slowly turns the key and hears the car start. He drives back to the city in a speed as if he had a lifetime to get there. Finally at home he prescribes to forget about everything, as if nothing had happened, for the reason that this person indirectly had saved his life.

The week passes on, and just as he had predicted he gets fired from his work at the local tennis hall. He decides to fix his life, and to start with he is about to apply for a new job. Through a job advertisement he discovers that they need extra personal at the hospital. He phones the number that is printed and he is requested to step by for an employment interview the next day.

He has done his best to look as good as possible, every single brown hair is on its right place, the tie is perfectly tied and the shoes newly polished. With an elegant jacket and briefcase he leaves the house, he doesn’t take the car, he haven’t been touching it since that day.

He sits in the waiting room at the hospital, not the one for patients, in the one for external interests. Suddenly he sees a girl running in the corridor, and he notices her fantastic features. But there is something wrong, she is crying. He doesn’t want to be rude, that’s why he looks away for a couple of seconds and when he looks back she is sitting in the corridor. That’s when the receptionist shouts his number; he presents himself to her and his errand. She shows him the way and he thanks her.

The interview went excellent and Dr. Lewis seems to like him a lot, and that is the only reason till why he dares to ask the next question.
- It was a girl in the corridor, very young, and very sweet, but she seemed broken-hearted. Do you know anything about that?
- If it wasn’t for the fact that it is you, I wouldn’t tell anything. But my intuition says me that I can trust in you.
- Yes, of course you can, sir.
- That girl you saw has just lost her sister; she was just a couple of years younger than you, totally innocent. For a couple of weeks ago some bastard hit her with his car on S: t Paul’s street, he didn’t ...