Nostalgia… a touch of beautiful sadness, compared to a yellow leaf of the fall falling to the ground in a graceful descends, supported by the pressure of the air. Exhale! And it almost gone, and the leaf is on the ground… And sometimes nostalgia is a thorn in your heart: not fatal, not debilitating but cause of pain with every breath…
today is the first time in my life
I want to run,
run fast and far,
after the waters of a mountain river,
visible by its effects.
run like wind, like light
somewhere far and remote.
today is one day out of many
I want to lose my identity,
my internet connection and electricity
find a lazy wilderness of a day without humans
collect the stars, dripping from the dark skies
of not polluted night.
today is a day when I want to return
into the lands of my childhood,
place and time
when we all still have our wings
and still remember why!
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
fragments (woman, owl and Cat) III
III
Loud sound of a car crash ripped the silence of the room and exploded in Loxy’s head and chest, sudden surge of adrenaline burst him into a ball of fire. He jumped up, on his feet and ran outside. As he ran out of the building he saw what he feared he would. On his left, to the East, a quarter of a mile away, on the busy intersection, the ambulance was still sliding in circular motion, next to the awkwardly positioned dark-blue semi truck. He thought that he saw the broken pieces of glass, continued to drift in the air, defying the law of gravity and sparkling like little pieces of the broken rainbow under the angular rays of the early afternoon.
The ambulance halted, before Loxy got there. He stopped a few feet away not realizing that his instincts driven by intuition kept him at a safe distance.
Screams of fear, pain and wailing of the distant sirens filled the air, stopping people around. “It is too late…” Loxy thought without grasping the end meaning of the sentence. And it was definitely too late for Lisa. Her body, still strapped to the gurney was suspended in the air when the gurney flew through the broken and wide open back door of the ambulance and landed upside down with one end still inside and the other side was ramping on the street. Lisa’s head was dangling down to her right with a gushing cut on the left side of her neck and a piece of metal imbedded there like the dull blade of a guillotine that can do only a half ass job. Pool of blood and Lisa’s pale face told Loxy that it was over. He was standing there and watching as the last drops of blood were dripping from her neck one by one, making small concentric circles in the pool, “still alive” strange thought entered Loxy’s mind.
Loxy saw a fire in the front of ambulance that was aggressively hissing, while consuming medical supplies of the ambulance. Loxy thought about the canister filled with compressed oxygen that was attached to Lisa’s face via mask a few minutes ago and now was lost somewhere in the debris. The stream of gasoline that was leaking from the tank was making a pass toward the pool of Lisa’s blood…
A few minutes earlier all the blood was where it belonged, rushing through Lisa’s arteries enriched by supplemental oxygen and strengthened by the meds that were fighting for her life. And she was in a happy place of her dream. She lay down on her back in a grass and wild flowers; cat by the name of Cat was sitting next to her pouring something nice and unknown. She was looking into the depth of a blue sky. The owl was missing; she flew away a few moments ago. And how hard Lisa tried to imagine the owl in her dream, the owl was nowhere to be found.
And suddenly Lisa saw in the deep sky a small dark object flying or falling down; it was changing color and appearance as it was getting closer. It was her owl! She was growing fast in size covering Lisa’s view, and she made unpleasant, statically scratching sounds.
Then darkness and a painful sting on the left side of Lisa’s neck, she tried to hold her hand to it, but the grass and flowers entangled her immobile. She tried to pull herself out and in the last attempt she regained consciousness for a split moment, just enough to realize the reality of the situation.
And she did. With the speed of light, her mind knew that she ended up in a car crash, that she was strapped to the board and that she was bleeding profusely from the cut on her neck. She felt the sticky warmth of her blood on her chest, shoulder and back, tasted unpleasant saltiness in her mouth and she was trying to cough out its suffocating presence from her lungs. She knew that it was her last moment, The Moment. She was calm and ready. And she helplessly surrendered herself in the hands of her faith.
She had drifted back into unconsciousness fast and it was not a field anymore, it was a huge owl’s eye closer and closer to Lisa’s vision, until she saw a deep emptiness there and then a flicker of fire on the far distance that was attracting and absorbing the last drops of Lisa’s awareness, while Cat was purring somewhere close…
Loud sound of a car crash ripped the silence of the room and exploded in Loxy’s head and chest, sudden surge of adrenaline burst him into a ball of fire. He jumped up, on his feet and ran outside. As he ran out of the building he saw what he feared he would. On his left, to the East, a quarter of a mile away, on the busy intersection, the ambulance was still sliding in circular motion, next to the awkwardly positioned dark-blue semi truck. He thought that he saw the broken pieces of glass, continued to drift in the air, defying the law of gravity and sparkling like little pieces of the broken rainbow under the angular rays of the early afternoon.
