“Things just happen,” I said finally. I wasn’t trying to break the ice. The words just came bubbling up.
Carrot slowly raised his head and turned towards me. He didn’t say a thing. I shut my eyes, sighed, and was silent for a while.
“I haven’t told anybody yet,” I said, “but during the summer holidays I went to Greece. You know where Greece is, don’t you? We watched that video in social studies class, remember?
In southern Europe, next to the Mediterranean. They have lots of islands and grow olives. Five hundred BC was the peak of their civilization. Athens was the birthplace of democracy, and Socrates took poison and died. That’s where I went. It’s a beautiful place. But I didn’t go to have a good time. A friend of mine disappeared on a small Greek island, and I went to help search. But we didn’t find anything. My friend just quietly vanished. Like smoke.”
Carrot opened his mouth a crack and looked at me. His expression was still hard and lifeless, but a glimmer of light
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appeared. I’d got through to him.
*
“I really liked this friend of mine. Very, very much. My friend was the most important person in the world to me. So I took a plane to Greece to help search. But it didn’t help. We didn’t find a clue. Since I lost my friend, I don’t have any more friends. Not a single one.”
I wasn’t talking to Carrot as much as to myself. Thinking aloud.
“You know what I’d really like to do the most right now?
Climb up to the top of some high place like the pyramids. The highest place I can find. Where you can see as far as possible. Stand on the very top, look all around the world, see all the scenery, and see with my own eyes what’s been lost from the world. I don’t know … Maybe I really don’t want to see that. Maybe I don’t want to see anything any more.”
The waitress came over, removed Carrot’s plate of melted ice cream, and left the bill.
*
”I feel like I’ve been alone ever since I was a child. I had parents and an older sister at home, but I didn’t get along with them. I couldn’t communicate with anyone in my family. So I often imagined I was adopted. For some reason some distant relatives gave me up to my family. Or maybe they got me from an orphanage. Now I realize how silly that idea was. My parents aren’t the type to adopt a helpless orphan. Anyway, I couldn’t accept the fact that I was related by blood to these people. It was easier to think they were complete strangers.
“I imagined a town far away. There was a house there, where my real family lived. Just a modest little house, but warm and inviting. Everyone there can understand one another, they say
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whatever they feel like. In the evening you can hear Mum bustling around in the kitchen getting dinner ready, and there’s a warm, delicious fragrance.
“In real life my family had a dog, and he was the only one I got along with. He was a mongrel, but pretty bright; once you taught him something he never forgot. I took him for a walk every day, and we’d go to the park; I’d sit on a bench and talk about all sorts of things. We understood each other. Those were my happiest moments as a child. When I was in fifth grade my dog was hit by a lorry near our house and killed. My parents wouldn’t let me buy another. They’re too noisy and dirty, they told me, too much trouble.
“After my dog died I stayed in my room a lot, just reading books. The world in books seemed so much more alive to me than anything outside. I could see things I’d never seen before. Books and music were my best friends. I had a couple of good friends at school, but never met anyone I could really speak my heart to. We’d just make small talk, play football together. When something bothered me, I didn’t talk with anyone about it. I thought it over all by myself, came to a conclusion, and took action alone. Not that I really felt lonely. I thought that’s just the way things are. Human beings, in the final analysis, have to survive on their own.
“When I entered college, though, I made a friend, the one I told you about. And my way of thinking started to change. I came to understand that thinking just by myself for so long was holding me back, keeping me to a single viewpoint. And I started to feel that being all alone is a terribly lonely thing.
“Being all alone is like the feeling you get when you stand at
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the mouth of a large river on a rainy evening and watch the water flow into the sea. Have you ever done that? Stand at the mouth of a large river and watch the water flow into the sea?”
Carrot didn’t reply.
