fragment (a dream)

I remember it vividly, part of my dream,
the sunrise spilled at the horizon, mixed with the indigo
of the sky, sipping through the loosely closed doors
of my eyelids. Colors whisper in silence, alive and vibrant,
sticks to my hair like a spring honey, pale-yellow and lustrous,
falling in circular silky waves to the floor, as the scissors
chew on it with a metallic, monotonous rhythm…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (happy holidays)

I raise my glass
to every lost soul on this planet,
it is I among them,
to every fortunate and unfortunate one
it is I one of them.

I raise my glass
to every soul, that vibrates
in the agony of life
and shines with glorious beauty
while burning into ashes.

I raise my glass
to every one of them.


© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (with you)

There was a night and a river.
Fireflies were dropping burning shoes
into the bonfire. I leaned on your shoulder,
my breath condensed me into a drop
on your skin…

A frozen particle from the tail of the comet,
I felt down, into soft pile of amber.
A striped yellow cat was purring
his cat song into indifference
of the last moment. And I decipher then,
life is full of surprises…
but not anticipated ones.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (the choices, conclusion)

And, in conclusion, life is a routine. “Magical Beings’ (Castaneda), have no routines. In my mind – alive being has choices versus routine. If one doesn’t probe the fringes of his routines, how can one possibly know that he is alive? Who said “I am thinking therefore I am alive”? Not so fast. Let’s say in my dream I travel across the Galaxy, land in an alien world, interact with alien life – all extremely vivid dream/memory. For 10 minutes of real time, my mind thought and lived decades of a very interesting life. And I was not aware at all of my ‘other’ body, comfortably resting in the bed. It’s going to be like this every time until I will train my brain to split in two: let one wander and another to know better. It would be a mistake to try changing or to control oneself, evolution spent millions (?) of years to mold me into what I am, I cannot change anything and since I endured it all – I am perfect as I am. But I can change my immediate environment. There is a tricky thing about the environment – it resists any changes, sometimes violently. You cannot command it, you must trick it. One method I know – sudden change of routine, a detour, a ‘timebubble’. And it not only helps one to change the environment but also gives an assurance of being alive. Not to dwell too deep into a philosophic concept I will say, I haven’t seen any dead person to be alive but I have seen many alive people being dead.

letters (fractured...)

Fractured thought
freshly inked on to my skin,
snowflakes in black.
Words bleed like a dream.

Broken flowers
smell like death…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (the choices, cont...)

As one of my friends emphasized my words about personalities that in competition to express itself as of a russian doll within a doll. I imagine it as onion layers. Peter Ouspensky referred to the phenomenon as a multiple ‘I’s’.

His writing, at least about this particular subject, was based on observation and intuition and perhaps it is a little ambiguous to the modern reader. Since his time we gained significant, but still limited, insight into physiology of our actions, and choices…

We all know now that consciously we are aware of only about a fraction of all information that our brain receives and process in a unit of time, in simple words our mind decides what information is important and has priority to ensure our survival, something one must be aware of.

A classic example when a gazillion bits of information every cell of our skin sends to the brain every moment about the shirt one is wearing, although one will become aware of his shirt only in the case of sudden changes (hot coffee spilled over your left sleeve), real danger of injury. But then, sometimes spilled coffee would not be translated objectively but rather will resurrect a memory of a past event or a fantasy from the future. There is a competing "I" in action.

Next, let’s stick with Ouspensky as he said, all depends on the magnetic center within our being, a core, a Master in a sense, something we develop, consciously or unconsciously, during our lifetime. Something we are born with and genetically vary from each other.

This is an extensive and complex concept, some people devote decades of their lifetime to understand it. I can say that this is a door and when I look through it I see that there is a vast number of things in the world one will discover during his lifetime, there is an incalculable number of things in the world, one will never be aware of and there are a few things one can create, and those are not the property of the World but the property of a Being.

And conclusion… next time…

fragments ( the choices)

On my way to work… Another beautiful spring morning in Detroit, in the end of December. There is nothing particular I like about spring, on the contrary, it is the dirtiest time of the year, especially at the beginning. I like the moment of spring in December, (I would love to see one snowy morning in July, never happened though). When inappropriate (meaning does not belong) structures appear in your environment, they have tendencies to sharpen your focus beyond your normal limits. In my Theory of Time they form ‘time bubbles’.

An inappropriate spring morning and, suddenly, I am in one of the April’s mornings. The landscape is recognizable to the last tree, to the last building, to the last shadow, and, not the memories, but a reality of the past suddenly flooded my being.

I think if I would have enough personal strength I would have an opportunity to change my future if I change something now, while I am in that time bubble.

How much strength one needs to change the routine of the moment? I am taking the next left... side roads instead of the regular one. Sure enough, within a few minutes I am escaping a car accident by a split second.

Aftershock of adrenaline surge… my hands still shaking… regretful thought ‘ why are you always messing with things you have no or little understanding of?’. The thought is regretful but not remorseful. I will do it again the first opportunity I get.

We make our choices and take our chances. Being bored and boring is worse than being weird, trust me on this one…

letters (something real)

I want to write about something real and tangible. I hold a glass of red wine;
it reminds me of blood, gushing from a small but deep cut
over the little child’s forehead: fear, scream,
thick dark liquid over the transparent sclera of the eye.
I tried to stop the bleeding; he wrestled me to the floor,
both covered with blood that dried quickly over our hands and faces…
He tries to run away with the flow, I try to restrain it.
The pain, mine –emotional, imagined, his- physical and real,
erased by the surge of adrenaline.
His panic disappeared by the moment when the fire truck arrived
with sirens on, followed by the ambulance.
We both are cured after the nine fancy stitches over the left eyebrow
and a few red popsicles.

I have a sip and observe the drops lazily sliding back into the glass…

In a flash I see an English man in the hospital bed.
He arrived two days earlier here, in Detroit,
to meet his online girlfriend for the first time.
On second thought, he may have followed his destiny through distance
and time where his life could be spared.
He felt ill for no reasons at all.
He was turning ashy in front of my eyes.
The violent wave of vomit was leaving his body with his last breath.
A friend of mine, intercepting the trajectory,
was covered by blood instantly from her hair to her toes.
He lived after surgical emergency. And her…
she was taking a shower,at first with her clothes and shoes on
and then in the nude. She cried all the time,
with hiccups, chocking on her tears,
trembled like a little bird, when I dried her off.

Then I saw something I never saw before,
a man on his way to his final destination.
I am a little girl, a viewer of his Path, among thousands of others.
He dropped his heavy cross and kneeled to pick it up,
when our eyes briefly met.
Two tear drops fell, mixed with the dry blood and sweat on his face
and slid over his cheeks in two pinky stripes.
He cried for me. I knew…
Don’t ask me why and how.

Heavy droplets trapped in the glass, real and tangible.
...I can see through it...

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (A perfect world)

Five trips later to the local Walgreens
and I hold in my hands the perfect post card
that was made just for the occasion.
There are two famous cartoon characters
sitting on a fallen tree, I assume in the meadow,
I imagine in the middle of spring,
the buzzing bugs camouflaged by the yellow flowers
into the fuzzy carpet accentuated by the occasional white butterfly.
one of the characters says to his friend,
‘ how nice for you to be you and not someone else’.
I looked at it for a while and thought
it is a magical world where you are you,
me is me and someone else is someone else.
I would never want to live in a world
where things are different and you aren’t you.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (I hesitate)

The stars wrapped
into heavy clouds,
erased by the darkness
into invisibility.
Silence slips
through the crevices
of the broken chimes,
runs with the wind,
breaking the peak of the sound.
Fluidity of melodic waves,
wishful whispers...
Black silk of the night
draped the pine tree.
The form reminds me
of a spacecraft:
powered, trembling with impatience,
ready to depart for a long journey
on my mark.
…I hesitate…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters

A word… lines, curves, circles
inked into the virgin body
smudged at the edges…
fading, molecule by molecule,
into an abyss of time.

A name… an electric shock
through the synaptic gaps,
vanishing immortality of the moment.
… echoes… whispers…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(The Owl)

She stays longer when the lights are on,
even so it should be irritating
for her nocturnal eyes...
I talked with her last night
briefly, when the glass of the window melted
under the pressure of the winter cold
and then we flew in silence, until
she dropped me into the dark waters.
I didn’t swim out this time.
I drowned.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (more fragments)

in the darkest hour of the night
i gaze at the stars.
i look at the puddle
under the street light.
…i see your eyes
that never blink.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya



cold… stable, persistent…
all that is warm is destined to perish,
burn alive in agony, know the flesh,
be an object…
subject in an experiment, discarded,
disposed when purpose served…
cries contained,
frozen into the filaments of light,
erased by the darkness…
cold… dark…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(trapped)

Trapped by the peaks and valleys:
restriction, structure, limit, sinfulness…

The gates of dreams
shrouded by the breath of the moment,
free and invisible. One step to exit…

I left them behind,
children of the draft and flames,
prowling shadows, guards…

one more step and a touch…
bare feet, cold grass, the bride…
the sun outlines the silhouette.
Swarming bees carry the nectar of the memory
drop by drop to the amber castle.

A distant call short circuit.
At first, sweet and soft, but then
loud and destructive…
fine structure shatters, falls down,
touching the ground with loud
ding-ding-ding….melts, flow…

where there is a river, there are river banks…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (far away in time)

Almost every summer there are periods of heavy rains. The better summers saw three day stretches of rain and the worst ones drenched for nine days in lukewarm water, steadily falling from the broken sky. I used to love those long stretches.

As a child, I suffered frequent migraines, but never on the rainy days, as if the water washed my clogged brain. During those days, the usual boredom would get swollen into timeless lethargy, compared to the peacefulness of the grave.

