FrThe taxi driver

He glanced through the steamed-up window and heard “Taxi” from afar but dismissed it. His head was still hot. His eyes stung from the red light of the traffic signal. He thought he heard a distant, prolonged alarm siren. The taximeter was still on.

“Let me take the steering wheel. I want the wheel all to myself, and then you’ll see what will become of this country,” a politician’s voice came from the radio. The taxi driver chuckled bitterly and gripped the wheel tighter, as if someone might snatch it away at any moment. “Do they think the wheel is easy?” he thought gloomly, and turned off the radio altogether. The traffic light turned green. Someone else called for a taxi. “Not now,” he thought and turned off the taximeter.

His gaze slid towards a group of boys and girls with school bags, all laughing together. “Certainly students. Heh, little brats,” he said to himself, sneering. “They’re doing it in vain; they won’t change a damn thing.”

“Taxi!”

“Yes, now it’s the right time,” he said and pulled the taxi closer to the customer. The customer, a well-dressed young man, closed the umbrella and eagerly got inside. “He must be educated,” he muttered to himself.

- Good evening, — said the young man.

- Where to, sir?

- To the Block, near Enver’s former villa.

- Certainly, — replied the taxi driver, and started the meter.

He started the car very gently, so much so that if you didn’t look out the window, you wouldn’t know if the car was moving or standing still. The customer could hold a glass of water in his hand and wouldn’t feel even the slightest tremor on the water’s surface.

- What a rain today, terrifying, it’s as if the sky is opening up, — said the taxi driver.

- What can you do, — said the other, somewhat indifferent, looking at his phone, which the taxi driver didn’t like at all. The taxi driver mainly preferred customers who wanted to exchange a few words, who wanted to hear stories.

- Such is life sometimes, — said the taxi driver, — I work as a taxi driver and want to make as much money as possible, the longer the ride, the better for me, but on rainy days I feel somewhat guilty because I end up charging the customer a bit more for a shorter distance due to the traffic and these cursed traffic lights. I don’t want to, but can I avoid it? — he said, tapping the taximeter, which moved the red numbers at a slow but steady pace. — I can’t, it moves exactly as the law says. We can’t escape the law.

The client just smiled faintly and returned to his phone.

- You’re headed to an important meeting, am I right?— said the taxi driver after a brief silence.

- Yes, — said the other.

- Of course, I could tell from your careful attire, serious yet elegant. Is it for a girl or no, am I right?

- Yes, actually… — the young man said, somewhat puzzled.

- I sensed it right away. You see, I like working as a taxi driver. People don’t usually think much about the taxi driver, they don’t show consideration. But let me tell you, a taxi driver is a psychologist, yes, the psychologist of the entire society. Where else can one have the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life and exchange a few words with them, regardless of their status? Where else but in a taxi? Oh, the things you hear and see in a taxi. I may only have a high school education, but I modestly compensate with the experience I have as a taxi driver. All it takes is careful observation. Other taxi drivers may not share the same view, but I like to pay attention to my customers, I like to study them, in their attire, in their demeanor, in their conversation, you see, to psychoanalyze them a bit. A person needs to be economically stable to have their mind on such little details. I, for example, am doing good in that regard. I’ve got my affairs in order, quite early too. In ’98, I bought a house in Tirana. This modern era of loans didn’t catch up with me, you see. I have this taxi, I work for myself. I’ve always dreamt of Tirana, but in Hoxha’s time, who would let you live in Tirana without permission from above? But here now, democracy came and I immediately got to work and bought it in ’98.

- You bought it quite early, — the other said, — how much did it cost you back then?

- Thirty million old lek, along with a good set of furniture from that time, — said the taxi driver.

- You must have been resourceful. Thirty million lek wasn’t a small amount back then, and even today it’s not easy to make thirty million lek. How did you manage to accumulate such money?

- As a taxi driver. I’ve never left my profession, but that’s how it was back then, I did what everyone else did. Being honest at that time was simply foolish. Ha, today it’s judged differently, but dare talk morals where people would stop you on the roads with kalashnikovs to your head and take everything you had with you, sometimes even your life. Stay honest if you dare. Or am I wrong?

