He woke up with this noise wandering through his head. About last evening he could clearly remember the cloud of smoke, few undistinguished faces of people he never saw before, the smell of sweat and alcohol violating his nostrils and a particular fragrance of something not fitting any of these. Yes, that scent... A perfume maybe, or a delicate soap... Probably jasmine. Though, as far as he could tell, jasmine doesn’t smell like fresh body, just as a fresh body can’t smell like jasmine. Obviously, that scent was coming from somewhere. Not far from him, otherwise it would have been lost among so many other odours mixing around. He turned his head, discreetly enough as not to be noticed, yet focusing on the silhouette sitting next to him on a chair, a perfectly shaped mass of flesh with no head (no head?!), no face (?!) and no interest in seeing him either. That simply can’t be right! Where could that head be? Aha! It’s right here in its place! Ignoring his presence and making light conversation with some Joe Doe with beard and glasses. I bet he wears them just to hit on girls, he thought. 50 bucks on that, and another 50 for the poetry book hidden in his pocket. Great! Now he won 100 bucks and he’ll make a treat to himself for that, since his neighbours seem lost in a literary discussion anyway and won’t celebrate with this poor illiterate bastard. Poe (who’s Poe?)... raven is his... yes, of course... said the... no, no... always back to the... (back to what? back to what?)... nevermore... nevermore... nevermore...
Soon he had to give up. Nothing made sense. First of all, he had no idea what they were talking about. Secondly, those two voices were in fact one interrupted flow of meaningless words and he was not exactly able to solve that puzzle when so many pieces were missing. From time to time, Joe used to burst into a loud annoying laughter, immediately followed by the much more pleasant tinkling of his female collocutor. Let her laugh, buddy! She sounds so nice! Is it really necessary for you to make all this noise and disturb the only pleasure I have beside my pipe and my wine? God, how selfish some people can be! Isn’t it enough that she’s talking to you, that you’ve got all her attention already? He couldn’t remember the last time when he got so much attention from a woman like her. Or any woman at all. To be more honest with himself, that never happened, not even once in his long-happily-lived life. One thing he understood, in all these years: women don’t appreciate boozers too much. He was not exactly a boozer. Unfortunately for him, he never got the chance to explain that to anyone before the bottles got empty, one by one. Then it was simply too late. Good bye, eyes, good bye, mouth, good bye, legs and muscles and brain, and he was grateful at least that he was not one of those pathetic pretenders who make a fool out of themselves trying to prove how sane they are, in a similar situation.
But there is a God after all! The God of loo and of the imperious need of Joe to worship that sacred place once in a while, preferably at the right moment for him to take action and finally say something smart (definitely, it has to be smart!), something like – Excuse me, I couldn’t help noticing that you were talking about Poe (who the hell is Poe?!) – or – If I’m not too daring (of course you are, idiot!), can you tell me again your views about...I found them so interesting... And that too in a few minutes only, before the enemy returns to the battle. Which is merely impossible: to find the line, to take the breath he needs and to utter. What if he drops his wine on her lap, as if by mistake? She will think he’s a complete idiot, but on the other hand she would think the same no matter what he does or he doesn’t. Women have a sixth sense and that sense is working perfectly around idiots. And if she still tolerates Joe, who is definitely an idiot of first class, then she must have a very good reason. For instance, some statistics say that there is no relation between a low IQ and a high performance in bed, according to international standars. Luckily for them that they didn’t get him as a subject. Anyway, time’s up! Sorry, mate, you’ll do better next time (laughters). And even if you won’t, don’t lose hope cause every dog has its day, even you (laughters again, this time fallen from above – hey, Lord, take it easy, you might get a heart attack! – and spreading fast in the room, so fast that soon everybody was laughing at him – come one, give me a break, I didn’t do anything! – so he found it more appropriate to order another drink, step back in a dark corner and hide there for the rest of his life – what a life! – happy for his ignorance of not knowing who this Poe is, happy for his allmighty solitude, happy for this noise...)...
Well, he has to do something about the noise. He can live with the thought that he didn’t get to talk to that woman, last night, but it’s sure thing he can’t live with this noise drumming in his head. Padaboom! Padaboom! Those pills...now it’s time for a bravery act: get up and find the pills in all this mess around. You don’t like cleaning too much, don’t you? Why should you like it? There’s no one to see it anyway, except for yourself, and you don’t give a damn about it. I think you had a bit too much last night. And you’re losing your mind little by little. Isn’t it true that you can actually feel that smell? That jasmine-which-is-not-really-jasmine scent? It can’t be real. Yet, you feel it so deep in your senses. You have nothing but this scent left from her. No face, no memory of her eyes, no idea about the colour of her lips, nothing. So you can’t complain that you miss anything really. But then...why is it haunting you? There was the smoke, and the sweat, and the wine. You can remember all of them, but you can only feel this particular one. Coming from where? Well, most certainly from your bedsheets, which suddenly got one of the most unusual shapes! Not unusual in itself, but rather odd for these particular bedsheets, belonging to this particular individual – meaning you. And the sheets got a shoulder also! Nice one, if I may say... A cute little shoulder partially hidden by a river of curls... Now why do you look so stunned? They couldn’t have got there out of the blue sky. Well, well well... Seems that Prince Charming can’t remember a thing! He’s staring at his naked princess, digging up his mind for the smallest hint about how the miracle happen (for the time being, he is more than willing to believe in miracles). Then he decides that he doesn’t want the noise to stop, for fear that the shoulder might vanish along with it, and that he doesn’t need to find that hint. So he simply lays onto the bed (padaboom! padaboom!), holds her tight, wondering if she’d ever turn her face towards him, drops this thought also, realizing that the warmth he feels now is more than anything he could have wished for, and abandons himself to sleep, a long peaceful sleep this time, aware of the fact that there will be no drums when he’ll open her eyes again. Aware that there may be no shape under his sheets either.