Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 17:24:50 -0700 (PDT) From: Thomas-Alexander Kind Subject: Mihai-04 'The truth is out there.!' And now here as well, as this is true and not all that long ago...or maybe too long ago.! No disclaimer, as the ones that hold the power do what they want anyhow. Everybody else does not need one. Storycode:M/b Mihai-04 Millennium-Shift Winter had drifted into town. The end of the year, end of the century...end of something. Does that mean something NEW will start.? Or do we repeat the same games.? * My friend and I are invited to celebrate the slide into the New Century at the house of one of his young boy-friend's. With mother having cooked a meal and the boy and his buddies bouncing off the wall. The situation is stressful and artificial for me. I want to be somewhere else. When the cheap red wine finally softens reality, I have an asthmatic-attack. And no medication.! It has started to snow. I am wheezing as I get into the car. Have to stop several times to force air into my lungs. Gasping for breath, bent over the steering wheel. But make it home, snowflakes hitting the windscreen, the cold inside the car biting my face. Snowflakes settling on my heart with every rasping breath. New Years Eve on the edge of Europe, far away from everything and everybody... and me falling off the edge.! Labouriously climbing the 2 short flights of stairs up to the door of the apartment like an ancient man. I hate myself for my weakness. Sit on my bed swallowing small gulps air. Heaving... trying to get the medicine into myself. Blasts of something that I do not understand, but which brings relief in time. I sweat, shake from the effort and sink backwards, hoping for the uneasiness to come, the uncertain desperation. The hypertension that builds inside of me. Lay on the bed and cannot breathe. Beg for it to end, whisper for release from all,... wail for the one that I will always love.! Minutes pass. Softly, slowly, it starts to ease; my breathing moves to a more shallow pace, I feel very out of sorts. Feel the fluttering inside, the uneasiness. And know that I will be ok soon. Or never. * Suddenly, there is the soft snare of the entry-system.! I am not all myself and do not want to have someone invade my quivering sanctuary of small even breaths and a heart that beats too fast. It is the last day, of the last year of the millennium, I am out of breath and that must mean something, I just do not know what. Feel very locked inside of my breathless body. The snare again. I get up from my bed and answer; but there is no answer....oh wait, there is a little voice saying something... I do not understand the words,... I do not really know what should happen now.! I hit the open-door-button several times. Wait by the in the hall. Open the door when the chime twitters like a wounded bird. And have two cold and snowy boys in front of me.! Mihai and Daniel have come to get warm, food, a real bed. Off the street for this night. Oh,... now what.! * The mice have come to call. I do not know what to do.!? The last day, night, of the year; the Millennium-Shift. I let them in and call my friend on the phone, to speak to them in their language. I speak to them without words. Daniel looks very uncertain; his dark, liquid eyes follow me. Mihai does not look at me at all. I prepare food, still shaking inside from an overdose of what makes me able to breathe. I am trying to think of solutions. Am committed to go back to the gathering I had fled from, before 12 midnight. It is now 10 pm.! The mice are eating, I had motioned for them not to shed their clothes...we usually wash at least their smallclothes for them.! No bath in hot water and bubbles,. They retreat to the sofa, huddle in the corner of it, and the cartoons on the TV. I am loosing my breath again.! Phone my friend once more, who tells them that they must go, come back tomorrow. * There are snowflakes settling on my head as I walk to the car,... I am bleeding again, inside. This is all what I do not want to do, who I do not want to be. Giving in to someone else's sense of what should be. Am a monster, surely, in their eyes. Feel Daniel's hair under my fingers as I move him towards the door. Try to look into Mihai's eyes; he tries to keep from looking into mine. He knows, too well, knows that he is not to. Has not to.! No words, no resistance, did I really expect any, as they wrap themselves up into the layers of sweaters and jackets that were still covering the floor in the hall. I can not get their faces out of my mind. Another picture that will be locked in my mind and heart forever. I will not forgive myself that easily for this monstrous deed. Will not be able to look at myself for some time. Get back into the car and drive away, from the Block, from the mice, who have vanished into the night. Two small boys, trooping through 5 inches of snow to somewhere they can hide for the night. Somewhere they can keep warm. Somewhere they can forget that the new millennium starts as the old one ended. Alone and cold. * The flat had become