After the call Csaba drinks through the whole night. He has to borrow money to buy the booze, but he drinks anyway and remembers. He puts on a Steelbird album, the final LP called To Live or to Die. He puts the final song on repeat. The only Steelbird song without drums, only acoustic guitars and violin. It’s kind of a ballad, titled ‘Like Crows in the Sky’. He and Endre wrote it together. Not a very good song, but what Steelbird song is?

I recall the afternoon they wrote it. They were rehearsing in a garage out in an abandoned industrial facility by the edge of the forest. I liked that garage. It almost felt like a kind of a home, since the darkness of the forest was always whispering into my ears, hastening me, ‘now-now’ rustled the leaves, ‘now-now’ hissed the snakes. But I knew the time was not ripe. Csaba was not yet ready for the Throne. He sat by the edge of the forest with Endre, each holding a beer. I wished I could sit there with them, I wished I too could sip the lukewarm Kőbányai, like I was one of them. I kneeled on the ground and listened to the two of them talk. We looked up at the sky darkened by crows, our ears filled up with the caws. I gestured towards the sky as a greeting, but nobody saw it. The crows returned to their nests in the woods, resting for the night. That was when Endre dropped the piece of wisdom the song was based on.

‘We’re just like these crows,’ he said. ‘For a minute we fill up the sky, then poof, we’re gone, not a trace left. Nothing.’

I wanted to hug Endre. This was what I had been trying to explain to Csaba his entire life. This was what I offered a way out from. To become the sky itself, and not just a passing bird against it.

Silence settled upon them. Csaba was quiet. I could feel that deep down in him something was changing. He remained silent a little longer, then said, ‘Yeah,’ and took another sip.

By the next day they had finalized the song, but the finished version conveyed very little of the atmosphere of the previous night. The audience still liked it. It was often the penultimate song at their shows.

I’m looking at Csaba now. He’s sitting by the table crying. I want to hug him, but he would only push me away, even if he saw me crying. Tonight I will be ready with a new nightmare. It will be about the afternoon full of crows, the last conversation between them in Csaba’s kitchen, the bills and the welfare office. I hope this will be the push that will finally convince him.