My father, a chain-smoker, would open the front door, take my baby chair, light a cigar of his own making and own growing and sat there, watching the wall of rain. I would sit next to him, on the floor, leaning on his leg, copying his action, trying to singulate a droplet and follow its fall. We sat there for hours without saying a word. I felt incredibly safe and comfortable at those times, safe like never again.

Eventually I would fall asleep and he would carry me to my bed. Upon awakening I would recall the rain-gazing. It would be entangled with my dreams, blurred by the fragile memory, absorbed by the new day and forgotten.

I had never smoked, but each time when someone lit a cigar and as soon as the smoke would touch my nostrils, I smell the monsoon, mixed with black dirt of the Steppe. And I feel safer, I feel home…
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (the last drop)

All sore from the self-inflicted bruises
of painful events, a product
of entangled imagination.
…’suppose to’, never have happened…
I sat and laughed when you said
I was the last drop to overflow the cup.
And I thought that I was a Golden Fish,
I thought I could grant a wish, if caught.
I swam carefully around all baits,
behind the glass of a cup,
famished, fearful of being trapped.
… where I was just a spark of light,
broken over the glass,
distorted by the prism of water,
trapped in a drop…
But, at last, I caused a flood.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments ('Dead End')

Homeless dog curled under the street sign,
black bones of a ‘Dead End’
over the dirty-yellow body,
empty eyes drown in the insanity
of never-ending Now.
Ticks, flies, fleas, death – ran away
from the furry island of Nirvana.
I walk by fast, avoiding eye contact…
the blissfulness of nothing is familiar… contagious
and survival doesn’t assure immunity.

©  2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(sometimes...something)

Sometimes it feels like every word you’ve ever had in your mind was drained out of you onto paper. You feel your heart just an engine, perfectly contracting: not skipping beats, no accelerations. And your blood just the right mix of chemicals in a flawless flow, your brain is empty and blank; it bored out of its mind. It has nothing to do, just amuse itself by the work of this mechanism, called the human body: synchronicity, sync, order and agreement.

But something… something deep inside longing for the chemical imbalance, heartbeats with skipping, accelerating, abrupt stops, for words to surface again over the tranquility of a quiet mind… and rain, and rain, and rain… with love, fear, pain, death… with life…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (life is a teardrop of time)

Through the cloud of ice
falling…
into the dark waters of the Styx.
Frozen…
…cold smiles, masks of pain,
deception embedded in a web of irises.
Static, plastered onto an icy surface.
…moments in time
stuccoes side by side
in a horizon of forever.
… broken,
falling through a cloud of ice,
disappearing in dark waters,
like teardrops,
bitter and hot,
too insignificant to make changes.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (again)

Again…
the shadow
of a familiar silhouette
shimmers
against the white noise.

A face, reflected by blue indifference,
sometimes shrouded by the bones
of a winter's stripped tree...
The cloned memory invades
the innocence of the night.
The eyes are broken
by the sideview of a never-ending landscape.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (the sea)

The sea is quiet, obedient
stays in the definition of its shores,
always pregnant with anger. Don’t talk.
The rage is growing, brewing in depth.
Don’t trust. The reflection of the sky
in the tranquility of the surface. False.
The true nature is hidden from the blind eye of men.
The agony of birth breaks the stagnant shores.
The sea rushes for refuge into the sanctuary
of a human life. Don’t cry. It destroys all in its path
in a failed attempt to deliver a healthy child,
only to leave a lifeless fetus behind... in ruins,
infested by decaying corpses. All silent.
It rushes back into the depression of a wounded face of Earth
to heal its sorrows, to mourn the children of the Sun
in the House of the pale Moon.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (a touch of sound)

A snowflake shivers
on my lips.
A drop of water
trembles,
slides.

Your name…
a bird
born to fly,
migrate
to distant lands,
home,
the origin.

A beacon in time,
compass,
guiding force…
Your voice.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (why would I care?)

Life has been found everywhere:
beneath the frozen poles, in acid lakes,
it creeps on the ocean floors
despite the pressure
and flourishes in boiling vents.
Some day it would be found high above
in exotic nameless places…

But why would I care?..

They say the end of days is coming,
world squeezes into a bottle neck,
refuses to drink the misery by portions,
it wants to swim in liquid hell.
Neutrino finally got up to speed,
or shall I say ran over limits.
I’ll write a siltation for those bastards,
if I would care.

It rains. I’d say its blizzard time.

There are your footprints in the snow…
I care for winter to never end,
for the wind to stop to blow,
until I find them…

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (my sister)

My sister
is the master of the final touch.
She is determined to break the spell
that lingers over my solitary soul.
She tirelessly makes concoctions,
improving recipes with new ingredients,
increasing my immunity
with every drop of remedy.

She reached her limits
and the finality of her solution
is to send me to the Moon.
First man to land would be my cure.
tale of the princess and a fool,
had crossed my mind. At my request
at least a human man, she looked at me,
she raised her brow and said
“stop being picky”.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (less than nothing)

A thought bridges what is
and what would be.

An avalanche of effects,
chained to the cause
by the moment of birth,
ripe and ready to break free.

I am at the bank of the known:
frozen, invisible, less than nothing.

Mortality imbedded in every breath.


© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (The Worst Day.)

It has been lonely since Sally left. At first Sam would forget to turn off the lights. On occasion, he leaves a faucet on and the sounds of dripping water echo through the empty house all day. He doesn’t pay attention to his water bill quadrupling in the last few months. But why would he? He never paid the water or any other bills before. It was Sally’s responsibility.

There has not been much food in the house lately. Sam drinks every evening until he falls asleep in the front of the TV.

I missed Sally too, but I have snapped out of the grief. I wonder when Sam will finally get back to his normal self.

Today he left the light on, the faucet running, no food in the house, and the front door unlocked. My last drop of loyalty and patience evaporated when a strong gust of wind hit the door and pushed it wide open. The cold air filled every room and every corner.

I sat by the front door for a while waiting for his return, but there was nothing coming in except the snow piling up on Sally’s favorite green carpet. I decided that today was the worst day of my life and I walked away. I hope to find a better home. I know no one will call me Sally anymore. Sam gave me that name the day he found me on the street and brought me home. He said “Sally meet Sally” and placed me in his wife hands: they were warm and soft, and smelled like milk.

I may not find a home since it is easy to get lost in a snowstorm when your fur is just as white.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments

I am blind,
…indifferent
to the world
of reasons.
I play in the sands
at the shore
of the land,
I had made,
at the edge
of the seasons,
where the snowflakes
swim
on the boat
of a tilted
rainbow.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments

Dust, spider webs,
frozen memories
old and demented,
left behind by the previous owners
residents of the Nursing Homes.

I wash images from your walls
layer by layer, day by day
until I see the white virginity
of your bones.

I will hang my images,
decorating your new emptiness.

One day you will bury it all
in the rubble of your corps,
while I look indifferently
into a blue sky,
through the glass
of a locked window.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (that smile embalms my spleen...)

My breath whispers
never happened memories,
echoes forbidden rituals.

That smile embalms my spleen…

I choke on my thirst,
drink from an empty glass.
I rip a nerve each time…
I touch memory
of the never happened.
I inhale deep,
filling my lungs with deadly addiction.

I measure my walk heel to toe,
unbroken chain of footprints
at the shore.

I close my eyes
and let the night ripple
over my skin,
cut the umbilicus, erase my world…
… I sit in tall grass
and spread the bones of my fingers
contemplating my escape,
a gateway, I’ll walk one day,
over the hill, in damp sand,
following my footprints.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments

pain isn’t a feeling but misery,
luxury when all feelings are gone.
I beat myself into a pulp
against the wall…
never seen, never felt.
layers of polished quartz
byproduct of imagination.

may it all go to hell…

apocalypse is not applicable
due to its statistical rarity.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments

I noticed dry blood
around the corners of her lips.
I asked ‘why did you do it?’.
while tourniqueting her arm,
taking her attention away,
making casual conversation.

The truth is hard to conceal
in the moment of shock.
I had expected anything, but
‘ I was a vampire and needed to feed.’
I shut my mouth and tilted my head to my shoulder,
feeling sudden attachment to my jugular.

As far as the official story goes,
the thought of Jesus being nailed to the cross.
She eased the pain of compassion
with the pain of her flesh.

It’s a wonder how the human mind can find balance
on a narrow ledge, half a step from Jesus and half from a vampire.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments(life is not a choice, Pytia, part III)

Pythia

Out in the distance, a figure clad in a black cloak with golden inlays stepped out of the whirlwind and whipped her hand around, causing the unnatural phenomenon to disburse as quickly as it appeared.
She looked around, her grim exterior taking in the desolation of her location while the dust itself paid her homage by settling at the ancient sandals that covered her tattooed feet. She floated over the hot sand, levitating inches over the surface before stopping at an abandoned campsite. A place where a woman named Amy Barnes had successfully fought to survive the death edict imposed on her by one of the last remaining Eternals in the universe. A slight that Pythia, Goddess of the Mortal Coil, would set right – even if it cost the lives of millions to rectify. She closed her whitened eyes and tilted her head, sucking in the words her latest plaything had uttered while she laid there. A sneer crossed her lips.
“Life is not a choice, mortal. Life is a chance and death the only certainty your kind will ever know. Your existence is merely borrowed time. Your breath mine for the taking. For I am death... and I will not be mocked, eluded, or denied a soul which should be in my gullet.”