- Crazy times, — said the young man, — We forgot those times quite quickly, but we still suffer the consequences. I am reading these days about this topic. Questions about some crimes of that time still persist, the murderers are not known, nor the reasons behind the crimes. Even the crimes of communism were not properly addressed. That’s the problem with this country, we haven’t punished the guilty, the criminals are free.

As a police car passed by, silence fell in the taxi. The blue light of the police car rotated rapidly like an anxious eye. It seemed to be searching for someone urgently and when it didn’t find what it was looking for, it continued on its way ahead.

- What were we talking about? — the taxi driver asked.

- We were talking about unsolved crimes.

- You were young back then, you didn’t experience neither communism nor the 97'.

- Yes, but we’ve read books, heard, seen the images on television. Some things are clearer to us today than to you who lived through that time.

“These are the bookworms,” the taxi driver thought in disdain. He couldn’t stand bookish people. He only respected the educated ones. For the taxi driver, educated people and bookish people were two completely different categories. The educated person wore a suit and tie, had a good salary, a good job in a state office, a job that the taxi driver had always dreamed of, but the lack of higher education had excluded him from this dream. He was convinced that if he had had a college diploma, even a Bachelor’s, perhaps not a minister, but he would have definitely become a deputy.

While the bookish people, those who dealt with books even after they had been educated, were to him undefined, mysterious, but undoubtedly a kind of special fool.

This thought had struck him in the 90s, precisely at the Palace of Culture in his city, during the days of the destruction of everything related to the old system. One day, he heard from someone on the street that the Palace of Culture was being demolished, and immediately he grabbed an iron shovel and, without hesitation, ran to grab some carpet, chairs, or a good table for his home.

When he arrived there, he realized that many others had the same thought. Part of the building was on fire, everyone rushed to steal chairs, carpets, office tables. Only one painter, whom they considered cultured and educated, had blocked a room and threatened anyone who approached with a gun, as if there were treasures inside. Some young men tried to fight the painter and enter the room, suspecting that there was something valuable inside, since the painter was ready to die defending it, but no one dared to enter first, because he was armed and they were not.

“It’s all bullshit inside, paintings and such, leave it,” said an old man carrying a large office table on his back.

The taxi driver witnessed the whole scene, and only when he emerged outside, holding a few chairs he managed to grab, did he see the painter and his brother rushing towards the exit, carrying some paintings and folders with drawn sheets. The crowd outside the building was gossiping and commenting on the thefts with curiosity. “That is quite a carpet” or “Look at how beautiful that chair is.” When the crowd saw the painter and his brother, they were puzzled, not knowing what to think. “What did these guys take? Drawings? They must be complete idiots.”

The taxi driver had always felt inferior to such people, considering them clever, envying them, although he did not understand them at all. But at that moment, when he heard others openly express a suspicion that he had always suppressed within himself out of shame, he felt relieved and proudly thought to himself, “These are indeed fools, great, great fools.”

“Crazy times,” the young man repeated.

- Yes, but anyone could make money back then,” the taxi driver recalled. “It was chaotic indeed, but there was vitality, there was movement in life, not like today. Try buying a house in Tirana today. Buying a house now takes a lifetime. Why, do you call that a life? Or am I wrong?” said the taxi driver.

- I hope those times never return.

- Well, even comfort is a bad thing. In comfort, a person doesn’t grow, a man doesn’t mature in comfort. It’s like that. You bookish people seem too soft to me.

The young man smiled as if amused by a child’s babble.

- You haven’t experienced the harshness of life. You don’t know what war is! Or am I wrong?

- Why, do you know what war is? — asked the young man ironically.

“Oh, this damn fool, who does he think he’s talking to like this?” — the taxi driver thought to himself and touched the wooden club he kept beside the seat.

- Don’t laugh, you’re soft. Let me tell you even the reason why you are soft. You’re soft because you’re not capable of killing someone with your own hands. It doesn’t even cross your mind that one day you might have to kill someone. I, for example, know I can, I’m quite capable, oh yes, I know I can kill someone with these two bare hands that are holding the steering wheel, but I don’t do it, I don’t see the need, the calculations don’t add up. If I had to, I knew what I’d do. Guys like you, I wouldn’t let them roam around.

Silence fell in the taxi. They both remained frozen, looking at each other in the mirror, without saying a word.

- A joke in bad taste—said the young man strongly, but a slight trembling in his voice betrayed his fear.

