Elena leaned in, catching the scent of the spirits on his breath. "Why, Tata?"
"Don't be like me," he whispered, a single tear escaping the corner of his eye, smelling faintly of rye. "Don't wait until the end to realize that the world is beautiful enough without the haze." sunt_betiv_pe_pat_de_moarte
Ion let out a wet, gravelly laugh that turned into a cough. "My heart stopped forty years ago when your mother left. This? This is just the engine finally running out of fuel." Elena leaned in, catching the scent of the
Ion closed his eyes. He saw the golden fields of the Bărăgan, the sweat on his brow, and the crushing weight of a life that never quite fit the man he wanted to be. The alcohol hadn't been a choice; it had been a shroud, keeping the cold reality of his failures at bay. "My heart stopped forty years ago when your mother left
"One more," he croaked, gesturing with a trembling hand toward the nightstand. There sat a bottle, nearly empty, a defiant middle finger to the heart monitor chirping beside him.
The room smelled of stale antiseptic and cheap plum brandy—the kind that burns the throat and numbs the soul. Ion lay back, his breath a ragged whistle, staring at the peeling wallpaper as if it were a map of his own misspent life.
"I drank so I could be the hero I wasn't," he murmured. "In the glass, I was a king. On the bed... I'm just a man who forgot how to live without a shadow."