She came into the world in 422 BC, was named Saffa by her parents, and thrived under their care for the first eighteen months of her life. Since her face had been covered by a caul when she was born, and animals and birds would congregate in her presence whenever her parents took her outside, the portents were too much for the leaders of Delphi to ignore. After being taken away from her home to stay at the Oracles of Delphi, she grew up to become Pythia, the most powerful seer in all of Greece, and making her prophecies and warnings from the Temple of Apollo located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus. In those days, no major decision would be made without first seeking her council: life and death ones like to wage war or forge peace, nature-based ones such as telling farmers when to start planting their crops, and sometimes trivial ones to determine the father of a child in the belly of a fornicating woman.

One day, the vapors from which Pythia's visions came were darker than usual, affecting both her mind and body. While being consulted by a local politician on which day his wedding should be held, blood began to seep from every orifice in her body. As the onlookers gasped in fear and ran from the temple, the brackish vapors floating around her turned into fire and engulfed her, burning not her skin or tissue, but seemingly her soul instead. When Pythia woke up from her ordeal, she found herself naked, save for a few shards of burnt clothing clinging to her waist and legs. Taking a purple cloak that one of her followers had discarded during their escape, she wrapped it around her body and gasped when a voice announcing he was Apollo himself called out to her from the very air inside his temple. After informing Pythia of his displeasure in her growing haughtiness, and her frequent prayers of wanting to know the pleasures of a man for the first time in her life, Apollo decreed her a Reaper. Doomed to spend eternity taking souls to the underworld while she herself would always be denied the death awaiting everyone.

During the last three millenia, she performed her tasks to the best of her abilities, but she soon grew weary with waiting for natural deaths – she wanted to have an actual say in the matters to give her some small portion of satisfaction with her fate. She appeared in the dreams of Catholic religious leaders in the twelfth century, giving them permission to start the Spanish Inquisition. She scattered plague-bearing rats across Europe in the thirteenth century, giving scores of people the Black Death. She also whispered her desires for the concentration camps into the willing ears of Heindrich Himmler when she met him in 1923, while attending meetings of the Thule society, along with her dreams of 'restarting civilization' in the thoughts of Pol Pot in the twentieth century. When the twin towers came tumbling down in the twenty-first century, she laughed in glee from her vantage point of the green goddess perched in the waters nearby. On occasion, she tired of mass executions and concentrated on single targets, spinning her web of destiny around them like a spider cocooning its prey. To her, Amy Barnes, Alex Melnychuk, Peter Rossington, and Dennard Jeffers were puppets. Unlucky mortals who had pissed off a goddess by being in the wrong place at the right time.
Above all things, Pythia hated failure. The two bikers had failed to kill the girl, who stupidly chose to live, who involved the young man who should have kept his metal chariot going on the smoothed road.
Pythia stared in the direction of the smoke spewing transportation the mortal drove and smiled for the first time in decades.
“You will die mortals. There is nowhere to hide. No justice. No quarter. You will perish as all humans do; in pain, agony, and laying in your own blood and excrement. Like I should have... ages ago.”

fragments(searching)(revised)

Searching still
in the blindness of my eyes,
in the silence of my mind.
‘Am I dead yet?’… question?… statement?...
Singularity floats on the surface of nothing.
I hold on to it ‘am I dead yet?’
The glimmer of familiarity
within the ocean of senselessness.

I have not known me:
my sight dissolved in dark waters.
‘Am I dead yet?’ screaming, terrifying thought-entity
curled into the circle of repetition.
My mind holds on with the despair
of a legless soldier who was left behind…
With the effort of a man
that start to rebuild his world
around unknown reality
in a newly initiated blindness.

‘Am I dead yet?’ has no meaning, but must…
otherwise the embryo would be swallowed…
it has no past, it knows no death. ‘Am I alive?’
It increases itself cell by cell
into more…

‘Where was I before?’ ‘I am intact… and separated
from the music, broadcast by the car radio into beyond,
from the sunlight, voices of people
rushing from every direction
to aid in the scoop of biology
that used to be familiar…,
trapped in the engineering marvel,
reduced into the state of chaos…,
first time alive, aware to the rhythm of the heartbeat.
It would be surgically extracted in a moment
and given for the recipient.’

…I will know it later,
when my mind will reconstructs the crack in time,
cementing it with the reality of imaginary tales…
Last thing to go – first thing to return,
hearing, that would be it…

Invasion of the sound into singularity
rebooted the system.
The radio was there and I was not.
I felt my heartbeat, my breath was back…
some memories… mind floated at the fringes…
flashing images of quadriplegia with horrors
worst than a death sentence…

I fought it…
‘Wiggle your toes’, was my only argument.
I refused.
Little comfort in the blissfulness of not knowing…

‘Wiggle your toes, coward.’ I caved in, gave up…
more effort that I have ever known…
I send the thought into my toes…
Oh, triumph! It listened…
with symmetry and equality.
Vision was back as a blur of light.
That was not important anymore.
I have surrendered into the hands of others.
I needed rest…

‘Stay with me, stay with me!’ hard hits over my eardrums.
‘Don’t drift, stay with me.’
So I did for a while… but then I thought
‘no more…’

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (A woman.)

Agness, a prostitute by trade
marginalized by her need
to satisfy what she called her ‘albino-baby’
faced reality with numb body, dull mind
overstretched, ready to snap…
Hope’s last drop, sipped from within… redemption, recovery,
promised better days ahead.

Cosmetics masked the map of her fall.
Yet, I saw sparks of life in the blue morning sky.
Wind played with a shoulder-length hair,
While elegant hands, scarred and trembling
swept it back into the place.
I saw a woman unfortunate and ill
feeding hers and his addiction.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (...)

The darkness swirls
near candle light,
as a helpless moth
flies
into the trembling flames.
Quick death
in less than a half
of breath.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (Journey)

In your deadly embrace
I surrender,
I die…
…attracted, dissolved,
filtrated,
run underground….
until reborn and surfaced
in the cold creek
in the middle of night.
Naked… silver
in the light
of the local moon
carelessly suspended
in its fullness
from the dark corner
of sky…
Drops of water…
Wet trail left behind…
I run through the field,
no horizon…
Cold grass,
gift of the spring,
heal soles of my feet,
from the journey
through the minerals.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (Step into my world...)

Step into my world, away from all the follies,
invented by my fellow men. Behind
the wall of rain, where the horizon stops
and doubles in reflection. Come with me.
Over the edge of the planet, it used to be flat.

The shape and color of an apple
is less important
that its taste.

Come with me. We’ll fly away,
hand in hand, through the wall of the rain,
into the land of many moons floating
beneath the canopy of uncharted constellations.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (goodbye)

The song without words,
the frames without pictures.
My eyes without tears.
My time trapped in the past.
…forgiven and not forgotten…

The night falls down
to the ground… my friends…
I see them passing by.
Sometimes I wave goodbye
and sometimes I remain silent,
just watch them disappearing
into the fog of the past.
Sometimes I miss them,
and my heart dips in my memory,
dances with the shadows,
talks with the echoes bounced
from the wall of forgetfulness.
And sometimes
I just want to be alone and silent
in the land of the dead.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (Things in the woods’ and a bed-time story.)

Things in the woods’ and a bed-time story.

(inspired by my two fellow writers attempts on (The Cult)and (The Occult).

Ones upon a time the phone rang.
“Hello. Is this a mister Forrest?”
“It would be me. And what’s your problem now, Big Bad?
Don’t tell me that I have to bail you out of Granny’s basement
ones again. Stop messing with Red-Riding.”
“Can you permit me to talk…?”
“Fell free.”
“I strolled your woods this morning, just to check on rabbits
and see if squirrels are comfy in their presence…”
“ Hey, Bad, get to the chase, and cut the crap.”
“As I did say, I run the woods; I saw two boys…”
“You didn’t try to munch on them, did you?”
“No, no! They counted your trees! One drifted to the left
and the other one in opposite direction….”
“So what? Not in your list of things to do.”
“Yes, but... they marked the trees: one with white stripes
and other with yellow circles. They did more and,
each time they marked a tree,
they walked around and chanted ‘THEY’”
“Who’s ‘THEY’?”
“ Dunno”
“Hmmm, that’s strange indeed and way above your pay grade, Wolf.
Let me talk to Red-Riding-Hood.”
“M, m,m,m,…”
“Can’t fool me, Wolf. I know she’s standing next to you.”
“Hi, Sir.”
“Do the usual: capture, restrain and chain in basement. At least one of them.
Don’t let him talk. And wait for me”
“Yes, Sir.”
Click.
Silence.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

The market place.

A piece of bread clenched in the jaw of a homeless dog.
He bravely navigates between boots, shoes, heels and bare feet.
The fish stares at me through the glass
of vacant eyes.
Rotting fruits attended by angry wasps.
A fat fly nests on the bleeding stake,
warmed up by the mid-day sun.
I suppress the urge to vomit
with a thought that her unhatched progeny
would be served ‘well done’.

Shoulders and hands, scarves and hats,
green and yellow, blue and red,
mixes and moves…

I swallow my soundless scream
as my lungs fill with the liquid
of the crowd.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (life isn't a choice) Alex, chapter II

High school graduation seemed like ages ago to Alex, currently bored to tears as he drove his eighteen-wheeler down a lonely stretch of highway in the middle of a California nowhere. He had three months to kill before he started college, so he agreed to help his uncle out by taking runs from Bakersfield, California to Detroit, Michigan and back. He stretched out his lanky legs, twisted his wiry body, and ran an absent hand through his brown, shoulder length hair. As he fought off the boredom from his lonely ride, he repeated the advice his doting mother had given him about the uncertain future that lay ahead.
“Life is a series of choices, Alex. A maze of thoughts, decisions, ramifications, and consequences. Whichever path you take, whatever junction you chose, will depend on what you surround yourself with. Be it, good or bad women, honest or deceitful friends or,” he remembered she had stopped to laugh, “whatever traffic and road conditions you come across. Never forget, your well being is the primary objective.”