The seemingly calm taxi driver pulled out the club and struck the client’s head fiercely several times, then stepped on the gas, turning the steering wheel left and right on the road. The client was thrown from one side to the other, unable to maintain his balance, with blood running down his head. Just as he grabbed onto the seat, the taxi driver made another sudden move of the car, and the passenger lost his balance, entirely at the mercy of the car’s movements, which seemed very amusing to the taxi driver.

- Are you crazy? Stop, stop I said!

The taxi driver chuckled with self-satisfaction. He rubbed the car against the other vehicles on the road, making a terrible metallic noise. Amidst the numerous jolts, the passenger finally slammed his head hard against the window, his body went limp, and he fell unconscious. Now he moved like a puppet controlled by the movements of the taxi.

- Until just a few moments ago, you thought everything was normal, that you were just going to hop in a taxi, that the taxi would serve you willingly, that it would go from point A to point B, that it would bid you “Good night” and meet whoever whore you wanted to meet, so you thought you had your life under control, without even considering me, a person with a lot of blood running through his veins. Why should I only serve your interests? What about my interests? Yes, I have interests, wild ones too. Spare me the moral high ground for those times, because now you lie there stretched out like a bitch! Do you know who I am? — the taxi driver shouted loudly. — I’m not just a taxi driver. I am the devil himself!

He slammed the brakes near a traffic light. The red color of the traffic light hit him in the face with an unbearable force, so much so that he saw nothing else but the red light and the raindrops that looked like small drops of blood. He tightly shut his eyes, but the red signal of the traffic light penetrated so strongly that for a moment he didn’t know if he had his eyes open or closed. For a few moments, he felt the veins in his temples, pulsing with anxiety. The red light went out and the green one lit up. The taxi driver opened his eyes. He lightly pressed on the gas pedal.

Feeling shaken, he glanced at the rearview mirror. The client was calmly looking out at the road. The taxi driver let out a sigh. How far had he gone in conversation with him? This natural and often repeated concern quickly overwhelmed him. He couldn’t even remember where he was taking the client, but his body knew. With great care, the taxi driver brought the client to his destination and stopped the car gently on the street, so the client wouldn’t feel any jolt. The client paid according to the meter and after saying “Good night,” walked away calmly. The taxi driver started the car, and for a few moments, he was completely lost, wandering aimlessly through the city. He didn’t turn off the taximeter. He stared at the red numbers on the meter as if hypnotized, but still didn’t turn it off.

He felt like the red light of the traffic signal would shine brightly again, pouring mercilessly over his being, and he would collapse in surrender. He took several deep breaths. His body was drenched in sweat. The rain continued to pour heavily, causing a terrible noise inside the car. His head was burning. Playing out the entire scene in his imagination while carefully driving the car had exhausted him. He often wondered if he would be able to live in such a violent imagination as he entered the years of old age, if his physique could handle such a great strain. Perhaps one day he would die, precisely imagining a passenger’s torture. What an ending!

“Taxi,” called out a man from the street.

He was so grateful to his body that it could go on autopilot like that, relying solely on muscle memory. His breathing eased slightly. He began to feel a bit better. He turned off the taximeter.

“I am an excellent taxi driver,” he told himself. “This is who I am, just a taxi driver. I have never been anything else, I am nothing else, and I have no reason to worry about nothing else. I am an exceptional taxi driver. I am capable of driving even in my sleep. I must never forget that. I am an excellent taxi driver. I am a taxi driver, and nothing else.”

“Taxi,” someone else called out, but he ignored it.

He needed some time to fully calm down. It had been a rough day for him. All his clients of the day had been taken aback when he had spoken about ’97 in that way.

“For whom was I to be just? For the lunatics and the wolves? This generation today knows nothing about history. Nothing! They think life is grazing in the fields like sheep. But when the pack of wolves comes, what then? How will the sheep defend themselves? Now it turns out that it’s a moral thing to be a sheep,” he felt the humor returning to him from this reasoning. “Little assholes,” he said to himself and chuckled, eager for another intense experience, perhaps the last for the evening. For a moment, he thought of picking up a female passenger, or even better, a group of girls. He wanted to hear their voices and imagine their moans, so similar to the moans they make during sex. It had been a long time since he had been with a woman. “Age has taken its toll,” he told himself, looking at the rough skin of his face in the mirror, which resembled burnt grass. Now even the prostitutes were avoiding him, as if he emitted an invisible signal that made them think “stop, danger.”

