The dorm room is dimly-lit, a single fracture of light falling through windows - almost entirely covered by heavy curtains - highlighting the scene.
As I look around, the dregs of silence scream, alarm bells that sound at top volume. An arm hangs indolently over the edge of a bottom-bunk bed, frozen in a moment of time. I can hear a pin drop. There's no rise or fall of the chest.
With a whiskered chin, I take it the body is that of a man. His eyes take in more light than they should, ajar, with pupils fixed on the planks of the bed above. The four bare, white, Soviet-style walls are deaf to his pleas of desperation.
His face ghost-white and his chin dripping bile, a pungent smell infuses the stale air. I see the mobile that's clenched between the stiff fingers of his outstretched right hand, frozen in the air, a tool unable to breathe life back into his soul. There is nothing I can do.
The man in the dorm bed is, undeniably, dead. Who is he? And, how did he die?
Arriving in Saint Petersburg
Despite sleeping on board the Red Arrow between Moscow and Saint Petersburg, countless nights without a REM cycle - amid snorers in dormitory settings - have left patronising stamps of fatigue on my travel-weary, reddened face. The thought of sleep, wrapped beneath the warmth of woollen bed-linen, induces a feeling of dreaminess that propels physical action in reaching the hostel from the train station in sub-zero conditions.
Roaring along Nevsky Prospect on the public bus, standing amid locals on their way to work - passing prominent neoclassical constructions en route to pre-booked accommodation - squashes any sense of foreboding I'd conjured about post-communist, Mafia-controlled Mother Russia.
We arrive at the hostel named and decorated after the successful New York City nineties sitcom 'Friends', perform usual check-in formalities and go separate ways: Kylie to one dorm and I, to another.
I enter the dorm, doing so on tip toes while holding my breath, every effort not to disturb its sleeping occupants.
Entering the Dorm Room: Take 1
There is an absence of a 'Friends' vibe in the eight-bed dorm, bare walls, broken furniture and stale air filling the space.
I methodically manoeuvre my 70 litre backpack onto the cold, tiled floor, my beating heart the only sound I can hear. Moments later, the earth around me shatters, a sound emerging from my left that rattles the core of civilisation. Sixty seconds later, it returns, bouncing off the walls, forcing my eyes to roll at the thought of sharing the space with the person capable of producing it.
A case of sleep apnoea, perhaps, is causing the man to deprive his brain intermittently of oxygen.
I inform the receptionist who shrugs her shoulders.
"He is a regular at this hostel so there is no problem," she dismisses.
I'm not sure what she means. Is she unaware of the dangers? I return to the room, collect essentials for exploring the city on foot and meet an Irishman who's been occupying the bed adjacent the noisemaker. Incredulity plasters itself across his face.
"He's been doing that all night, without letup. Welcome to the dorm," he laughs.
With the prospect of no sleep, I decide a quick escape is the best card to play, a day of walking around cold city streets likely to induce a sense of fatigue so great I will sleep at night despite the earth-shattering sounds in the room. Trying to sleep now is futile, the snort-cum-wheeze an instrument of torture to a weary brain.
Am I delirious or drunk? Entering the Dorm Room: Take 2
Returning to the hostel five hours later - after an initiation to 'Russian culture' at the Vodka Museum, we enter a somber phase of the journey.
I enter the room and find the man, still in bed, his body void of life.
I kneel beside him, unnerved by finding his body listless, as a sliver of fractured light touches his face. A man of youth, handsome and chiselled with dark features and hair, he produces nothing more than a stench of death. I hear another pin drop. I feel my heart beating in my neck.
As dark clouds gather outside, ready to unleash the fury of the sodden skies, I gather myself, wiping pearls of water from my cheek with the sleeve of my woolly jacket. Cold rushes through me, touching every cell as it moves to the tiles that are hurting my knees.
How did he die? Is this real? How much vodka did I try?
There's no pulse.
Rest in peace, dorm-man. I go to reception and talk to the receptionist.
Handling the Russian Authorities
"The police will come and you will need to tell them your story, " is the decree she delivers, eyes fixed on the desk, pen in hand writing a note; it's business as usual. I feel cold.
I expect that, in times of distress - regardless of ethnic and cultural differences, an instinctive sense of humanity will take over. Where's the concern and compassion, the seasoning with salt and friendly look in the eyes?
I ask about the man, a regular visitor to the hostel. He didn't use drugs. He didn't drink. I didn't smell alcohol in the room. How did he die? Was it apnoea-related aspiration? Could he have been poisoned?
My mind is in overdrive.
I hear the word 'police' which invokes a guttural sense of fear. Hearing the word in Russia invokes a flight response. Shrouded in conspiracy, there's continuing international speculation about the level of involvement the Russian Mafia have in curtailing the actions of government agencies.
I have committed no crimes but I feel guilty. I envision myself incarcerated in a Russian prison, years before being sent to Siberia to perish.
One Life is Lost and Another is Spared
I wait with Kylie. The manager examines the body with three police officers. She returns to the reception desk after an hour.
"The police cannot question you without an official interpreter. They speak no English" are the words that fall glacially off her tongue.
They are music to my ears. The boy had perished, somehow, alone in a dark and lonely dorm room. My life, conversely, had just been spared.
The police leave the building while the image of the dead man imprints itself on my brain.
Reflecting on the Death in a Dorm Room
We wander the omnipotent streets of Saint Petersburg for several days, surrounding ourselves by neoclassical brilliance at every turn and moving in and out of cafes and enigmatic museums and galleries.
It's not a convincing distraction, despite the glimmer of beauty in the architectural and artistic details.
We are consumed by questions that are left unanswered.
There is a postmortem but we are not made privy to the details, cause of death unknown. Suspicions abound and the magic being emitted by the city's streets does not induce the sense of wanderlust and travel-pleasure it should.
I want to know why his life was lost. The Russian man's canvas of life had been erased, unlike those covering the walls of The Hermitage. The same hand that had frozen, clenched around his mobile phone, had once been enclosed within the warmth and safety of his mother's.
He was somebody's son. He was somebody's student. He was somebody's friend. Now he's in a morgue, being prepared for eternal resting.
It's not the journey I'd envisioned. There is no happy ending. I leave the country perplexed, unsure how I feel about what's happened and wondering if I ever want to return. Perhaps time will heal the wound and I'll find solace, somewhere and somehow.
Rest in peace, Russian man in the Saint Petersburg dorm. I'm sorry I wasn't there to try and save your life.
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