Alex recalled what it was like when he first received his driver's license. He was rarely at home afterward: partying when he wasn't working, taking girls to make-out at Chauncer's Lake, and later on spending his time with them at cheap motels. He loved his freedom; the way he could fishtail in a deserted parking lot after a snowfall, or gun the car into the hundreds as he blew down a highway at three in the morning. When the trucking job came his way, Alex jumped on it. For him, the road had always been a hobby; a lover that made him feel alive as the white lines on the streets blurred before his eyes. In the cab of his truck, overlooking the highway like a denim and plaid covered God, he was home. He quickly shifted gear and, while taking a glance at the speedometer and the darkened oil light, a thought not unlike his mother's traced through his mind.
This road represents your freaking life, Dude. Like decisions, they run their course, cross each other, merge into a single plan, and split off from what you thought would happen to you. The changing scenery is like women. Some beautiful, some ugly as hell, and some dangerous to be messing with.

He laughed to himself as he changed the radio station that was getting weaker, turning the dial to one that played the alternative rock he favored. He reached out and dug into the white bag filled with snacks, changing his mind to pull the brown bag closer to him so he could fish his last cheeseburger out before it got too cold. He purchased it at the Burger King in Fresno, conveniently located beside the gas station that charged a dollar and twenty cents for diesel; thirty cents more than the one in his hometown of Detroit did. His uncle had given him a sort of allowance in addition to taking the load to Michigan. Twenty dollars a day for drinks, munchies, and food. The three burgers had cost him three bucks, the bag of munchies five, and the six pack of cokes chilling in a small ice chest had set him back four.
“That leaves you with a whole eight bucks for your dinner. Sounds like a greasy diner and a case of indigestion is in your immediate future tonight.”
He passed a vulture on the side of the road, waddling back and forth as he waited for traffic to clear. Alex assumed roadkill was on the mottled bird's mind, causing to to smile as he mentally compared it to his next meal. He made quick work of the burger while he listened to a song by Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica, both songs giving him a reason to slap the steering wheel like a strangely shaped drum kit.
His mind flashed back to the buzzard. If he had been outside his truck, watching it from the side of the road, it would have given him the creeps. He remembered as a child seeing an illustration of a Griffin, a mythological beast with parts of several different animals. For years, the detailed picture had given him nightmares of one swooping down on him like an avenging angel, taking him up into the sky with its sharp talons digging into his side, only to drop him to his death. He always woke up before it happened.
He looked in his side mirror before he swerved to miss a recliner sitting in the middle of the two lane highway, thankful the other lane was free of oncoming cars. He gazed at the console again, checking the oil and antifreeze lights before making sure his speed was in the realm of the limits posted. They were all dark and seventy miles an hour tweaked the maximum as far as he was concerned. His next stop would be Barstow, on the California-Arizona line but that was still an hour or so away. For the next twenty minutes he zoned out and immersed himself in the changing patina of rock songs and the solitude of the road. When he felt himself getting drowsy Alex grabbed a coke from the cooler, downed a few sips, and rubbed the cold can over his face. The icy coldness served to wake him up – big time.
Staring at the red and white on the can, Alex was reminded of how soft drinks used to be a delicacy to him and his family. He was five when his parents emigrated from the Ukraine and settled in the familiar chilliness of Michigan, but those first few years were now a blur in his memory. While he was used to frigid living conditions he always wondered how people could live in the heated extremes of the desert lands of Arizona and Nevada.
“I can deal with the cold. The ladies like to snuggle and I love sitting in front of a nice toasty fire. Sweating my ass off is totally bogus, though.” He paused to watch a dust devil tear its way over a desolate stretch of dry land, whirling around like a harmless tornado; as if God himself stuck his finger on the plains and swirled it around to amuse himself.
“Now that's something a northern boy doesn't see very often.”
He recalled an old wives tale about dust storms being a harbinger of bad things, but he wasn't sure if his memories were legit. He automatically checked his oil gauge and coolant light again. He had no desires to be stranded in the middle of a desolate area with no air conditioning and four cokes to tide him over.
“Don't even think about it, God. Your boy Alex doesn't want to be vulture food anytime soon.”

At this moment Alex thought he saw a human figure standing by the road about half a mile from him. His eyesight was usually very good, but the sand being kicked up by the vicious winds played havoc with his vision. As he neared the solitary figure he could tell it was a woman.
“Alex... it's strange to see a person, especially a chick, hitching in the middle of a desert. I don't see a car broken down anywhere either.” He began to apply his air brakes and take his foot off the gas.
“Whoever you are, cutie... it's your lucky day.”
His uncle told him not to let anyone in the truck, even going as far to tell him to turn down a nun or a priest if he happened across a stranded one. In the past he had given people help: fixing a flat, checking out their car to see why it wouldn't crank, and even gave them food and water until help arrived. As he came to a slow stop near the woman, he saw she looked to be in her twenties, definitely needed a bath, and had a stare that burrowed its way into his soul. It looked to be a cross between happiness and hate.
“Shit! I hope she ain't trouble. Anyway, Unk never said anything about turning down hot hitcher babes, now did he?”
He watched her head appear at the passenger window, using the foot stool to hoist herself up. Her eyes were set deep in their sockets from exhaustion. One was swollen and filled with blood. She also had a split lip that marred her attempt to give him a bright smile. He rolled down the window for her.
“Are you okay? You look like someone pushed you out of a damn car.”
“I'll manage,” she said, adjusting the straps on the large backpack behind her. “Can you give me a ride to the next town? I promise that's as far as you need to take me.”
“I'll take you to the hospital if you want me to? Did someone kick your ass or what?
“Something like that,” she replied, shrugging as she winced. “Can I get in?”
“Sure thing. Watch your head. You can put your pack behind the seat.”
He noticed her evident pain when she hopped into the truck, holding her ribs as she chose to leave the bag in her lap. He pulled a coke from the cooler and handed it to her, watching intently as she drained the can in two gulps. He offered her another one, boldly introducing himself to the dusty angel.
“I'm Alexander. Just call me Alex though.”
“Amy,” she muttered. “Just Amy.”
He reached into the brown bag and pulled out his last cheeseburger.
“If you're hungry, have at. There's chips and peanuts in the white sack if you're not a burger fan.”
She stared at the food for a moment before she shook her head.
“I can wait until the next town. Barstow... right?”
“Yep. About forty miles though. That's a good forty-five minutes.” He waved the sandwich at her. “Are you sure you don't want this delicious, but kinda cold cheeseburger while we're driving there?”
She rolled her eyes as a small smile broke the grimness of her face. She took it and began to unwrap it while he put the truck in gear. As soon as he pulled out onto the highway, he grabbed another drink for himself. Taking a few glances at her, Alex looked past her slender figure and concentrated on her eyes and mannerisms. She'd been in some sort of trouble, he guessed. Probably dished out by a crazy husband or a boyfriend. While he had been raised never to hit or slap a woman in anger, he knew some girls seemed to put themselves in situations that demanded it, but she didn't seem to be like that. She had a hard face, but it was also soft; like she was strong when she had to be and clingy if she didn't.
“So, where you headed after Barstow, Amy?”
“I don't know. Maybe Vegas.” Her tone was almost robotic.
“You got family there?”
“No.”
Alex chuckled, trying his best to lighten her mood. “You have family anywhere?”
“No,” she replied, now starting to sound irritated to him.
“Any friends you can crash with in Vegas?”
“Listen Alex.” She turned to lock eyes with him. “Thanks for the ride. I really appreciate it. But I'm not in the mood to freaking talk.” She flashed him something close to an apologetic smile. “Okay?”
Sitting back in his seat. Alex nodded, took a sip of his drink and began to stare at the onrushing road.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (A friend.)

I often think of getting
an African-gray parrot for a friend.
A voice to bring the day into focus
with “Good morning” , from the corner
of his cage.

Before the first sip of coffee
In a cup, labeled
“Happy 50th”, in red.

I can take red, it’s always a choice.
I can take 50th, zeroes lose significance
in geometric progression.
I wonder about “Happy”.

A white wall responds
with pale ghosts, splattering my face.
“Good morning” casually-happy Day.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (Birthday)

Low sky of the late afternoon
repeats the permanence of yesterday.
You draw the line, next to the sunset,
to keep your days safe, while
the silver horses ride over the edge
into the angry waters of the ocean.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments( The Grim Reaper’s tail.)

For all of you to know, I was here before you.
And I will be gone with the last one of you.
No one is destined to outlive his ancient bones.

He gave you a name and left me nameless.
On my request “what if they’ll call me
by your name?” he roared with laughter
“they will prefer you over me on a few occasions.”

A pair of simple rules he hung for me
by the exit door. He said that all is governed
by the Fate and subject to the Time.

But when you, bastards, came to age
the game has changed. Your creativity
is my worst nightmare!

He gave you a mate,
you gave yourself a war.
He gave you a son,
you vomited all over
your dinner plate.

Your cruelty and your aggression
put the fallen one to shame.

I have to say more times
than the most liberal of you can tolerate.
“What the fuck! Please, not again!”
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (within time)

I try to reason my desire for running endless marathons with finish lines at the edge of the cliff and dive down with hope for safe landing, each time…
…time, like a tombstone
weights heavily on my mind

I saw a butterfly, dead
on the pavement,
one wing ripped by violence.
I saw a mother-bird
pushed a baby from the nest
and let it die
on her watch.