The ambulance halted, before Loxy got there. He stopped a few feet away not realizing that his instincts driven by intuition kept him at a safe distance.
Screams of fear, pain and wailing of the distant sirens filled the air, stopping people around. “It is too late…” Loxy thought without grasping the end meaning of the sentence. And it was definitely too late for Lisa. Her body, still strapped to the gurney was suspended in the air when the gurney flew through the broken and wide open back door of the ambulance and landed upside down with one end still inside and the other side was ramping on the street. Lisa’s head was dangling down to her right with a gushing cut on the left side of her neck and a piece of metal imbedded there like the dull blade of a guillotine that can do only a half ass job. Pool of blood and Lisa’s pale face told Loxy that it was over. He was standing there and watching as the last drops of blood were dripping from her neck one by one, making small concentric circles in the pool, “still alive” strange thought entered Loxy’s mind.
Loxy saw a fire in the front of ambulance that was aggressively hissing, while consuming medical supplies of the ambulance. Loxy thought about the canister filled with compressed oxygen that was attached to Lisa’s face via mask a few minutes ago and now was lost somewhere in the debris. The stream of gasoline that was leaking from the tank was making a pass toward the pool of Lisa’s blood…
A few minutes earlier all the blood was where it belonged, rushing through Lisa’s arteries enriched by supplemental oxygen and strengthened by the meds that were fighting for her life. And she was in a happy place of her dream. She lay down on her back in a grass and wild flowers; cat by the name of Cat was sitting next to her pouring something nice and unknown. She was looking into the depth of a blue sky. The owl was missing; she flew away a few moments ago. And how hard Lisa tried to imagine the owl in her dream, the owl was nowhere to be found.
And suddenly Lisa saw in the deep sky a small dark object flying or falling down; it was changing color and appearance as it was getting closer. It was her owl! She was growing fast in size covering Lisa’s view, and she made unpleasant, statically scratching sounds.
Then darkness and a painful sting on the left side of Lisa’s neck, she tried to hold her hand to it, but the grass and flowers entangled her immobile. She tried to pull herself out and in the last attempt she regained consciousness for a split moment, just enough to realize the reality of the situation.
And she did. With the speed of light, her mind knew that she ended up in a car crash, that she was strapped to the board and that she was bleeding profusely from the cut on her neck. She felt the sticky warmth of her blood on her chest, shoulder and back, tasted unpleasant saltiness in her mouth and she was trying to cough out its suffocating presence from her lungs. She knew that it was her last moment, The Moment. She was calm and ready. And she helplessly surrendered herself in the hands of her faith.
She had drifted back into unconsciousness fast and it was not a field anymore, it was a huge owl’s eye closer and closer to Lisa’s vision, until she saw a deep emptiness there and then a flicker of fire on the far distance that was attracting and absorbing the last drops of Lisa’s awareness, while Cat was purring somewhere close…
fragments (woman,owl and Cat) II
II
How would you imagine your last day, last moment on this planet?
Lisa imagined her last day to be crispy clear and clean. From the fogginess of her tired mind, she imagined her last moment as the moment of clarity to understand which breath of hers would be the last one. Not much to ask. Is it?
Hot water of her shower was pleasantly caressing her skin, immersing her body into warm wet comfort. Two weeks without any meds sharpened her senses and put her on the very edge of something unknown, dangerous and exiting.
Stepping out of shower, she took up the new towel - acquired for the occasion - and wrapped it around her full figure. She gently dried herself, carefully examining an appearance in the not so clean mirror, dropped the towel on the floor. Her hair, clean and lustrous, draped her pale face into a dark mahogany shroud. Her eyes, green and sharply focused looked into her eyes from the flat surface of the mirror, repeatedly asking “are you sure? Are you sure?” Lisa nodded her head with a short “yes”.
She went on the toilet, forced herself to urinate, but she was dry and she was satisfied. The “pleasure” of the enema she endured last night. From her limited academic knowledge, but the excessive internet surfing she knew that when a person loses consciousness, next they lose bladder and bowel control. she walked to her bedroom, step by step, stepped on the towel, felt its softness with her feet. She put a new pair of underwear on, kept from Christmas time for the occasion. Next was a pair of pajamas. Then she walked slowly, barefooted, over a dirty carpet, from her bedroom to the kitchen, holding numerous bottles of pills close to her chest.
