Reading: "Kalas" (A.Glass 2020)

 

Placing the handgun down beside him, Novik unzips the jacket with his right hand, reaching into the breast pocket he lifts out his cellphone. With his thumb, he brings up Kim Liana's number, tapping the phone icon, smearing blood across the screen, he leans back onto the bollard. As faintness overcomes him, Novik tries to remain conscious.

“Hi Tommy,” Liana says, in an excited manner.

“Hey...” Novik replies, his breathing shallow and response quieted.

“You ok?” Liana asks.

He looks at the crimson wash now spread across his chest from the bullet wound of the left shoulder, he glances at his immobile arm, resting upon his lap.

“I've...” Novik smiles, closing his eyes briefly. “...seen better days.”

Liana feels a panic that something is not right. “Where are you?”

“Brooklyn...” There is a pause, as Novik leans his head back onto the coldness of the metal bollard. “...Docks...Talk to me...I need to hear your voice...”

Liana starts to cry, wiping a tear away from her left eye, she stands, in a rushed manner, looking around her small apartment. Her mind whirling. She eyes the chest of draws, placing the phone under her shoulder and chin, pining them together she pulls open the draw, eyeing the zipped bag where she keeps her syringes and heroin. Liana lifts out the contents quickly.

“I miss you...” she says, sitting down again, in a hurried manner unzipping the bag taking out a packaged syringe and small bag of white powder, metallic spoon with a vial of distilled water. “…I wanted to see you tonight, ask you if you would like to stay with me...”

Liana hears a cough on the other end, using her left hand she presses the phone against her ear. Hoping that he is still there. Reaching into the bag, she pulls out a rubber tie.

“Yes...I would like that...” Novik replies, his breathing labored. To which Liana, her thoughts are that he is in pain, suffering. She ties the runner band around her left upper arm, placing the phone against her shoulder and chin again, with her right hand, opening the small bag of heroin, measuring an amount with the small spoon, adding the water from its vial. Holding the spoon up, with her left hand, she ignites it with the flame of a lighter. Heating up the milky mixture. Placing the spoon down onto the small side table, in an efficient, almost detached way, she angles the needle into the diluted heroin, pulling back the syringe hammer. Allowing the fluid to be drawn up into its empty cylinder.

She hears some more coughing from Novik. “So...” Her voice begins to tremble. “...Would you like to live with me?”

“Yes, very much so...” Novik replies.

As tears begin to stream down Liana's face, she sees a vein more prominent than the others. She pieces it with the needle of the syringe, drawing up some blood, ejecting the heroin into her arm. Throwing the syringe aside, she unties the rubber band and leans back into her chair. Taking the phone into her right hand, Liana places into to her ear.

“But, I only have one bed,” Liana says, with a smile, with the hope that there will be a tomorrow, as she begins to cry, the high from the heroin takes hold.

“...I...” Novik opens his eyes, as he feels his heart beat begin to slow down, trying to draw in a final breath, which he cannot catch. He feels the coldness of death. “...wish...I could be with you...”

Liana slumps forward, holding her hand to her forehead. She swallows, sitting up right, turning the chair around so that it's facing the window. Looking into the darkness, she leans back again.

“...Goodbye Kim.”

Novik's breathing now just short in its exertion, his head falls forward, whilst his eyes blankly look into nothing. Of the last breath, Tommy Novik's heart stops.

Liana drops the phone, as both arms slump to either side of her, she feels a single tear roll down her cheek. Yet, she feels a warmth, her body relaxed, thoughts dissipate, looking up at the night sky. Viewing the Aurora's above. She lets out a breath, as her eyelids begin to droop.

“I missed you so much, you were my life,” she says to herself, as Kim Liana begins to die.

___

Reading: "Kalas" (A.Glass 2020)