No one can predict what will happen in the next second. Things can change so quickly that even a second seems like an eternity and when you wake up, you realise that your whole life has changed dramatically.
A lot of things happen to people. Bad things happen and good things happen. People rejoice and people suffer. It is, after all, the eternal dance of white and black that creates life. And we are all caught up in this dance that never stops.
Usually, people call this dance - fate. Or something that was predetermined long ago, and one has no choice at all.
Maybe there is fate, maybe there isn't. But as much as we try to believe that we have freedom of choice and action, we clearly feel the existence of fate the moment we fall in love.
Love, that is the true manifestation of fate. And one sunny day, one beautiful morning in the city of San Francisco, fate has decided to remind us of its existence once and for all.
An unremarkable morning greeted everyone in the same way. A cup of coffee, a cooked breakfast, toast with cheese or just a single apple and then everyone left the house. Everyone started their day as usual. Some went to school, some to work. There didn't seem to be any fate here. Everything was taking its course and this course was created by all these people who had chosen this life for themselves. Nothing unusual or strange. A school bus passes by, filled with the unhappy faces of schoolchildren clearly wondering when the holidays are coming. In the cars you see the workers of different companies or the doctors, nurses, teachers, professors and maybe even the writers and actors sitting at the wheel. And in the middle of all that, bicycles are also passing by and the people on the bicycles are clearly luckier than the others. They're not rushing anywhere, they're just riding along, enjoying the warm breeze and their lives.
Everyone is going somewhere. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere. After all, everyone is responsible for their children, parents, pets. It is impossible to live in this world without rushing.
To live at a fast pace so that there is enough time for yourself and for others, that is the rule for city people, who have long forgotten their fate. But today, in two houses that are far apart, almost at different ends of the city, two people will be the ones to remind everyone that there is a fate and that it awaits everyone.
And so, fate has chosen them as the protagonists of this story. So, everything has already been predetermined.
The first sign of predestination began with the loud and shrill sound of the alarm clock, which is a good reason to change jobs and never get up so early.
The ringing of the alarm clock felt like an earthquake. No one was able to turn off that alarm clock, which had already learned to walk and was now twitching nervously on the bedside table.
Finally, a hand appeared from under the blanket that should turn off that ringing and go on sleeping. But the hand failed in this task. The alarm clock ran away, continuing to twitch.
This meant that it was his turn to throw off the blanket and rise like Dracula from his coffin to destroy the pesky thing.
The blanket fell to the floor and the man with his eyes closed, got to his feet, grabbed the alarm clock with one hand and finally managed to turn it off. Unable to open his eyes, he collapsed back onto the bed, even though he knew he had to get ready and go to work. He could barely open one eye to look out the window and then at his wristwatch. Seeing the time on the watch made him shudder and immediately get up. Now, he had to overcome himself and his desire for sleep to be able to successfully make it to the bathroom, where a cool shower awaited him. And yes! Victory! He managed to reach the bathroom, stripped off his clothes and stood under the stream of water, which immediately woke him up.
Soaping up his body, his hair, he made a few movements with his hands and was ready to leave the shower cubicle, but something kept him there for a few more minutes. Perhaps it was the pleasant warm water, which felt just fine on his skin, or maybe it was the fact that he was afraid to leave the shower cubicle because of his wife, who was obviously waiting for him in the kitchen to ask about where he had been last night.
Still, a man is not so free to choose to stand under a stream of warm water all day long. He had to put on his suit, which he usually always wears. A suit that only a teacher, or in his case a university professor, could wear. A simple brown jacket made of expensive material, a white shirt that smells of laundry detergent and black trousers that shine with cleanliness and newness. Also, black leather shoes with a low heel to give it a certain elegance.
The image of a well-mannered and neat man was ready to send him into a world full of judgement and curiosity. All that remained was to comb that thick black hair so that it would not succumb to the temptation of being ruffled by the winds.
And the final touch was to look at his face to make sure that it did not express drowsiness or a decline in vitality.
He looked at his reflection in the round mirror and saw there the face of a grown man who was no different from the others except for his green eyes, thick, perfectly shaped eyebrows and a straight nose that gave his image masculinity and even strength.
Sighing, then gathering as much air as he could into his lungs again, he looked around this room. He looked at every object that was here. A large bed, a tall window that was covered with heavy red curtains, a small sofa at the foot of the bed on which his wife's dressing gown lay, and a mirror with a small table containing jewellery and cosmetics.
For the first time in all these years of studying this room so thoroughly, he suddenly noticed that this room seemed to belong only to a woman, but not to him. It even seemed to him that he had never even lived here. But the thought seemed too strange to him that he laughed softly.
And so, it was time to go down to the first floor for a quick breakfast or just a coffee to appease that unpleasant hunger.
