Excerpt from Notebook 4: "Faith Healing, Part Three"

I think that I've been dealing with depression for a long time now.

Have you ever taken a long bus ride without a destination? Any city with a public transport system is perfect for that. Empty bus seats at night are the most heartbreaking thing. It had become a bit of a hobby for me to simply sit there and watch neighborhood blocks, projects, skyscrapers go by.

It's becoming progressively easier for me to enter a state of complete disconnect from the world and its troubles. I have a perfect understanding of my pressing responsibilities, upcoming assignments, family expectations and so on. But I survey them with a grey clot in my mind. It's like I'm in a fog. Lately this winter I've been waking up early in the morning to sit on the wet grass outside my room and watch the still world.

I went to F.'s house in this state of mind.

The house is beautiful in its decay. It's so out of the beaten path, along a deserted street with abandoned lots, running down the steepest hill of District 5. The black iron gate at the entrance has ivy wrapped around it, it looks like a European haunted manor. The guard acknowledged my presence quietly and I pushed the gate open.

I had missed class again. Earlier that week I had already informed my boss that I would be quitting at the end of the month. I was just an intern, anyway. I would eventually be able to find work somewhere. He looked at me sternly and said he was disappointed. I don't think I was very good at my job.

As I walked along the winding garden path of F.'s front door I felt a tingling in my legs and an odd sweetness in the back of my mouth. It was a kind of anxiety.

He opened the door just as I was about to knock. He looked like he hadn't slept.

We talked about inconsequential things for a little while and he played with his hair. But the moment we sat in the old living room, with the dusty record player and the spider-covered bookshelves, he broke down. Just sobbing. I had never seen him like that. I actually didn't know to react for the first few minutes. I just sat across from him and quietly sipped the coffee he had brought me. I looked around nervously to see if his father would show up, or maybe X, but the house seemed to be empty except for us. Eventually I asked him to calm down, but it came out muffled.

He stopped crying eventually and explained to me what had happened earlier that morning. He had woken up to find that X had disappeared. Most of his things were gone with him, but some clothes remained scattered on the floor of the guest room. The bed where he slept had been somehow flipped over and was now leaning against the wall, as if thrown by a powerful wind. F. said that he hadn't heard any strange noises the night before.

Then he lead me to patio in the back. I trailed a few steps behind, trying to process everything. As he swung the kitchen door open a powerful odor hit me. It was decomposition.

In the middle of the patio was Drogo, F.'s dog. A pigeon was trying to pluck out its left eye.

I instinctively stepped out and scared the bird away. I had gotten used to the smell remarkably quickly. Drogo hadn't been dead for a very long time. I surveyed the slender, grey body. There were no visible wounds. I turned back to F., who looked mortified.

He said he had discovered the body earlier this morning. He hadn't the heart to move it. I asked him if anything else was missing. He replied that the egg was gone.

I just stared in disbelief at what he was suggesting.

After the initial shock, we took a walk around the yard and surveyed the gate, the walls, the backdoor. No locks had been broken and there were no signs of forced entry. F.'s father has a guard standing outside his house at all times of night and early morning. It doesn't seem possible that someone would be able to sneak in without anyone noticing.

We wandered for about an hour, looking for an explanation. He mentioned that he hadn't told anyone other than me. He knew he would eventually have to tell the rest of the group, but right now he wanted help with something else. He wanted me to help him cremate Drogo.

The proposal seemed a little morbid, and I shuddered at the thought of touching the body. But F. seemed so distraught that I couldn't possibly say no. I knew that I wouldn't go to my next class; I was already failing half my courses, anyway. So I agreed.

We did our best to do everything respectfully. The body was extremely heavy, so we had to use the rusted wheelbarrow left in a corner of the yard. Eventually we managed to stuff the body in the furnace. F. shut the door with resolve and started the fire.

Had F. lived anywhere closer to urbanization than he did, I'm sure we would have gotten a dozen complaints from the smell and the smoke. It was thick and black, impenetrable; I shielded by eyes and covered my nose but still stared up in the sky, a dull grey color, at the smoke column. F. was silent next to me. It burned and burned for an hour. We didn't say much of anything.

After it was over, F. thanked me and asked if I wanted to stay. I was feeling strange about the whole thing, though. I said I had to go to class and showed myself out. He stood on the patio, where Drogo's body had been, and stared. I shut the gate behind me.

My clothes stunk of smoke. Then it suddenly hit me, that X was missing, that someone had almost certainly broken into F.'s house last night, that F. was probably in danger. I considered calling X's parents until I realized that I didn't have their number and I didn't know where he lived. I considered calling F. and telling him to go to a hotel for at least a week. But the moment I got to my house I felt an overwhelming malaise and collapsed in my bed.

I don't recall any dreams.

I woke up at midnight, having slept twelve hours. The only light in my room came from my celphone. I had about twenty missed messages, from B., F., E., A., and N.

They were all recounting the same thing, of course. X's body had washed up on the shore.