The taxi driver abruptly stopped the car. It seemed like he heard someone call for a taxi. He didn’t want to stop, but his body reacted on its own. “Damn it,” he said, but didn’t drive away. He looked around to see if someone was approaching the taxi, but he couldn’t see anything through the steamed-up windows. Outside, the rain was pouring down heavily. As soon as the taxi driver wanted to leave, a man opened the taxi door and got inside, bringing with him the scent of an unventilated room. He was wearing a heavily worn leather jacket, regular but faded jeans. Overall, he gave the impression of a dusty, even homeless man. For a moment, the taxi driver thought the man might be one of those guys who wouldn’t pay at the end of the ride. With such guys, that was the least of his worries. They might even rob him. However, he seemed to be extremely tired, the taxi driver thought, physically he could overpower him. He touched the club he kept beside the seat, convinced he wouldn’t need to use it. The man appeared physically weak and exhausted, as if he had not slept not just a few nights, but years. The taxi driver wasn’t easily frightened by suspicious faces. He considered himself a dubious character, highly justified in those harsh encounters and the coarseness of his skin lines. And yet, the man had something mysterious about him. Moreover, it seemed like the taxi driver had seen him somewhere before.

- Where to? — asked the taxi driver as he started the meter.

- To “Zogu i Zi” square — replied the other.

- To “Zogi i Zi” square, got it — said the taxi driver. He started the meter and gently drove the taxi.

The client wasn’t speaking, which was entirely expected by the taxi driver.

- What a dreadful rain, as if the sky is about to open up. The city will flood, for sure.

- Seems like it, — said the client.

- A wretched government— said the taxi driver. — Just think about the traffic created today, a heavy rain and everything gets blocked.

The other only said, “hmm,” thoughtfully.

- How strange people are… — said the taxi driver. — In these days, I even feel guilty as a taxi driver, to be honest, because, you see, due to the traffic, add to that these cursed traffic lights, I have to charge the customer more. I have no choice, this damned thing — he said, tapping the meter, — it keeps running, according to the law. We can’t escape the law.

The other didn’t say anything, but to the taxi driver, it seemed like he smiled bitterly at the last sentence.

- You seem very concerned, — said the taxi driver.

- You’re sharp, — the other said, almost disappointed.

- A taxi driver must be a good psychologist to enjoy his job properly. It’s a mistake to see the taxi driver simply as a taxi driver. The taxi driver is a psychologist. People from all walks of life ride in taxis, even ministers. I talk to them as equals. Education and books are good, but without experience, you’re nothing, and I have plenty of experience. I admit you also need a bit of financial stability to be calm at the wheel to do psychology. Look at me, for example, some things, thank God, I’ve got sorted out, the most important being my home, I bought it back in ’98, I don’t pay rent or loans. I work for myself.

- How big is the house you got?

- Two rooms and a kitchen — said the taxi driver proudly.

- Did you buy it furnished?

- No, it was a new building at that time, built by a childhood friend of mine, and luckily, he sold it to me for a lower price, and I furnished it myself, with furniture from that time. To be honest, I had always dreamed of living in Tirana, but during Hoxha’s time, who would let you come to Tirana? But, finally, democracy came and we reached better days.

“Did you get good furniture?” asked the man.

The taxi driver looked at the stranger with surprise. The other seemed genuinely curious. The taxi driver felt a warmth of gratitude wash over him, as if he had been waiting for this question for years.

- Yes, indeed, good furniture that even today, if you were to see it, looks quite modern. I arranged the house meticulously back then; it was such a joy to live in it. Anyone who has seen it has praised it.

- How much did it cost you in total, if I may ask?

- Thirty million lek including the furniture.

- So… — the other said thoughtfully — thirty million lek…

- Yes — the taxi driver affirmed proudly, pleased that the conversation was going so well.

- A large sum of money for the time — the other remarked — even today, it’s very difficult to make that much money. How did you manage back then, with the taxi?

- Well, with the taxi, I didn’t stray from my profession, but you could say, I did what everyone else did at that time — the taxi driver said with a smile that seemed awkward but proud.

