I was floating above the intersection in front of the underpass to Tivoli. To my right was the Railway Health Center... Suddenly, I realized I was in the air—almost parallel to the bridge where the train tracks were, or... even higher. I occupied the entire space above the intersection, higher than Hotel Lev. I was... completely spread across this intersection.

And then, suddenly, I became aware of it... I thought, What the hell am I doing up here in the air? Am I dead or something??? I’m dead!!! I’m dead!!! No... I’m not!!! But I... I’m floating... flying? Where’s my body? Or rather, who am I now, where am I?

I looked down—there I was below... meaning my body was there. Žare was walking beside me.

Slowly, I descended back into my body. We were walking on foot, my hands were bloody, I was covered in blood. Žare was bloody too. I was speaking slowly. We were talking... Oh, of course, I was being dramatic. Saying I was already twenty-five and my life was ruined. And he... didn’t say much. He just nodded and squeezed my hand. Where am I, what’s happening? I realized... or rather, my other self, the one that had filled the entire intersection, realized... that I was on my way home from a drinking binge we’d had with some Italians at Maksi. Ah, I drank too much again. Once again, I was piecing together scenes from a film, something that had happened to me a few times over the past ten years. Once again, that damned alcohol, shutting off my brain... once again, for a few hours, I had no idea what I’d been doing.

I rewind my timeline and remember—a friend had called me, saying our buddies from Mestre were in town and we were meeting at Maksi. First, we were downstairs at Maksi, where the whole gang had gathered. My bestie showed up with some guy named Žare, who’d been assigned to "look after me" because I was in another self-destructive phase. My boyfriend of seven years had just left me. A good enough reason to down one Albanian cognac after another until, by the fourth or fifth, the film in my head snapped. Or was it the fourth? Who knows. One scene jumped to another. When I’m sad and poisoned by alcohol, I become very self-destructive. I remember sitting at the table, downing my third cognac, and suddenly switching to Italian—well, there were Italians there... (every time I drank too much, I’d start speaking Italian...).

Then, out of nowhere, I grabbed a glass, smashed it against the table, and slammed my hand down on the broken shards. Blood sprayed everywhere. Someone grabbed my arm and dragged me to the bathroom.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Koreans appeared—they were in Ljubljana for a puppet festival or something like that. All over the ground outside Maksi and near Šubičeva, there were circles with signs about the puppet festival in Ljubljana... The Koreans tried to bandage my hand, but I kept tearing the wraps off. They scolded me in Korean, and I laughed and answered them in Italian. I wanted the blood to keep flowing, reveling in the theater I was creating. I was enjoying it. Ah, the blood is flowing. Ah, I just wanted to make an impression. An impression... I need attention, attention! You know what, I could just kill myself. My boyfriend left me, and now I can just die! Let all my blood drain out... Drama, such draaaaamaaaaa.

After that, I don’t remember anything. The next thing I knew, I was floating above the intersection.

Žare and I walked along Celovška, having a deep discussion about life. At some point, we started kissing. Then we kept kissing all the way home. Žare walked me to my place—the only thing I remember after that is him saying he’d call me.

The next thing I knew, it was seven in the morning. My mom and sister burst into my room, flipped on the light, and started screaming and waving their hands, asking what was wrong with me, if I was okay. I didn’t understand. The walls of our apartment were covered in blood, as were my jeans and my sweater. They said my room reeked so badly of alcohol it nearly made them vomit. Later, my bestie told me Žare had also been completely drenched in blood.

Žare didn’t call until a week later. He was embarrassed. So was I. Oh yeah, Žare had these satanic eyes...

It was awkward enough, humiliating enough, that this was the last time I ever got blackout drunk. The last time.

(db, written in 1994)