He never liked going down to the first floor. After all, to get to the stairs, he always had to go past two other rooms that belonged to his two daughters. He didn't like it because every time he passed their doors, he could hear their conversations on the phone that had been going on since the night before. And his daughters were talking just about him. Every time he passed by their white wooden doors, he heard them complaining that he embarrassed them or that he did not understand them, that he did not try to understand them, that he was always at work or always reading a book or that he had stopped loving his mother. And they say all this to their friends, who, every time they come to this house, look at him as if he has done something wrong.
This time, too, as he walked past their door, he overheard his eldest daughter telling someone about their last day off, when they had had guests at home and he had not even left his office, saying that he had a lot of work to do and needed to check the students' homework.
Stopping by the door and wanting to hear more, he still decided that it was wrong to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation. So, he went to another door, behind which, strangely enough, it was very quiet. He was even beginning to worry. After all, his youngest daughter was always ready to talk to her friend as soon as she woke up. He became so worried that he knocked on the door and then opened it.
"Good morning are you awake yet?" he asked, noticing that she was still in bed. She, a girl of thirteen, with a short haircut and expressive doll eyes that looked at him with contempt and even anger. "Sorry, didn't mean to disturb you," he whispered, smiling, and closing the door.
Devastated after this angry look from his daughter, he went down the stairs, thinking with each step about what kind of smile he should imitate. And when he was almost on the first floor, he decided that he should only smile once when he saw his wife and then go back to his former sleepy state.
As he walked past the front door and the huge sofa that was in the middle of the hallway, he headed towards the kitchen, which always reminded him of the mouth of a tiger. Because it was all about the colour of the kitchen walls - red. And besides, the archway that adorned the entrance to the kitchen was white, with sharp carvings that resembled exactly the fangs of a tiger. A red tiger's mouth and white fangs, that was the thought with which he always entered that part of the house. And this time too, remembering the bloodthirsty tiger and at the same moment seeing his wife, he could not restrain a silent laugh, which was more a burst of nerves and excitement.
"You are cheerful today. What happened?" asked the woman in the green dress with white polka dots and a hairdo that looked like a beehive.
"Good morning, darling," he said, kissing her cheek as timidly as the first time they had been on a date. But 20 years ago, that kiss had been magical, full of promise and cloudless days ahead. Now, that kiss made his wife so angry that she pushed him away from her and nervously pointed to a chair.
"Sit down, eat your breakfast, and go to work, or you'll be late."
"How's your head? I hope the pain is gone."
"It's fine."
"You should see a doctor. You get headaches a lot."
"I told you I'm fine. You better take care of yourself."
"What's wrong with me? There's nothing wrong with me."
"Don't you always complain about your back hurting?"
"It's because of the sedentary lifestyle."
"Your back makes me feel like an old lady."
"What? What does my back have to do with it?"
"Your gait has even changed. You walk like an old man. And next to you, I look like an old woman too."
"You look the same as you did 20 years ago."
But that compliment went unheeded as the kettle began to whistle loudly, reminding him that it was time for tea.
Closing his ears, he suddenly thought of the fact that one is always surrounded by unpleasant sounds. The ringing of the alarm clock, the kettle, the doorbell, the crying of a baby, the ringing of the telephone in the middle of the night. But he did not have time to complete his list of unpleasant sounds, for his wife lightly hit him on the head, thus bringing him back to this reality.
"What are you thinking? Are you 16 years old to be hovering in the clouds?"
Answering nothing, he just looked at her as she sat down across from him. As if it was the first day he'd met her, he began to stare at her, trying to see the girl he'd fallen in love. Studying her green doll eyes, which glittered as if they were artificial, he then looked at her oddly shaped nose. Then her lips, covered in red lipstick, her sharp chin, her thin eyebrows that were barely visible and her thin hands that clutched a cup of coffee in their hands. Twenty years ago, she looked exactly like this, except that she had a smile on her face more often, which had now turned into tension and discontent. With a sigh, he even wondered if all married couples have wives and husbands who become like the mean and spiteful little gnomes that usually appear in fairy tales. Why gnomes?
"I see that you are happy today What is it? Are you in love?"
"Wilhelmina, what are you talking about? Who could I be in love with? Besides, can't I just be happy for no reason?"
"I don't like it when you call me by my first name. Every time you say my name, I think of my father. He, too, always said my name so solemnly, as if he were giving orders to his soldiers instead of saying my name."
"Say my name."
"What?"
"You haven't said my name in a long time."
"What are you, a child? Eat your breakfast and go."
"Is it that hard for you to say my name?"
"If I say your name, will you eat this sandwich and go to work?"
"Yes."
Looking at him as if she really wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible, Wilhelmina sighed, rolled her eyes, looked at her watch, then at the kettle, hoping that it would magically start whistling again, thus giving her a chance at an excuse not to say his name. And yet she doesn't even know herself why she finds it so distasteful to call her husband by his name. After all, over the years, she's grown accustomed to addressing him simply as "You."
"Everett. Are you happy now?"