In the kitchen, Lisa opened a cupboard and found the last, clean glass, filled it with water from the sink. Then she started slowly opening the bottles of pills, reading names and dosages, examining color and weight, the doctor who prescribed, pharmacy that dispensed, direction how to take them and why. She had half a smile and half a grin on her face while observing the pile of pills on the kitchen counter. There was two weeks of her supply, max she was allowed to have… “Precaution for overdose” she thought and smiled to that thought. There were sleeping pills, anti anxiety pills, pills to treat good mood and bad mood, muscle relaxant. And the last two new prescriptions, with names she was not even able to read, and could not remember what they were prescribed for.
As she emptied all the bottles, she took a handful of pills, making of her own prescription and as she was about to shovel them in her mouth, she saw a shadow, in her side vision, from her left, behind the kitchen window. She sharply turned around, nothing was there. “An owl” she thought. “Why is she hanging there at such an odd time of the day? And, wait a minute, why she is she but not he?” And, in her thought, it was definitely SHE. With this in mind, Lisa took a large gulp of water to wash down the first meds of her prescription, and then another one and another… until all of them were taken. Suddenly she felt thirsty “I shouldn’t be” she thought “it’s got to be anxiety”. Although, the calm and tranquility of the moment was so great, that she did not let herself dwell on such an insignificant thought. She finished the first glass of water, filed another one, drank half of that, put the glass in the sink, overflow with dirty dishes and walked back into her bedroom, her last sanctuary on this planet.
Lisa was lying in her bed, flat on her back and was carefully examining all the sensations within her body; trying not to lose the beginning of The Moment. All was familiar; she experienced no difference, no changes….
She started to feel sleepy, dizzy and slightly nauseous in about twenty minutes. It was nothing too terrible at first. But the intensity of the symptoms was increasing with every passing minute. Helpless, half paralyzed and violently ill, she started thrashing in her bed. There was no more glamour of the last minute and of the last breath, she was fighting something so painful, so frightening, so awesome, powerful and extremely uncomfortable. And it was objectively real; even so she did not see it, she felt the presence.
The flow of time had disappeared for Lisa. Hey! Lisa had disappeared; she was just it, a fleeting moment of life, fragile and incredibly resilient at the same time. That fragile moment of her was in a crushing grip of the dark awesomeness and resilient was not giving up.
She was on the floor. She vomited. It was so violent that it brought a filament of consciousness back and she felt as if she expelled her stomach and her intestines outside of her abdomen with that violent urge. It made the crushing darkness step away, perhaps from the disgust when Lisa’s face landed in the puddle of pharmaceutical vomit.
At this time Lisa’s consciousness was gone. She was back in her last night dreamland, running the fields with the Cat and at this time the owl was there too, she was comfortably sitting on the Lisa’s left shoulder. Lisa thought that it would be nice to see some flowers on the field, and flowers appeared, throwing green grass into the mosaic of colors then she thought about the distant sound of water and she heard it too, and then she wished for mountains, and they appeared in a foggy perspective. She suddenly realized that she is dreaming. She had read about lucid dreaming that other people describe and claim to have, but never believed that it was true, now she experienced it and it was beautiful.
The fragments of the memory of her last minutes were painfully returning back with waves of nausea and an urge to vomit. Lisa was regretful and she knew that she wants to wake up. She wanted her life back and she knew she would never do anything stupid again. She wanted to find the green field and run there at sunrise with her Cat (she will go and adopt a kitten and name him Cat). She would not shout at the owl ever again, but check on internet what she needs to do to keep the owl by her window. At this time, the owl started hooting, and she was not crying about food, but her cry reminded her of static white noise, something unpleasantly mechanical. And despite that Lisa felt love for the bird.
The room becomes quiet, too quiet, and shadowy still…
Knock on the door disturbed no one, another knock and one more… “Lisa, Lisa, are you there, your door is open...” Loxy’s face appeared in a doorway. He thought that she left her apartment and forgot to lock the door, although it was a little too early and unusual for her to venture out. He was about to walk away and close the door behind his back, when something suddenly stopped him. He was uncertain what, perhaps a hint of a strange smell or eerie stillness of the place.
He walked carefully inside, without realizing he was scanning the apartment as he was walking toward the bedroom…. Lisa was there, on the floor in the position of the moment when she lost her consciousness.
At first, when Loxy saw her, he was frozen stiff because of the shock of the conflict between denial and reality of the scene. the reality brought him into his senses quick and he jumped to her, dropped on the floor on his knees, picked her head gently with both hands embraced tightly to his chest, as his tears were uncontrollably pouring from his eyes down his checks and dropping on Lisa’s wet hair which smelled like coconut, Loxy thought that he would never be able to use anything containing coconut or smelling like one. And he thought about left over ice cream in his refrigerator that must go into the trash can as soon as he gets home. He touched her wrists, her neck, leaned close to her face and he sensed subtle signs of life: fainting pulses, shallow and slow breathing. “Lisa, Lisa …” he was shouting loudly, helplessly and without any results. Then he reached into his pockets, pulled out a cell phone and started dialing 911. He got it right on the third attempt.
