Ziad couldn't find a thing to sell but his coat buttons. He toured the
city in vain in a desperate try to sell them. He squatted in the street
thinking, he sorted them down on the floor and kept looking at them, what is
your secret you damn buttons! Why won't anyone buy you? Sank in his unuseful thoughts, a homeless man
surprised by asking him: How much those beautiful buttons cost? Ziad was
amazed, and then took another look on the buttons and he discovered them to be
beautiful, why didn't he notice that before! I'm sorry, they aren't for sale,
I'm just enjoying their beauty.
He squashed the buttons into his pocket and went back to his room, he
put them again on the table after he removed all that was on it from crust
bread and some newspapers, he starts pondering at them again, but this time
with a critic's eyes; I must find the beauty that that stupid saw in them, what
interested him in worn-out coat buttons? What did he exactly see in them? Many
questions kept him awake all night without being able to find answers for them!
He wished he had a cigarette to shut the annoying noise that these
damned three buttons triggered in his heavy skull, his empty stomach growled
asking for food, he found nothing but a crusty piece of bread that was on the
table; where is it! He jumped from his place looking for it! Oh God, I'll
accept anything but the disappearance of this piece of bread, it is all that I
have, it and these ugly buttons! He squatted looking for it under the table,
one of the buttons fall and vanished, at that moment he forgot about the bread
and started looking for the button. He turned the room upside down but couldn't
find it, he stood still in his spot and whispered to himself: It was just
stolen! The piece of bread was just in front of him and he didn't touch it, he
forgot about the hunger, he was robbed! It was that criminal of a cockroach
that stole it, he stole the candy bar that I was saving for an emergency! What
did this wretch also like about this button!
He kept on chewing the piece of bread in silence, curses, and swearwords
bursting inside of him without allowing them out, that was him since he decided
to quit drinking, everything had become a living hell that he wonders
sometimes: Damn it! What's the point? Why won't I just keep on drinking?
The suffering starts from the early morning hours, six o'clock to be
exact, the annoying shouting of his alarm starts, he wakes up freaking out,
looks for the damned alarm to shut it down, he can't find it, he remembers he
doesn't have one, not even a cell phone that could make such noise that woke
him up from his death, he wonders, thinks, yawns, the radio starts working by
itself, it blabbers a lot without making sense for him, the radios shushes
after finding out that no one is listening. He closes his weary eyes so he
could benefit from what had left of his sleep, yet the crazy alarm starts
yelling again, he curses it .. again, goes to the bathroom, effortlessly
urinates, it has the color of whiskey. He turns his head towards the mirror
that is hanged in a non-fitting place, he has no clue on who put it there..
weird mirror. Run from here as fast as you can, it's not whiskey, it is urine
.. run. He spoke to himself through the mirror.
He comes out quickly as he told himself, heads towards the kitchen,
nothing there but empty glasses, No, No it has wine, where are the cigarettes,
where is the lighter, shit..shit! The glasses are indeed empty!
He sensed a terrible fear, whose origin was unknown, his body was
violently shaking, couldn't think of anything but wine, nowhere to escape to
but his cold bed jumped in and slept...
The time went fast and the tacky alarm went back to screaming again, he
opened his eyes slowly as if he just woke up from a long coma, he didn’t see a
thing so he closed them as slowly as before, yet this time he tries to look at
himself inside out, but he was shocked!
His big eyes weren’t able to see him, he detected a huge amount of
ugliness in his face, he saw his facial features in its true shape, colorless
features, intrusive wrinkles invaded his face in his absence and the of his
lazy mirror. He got up quickly and stood before it, he punched it with the
hatred that he’d felt: Why didn’t you pay attention you wretch!
He wore his yellow coat and stood looking at the dying mirror; he
uprooted all the disgusting liquids of his body and spitted them on what was
last of it! Useless damn house! He kept yelling at the locked-up rooms; I will
get rid of all of you when I come back. A deafening silence filled the entire
house that he imagined that he heard the chairs and the pots shuddering in fear
from him!
Violently he slammed the outer door, the old lady next door screaming
and cursing, pointed his middle finger to her and kept walking as quickly as he
always is, then he remembered that he had nowhere to go and he slowed down! He
stopped for a moment to look for his box of cigarettes in his coat pocket, but
he couldn’t find it so he shouted with all the despair that he felt. That vile
house! The son of a bitch didn’t alert me; that’s it, I’ve had enough…
Like
a raging bull he kicked the door and broke it, he violently opened the rooms to
start throwing the furniture out of the window, but there was nothing there,
the house had nothing but the murdered mirror, he opened his room door, it was
empty as well, no bed, no pillow, not even a piece of cardboard, once again he
was deeply shocked, and when he couldn’t find a thing to throw from his room
window, he threw himself.