- Like everyone else?

The taxi driver felt a pang in his heart.

- Well, why… how do you think those who became rich back then got rich? I know some things that even the researchers don’t know, or pretend not to know, at least those who appear on television never mention them.

- So, what? You’ve piqued my curiosity — said the man.

- Well, since you’re asking, I’ll explain my case, but keep in mind that I was at the bottom of the chain; imagine yorself those at the top. I made a good amount of money with drugs, the first ten million. Do you know what kind of power struggle was waged over drugs back then or not? The powerful were killed and torn apart; everyone wanted to control the drug trade. All the killings were carried out for control of drugs, amidst all these slogans of democracy, socialism, and heroes. All bullshit. Then came the smuggling of weapons and oil, which broke the embargo put on the serbs during the Bosnian war. I used to be a trusted person of those up there back then, — said the taxi driver, rolling his eyes and gesturing with his head towards what he considered “up there,” — that’s where I gained the second ten million, in ’94-’95. Then came the third ten, a little job here, a little there, always as a taxi driver, I’ve never strayed from my profession. Oh no, I’ve been a taxi driver, and I remain a taxi driver.

On the road, another traffic light appeared. The taxi driver thought he heard a police siren. He stopped the taxi abruptly. The taxi was washed in the red light and the taxi driver felt a real terror, as if he was facing a terrible danger. The traffic light turned green, and to his surprise, the taxi driver noticed that he had passed “Zogu i Zi” square, actually, they were leaving Tirana. In the rearview mirror, he looked at the passenger. The man had a weary look, covering his face with his hands and sitting there, as if weighed down by the burden of a great sorrow.

- What’s troubling you? — the taxi driver asked, sensing that his body had gone into autopilot mode.

- Well, my youngest son, 7 years old, passed away.

- I’m very sorry to hear that. Was it recent?

- No, many years ago.

The taxi driver straightened up.

- When?

- In ’97 — the man replied.

The taxi driver looked closely at the man, and indeed, he was dressed as if he had come straight from 1997, his hair disheveled, a mess of curls.

- So — the man said calmly, with endless sorrow in his voice — my son’s life was lost for an apartment in Tirana with furniture that even today looks modern?

The taxi driver pressed on the gas pedal with all his might. His hands moved on their own, sometimes turning the steering wheel to the left, then to the right, in panic. The man held on tightly to the seat. The taxi driver immediately grabbed the club and struck fiercely on the hand, then on the head of the man. He moved the steering wheel again quickly, and the man hit his head hard on the glass, shattering it and losing consciousness. The taxi driver struggled to breathe, but he didn’t slow down.

He couldn’t believe that the father of the child had found out who he was after so many years. “How, how did he do it after all these years? Could someone present that night have spoken? Impossible, simply impossible.”

Several times after that dreadful night, he had felt a strong desire to surrender, to confess the truth, to finally remove that mask of normalcy that weighed on him as much as the participation in the crime. Even the happiest and most carefree moments of his life were overshadowed by the memory of that night. He couldn’t sleep anymore.

When he heard the word conscience on the radio or television, he broke into a sweat. It seemed to him that the cursed conscience was to blame for his state. He had seen people without a conscience, who killed like animals without losing sleep over it. Not all people are tormented by guilt, and he was upset to be among those who were tormented, among those with half a conscience.

At first, he comforted himself by thinking that over time everything would ease, that he would forget, that he would think differently about everything, from a different perspective. But that cursed feeling of guilt dragged him down towards an abyss. How much he wanted to surrender, to surrender himself to the police, and there in prison to have a peaceful, quiet sleep, like the surface of the glass of water in his taxi.

“I must surrender. This is not life; it’s the right thing to do. I should go to the police with him,” he told himself, but immediately another voice vehemently refused. “But to whom should I surrender? To the police and the criminal judges? Why, don’t I know them? They are all criminals. Fuck all those damned beasts,” he cursed.

He held the blood-stained club tightly in his hand with a fresh desire to save himself, to erase every trace, every sign. He would face all the internal tortures, sleepless nights, loneliness, but to surrender, to be caught, to be locked up in a cell, never.

