Happiness the color of wet asphalt

- And I'd already forgotten what it was like to have fun. It seems so ridiculous and ridiculous not to leave my house for two months.
And yet he really hadn't left the cold walls of the old cranny for two months, having completely forgotten what happiness was. Waking up at five in the morning from the damn blinding sun, he could barely get up and dragged to the pantry for a new portion of vodka and cheap tobacco. All the windows in his apartment were sealed with a thick layer of foil, through the cracks of which the hot rays came in and burned his skin. It really pissed him off.
He lived not in the hope of filling his glass half-full with clean water again, but for the sake of rinsing his throat with at least a drop of searing liquor, then smoking the whole thing with a cigarette. With each puff his lungs constricted, making it difficult to breathe, turning it into excruciating shortness of breath, and his heart was torn into a thousand deep shards. A perpetual fear enveloped him, and anxious minutes turned into hours, if not infinity.
Sitting in the middle of a dark room at an empty table with a bottle of vodka, he nervously looked at the hand of the clock, as if waiting for something. Or someone. Drinking his sixth shot, he began a two-minute discussion about life, which counted for him an hour. Each thought was interrupted, blurred at the end, merging with the next, and later he became completely entangled in his meaningless monologue, in which he lost himself even more and forgot what life was all about. It didn't even occur to him; he had forgotten what a living being was at all. And so it was every day. He lost count; he couldn't remember what day of the week it was, or the number, or the date. All the days were tied together, in an endless tight knot. Into one big scary dream.
Pulling out the cork with his teeth, he began to drink straight from his throat. He was wildly intoxicated. Everything in front of his eyes was blurry.
- Darling, how I miss you... Where are you? Why are you two months late, and you still haven't deigned to come? - He looked at the hand of the clock with an inebriated look, and he repeated it every day at six o'clock sharp, and that was exactly the time you came. I sat and waited for you every single day. Your footsteps, moderate and serious, were heard a mile away, and the click of your heels was unrecognizable from a thousand. When you came home, you always smiled endlessly and leaned on my neck, kissing it all over. You gave me your scent, which was so intoxicating and stupefying every time you touched me, suffocating me so much that I couldn't breathe. As time went by, I couldn't breathe at all.
He flicked his lighter, bringing the light to the tip of his cigarette. Taking a long puff, he continued his monologue:
- I could never smile with my lips, but I could smile with my eyes. I remember my endless shining eyes filled with happiness at the mere sight of you, and my jaw would literally drop. You were my remedy for depression, and I was only bliss in it. Every time I looked at you it was like the first time. To the goosebumps. To the orgasm of my eyes. Very surprised by your feminine beauty, and for a second it felt like an illusion at all. The most fucking illusion of deception. It's indescribable, even to an artist. Those eyes deep to the blue, reflecting all of you inside out. You always looked like you could see right through me, like you were about to rip my soul out, rip out my heart and keep it for yourself, giving me yours in return. Your soft, youth-colored lips, so delicious that they pulled me into an endless kiss. Those delicate and youthful facial features. And how fragile and tender you were in bed, literally turning into a little girl in need of affection. How I caressed your body with constant kisses, starting from your little feet and stopping at your passionate fiery lips. I'll never forget your voice that whispered softly every night about love. And how angry you were at me for the tea bag I left in the sink. Not only foul language flew in my direction, but also dishes, and afterwards you apologized for that and we had passionate sex in the kitchen. I could feel all of you. Was I offended? No, it was very endearing and made me fall even more in love with you. You trusted me like no one else. You saw me as a man, a powerful man. I was stronger than other men, but not stronger than you. You were stronger than other women, but not weaker than me. You were impossible to break, well, unless you cheated your heart, and you didn't cheat on me, because the heart was impossible to break. With you, I always had strong wings behind me. Sturdy like a rod that held me always straight and set the rhythm, but one day they broke, shattering into little pieces. And later I broke, too...
His clock hands stopped long ago. He doesn't know what today is, there is no future for him. He is stuck in a nightmarish past, in the very two months that completely tore his soul apart. He's lost his mind.
She. Capitalized to him by that word. More precious than his name. He would have given anything to have that day back, to bring her back, to keep the grief from destroying her. He would give all of himself to keep her alive. That the name would not be forgotten to himself.