As he talked to the emergency operator, describing the situation, giving directions, performing basic CPR under the guidance of a distant stranger and waiting for the ambulance, time had slow down. He felt that some large portion of his time disappeared and his being was invaded by heaviness. And that he, himself, was the invader and a stranger; because he was watching himself do all of his acts and think his thoughts as a movie where the hero was him, an obvious retard. He pulled himself together as much as he could…
And at this moment, the ambulance arrived, Loxy determined from the siren that it was getting closer for the last seconds and finally chocked silently by the front entrance of the building. Heavy and loud footsteps of a few people end up with a loud inpatient knock at the door. “It is open” he shouted, but his voice was deep and raspy, hidden somewhere in the pit of his stomach changing his shout into just a whisper, but it did not stop the paramedics; the knock was obviously just a routine, because three of them were in the apartment and in the room within seconds. Young woman in uniform with her stethoscope ready in her right hand shoveled Loxy aside with her left hand “move” while kneeling next to Lisa’s body.
Busy and concentrated, almost silent two of them were attending to Lisa, while the third one was on the phone with the hospital, as Loxy deducted from the broken phrases, he was passing information along to the other two. Two cops entered the apartment shortly after. They were on Loxy like a shit on underpants. He was never comfortable with cops, at this moment especially. But he did try to answer all their questions; some were so absurd that Loxy had to ask to repeat those questions a few times, which must have made the cops suspicious. But, in reality, both policemen thought that Loxy was in a medium stage of retardation. And all in all, everyone worked to their best to pull the fading life back.
Within ten minutes, the policemen were done with Loxy. One of them offered his help for the medics; it was politely refused. More routine, thought Loxy. And they left.
Loxy, tired and exhausted, slid down to the floor and was sitting there in the corner in an emotional slumber. He understood that Lisa was doing better from the conversation of the medics, which was more coherent at this time and drifted to a personal matter.
The woman was complaining about her life being split every morning between daycare and school, before she gets to work and no help because her husband was on his second tour in Iraq, and her partner was crying that since his divorce, he has little time with his kids because of his bitch wife, that tortured and manipulated him using the kids.
The woman noticed Loxy in his corner “Hey, cheer up, she’s lucky, you saved her life. She is alive, just in a deep sleep for now.” And they left the apartment with Lisa on the gurney, strapped flat.
Loxy was not moving, his heart had dropped low and was flipping on his diaphragm like a fish on low tide, every breath was painful, the air, he breathed, was turning into water in his lungs and was painfully and slowly drowning him with every breath, the sensation of pending doom was deepening. He was listening and he did not know for what…
How would you imagine your last day, last moment on this planet?
Lisa imagined her last day to be crispy clear and clean. From the fogginess of her tired mind, she imagined her last moment as the moment of clarity to understand which breath of hers would be the last one. Not much to ask. Is it?
Hot water of her shower was pleasantly caressing her skin, immersing her body into warm wet comfort. Two weeks without any meds sharpened her senses and put her on the very edge of something unknown, dangerous and exiting.
Stepping out of shower, she took up the new towel - acquired for the occasion - and wrapped it around her full figure. She gently dried herself, carefully examining an appearance in the not so clean mirror, dropped the towel on the floor. Her hair, clean and lustrous, draped her pale face into a dark mahogany shroud. Her eyes, green and sharply focused looked into her eyes from the flat surface of the mirror, repeatedly asking “are you sure? Are you sure?” Lisa nodded her head with a short “yes”.
She went on the toilet, forced herself to urinate, but she was dry and she was satisfied. The “pleasure” of the enema she endured last night. From her limited academic knowledge, but the excessive internet surfing she knew that when a person loses consciousness, next they lose bladder and bowel control. she walked to her bedroom, step by step, stepped on the towel, felt its softness with her feet. She put a new pair of underwear on, kept from Christmas time for the occasion. Next was a pair of pajamas. Then she walked slowly, barefooted, over a dirty carpet, from her bedroom to the kitchen, holding numerous bottles of pills close to her chest.
In the kitchen, Lisa opened a cupboard and found the last, clean glass, filled it with water from the sink. Then she started slowly opening the bottles of pills, reading names and dosages, examining color and weight, the doctor who prescribed, pharmacy that dispensed, direction how to take them and why. She had half a smile and half a grin on her face while observing the pile of pills on the kitchen counter. There was two weeks of her supply, max she was allowed to have… “Precaution for overdose” she thought and smiled to that thought. There were sleeping pills, anti anxiety pills, pills to treat good mood and bad mood, muscle relaxant. And the last two new prescriptions, with names she was not even able to read, and could not remember what they were prescribed for.