The clock stopped...
and time trembled,
when a man pulled the trigger
and sent a bullet
into a child’s head.

The wall of time crushed me
and I wept on my knees,
as I watched the moon fall
through the eyes of the last human alive.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (hand in hand)

Your nights without end.
His days without beginning.

…waiting for daybreak.

Your night was ripped apart
by the ghosts of your memory.
…dreams trembled outside
the locked door: cold, abandoned.

Sliver of the light fires
the edge of the horizon.
East of the sky caught in a fire.

You wash the fragments
of the broken night from your face
with a handful of water.


Your dreams hand in hand with his
walk at the edge of rising sun.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (short poem)

The light of long-gone star
still shimmering and echoing
from the mouth of darkness.

Water on its way to a river.

We flow… ©
2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (I am gone)

I am a snowflake,
lost in the blizzard,
expanding my horizon
into the cold oblivion.
…wind blows…

I am a frozen thought,
a broken icicle, a fragment
of the map. I drink the water
from the hands of Sun..
I am all gone!

fragments (dream)

broken silence…
the sound of my scream
echoes frame by frame
from the glass wall of
forgetfulness…
I am drowned
in the indigo of night.

the sky is falling down with the rain
beads are suspended in midair
gray sadness saturated my being.
a beat of life squeezed from my heart
as my dreams soaked into life
with a single teardrop
trough the fabric of my eyelids.

© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (running ahead of the season. draft. memoir entry)

Running ahead of the season. Vienna, Austria. Fall, 1988.
Survival skills of a group have different dynamics than an individual. And, regardless how willful one individual could be, group instinct overrides the person’s will and wipe out individuality. How the individuality will survive the ordeal depends on many variables: past experiences, physical mental and emotional fitness, resilience, assimilating skills. Most of those abilities are innate and not as prevalent as we would like to think. And many of us, emigrants, would end up broken and not only financially. In simple terms, everyone would be affected differently and would recover differently. In Ukraine we would say something like: ‘goodness would shine brighter and badness gets worse’. Just a thought to deliberate in different time.
Group dynamics of the group, which I belonged to, at that time, was simply ugly. Lifelong friendships were easily broken. Years later, some of the broken friendships were rekindled and some were lost forever. New relationships, brief, demanded by the momentarily needs, were formed. Everyone was for oneself. And friends were made on a needed basis, a primitive survival method, dictated by the necessity of the moment. We did not expect to see each other in a week or two.
On the brighter side, it was not only the end of an old life, but also it was a beginning of a new one.
Those were breathtaking times. You don’t have to see your annoying aunt for your birthday. Ever. Your neighbor’s cat won’t ever cross your path again and you did not spend a second to plot his disappearance. People have known you as a timid and shy person. Guess what? No more, you are who you chose to be today and if you would not like it tomorrow you will change it again. No one has any expectations from you, not even you. You are in transit. And your life isn’t a steady flow but a rouring rain with violent gusts of wind. That was an intoxicating feeling. Something that changed me forever, broke the reasonably accepted boundaries and expanded me beyond any limits.
Life by itself was not that bad or dreadful. I had a place to sleep, food to eat, youth and heath (I just turned 30 y.o.), my husband and kids were with me. Kids were happy that they did not have to go to school anymore. It was funny to see them thinking that that was it, they finished their education. And when you are 9 or 12, the world does not extend beyond the horizon yet.
It was early fall in Europe, end of September, beginning of October, days were delightful, weather gentle: not hot anymore and not cold yet. The brief moment of gentle hesitation, as of Nature got stumbled and was not certain how to proceed further.
During those days I learned that people recycle, clean streets in front of their shops with soap, water and brush every morning. On occasions, till now I remember those moments and think of my existing business, located on the outer line of Detroit. If you have ever seen movie 8 Mile and I will give you my address, you will recognize the place. Sometimes I imagine myself to get up earlier, get a brush, soap and water and start to clean 8 Mile road. I can guarantee that the first driver with a cell phone, passing by, would call 911, and an ambulance would pick me up urgently.
I realized that people can be polite, just nauseatingly polite. In a public place they would talk in a low voice not to annoy others. I was coming from a part of the world where people talk to make a statement, announcement or simply to be the loudest in the crowd. I have never been in Vienna since, I got to go there and double check if I did not misinterpret that politeness. Maybe they were just uncomfortable around the crazy loud Russians. And we were walking in groups. We were afraid to get lost. If that was not intimidating, it was weird for sure. Some of us were braver than others, we grouped around them. The big city was frightening for me no matter in which country it would be, I was a village girl. I called myself Russian here not by mistake, but Ukraine was not known to the world. So we called ourselves Russians for simplicity, we still do on occasions if it serves the purpose and prevent further questions.
From my brief time in Vienna I had never suspected that Austrians are cold people, until one incident that happened somewhere in the middle of our transit. My husband Val (Valeriy back then) had some strangeness, for first he married me and stayed with me for very long time, until I finally got pity and granted him freedom. Back then, in Vienna, he liked to buy different treats for the kids every day. Mostly it was ice cream. I did not understand why they should be different each day, why not stick to the known and good ones.
One of those days, Val took a box of ice cream from the cooler. There were six pieces inside the box. It was rather unusual, but alas, what did I know. I opened the box, gave a peace to everyone, and held the box with the last two pieces to my chest.
The ice-cream was white(?), crusted with something that reminded me bread crumbs and not sweet at all, and it was frozen solid. It took me a few long minutes to finally bite through it… It was fish, a frozen raw fish!
Imagine, in the middle of the crowded market place two adults and two kids chewing uncooked frozen fish. In addition, a mother holding the box in such a way that if you are unsure what the hell they are eating, you can easily read the box.
As short and hot tempered as I am, I grabbed the fish from all of them and ran to the trash can, Val stopped me, ‘we can cook and eat it later for dinner’. The fish was really good.
What shocked me then, that no one from the crowd gave me any clue that I was doing something wrong, a smirk! a hint! Anything for god’s sake! Nothing! That was cold!
It was a dreadful story at first, but later it was just funny. And I liked to tell that story.
Over a decade later, my grown son came home from a bar one day and said “Nina, please, I beg you, stop telling the fish story”
“why. It’s an old story. I don’t tell it anymore”
“Last night, in the bar, one of the guys was telling a funny fish story about a family of stupid emigrants”
“What did you do?”
“ Nothing, I was waiting to the end, let them laugh as much as they wanted, and then I told them that it was my family…”
The story was too old to be funny anymore. But it stroke me how sertain things can follow you around as if they became a part of you. I am still thinking about the significance of it. It’s got to be there.
Three weeks of fall brought some changes: mornings were losing light, days got colder, trees were shading leaves, winter was closing in on us, but we were running away. We would be leaving for Italy in two days.
The next night brought fear into my daughter’s life, fear that didn’t let me to close my eyes for the night, but lucky me it was last night. As we were leaving Vienna, we were leaving our fear behind.

fragments (it was raining)

it was raining,
at your funeral.

…flowers in the mud,
wet dirt in my hand,
time floats in the puddle.

six feet of eternity
between me and you.

I could have saved you
yesterday…

I am still wondering,
where was I?

letters (run! revised)

gravity of will holds the objects imprisoned
gravity of love binds the spiral of escape
into the cycles of misery…

waters of the oceans curve the shorelines tirelessly
into the face of land.
sands of the deserts shift backwards
in search of original unity.
full moon in the bloody eclipse.
the lonely wolf howls from night.
death prowls on the fringes of life
for the weak, for lost, for lonely…
tears of rain roll from leaf to leaf
in the land of decaying corpses

run for the light, for tomorrow…
through the land of shadows,
over the shifting sands
in the moonscape with the lonely beast…
run for your life!!

fragments (forgotten, 3 short poems)

I
I walked the ridge
to the summit.
the cloud rested
on my palm.
the shadows…
left in the deep valley
by the entrance
into the underworld.


II
thought-
-like-
lightning

split the heaven
of my heart
in two halves
…bleeding.


III
fog sails
over the irises
into the dark horizon
of your pupils…
my tears rolls
from your eyes…

fragments (never ending journey: first days in Vienna)

Vienna, Austria. I lived there for three weeks. The days of confusion and shock. The memory of that time, even during its formation, was fragmented, unreal, dreamlike and emotionally overwhelming. All life around for the first few days had a quality of a foreign movie without translation and subtitles.

My mind was quiet, real quiet. It refused to trust my visual perception and I frequently would touch objects around, feeling them with my hand to make sure that they are indeed real. First automatic door scared shit out of me. I froze for a moment there, processing the surge of adrenaline in my body and suppressing my fight/flight response.

I acted normal, double checked every word from my mouth and every emotion on my face – I had two teenagers on my hands. When my mind questioned reality of my surroundings, their minds questioned reality of me and themselves. And they looked in my direction for reassurance. It was tense, but I acted casual.

For one thing, none of us, emigrants, who crossed the border of the country legally, were left without attention. Our basic information was taken at the point of crossing the Ukrainian border. A few terrifying hours “what if?…”. But it was just a simple bureaucratic procedure.

We traveled by bus to the train station in Prague and from there by train to Vienna. The security upon our arrival was tight and scary. There were no other trains there or any people, only soldiers with guns hanging over their necks. Every one of them had a mean looking dog, leashed but perhaps more alert than the handler. For some reason I thought about the war movies about Nazis and Jews. I give myself quick and meaningless reassurance “not to worry…” and I did not have much time to ponder mysteries of my mind because our last name was called and we were directed to one of the buses.

My family along with a few others was moved from the train station into a dormitory; just a tiny room that was probably built to accommodate one person, although it was just my interpretation based on nothing, which I doubted later.