His eyes filled with a searing stream of tears. With all his might he slammed his fist on the table and threw the empty bottle into the mirror. It shattered, cracking and shattering into numerous pieces of glass. Standing up, he turns the table over and tosses the stool away. He walks over to the mirror and stares at himself, drunkenly staring at his own broken face, screaming his head off, poking his reflection in the mirror:
- Fuck. You, bastard, you ruined her! If you had known, you would have saved her. If you had loved her, you would have saved her. You fucking murderer! I hate you!
At this moment he became an enemy to himself, and a lawyer to the devil. His knuckles dig into the glass with all their might, shattering even harder, letting the shards sink deep into his skin, seeping through the fountain of blood. He spits into the reflection.
- Fucking bastard!
00:00
He is so intoxicated that he doesn't notice how night has already fallen. Staring furiously at his horribly vile reflection, he freezes. Staring like that for a minute, he can't stand it and hits it again, only already with his forehead. Everything in front of his eyes swirls and swims, and the sounds deafen him with their noise. Her voice echoes in his head, silencing everything around him. A scream. A gunshot. He passes out...
22:45
Gasping and gulping for air, I didn't wake up until the next evening from a wild heartbeat. She leans into my face, kisses my lips passionately, sliding her luscious ones softly against my dry chapped ones. I'm smothered by her embrace, the gentle hands I kissed two months ago. For a second I actually believed she was back, but I still continued to lie alone among the empty bottles and the cold room. When I opened my eyes, all I could see was darkness and a large pool of blood, the result of a huge wound.
Evening, August, St. Petersburg, pain-soaked memories. As I walked through the evening streets of St. Petersburg, brightly lit by the warm sunlight, I felt my body tremble again, the growing pain in my chest, the disappointment, the huge hole that nothing could plug. We'd been walking with her through these bright streets, holding hands and talking about our own things. Memories of those bright, yet fragile moments began to flood my head again, and I was again tangled in an endless stream of thoughts. Events mingled together in snippets, becoming one big one. Into life. An eternity. These streets I no longer saw light, but could even one, even a blind man, see light in the deep darkness? Yes. She was that light.
I noticed people gazing excitedly down the big street, which was all lit up with neon signs in the thick night. I didn't care about anything, all the "beauty" of the evening city. My eyelids were drooping down, and I just wanted to walk my head on the pavement with all my might because I hated my existence.
I was literally drying up from day to day, getting even more lost in myself, struggling to gather my thoughts into one solid whip, and get out of all the crap that was eating me up and destroying me in seconds.
Turning into the summer park, where lilacs and numerous apple tree fruits reeked, my gaze fell on the most distant and aloof bench. The very bench where she and I had sat two years before. Young, in love, naive. After a hard full day, she liked to take off her stilettos, laying her slender legs on my muscular ones while I enthusiastically kneaded them in my hands. It was wildly arousing. Tiredly, with a slightly drunken step, I approached the bench, taking a seat on it and hearing extraneous laughter from afar. I habitually put my hand in my pocket and for a long time I fumbled for a cigarette. When I pulled it out, the pocket was as empty as the all of my life.
Finishing the cigarette, I extinguished it on my hand, burning my skinny hand with sparks. I felt nothing at all, not even pain, and the cigarette left only a red stain on my wrist.
It was raining. Looking down at my feet and examining the asphalt, I muttered to myself:
- It's the same color as my happiness.
As I got up and waddled to the big lake, I noticed the huge rays from the lanterns reflecting through the clear water.
Remembering what I said behind the bench, I don't notice that I've been standing here for three minutes. Abruptly I grab my revolver, leaning it against my temple and, I say, laughing:
- After all, I don't need it, nothing at all.
With each passing second, his laughter increased in frequency, growing louder and more distant. He was aiming for the middle of my heart. A loud shot rang out.  Echoing the lake and the birds around it, the bullet plunged sharply into his sternum, piercing his heart and creating an incredible fountain of blood. The dead body immediately falls into the huge lake, sinking and sinking to the bottom. The sky was immediately engulfed in a huge clump of gray clouds, enveloping it in a gloomy veil. The dried asphalt turned dark again.
It was night. August. Darkness. Happiness the color of wet asphalt.
  

St. Petersburg, August 19, 1999.