As she emptied all the bottles, she took a handful of pills, making of her own prescription and as she was about to shovel them in her mouth, she saw a shadow, in her side vision, from her left, behind the kitchen window. She sharply turned around, nothing was there. “An owl” she thought. “Why is she hanging there at such an odd time of the day? And, wait a minute, why she is she but not he?” And, in her thought, it was definitely SHE. With this in mind, Lisa took a large gulp of water to wash down the first meds of her prescription, and then another one and another… until all of them were taken. Suddenly she felt thirsty “I shouldn’t be” she thought “it’s got to be anxiety”. Although, the calm and tranquility of the moment was so great, that she did not let herself dwell on such an insignificant thought. She finished the first glass of water, filed another one, drank half of that, put the glass in the sink, overflow with dirty dishes and walked back into her bedroom, her last sanctuary on this planet.
Lisa was lying in her bed, flat on her back and was carefully examining all the sensations within her body; trying not to lose the beginning of The Moment. All was familiar; she experienced no difference, no changes….
She started to feel sleepy, dizzy and slightly nauseous in about twenty minutes. It was nothing too terrible at first. But the intensity of the symptoms was increasing with every passing minute. Helpless, half paralyzed and violently ill, she started thrashing in her bed. There was no more glamour of the last minute and of the last breath, she was fighting something so painful, so frightening, so awesome, powerful and extremely uncomfortable. And it was objectively real; even so she did not see it, she felt the presence.
The flow of time had disappeared for Lisa. Hey! Lisa had disappeared; she was just it, a fleeting moment of life, fragile and incredibly resilient at the same time. That fragile moment of her was in a crushing grip of the dark awesomeness and resilient was not giving up.
She was on the floor. She vomited. It was so violent that it brought a filament of consciousness back and she felt as if she expelled her stomach and her intestines outside of her abdomen with that violent urge. It made the crushing darkness step away, perhaps from the disgust when Lisa’s face landed in the puddle of pharmaceutical vomit.
At this time Lisa’s consciousness was gone. She was back in her last night dreamland, running the fields with the Cat and at this time the owl was there too, she was comfortably sitting on the Lisa’s left shoulder. Lisa thought that it would be nice to see some flowers on the field, and flowers appeared, throwing green grass into the mosaic of colors then she thought about the distant sound of water and she heard it too, and then she wished for mountains, and they appeared in a foggy perspective. She suddenly realized that she is dreaming. She had read about lucid dreaming that other people describe and claim to have, but never believed that it was true, now she experienced it and it was beautiful.
The fragments of the memory of her last minutes were painfully returning back with waves of nausea and an urge to vomit. Lisa was regretful and she knew that she wants to wake up. She wanted her life back and she knew she would never do anything stupid again. She wanted to find the green field and run there at sunrise with her Cat (she will go and adopt a kitten and name him Cat). She would not shout at the owl ever again, but check on internet what she needs to do to keep the owl by her window. At this time, the owl started hooting, and she was not crying about food, but her cry reminded her of static white noise, something unpleasantly mechanical. And despite that Lisa felt love for the bird.
The room becomes quiet, too quiet, and shadowy still…
Knock on the door disturbed no one, another knock and one more… “Lisa, Lisa, are you there, your door is open...” Loxy’s face appeared in a doorway. He thought that she left her apartment and forgot to lock the door, although it was a little too early and unusual for her to venture out. He was about to walk away and close the door behind his back, when something suddenly stopped him. He was uncertain what, perhaps a hint of a strange smell or eerie stillness of the place.
He walked carefully inside, without realizing he was scanning the apartment as he was walking toward the bedroom…. Lisa was there, on the floor in the position of the moment when she lost her consciousness.
At first, when Loxy saw her, he was frozen stiff because of the shock of the conflict between denial and reality of the scene. the reality brought him into his senses quick and he jumped to her, dropped on the floor on his knees, picked her head gently with both hands embraced tightly to his chest, as his tears were uncontrollably pouring from his eyes down his checks and dropping on Lisa’s wet hair which smelled like coconut, Loxy thought that he would never be able to use anything containing coconut or smelling like one. And he thought about left over ice cream in his refrigerator that must go into the trash can as soon as he gets home. He touched her wrists, her neck, leaned close to her face and he sensed subtle signs of life: fainting pulses, shallow and slow breathing. “Lisa, Lisa …” he was shouting loudly, helplessly and without any results. Then he reached into his pockets, pulled out a cell phone and started dialing 911. He got it right on the third attempt.