Many years later I had to spend one night in Amsterdam in transit from Kiev to Detroit, I needed a good night’s sleep. I paid for my room $225, and I had certain expectations. Well it took me a few minutes before I was able to find the bed that was part of the wall and I had to pull it out to make it a bed. There were no towels. Call housekeeping! You would think so, but there was no telephone in my room and I was too exhausted to leave the room, so I went straight to bed after my shower.

Upon arriving in Vienna, the next day we got our temporary ID’s in English that was an excellent time to spell our names whichever way we wanted. And some of us spelled them so hideously that years later we changed them to something like Sarah Smith. Real story.

At that day we were processed. Processed… repeat this word and listen to the sound…

letters (threading waters)

my mind overstretched, overextended.
thoughts floating by the limits of sanity,
haphazardly attached to the origin
by the invisible umbilicus.

the cloudless sky and gel-like tranquility
encircled my being into the eye of the cyclone
that promises another disaster
when it will choose to circle out

from my soul,

from my heart,

from my life.

letters (whenever i am, I feel)

whenever I am, I feel
the warm breath of your presence.

wind braided into my hair,
lost in the depth of auburn silk…
current of your life and mine
synchronized by the ocean waves.

I touch the rain with my hands
and taste the salt of the memory
on my fingertips.

I hear the sound of silence,
whispered by the night
over the blanket of fog
rolling over the fields.

I paste my spells into your sleep,
for your dreams to wrap you tight
into a sweet cocoon of absence…

I can sit at the edge of your bed,
watch your trembling eyelids
and try to decipher your dreams

fragments (it was mid January 1989)

My airplane, a late flight from New York to Detroit, was landing in the middle of a snowstorm. My life at that time was unfolding by the moments. I knew what I left behind but nothing about what awaited me ahead. The previous day had seemed like a twenty-four hour whirlwind spent between two continents. That long and strange day started in the early morning at Leonardo DaVinci-Fiumicino
International Airport in Rome, Italy.

By that time I had learned to use visual cues to access my environment and managed to navigate the busy terminal without any major setbacks. I tended to follow crowds of people that spoke Russian, dragging my two small children and a couple of suitcases with all our possessions. I hoped it would be the end of my six month ordeal.

The long flight to New York was my first time flying. I quickly found out I have a phobia of flying and air sickness as soon as the airplane left the ground. Waves of nausea were pulsating within my body, like snakes attempting to free themselves from my abdomen, ending up being caught in my constricting throat. Swallowing my fears, I fought to keep myself together. I did not have the luxury to display them in front of my two small children who were more scared than I was. My demeanor only showed a comforting island of the certainty, sense and stability I had tried to give them at this point of their lives.

After landing in New York, we went through the long, burdensome procedures of immigration paperwork and were given a choice of our final destination - Salt Lake City, Utah, or Detroit, Michigan. My selection of Detroit was solely determined by it being a shorter flight and a name. It was definitely not a right moment in my life to think about saving time.

So, there we were disembarking in Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport, in the middle of the blizzard. My family’s new home in America. As difficult as it was for my children and I, my emigration was a breeze compared to the hardship of other immigrants. Luckily for us, my status as a Russian political refugee gave me certain privileges.

About an hour later I would be home... Hamtramck, Michigan, for the next three years of my life. Hamtramck... a heaven and a capital of new emigration from Eastern Europe. Everyone entered that place with such a wonderful impression. Only years after exiting however, we all realized it was a softer kind of hell.
Unfortunately not all of us were able to leave, with many being trapped there for the rest of their lives. I had to deal with the full extent of my reality and result of my choices. I chose Detroit over Salt Lake City. I picked the United States over every other civilized country in the world. I ended up in Hamtramck versus Vienna or Rome.

What I learned is that we never know where our hearts belong. And we are all too quick to judge.

It was the middle of January 1989.

fragments (patience) revised

What is patience, what is the definition and what is the interpretation, what is the truth about it and what are the false assumptions? The people who use this word, in most cases use it in a manner to cover up their incompetence and they use it “because they are incompetent”. So, what that means in turn, is that they present patience… as a false virtue, something to be worshipped.

Moreover, often laziness and unwillingness to perform under the pressure and to perform fast, hidden under the mask of patience. Waste of time is not patience even if it dressed like it.

In fact, a lot of people are unable to differentiate between the realities and cover-ups. And this is understandable. The average person lacks the tools he needs to understand his actions in the perspective of time ahead, in the moment when that action takes place. And this is only the time when the direction could be adjusted and outcomes could be changed.

However there is a true patience. If it understood correctly and cultivated, it becomes a virtue. It is the patience of a silent snake before the attack, a frozen tiger before the jump, a stillness of the finger on the trigger. A moment of hesitation before the final decision has been made, before the point of no return has been crossed.

There are certain elements required for an effective performance: knowledge, practice, ability, desire, determination and more. It is general knowledge. But then some runners run faster and win the prize, while others with the same skills and determination left behind. There is only one element which transforms the performance into art. And that element is missing in the later case. It is patience.

The patience allows the performer to capture the moment in time when the direction is favorable and all surrounding elements and events are aligned and synchronized.

One may think that the person who can execute swiftly, competently and effectively has no need of patience, because he has already swept through the method, process, or his practiced and organized manner of doing things, be they mental or physical. A person, who is patient, is a person who knows what he is doing and therefore executes his action immediately and with great expediency.

This perspective is logically sound; however it masks or mistakes the process of completion with the moment of initiation. When the decision is made, when the action is initiated, there are other elements that enter into play: swiftness, efficacy, lightening like movement.

A person of great knowledge and competency but impatient is a poster child for this disaster, because knowledge and competency are just like signposts but nothing ever repeats itself. Impatience is blindness versus patience is wisdom. Wisdom not to trust yesterday’s knowledge because it is outdated and never true anymore, there are the other unknown variables that entered the picture. Nothing is ever the same and nothing is as it appears to be. To understand this reality is easy but not enough.

The person must be aware, alert, self-critical and self-confident to stay on course, to use his ability to maximize and compensate for his shortcomings, to be able to stay out of the ditch. This problem, with enough effort, is manageable. Another problem is more complicated and beyond the control of any man. There are more active forces in play. Those forces confuse our language, teach us to misuse the meaning, replace our clarity with dullness. Those forces deliberately misplace the values and qualities; they simply keep us all in a ditch that progresses into the mass grave long before we die. A social conditioning is a name for one of them. And this subject is a topic for the next conversation. © 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (Coyote and me)

…”pull me out pull me out, let me dry at the wind”
screamed the boulder drowning in the river.

when you are a cookie in the cookie jar
it doesn’t mean you want to be eaten.
if you are an owl you want never ending night
and a sparrow wants a day to stay forever.

if you are me you don’t know what you want
and then you go and find a Coyote
and talk with him,
because this is the surest thing to do
if you don’t know…

although if I’m lost that would be unwise
to ask for directions, and not because he is a trickster
which is true, but because he is lost himself.
sometimes he sits under the canopy of a tree
and sings a never ending song…
for days and nights to dance in roundelay,
were the owl and sparrow clap with delight.
I would not interrupt…

and other times
I can find him lingering in the meadow,
making sure all the grass grows in the right direction
he may let me in there for a while
and let me to grow with the grass
In the right direction.
and, while I am growing, he’ll tell me a tale

he told me ones that I was a stone drowning
in the river, I start pleading for help
he howled from laughter. and then
he dropped a cookie jar in the river
and oh, sweet cookie heaven, I was the river.
he let me drink running water
and sent me to walk into the
world of setting suns.
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (life isn't a choice) Amy- chapter I.

Amy

Life is a choice, thought Amy, as she twisted the rattlesnake head and ripped it off with a practiced motion, separating it from its still undulating body. She spit out her distaste of the procedure and muttered softly “if not you, then me”before she tossed the head casually into the bonfire.

With a sharp knife she acquired from one of her rapists, previously hidden in the sand of her makeshift camp, she made an incision down the length of the weakly moving body. After pulling out the intestines before depositing them into a shallow trench, she willed herself not to vomit whatever still remained in her empty stomach.

Once the reptile had been skinned, she added it to the steaming pile of organs and covered them with dirt -- a fitting grave for the beast that would help to keep her alive that night. She cut the carcass into long chunks, piercing them with her knife before roasting it over the fire she made with the help of the survival skills she had long mastered.

The serrated knife used to be the property of Dan, one of the two bikers who gave her a ride, raped her, then left her to die. She remembered their faces, their smell, and she expected to meet them again. She hoped they were locals. If they were, it would make her revenge that much easier.

For the time being, Amy rested her ravaged body, silently ate her makeshift meal, and cleared her wounded mind. The biker's payback would come later. Right now, she needed to sleep -- to recharge. She put her head on her backpack, curiously left behind by her 'benefactors' and moved her bruised face away from the scorching heat of the midday sun, hiding her face in the slightly cooler shade.

She'd done it intuitively, without any thought, protecting the fragile filaments of life still remaining in her battered body. She rationed the water still left in her backpack, thankful for what had been left.

She would drink the rest when she woke up. Before she started her walk back into the town she never had a chance to reach.

While she waited for sleep to claim her, she reached out and touched the large rock nature apparently meant to be her gravestone. The spot where they left her to die sprinkled in a semi-neat row that extended into the horizon. She could smell their smoky residue still permeating her clothes, seemingly her soul, and vowed she would never resume the bad habit they seemed to thrive with. She wanted nothing more than a simple life but that had changed. Now she found her existence complicated by her assailants mortality and her own need to end it.

