021.02 TOM – Stormy Ridge 9.9. – 10.9. at 18:00 – 02:45

I stood on a cliff and the rain beat down on me like a maniac. I should have gone home, but it would have been even worse there—Mom is raving again, and I don't know what to do about it. I just needed my head to stop throbbing. I must have been standing there for a long time, because I was soaked to the skin. Hands in my pockets, my right hand squeezing that stupid potato medal. It seemed like nonsense when I got it, but now I carry it all the time. A person needs something to hold onto when everything around them is changing.

Lightning split the sky and in that flash I caught sight of a silhouette. Someone was standing on the overlook above me. I couldn't figure out who would climb up here in this weather. A stupid idea, but I was here too, so whatever.

I got up and went closer. I recognized him. Viktor. I wasn't expecting him here.

I grabbed the railing and something spilled down my back. Like electricity. Or I don't know. A weird feeling. Thunder rumbled and I felt it make my veins vibrate. Neither of us moved. We stood there like two idiots in the rain, water was gushing off me and he wasn't doing much better.

Another flash of lightning, sharper than the one before. It illuminated his face and suddenly I saw someone else. I hadn't planned it at all, it just slipped out of me:

“Tibor.”

I said that name out loud, even though I hadn't said it in years. I don't know why I said it. It was as if something flipped in my head. As if my brother had come back to my brain, as if he were standing right in front of me. In that kid with the glasses, in that kid who keeps staring at me at the pool, I suddenly saw my brother.

Viktor looked like he didn't understand. Of course he doesn't. How could he? No one understands. Tibor is long gone. But in that rain, in that moment, it seemed so clear to me. As if time had shrunk. As if something inside me had opened up.

And then there was silence. Only the rain. The drops burned on my skin, but inside I felt cold. A silence so thick you could cut it with a knife. My past and present suddenly at a single point. And that kid was standing there and I saw my dead brother in him. Of course it was nonsense. Of course it was still just Viktor. But something had changed.

We stood there, facing each other, like two strangers who had known each other forever.