As he talked to the emergency operator, describing the situation, giving directions, performing basic CPR under the guidance of a distant stranger and waiting for the ambulance, time had slow down. He felt that some large portion of his time disappeared and his being was invaded by heaviness. And that he, himself, was the invader and a stranger; because he was watching himself do all of his acts and think his thoughts as a movie where the hero was him, an obvious retard. He pulled himself together as much as he could…
And at this moment, the ambulance arrived, Loxy determined from the siren that it was getting closer for the last seconds and finally chocked silently by the front entrance of the building. Heavy and loud footsteps of a few people end up with a loud inpatient knock at the door. “It is open” he shouted, but his voice was deep and raspy, hidden somewhere in the pit of his stomach changing his shout into just a whisper, but it did not stop the paramedics; the knock was obviously just a routine, because three of them were in the apartment and in the room within seconds. Young woman in uniform with her stethoscope ready in her right hand shoveled Loxy aside with her left hand “move” while kneeling next to Lisa’s body.
Busy and concentrated, almost silent two of them were attending to Lisa, while the third one was on the phone with the hospital, as Loxy deducted from the broken phrases, he was passing information along to the other two. Two cops entered the apartment shortly after. They were on Loxy like a shit on underpants. He was never comfortable with cops, at this moment especially. But he did try to answer all their questions; some were so absurd that Loxy had to ask to repeat those questions a few times, which must have made the cops suspicious. But, in reality, both policemen thought that Loxy was in a medium stage of retardation. And all in all, everyone worked to their best to pull the fading life back.
Within ten minutes, the policemen were done with Loxy. One of them offered his help for the medics; it was politely refused. More routine, thought Loxy. And they left.
Loxy, tired and exhausted, slid down to the floor and was sitting there in the corner in an emotional slumber. He understood that Lisa was doing better from the conversation of the medics, which was more coherent at this time and drifted to a personal matter.
The woman was complaining about her life being split every morning between daycare and school, before she gets to work and no help because her husband was on his second tour in Iraq, and her partner was crying that since his divorce, he has little time with his kids because of his bitch wife, that tortured and manipulated him using the kids.
The woman noticed Loxy in his corner “Hey, cheer up, she’s lucky, you saved her life. She is alive, just in a deep sleep for now.” And they left the apartment with Lisa on the gurney, strapped flat.
Loxy was not moving, his heart had dropped low and was flipping on his diaphragm like a fish on low tide, every breath was painful, the air, he breathed, was turning into water in his lungs and was painfully and slowly drowning him with every breath, the sensation of pending doom was deepening. He was listening and he did not know for what…
Sunday, June 26, 2011
letters (every word is important)
Good bye... I am sorry... How insignificant and meaningless those words are or how incredibly important! Development of language evolved us into modern Homo sapiens and true magicians. Think about it, all we have, all we know, all we do – is born, encoded and passed forth by the medium of words. Moreover everything is stored via words into our communal memory: our feelings, memories, memories of others. We become adepts of language and we learned to trick ourselves into the idea that “words are empty and deeds are meaningful”. The truth is – we had created a prison without walls and become own prisoners. It is a perfect setting, we cannot escape, because there nothing to escape from…. And how important “Good bye” is? It is not if you have a choice to say it or not. Although if you are stripped off that choice, it will hunt you beyond your grave … EVERY WORD IS IMPORTANT.
GOOD BYE
you said “good bye”
casually… on the parking lot,
walking me to my car.
ten feet of walk equal ten years of life.
you didn’t have time for an explanation.
our hearts were cold,
frozen into the icicles,
they resonated like a crystal glasses
in the middle of celebration
upon touching each other.
I listen to your reasons
and was wondering
if people toast on funerals…
GOOD BYE
you said “good bye”
casually… on the parking lot,
walking me to my car.
ten feet of walk equal ten years of life.
you didn’t have time for an explanation.
our hearts were cold,
frozen into the icicles,
they resonated like a crystal glasses
in the middle of celebration
upon touching each other.
I listen to your reasons
and was wondering
if people toast on funerals…
Friday, June 24, 2011
fragments (woman, owl and cat) (I)
Could you imagine your last day, last moment on this planet?
Yesterday was a gloomy day, as gloomy as it could be. There were many gloomy days lately. Lisa knew that the new day, which was about to break, would not be cheerful either. And she felt, she knew, no, she was certain, that no matter what she will attempt today - she will fail. Failure was her middle name, as her mother used to say. Often Lisa was thinking whether she is a failure because it was her mother’s beliefs and expectations, or maybe all the way around, and her mother was right. And maybe it was time to prove her mother and herself wrong and make this new day a success after all.
She looked into the darkness of her window; she was suddenly interrupted by a familiar hooting “who-cooks-for-you”. The gray owl was laughing at Lisa again. “No one cooks for me, and no one ever did, you stupid bird” Lisa shouted back. But the owl was asking the question indifferently over and over again.