He decided he had to kill him and hide the body; there was no other solution. It was necessary. He turned off the lights inside the taxi and, maintaining the right speed, turned back and saw the man behind unconscious with an expression of pain on his face. He didn’t make it long; with one hand he held the steering wheel, with the other he hit the man’s head with the club several times as hard as he could, until his hand was covered in blood. He made sure the man wouldn’t move anymore. Now he just had to go to a remote area, to not stop anywhere, to not talk to anyone, just escape, escape as fast and as far as possible. He had a full tank of gas, he could drive for miles, as long as he didn’t stop anywhere. A terrible question arose in his mind. “What will I use to dig the grave?” “With my fingernails if necessary,” he reassured himself immediately.

The sight of blood, instead of disturbing him, calmed him down. Now everything was settled. A calmness he hadn’t thought possible for himself overwhelmed him. “It’s finally over,” he told himself, relieved.

***

“The Masks,” as they were called back then, because they wore women’s socks on their heads and their faces were pressed, turning them into grotesque and unidentifiable figures, were gangs that robbed travelers at night during the turbulent year of 97’ on the main streets of the country. He had once worked as a taxi driver for one of these gangs. The taxi driver himself was not involved in the robberies, physical confrontation, or gunfights, although he was armed. He waited at a distance for the gang to commit the robbery, and his only task was to drive them away from the scene as quickly as possible.

That afternoon, on the way to the premeditated attack point, the gang suddenly decided to shoot the animals grazing in the fields late that afternoon, while the car was in motion. They ended up killing a donkey, which delighted them all. The taxi driver had never seen them so excited before an attack but did not think much of it.

At the attack point, he hid the taxi by the main road, near a forest, and stood somewhat apart from the others, with the mask on his head, thinking about a house he had seen in Tirana, not giving much importance to the robbery that would take place. The evening was slowly approaching. The Jovial Disorganized One, as they humorously called the leader of the group, was moving up and down impatiently, while the gang members were waiting for a signal to attack, smoking cigarettes. Everything depended on the type of car and the license plate. From afar, they saw a van approaching. “Looks like a Tirana’s plate,” said the Jovial One, who had binoculars with him. The gang decided to attack. They blocked the road and started firing into the air with kalashnikovs in front of the van, shouting, “Stop, everyone get out. Hands up.” The van stopped. The gang quickly pulled everyone out of the van. Usually, they only pulled out the men, but this time they also pulled out the women along with the children. The women were crying, the men seemed more aggressive than usual, not immediately obeying orders, perhaps because they thought the gang might commit some perversion with the women. Meanwhile, the gang was giving everyone demeaning and contradictory orders, “Hands up! Hands down! Hands up!”, even adding mockery, “You, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down” and then, “Say I’m an asshole, say I’m a jerk. Say I’m a democrat. Now say I’m a socialist.” They would laugh mercilessly at their behavior.

The Jovial One, to increase the terror, started playing with the gun, shooting in the air and aiming it at a man who wasn’t obeying the commands. He gave the man several orders but he disobeyed in silence. The Jovial One shot him with the back of the kalashnikov in the ribs. The man groaned loudly in pain, and suddenly a small figure broke away from the passengers and ran towards the man. The Jovial One was startled by the sudden movement, and then a terrifying noise pierced the air like thunder, followed by the dreadful cry, “You killed him.” The Jovial One seemed extremely shaken and stood there without knowing what to do, then he ran towards the taxi. The rest of the gang initially froze in shock, but then panic seized their limbs and they fled. The taxi driver stood up. He couldn’t take his eyes off the bloodied child and the father holding him. He had embraced his son and looked around with pleading eyes, crying out for help.

“To the hospital, to the hospital,” the other passengers said. The taxi driver, shocked, removed his mask. His first instinctive reaction was to abandon the gang, take the child with his father, and rush them to the hospital as quickly as possible. If anyone from the gang had objected, he would have pointed his gun at their foreheads, ready to shoot. He did none of those things. The taxi driver covered his face again with the mask, ran to his taxi, and disappeared into the night.

Although the taxi driver decided to quit working with the gang immediately, it took several months for this to actually happen. He had his eye on a house in Tirana and was very close to realizing his dream of buying it. He collaborated in other robberies to earn the money he needed to buy the house. After several months, he finally bought the house and quit working with the gang.

Two of the gang members, including the Jovial One, were killed in the following years. The two others who survived left the country, even started families abroad.