This cemetery, her assumed resting place, was a reminder of her own precious life -- one she used to take for granted lately. She touched the stone again with a loving caress, thanking the gods the two bikers were drunk enough to leave her alive, knowing their lack of sobriety had been the sole reason she was still alive.

Cemeteries, much like the greasy smiles on those flea ridden thugs, usually creep you out. You should have listened to your instincts and kept on walking, rather than take your chances with them.

Amy snorted out her disgust at her actions, feeling the first waves of sleep starting to take hold of her consciousness.

Listen to the whispers next time. They barely kept you alive this time. You didn't inherit them just to have two grunting gorillas kill you. One more mistake like the one you made today, could be your last.

letters (dissolved)

my silent tears dissolved into rain…
lights off… fire extinguished, died,
buried in the grave of dark pupils.

shadows playing roles
on the fringes of the candlelight..
the stage is empty.

I drink my last drink
with the ghosts of my memory.
last moments before the lights
last flicker flies away...

just a puddle of formless wax.
shall it rain… shall it snow…

the last teardrop filling my eyes
slowly, to the brim.

let it freeze…
© 2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (when I was a bird)

when I was a bird,
I was free.
now I am walking
in the land of forgotten things.
I am a unicorn hunter.
call me a coward, if you wish
it wouldn’t change a thing.
I am not a bird anymore.


©2011 by Nina K Orlovskaya

letters (memory)

the memory of you
like a fog on a rainy day
shelters my soul from sunlight,
from a fresh breath of the air,
keeps me in a lethargic sleep.
my mind is snatched
and locked in a narrow dungeon,
that is you,
without hope to escape.
all attempts failed like a sandy castle
under the pressure of a heavy tide.

the memory of you hunts me
like a pack of a hungry dogs.
I hide breathlessly in the dark corner,
paralyzed by fear of provoking
their appetite, anger, instincts…

I submerge the memory of you
into the waters of the night
until it drowns!

letters (happiness)

Somewhere and sometime in the past, I have had nothing except a dream and I was happy and complete.
Now, many years later, I have everything I ever wished for plus an original dream and, as you guessed, I am unhappy. Logically speaking, if one has more, one must be more. In my case, I should be happier. First thing came to my mind, “worldly possessions bring unhappiness”, the thought acceptable and socially ingrained in our minds. On the other hand, I have examined the value of all the things I have, there is no value, and I can leave it all behind in the blink of an eye and sit on the curb of the road stripped off all my possessions, alone, clothed into my dream and it would not make me happy. I make this statement not from a philosophic standpoint but from the perspective of my previous experiences. On a couple of occasions I got rid of all my worldly possessions and not only material but also social, moral, mental, spiritual… I mean over night… literally… it definitely made me light as a feather and not happy.
Where did the happiness go?!
I have spent a lifetime, molding myself into the perfect image of me. It had expanded me beyond the boundaries of my imagination and I have not found happiness there either, just a dust, collected by eternity.
I look in the mirror, into my eyes and see that happiness only in a blissful ignorance, regardless what I have or don’t have. A dream is an illusion that fuel desire for life.
Certainly, I do not generalize. I express my own observation. I have no knowledge of experiences of others. My lifetime is barely a time to scratch the surface of my own being.

letters (guarding your sleep)

speechless…
touching your lips…
fearful
not to awake your memory.
wind
scatters my fingertips
over the sunset.

night cloaks shadows.
I’m watching your sleep
and your dreams, painted
in the shades of a rainbow.
your gentle breath caresses your nostrils.
your eyelids tremble…

letters (searching still)

searching still
in the blind darkness of my eyes
in the silent nothingness of my mind.
‘am I dead yet?’… question?… statement?...
singularity floats on the surface of nothing.
I hold on to it ‘am I dead yet?’
the glimmer of familiarity within the ocean of senselessness.
I have not known me:
my sight dissolved, drowned in the waters of darkness.
‘am I dead yet?’ screaming, terrifying thought-entity
curled into the circle of repetition,
my mind holds onto it with the despair
of a legless soldier that was left behind..
with the effort of a newly initiated blindness
of a blind man who starts to rebuild his world
around the unknown reality.
‘am I dead yet?’ has no meaning, but must…
otherwise the embryo would be swallowed…
it has no past, it knows no death. ‘am I alive?’
it increases itself cell by cell
into more…

‘where was I before?’ ‘I am intact… and separated
from the music, broadcast by the car radio into beyond,
from the sunlight, voices of the people
rushing from every direction
to aid in the scoop of biology
that used to be familiar…
trapped into the engineering marvel
that was reduced into the state of chaos…
first time alive, aware to the rhythm of the heartbeat,
that would be surgically extracted in a moment
and given for the recipient.’

…I will know it later,
when my mind will reconstructs the crack in time,
cementing it with the reality of imaginary tales…
last thing to go – first thing to return, considering the distance…
hearing, that would be it…
invasion of the sound into singularity
rebooted the system.
the radio was there and I was not,
I felt my heartbeat, my breath was back…
some memories… mind floats at the fringes…
flashing images of quadriplegia with horrors
worst than a death sentence…
I fought it… ‘wiggle your toes!’, was my only argument.
I refuse it, little comfort in the blissfulness
of not knowing…
‘wiggle your toes, coward!’ I caved in, gave up…
more effort that I have ever known…
I send the signal into my toenails…
o sweet triumph! It listened…
with beautiful response of symmetry and equality..
vision was back as a blur of light,
and that was not important anymore.
I have surrendered into the hands of others
I needed rest…
‘stay with me, stay with me!’ hard hits over my eardrums..
‘don’t drift, stay with me!’
so I did for a while… but then I thought
‘no more…’
…gone…

letters (coral vipers) 2nd version

cold blades of your words
to my bare skin,
knife into my pancreas.
the scarlet whispers
over my body,
as coral vipers burrows into the ground
beneath my feet.

your eyes…
your voice…
your smile…

tremors through my being,
crippling my emotions,
until I feel nothing.

letters (I let myself to rest!)

my swords… my wounds…
my slowly bleeding life.

the last drop of rain
trapped in the spider net.
the thunder resonates
and scatters in the distant echoes.
the rainbow drinks my tears

o blessed emptiness!

wind rustles through the wheat
and settles by my feet.

barefooted spirits of the plains,
my long forgotten friends,
kneels
by the puddle of me.

I let myself to rest!

letters (it's raining)

it’s raining
the wind, drenched in rain, quietly passing by.
the memories have no time
to develop into the images on running water,
blurred by the flow.
drain swallows the remnants
drags them underground like a hungry beast
keeping memories imprisoned, intact
not alive and not entirely dead
just to devour them later in the privacy of the grave.
pile of skeletons in the corner of the cave,
archeological riddle, histories of past events
none of which was powerful enough
to make the history, terminate the flow,
break the cycle, to overrun the rain.
it’s raining. I let it rain!

fragments (misinterpreted)

long scarves color of sapphire left behind
salamanders crawl through the portals:
touched by light …combusted
turned into ashes, blown by wind.

cold watery eyes silent witnesses
lost in fields.
rising sun dries tears of the night.
steam flows through the pores of my skin:
rises, evaporates…

the roots absorb one last drop of moisture.
the flowers, innocent,
sinfully celebrate my pain
and the truth, seeds of new beginnings,
blissfully rest in darkness.

fragments (the show is over)

the show is over
and circus left the town.
a fortuneteller with the crystal ball:
rituals, stones, smoke in the sky.
deranged clown,
no friends, no enemies.
an extended family of pompous acrobats,
skeletons locked in a closet.

the rain erases footsteps and settles dust on the road.
a foggy dusk rolls from the gapping mouth of the abyss….

fragments (the fortuneteller 2nd version)

the fortuneteller
was a fake-blond, near-sighted,
next-door-neighbor-kind of woman.
she began her reading from the Sun.
she mentioned that it was her favorite card.
“I am glad it’s not the Fool”.
she looked in my direction
and I guessed that, in my case,
it should be the Fool.
there was not much of a choice.
the Hanging Man upside down
was not an alternative but a progression.
she professed much light in my life,
stumbled over betrayals, hardships and loss.
I did not tell her,
that hell is quite a bright place

fragments (morning 2nd version)

the lonely cricket (no chorus there, just one annoying solo)
trophy of the night, plastered over my window,
was scraping its body off the glass.

yellow roundness bulged at the edge of the earth,
ready to break umbilicus, bud off,
surf the blue waters.

silent and feeble shadows of the night
were retreating into the dark corners of my room
crawling under the bed, last sanctuary,
rest in the coffin.

the morning, shifting sands within a sliver of time,
was invading my blood grain by grain,
dissolving into iron saltiness.
extra kick trough my heart
dip and swell trough my vocal cord.
words roll on the tip of my tongue.
“good morning!”

letters (morning)

the lonely cricket
scrapes
silent fabrics of the night
from my window.

sun bleeds
into the broken horizon.

wounded night
retreats
into the dark corners of my room.

morning sifts like a sand dune
from the horizon of darkness
into the horizon of light.

the new day invades
my blood stream

tender vibration
dips and swells
through the hollowness
of my vocal cord.

morning rains
with words
from my fingertips.

fragments (spells)

spells
of your fingers
sprinkle my skin
as words,
as droplets of blood.
…sticky red stripes,
cold vipers slide down,
rains on my toes.