Like a bad omen she was there for weeks, just sitting on the birch tree and hooting in the direction of Lisa’s window, waking her up at an ungodly hour, interrupting the stupor of her sleep.
Normally Lisa would get up and find something to throw at the window; usually it would be a shoe or a pair, but not today. Today is a special day and Lisa enjoyed the owl’s company and her annoying hooting, which other times freaked her out.
Mornings were not her favorite time of the day. Like every depressed and heavily medicated person, Lisa’s favorite time was night and favorite activity was sleeping. Sometimes she thought it is funny to try to cure depression with stupor, induced by medication. After the years of indulgence, her mind was feeble of logic and stripped of almost the last drop of will.
She was off her meds for exactly two weeks. And it was not a good sign. It had happened in the past and usually she would end up in a Psychiatric ward of the local hospital with a mental melt down for months at a time. She did not mind those months, she knew the nurses and doctors; she knew how to manipulate them to her advantage. Doctor Cokato, nice Indian dude, had a name for it “borderline personality disorder”. But it did not bothered her too much, on the contrary, it sounded like something fashionable.
Lisa was thirty five years old: single, overweight (mild description of reality), spiritually and otherwise a broken young woman. She lived in a one bedroom cheap apartment that was paid by the government.
Her next door neighbor was a middle aged man, whose name she did not know, because everyone called him Loxy. And he lived there many years before she moved in. He had a Siamese cat with a simple name “Cat”. Cat was a house creature, and somehow one night, he decided to run for his freedom. He found it a few yards away, in the middle of the street, flattened by the wheels of a truck. It was the ugliest scene, Lisa has ever seen. During his life the Cat was white, fat and obnoxious, but, that day, on the street he was flat and brown-pinkish-red in color, with his intestines mixed with their content next to his fur.
Loxy was heartbroken. Usually he did not annoy his neighbors with visits, but those few days he was on Lisa’s doorway a few times a day, mourning his loss and adding to Lisa’s misery.
She was falling asleep while the sun was crawling over the horizon into a new day. Her eyeballs start to move rapidly behind closed eyelids and her fingers on her right hand slightly twitched as she was petting the, still alive, Cat in her dream. And then she ran with him through the green fields, dipping her bare feet into the silky cold grass beaded with the morning dew. Cat was running alongside, they were happy and free. With that feeling, Lisa drifted deeper into her sleep and the thread of her dream dissolved into shimmering dust and the dust disappeared into nothing…..
A loud impatient knock on the door woke her up. “Just a minute” she shouted from her bed, trying to prevent the next series of knocks that painfully vibrated in her head, bouncing from side to side. “Just a minute”, she repeatedly reassured to the early intruder.
“Lisa it is me” Loxy’s voice behind the door. “I got you a coffee…”
Lisa opened the door and let him in. To her dissatisfaction she noted that he had two cups nested in a cup holder. She sighed heavily. “Start my day with your misery, sure, why not” she thought, and that thought sounded surprisingly cheerful to her. In the back of her head she glimpsed of a fleeting thought that “misery likes a company”, that just had arrived with a coffee in his hands.
“I hope you don’t mind” bragged Loxy.
“C’mon, in… Not at all” she replied, thinking “Man, give me a fucking break with your fucking cat”
They walk to the kitchen. The table was littered with unrelated things: leftover bagel, dirty glass with dried white streaks of milk on the outside, a DVD with a few crinkled candy wrappers on the top, a spoon, appropriate but not a related object. Lisa extended her hand to move the mess aside, increasing the density of the chaos. Loxy pulled the cups from the holder, extended one cup for Lisa “cream and sugar, as you like” and put the cup holder on the table. “More mess” she thought with disgust, and then “who cares”.
She was silent and distant, pretending to be attentive while he was rehearsing his loss and pain over and over again… they finished the coffee in silence. “I would be going” Loxy said.
“Have a great day,” she replied. “Thanks for the coffee. Hey Loxy!” she suddenly remembered “I have something for you”. Lisa got up, went into her bedroom and appeared shortly back with her finest possession, the bronze statue of a Egyptian cat that her aunt Tina, archeologist, brought for her, from her conference in Egypt, when Lisa was twelve years old. Lisa never let the statue leave her side, but today she felt that her neighbor is in grater needs.
Lisa extended her hand, Loxy extended his and they both stood there speechless for a moment, glued by the bronze cat in the middle. They looked into each other eyes with compassion and gratitude and two pair of eyes started to fill with tears… just for a moment.
“Thank you” all he could say.
“Enjoy” she pulled out her voice from somewhere painfully deep, below her diaphragm.