The taxi driver tried to move on with his life, but for him, it was impossible. He couldn’t sleep. Like an endless reel, the terrifying scene played over and over in his mind. He constantly found himself delivering long imaginary speeches in front of a jury, detailing the event and defending his innocence. Whenever he recounted the part about the father and the deceased son, he did it with tears in his eyes, as if he wanted to touch the court and make it clear where he stood in relation to the rest of the gang.

“I was just the taxi driver, Your Honor. I have shown myself to be very professional, I was never involved in any assault, not even once. Most of the time, I wasn’t even present during the robberies. Your Honor, I hope this will be taken into consideration in my sentencing. The surviving members of the gang have started families. I couldn’t do that, Your Honor. How could I bring a child into this world and behave like a normal person? It’s impossible, Your Honor, completely impossible. My conscience has been tortured since that day. That’s why I want to point out, Your Honor, that I have suffered the most terrifying of punishments… that of conscience. Now I am a changed man. Isn’t that the purpose of prison?”

The imaginary speeches in front of the jury quickly turned into justifying conversations with clients in the taxi, always ending with fantasies of clashes and beatings, as very few of them agreed with his thoughts on the year 97'.

He had been driving for almost two hours. The rain had stopped. The sky, filled with turbulent clouds, seemed in ruins. He was in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t know where he was going, but his body on autopilot did. He had left the main road and was traveling on a deserted one. Finally, he stopped near a forest by the roadside and got out of the taxi. Around him was a graveyard silence. He turned on the phone’s light and took a deep breath for a few moments before opening the back door of the car, where the murdered father lay. “Come on, gather strength, it had to be done, this is the only way, there’s no other way,” he told himself.

He opened the back door of the taxi.

“No, no, no,” he cried, putting his hands on his head. The body wasn’t there. The man had disappeared. “No, no, no. Now everything will start from the beginning, everything from the beginning.”

Suddenly, he felt a sharp pang of confusion, not understanding where he was or what he was doing, as if he had lost his way in the wilderness. For a moment, he couldn’t even remember his own name. A sudden downpour began. Suddenly, he heard footsteps coming from the forest. He directed the light towards the source of the steps, and the sight that appeared terrified him to the core. The man was standing, completely bloodied, holding his dead son in his arms. He was walking silently towards him. The taxi driver took two steps back and collapsed.

“You killed my son, you killed him, my little one…” the man said, kneeling down and embracing his dead child. The taxi driver sobbed uncontrollably, realizing he had driven to the scene of the crime and was overwhelmed with emotion.

“I… I was not at fault. I didn’t do anything. It shouldn’t have happened, it was awful… I had no fault. I was just a taxi driver. I’m just a taxi driver. I cursed those criminals with all my heart. Why am I being haunted? I didn’t kill your son. I have no fault.”

The man didn’t respond. The taxi driver looked at the terrified man holding his son’s body with endless sadness and felt his mind completely crumbling. He hurried and got into the taxi. He was short of breath, trembling. Once again, he had a terrible moment of confusion. He didn’t know where he was and why he was rushing, but as soon as he started the taxi, his body took over, went into autopilot. He came back to his senses. “I have no fault. I didn’t kill your son. I didn’t do it. Why am I haunted? Oh, poor me! Ah, cursed conscience,” muttered bitterly.

He didn’t dare to look in the rearview mirror for fear of finding the man there again, looking at him with his endlessly sad eyes. In his rush, he noticed that the taximeter was still on, but he didn’t turn it off. Once again, the feeling of surrender overwhelmed him, to leave it all behind, that cursed Tirana, that cursed house where he had never had a peaceful night’s sleep. “This is all I have to do, just go straight to the police and tell them everything.” “No, never” he muttered like a beast. He stepped on the gas as hard as he could and drove away with the taxi sliding left and right on the road.

“I’m just a taxi driver, yes, just a taxi driver. I’m a professional taxi driver. I’m an excellent taxi driver. I must never forget this. No one handles the wheel like I do. I’m an exceptional taxi driver. That’s all I am, I’m nothing else, and I shouldn’t be anything else.”

The red digits on the taximeter still went on, billing the miles of escape, towards dead end roads, in endless nights, under the cries of drowned phantoms.