I keep you silent
when I am awake.
I let you whisper
my dreams into my hair
when I sleep.

an animal chews my flesh,
in the dark,
when you’re gone..©

Author: Nina K Orlovskaya

fragments (time, my enemy)

fragments (I am tired)

letters

rains…
imitation of the sound
of my blood flow,
filling still empty grave.

the future,
I saw,
was suspended into zero temperature and gravity.
umbilically attached to darkness.

desperately
I was leaning on the past,
I had known,
anything real enough to support my weight,
while my feelings were summoned
by the coffin of my body.

fragments

Thinking of a real death of our species, becoming part of the planet, reborn into different life form…

in your deadly embrace
I surrender.
…attracted, dissolved,
filtrated,
run underground….

reborn and surfaced
in the cold creek
in the middle of night.
naked… silver
in the light
of the local moon
carelessly suspended
in its fullness
from the dark corner
of sky…

drops of water…
wet trail left behind…
I run through the field,
no horizon…
cold grass,
gift of the spring.
heal soles of my feet,
from the journey
through the minerals…

letters (coral vipers)

cold blade to bare skin
knife into the pancreas.
scarlet whisper over my body.
coral vipers burrow into the ground
beneath my feet.

your eyes…
your voice…
your smile…

fragments (i told him)

I told him,
“cut the crap,
it is just sex.
I have six hours,
don’t waste.”

a glass of wine…
eyes into eyes,
blue melts with brown.

he asked me to stay,
this time for good.

he picked my dress
from the stairs,
my bra from the kitchen table
and hung them neatly
in his closet.

he made me tea
and fixed my dinner.

I mentioned that
I use my stove
for extra storage.

he asked me,
if I will stop by again.

I said
“perhaps…
sometimes…
next year…
if I will have six hours
to waste”

fragments (I like my days)

I like my days,
repetitive
and uneventful…

my morning rituals…
the coffee shop.
if I would go blind
tomorrow,
I wouldn’t miss
one corner there.

mid-morning sun
fights shade
of my UV reflective glasses.

skipping red light
like a heartbeat,
in the green valley,
I race blue Truck.
he gloriously honks
while crossing finish line
ahead of me.

car radio announces
tornado warning
for later afternoon

and off my path.

fragments (a portrait)

a stroke of the brush...
the melatonin layers and suns
imbedded into the skin.

another brush… another stroke
and winter tangles with the snow
in hair that melts on shoulder blades.

The mirror is a silent judge and witness.
A smile of wisdom from within.


the lonely footprints
in the dirt of the road
and shadows in the clothes

a broken brush…
a smudge across the canvas,
a breath of wind across the fields,
deserted, left behind
that disappears in far perspective.

I hold the brush; he’s leaning on the cane.

letters (dance with me)

dance with me…

your touch…

double –edged sword…

scarlet path drew the dance
into the oak floor, white walls.

drops of pain shivers
at the edge of the blade.
night hides the secrets.
the shadows slither into the corners.
wind whispers behind the doors.
rain flows through my veins.

rhythm deepens…


my wounds…


trembling hollowness wraps around my heart.

letters (I drown to you)

I drown to you
like a moth to the flame,
ignoring pain,
ignoring burning wings.

attracted by light,
by warmth, by your nature,
abstract, mystical and elusive
like dancing shadows on the wall.

I hopelessly fall in the trap,
Into the open arms of death.

tears of the moon, cold silver flickers,
woven into the canvas of the night.

last visual memory,
before the darkness
consumes my eyes.

…the sunrise will wash out
handful of ashes.

past is lightweight and overrated.

letters (the snake)

the sand dunes, the burning sun.
the wind rasps through my scales.
I curve my path; I ripple into the far horizon.
I flow with the sand.

today, I slither over your body,
Into your dreams,
attracted by the scent
of your sweat – beaded skin,
your gentle warmth, your misty breath.

I am infringed into your sleep.
I am reflection of your fears.
the mesmerizing force
drenches from my eyes.

the paralyzing thought
seals your lips from scream.

I hiss your name in my ancient tongues
.
your blood, in the valley of your neck,
throbs in my belly.

you still…. you tremble….
you surrender!

letters (it is all about you)

you are my sleepless nights,
my never –ending thoughts.

you are my fears, my hopes,
fresh breath of air.

you are my life.

I’m standing at the Edge,
I spread my wings….
the Northern wind caresses my face…

am I to fall?
am I to fly?
am I to live?
am I to die?

letters (true enemy)

Time...

Lately it has wrapped me
in a tight, sticky, milky white cocoon
and hung me somewhere between life and death,
between hell and heaven.

It patiently waits
when a butterfly will chew its way out,
just to devour her.

Time has never been a friend.
But when I got captured and stalled…

Time is my true enemy now!

Fragments (being me)

how does victory smell?
it is stinks:
the stench of a burning flesh,
the nauseating smell of spilled blood,
the damp smell of the dark prison,
where the soul is locked.

if I would have faith in my heart,
I would ask for forgiveness.
other than that,
I like the smell of victory.

letters (last steps)

nameless, breathless, imprisoned
…I flow-by.
barb-wire curls around heartbeats.
a sweet bitterness embraces darkness.
these last steps
into unknown
…minefields.

fragments (just a thought)

the tight coil of the time loop
is about to snap.
the stars are ready
to drift apart
into oblivion,
collide
and demolish themselves
into galactic dust,
ripping real and imagined
into nothingness
until the Last,
unpaired and unattached
would remain.
the Last one:
invisible, formless and nameless,
a silent witness
of the past glories and dismays,
…perhaps just a thought,
frozen
and curled in the circle
of repetition,
doomed into eternity
when time will perish
like a puff of smoke.

letters (prose of my life)

prose of my life.
I
the other day, on my way out of the book store,
a man in his serious age held the door open for me
while I was walking through the double door and a hallway.
the moment was somehow awkward to be casual.
we made an eye contact and I thanked him.
he told me back that I had made his day
just being there… and he would have stayed
a whole day by that door just to keep it open for me.
it was a nice one
and I had granted him one of my most enchanting smiles.
II
and I had remembered them all:
some of them wanted to buy,
others pleaded, cried, begged and tried
to warm my heart with the promise of suicide,
the smart ones run away instantly,
the choice that marches before my name.
a few attempted to bully their way trough,
but as soon as I hissed, all disappeared,
there was no brave one to stay.
and when I had thrown a bolt of lightning or a few,
no one attempted to cross the bare lands for years…
III
… I am standing alone.
my eyes drown into the sunset.
…live entangled hopelessly in time
like a dying fly in a spider web.
I have missed You,
one who knows
where is the line
that separates right and wrong,
fear and bravery, love and hate,
one who can stand in the middle of opposites
with a smile
and hold the door open,
for me to be born into this world,
one who can open his arms
and embrace
all that I am…

fragments (one day in the woods) part II

He made a note to self that they were strangers from the fearful look on her face and somehow guarding posture as she sprung to her feet when she noticed the man. They were too far away for George to hear the conversation but small bits of it reached his ears. She repeated several times “no” with her head moving accordingly. He overheard the name “Laura” and George decided that it was her name. The man talked convincingly when she disagreed, George understood it from her head moving side to side, saying no, and her hands, now on her chest, crisscrossed and palms to her shoulders. After a few long minutes of debates she gave up, she drank the water, he offered, put her shoes on, holding on to his arm and they started walking in the direction where the man came from.
George felt a relief and was ready to walk into his way, but a sudden thought struck him still, what if that would be his daughter walking in the woods with a stranger, what would he do? He would give everything away just to be there for her. And he started following them in the distance. It was not too difficult, even so they did not talk, but they walked loudly. They were following a trail and shortly they reached the road with a few cars parked at the site. It was Saturday and there were a people who run into the sanctuary of the woods from their daily life in the city.
Laura and a man got into a white Volvo that was parked with its back to the trail and a license plate perfectly visible for George, equipped with his binoculars. He pulled out a pen and little notebook from the left pocked of his jacket and scribbled the number of the plate, double checked it and buried the notebook back into his pocket.
As the car took off, the first drops of rain were rustling in the bushes, as they touched George’s face, he got startled.
The rumbling sound behind his back, somewhere close, reminded him of thunder, and he thought it was strange, it was off season…
He opened his eyes wide, realizing that he was sitting in the same place where he dozed off. And at the same time, just a few minutes ago, he knew, he followed a woman, by the name of Laura that took off with a stranger. He had a horrible headache, he felt as if his head was split in two, right in the middle, splitting his reality, which were both real in his mind but his logic whispered somewhere from afar that it was impossible and he has to choose one over another. Two blurry pictures tried to impose onto each other, but it did not offer any clarity, on the contrary, it made George’s thoughts blurrier then before.
It started to rain and he dismissed the strangeness as a vivid dream. He pulled his raincoat out, put it on, collected his belongings and started to walk down the hill toward his car.
His dream echoed in his head, bouncing in every direction like madness in its prime. Scared of his next action he reached into his pocked for the notebook, and… it was not there. He found only the pencil. His rifle and back pack slid down to the ground, he stood there without a thought, like a neighboring tree. The plate number was fresh in his memory. He rolled his sleeve high up, and wrote the number again …twice, then he mentally cancelled all his previous plans and arrangements for tomorrow and perhaps for tonight. He imagined how angry Martha would be, but it did not matter anymore…
He put the pen back into his pocket, rolled the sleeve carefully over his scribbling, protecting the information inked over his skin that was also tattooed over his brain, stored in all kinds of memories: short, long, strange, just name it, and did not need any protection. And he briskly walked to his car. The rain was not rustling anymore, but was roaring like an angry beast, overwhelming all the gentle sounds of the forest. The forest stayed quiet and helpless. George got soaked to his bones in no time and he did not notice that or did not give any significance to it. He was walking steady, immersed in his thoughts while drops of rain were collecting over his soaked clothes, which were not absorbing anymore water, and were forming small streams that were rolling down his body. If anyone would see George at that time, they would think that the Rain Man stepped out of the dark cloud and was hunting the woods.