crowded. And crazy.! Too many situations where there were problems between the 'good' boys whose friendship with my friend had progressed to sleeping over at times, and the 'mice' who slipped in under cover of night. Dirty, hungry, smelling of aero-lacque and frightened. * Another evening, too disruptive, too loud for me to find any solitude in my room. Two of my friend's boys are staying over.... and now, almost 9:00 o'clock in the evening, they are still bouncing around the place. Any time now, the doorbell will sound and the 'mice' will ask to be let in. There it is,... a minute later the 'mice' slip in trough the front door, standing in the hall. The 'good' boys ogle them as always, the 'mice' are unsure, do not know what to make of this. The 'good' boys are chattering, hard words it seems,... Mihai is swaying a bit, obviously snuffed-up to the hilt, with aero-laque. More hard words about those dirty boys who sniff poison and do all sorts of horrible things.! Almost to the point of a fight between the boys. This gets me out of my hiding place. I step in and take control.! Send the 'good' boys away, telling my friend off for not taking more action, as he starts to prepare food for the mice. But I think he is a little tired of the diversion, the 'mice' provided. Had 'other fish to fry' by now. Was head-over-heals for Christie, one of the 'good' boys, someone I think of as particularly devious, but who is as luscious as any 12 year old I have come across. Lascivious smile, bedroom eyes, a tight slim body complete with 'bubble-butt'. Charm enough to make the devil pray and willing to 'play'.! At least if presents and money keep coming.! Christie and I do not get along. Well, I am not the one he is manipulating, and am not afraid to tell him to tow-the-line, or else.! Just have to deal with the broken pieces of my friends heart occasionally, when Christie has been a particular little beast. So I tell him that he will not win on this battlefield. I am the one in control here. But he has more nasty things to say to Mihai, who is still sitting on a small stool in the hallway. Still dressed in all his dirty clothes and ready to fight or bolt out the door. I walk over and stand close to him. He is so small, so scrawny. His eyes are filling with tears. I can feel that he does not want to cry. But Christie is whipping him with words I do not understand and all I can do is threaten Christie into leaving and taking Mihai in my arms. * Daniel has shrugged all this off and is helping my friend in the kitchen. Mihai does not want to be held. He wants to go. I do not want him to go.! I do not want him to go.? I realize that there is something more for this boy in myself. I do not want him to go.! So I hold on to him, and against his struggles I keep him close to me, until he gives up and is sobbing openly. I lift him into my arms... gods he is so light... carry him into the bathroom and sit him down on the stool besides the bathtub. Open the hot water and add a small amount of bubble-bath. He stinks of lacquer and street. His clothes are dirty and torn. So I slowly undress him, while he has sunk into himself sniffling. I talk to him, knowing that he does not understand the language I speak, but he understands the language of my eyes and my hands that stroke his face and neck. He is so impossibly small for 13. As the clothes reveal his skin underneath, he seems to sinks into himself even more. I have seen him naked many times, it is not that he has no clothes on any more,... it is the nakedness underneath he is revealing tonight. The small child inside, not the tough street boy he plays all day. I know he is scared of the need he shows by crying in front of me. The bathroom is filling with steam from the hot water. I am adding some cold making more bubbles appear, which he eyes through his tears. Naked now, I lift him up,... am afraid I will break his ribs I can feel underneath my fingers, hold him in my arms close to me, until his hands find a place around my neck and his head comes down to rest on my shoulder. My hands follow the little knots of his spine down to cup his bum. With one hand holding him up, I softly stroke his back. Time seems to move a little slower for us, as I stand in front of the bathtub, holding a naked little boy in my arms, overwhelmed by the feelings of need,... his and mine. It is hot in the bathroom, I know there is sweat on my forehead, but I am shivering inside. In these seconds, this minute that I am holding him close to me, I know that this is what I have come here for. Have traveled 10,000 miles from my home to find. This is what I have been missing so much, is what makes me whole and is what I am meant to be...... I lower him slowly into the water, having tested it with my hand, and Mihai sighs, as he slips into the warmth, under the bubbles. Laying back he looks into my eyes,... and the shivering inside of me stops. The tears have made streaks in the dirt on his cheeks, but we know,...without words, that tonight we will pass a little bit of healing between us. More in Mihai-05