Note: How many times do you wonder why someone is avoiding you and not getting any closure, judicially speaking. Kafka’s stories have no closure. Real life stories don’t either. Let me tell you mine.

Back in the bygone Nineties, I had a friend whom, without delving too deep into her private life’s choices, I had been very close with. We hung out in high school only for her to, all of a sudden, upon graduation, start ignoring all of my calls, moving the other way when she would meet me in Kragujevac (along one street, at the time well specked with hot spots for hanging out – therefore it was easy to run into her and vice versa). I asked her, whenever I managed to get to her, having passed her protective mother, her sister (whom I also used to spend schooldays with) why she was behaving like that. The moment she heard my voice she would have a panic attack, screaming. Later on I would receive strange phone calls at midnight, odd sentence structures uttered by her and I’ll stop there before it drags on longer than the royal bloodline…

It was odd to me what was happening to her and rumors reached me that she had had some “problems”. I connect the dots, some semblance of an explanation was there, but not enough of one. Why is she screaming only when running into me? I felt like Ed Gein, the serial killer.

I found out who her psychologist was (in Kragujevac this was doable) and decided to book a session with him as well in order to learn why a dear friend considers me a Michael Meyers mere hours after a field trip to Greece, and fast forward a few years, screams when seeing me, why she only invites me over on her birthday surrounded by a multitude of people and receives flowers as a gift from me. Psychologists had even then been playing professional ethics and, between two insulin shots, the weary-eyed diabetic psychologist told me all of her secrets, both known to me and unknown, adding ‘The very second you came into my office, by your friend’s description, I knew right away that you’re Leila.’

I mention this because I had openly stated my name and surname as well as my intentions, I added that I had no intentions of delving into the intimate details of my friend’s life, merely to provide additional info to the psychologist so that she might help her… and maybe even begin to realize why the sudden shift of behavior towards me. Were these some midnight cries for help? Still, she had been a remarkable friend to me. She was there for me when no one ever was! I had to find out what was it about me that disturbed her so much. Did I do something wrong? Something I was unaware of? Was I at fault for something?

And I added, maybe I too could get a piece of advice from an expert such as her, and then the psychologist suddenly burst out at me saying ‘She wants you to stop calling her! You’re harassing her! She’s sick! She has–’ and this is where she told me what my friend was diagnosed with.

I repeat, the psychologist growled at me and said ‘Ah! Look at you, as fit as a fiddle, and she’s so frail, and yet you’re the one disturbing her!’

‘But all I want to do is talk to her… Let her know this, and I will stop trying.’

And I really did. But her calls did not cease.

But that is a long story, my vain attempts at trying to reach the person I had spent schooldays with and shared a room with in Greece for five days were just that – attempts in vain.

But you know how it is – when in Serbia, even as an LAPD employee when you go to a psychological consultation, that is where you are – a psychological consultation. Period.

I come to Belgrade and lo and behold, I immediately meet a different, new friend who was there for me in the same manner the last one was – she was there for me when no one ever was! But she had also started avoiding me and in an attempt to prevent this, learned in the antique mysteries, I kept pushing and pushing for her to divulge the secret to her shift, to which she had suddenly said ‘Leila, I have a stomach cramp and I see a psychiatrist every day. You should go to, because I really have no strength to keep on giving advice to you! I really don’t!’

To this I sighed and said ‘Well, I did go.’

Suddenly the friend was flabbergasted and much like my at the moment next-door neighbor upon seeing the Halley’s comet, the second sun of Nostradamus and the follow-up moment of making the sign of the cross, she said in an accusatory, almost Kafkian way ‘Oh, oh so you DID go!’

I stopped trying to talk to her or get any closure, I think about a year or so now…

Did I do something to her? Something I am unaware of? Was I at fault?