She did not bother to lock the door when he left.”He definitely would be back soon”.
She reached across the table, for a pack of cigarettes, searched for a lighter… found one by the stove and lit the cigarette. The warm of the smoke in her lungs was pleasurably transforming into nicotine and was readily absorbed into her bloodstream.
Lisa tilted her head, closed her eyes and indulged into her usual daydreaming. Today she was in her red organza daydream dress, light and beautiful; she was dancing: with high jumps and low sits, wind was blowing her long mahogany hair in all directions and drops of rain, upon touching her skin, vibrated with sounds… orchestra music for her performance. Imaginary people were stopping and tilting their heads up in bewilderment. From their perspective, she looked like a red cloud bouncing on the wire, stretched from one skyscraper to another. And then she saw herself slipping down and falling… her dress did not reminded her a red cloud anymore, but of a red saltiness of blood diffusing in a fresh water.
Her cigarette dropped on the floor from her relaxed hand and it brought her back to reality.
Yesterday was a gloomy day, as gloomy as it could be. There were many gloomy days lately. Lisa knew that the new day, which was about to break, would not be cheerful either. And she felt, she knew, no, she was certain, that no matter what she will attempt today - she will fail. Failure was her middle name, as her mother used to say. Often Lisa was thinking whether she is a failure because it was her mother’s beliefs and expectations, or maybe all the way around, and her mother was right. And maybe it was time to prove her mother and herself wrong and make this new day a success after all.
She looked into the darkness of her window; she was suddenly interrupted by a familiar hooting “who-cooks-for-you”. The gray owl was laughing at Lisa again. “No one cooks for me, and no one ever did, you stupid bird” Lisa shouted back. But the owl was asking the question indifferently over and over again.
Like a bad omen she was there for weeks, just sitting on the birch tree and hooting in the direction of Lisa’s window, waking her up at an ungodly hour, interrupting the stupor of her sleep.
Normally Lisa would get up and find something to throw at the window; usually it would be a shoe or a pair, but not today. Today is a special day and Lisa enjoyed the owl’s company and her annoying hooting, which other times freaked her out.
Mornings were not her favorite time of the day. Like every depressed and heavily medicated person, Lisa’s favorite time was night and favorite activity was sleeping. Sometimes she thought it is funny to try to cure depression with stupor, induced by medication. After the years of indulgence, her mind was feeble of logic and stripped of almost the last drop of will.
She was off her meds for exactly two weeks. And it was not a good sign. It had happened in the past and usually she would end up in a Psychiatric ward of the local hospital with a mental melt down for months at a time. She did not mind those months, she knew the nurses and doctors; she knew how to manipulate them to her advantage. Doctor Cokato, nice Indian dude, had a name for it “borderline personality disorder”. But it did not bothered her too much, on the contrary, it sounded like something fashionable.
Lisa was thirty five years old: single, overweight (mild description of reality), spiritually and otherwise a broken young woman. She lived in a one bedroom cheap apartment that was paid by the government.
Her next door neighbor was a middle aged man, whose name she did not know, because everyone called him Loxy. And he lived there many years before she moved in. He had a Siamese cat with a simple name “Cat”. Cat was a house creature, and somehow one night, he decided to run for his freedom. He found it a few yards away, in the middle of the street, flattened by the wheels of a truck. It was the ugliest scene, Lisa has ever seen. During his life the Cat was white, fat and obnoxious, but, that day, on the street he was flat and brown-pinkish-red in color, with his intestines mixed with their content next to his fur.
Loxy was heartbroken. Usually he did not annoy his neighbors with visits, but those few days he was on Lisa’s doorway a few times a day, mourning his loss and adding to Lisa’s misery.
She was falling asleep while the sun was crawling over the horizon into a new day. Her eyeballs start to move rapidly behind closed eyelids and her fingers on her right hand slightly twitched as she was petting the, still alive, Cat in her dream. And then she ran with him through the green fields, dipping her bare feet into the silky cold grass beaded with the morning dew. Cat was running alongside, they were happy and free. With that feeling, Lisa drifted deeper into her sleep and the thread of her dream dissolved into shimmering dust and the dust disappeared into nothing…..
A loud impatient knock on the door woke her up. “Just a minute” she shouted from her bed, trying to prevent the next series of knocks that painfully vibrated in her head, bouncing from side to side. “Just a minute”, she repeatedly reassured to the early intruder.
“Lisa it is me” Loxy’s voice behind the door. “I got you a coffee…”
Lisa opened the door and let him in. To her dissatisfaction she noted that he had two cups nested in a cup holder. She sighed heavily. “Start my day with your misery, sure, why not” she thought, and that thought sounded surprisingly cheerful to her. In the back of her head she glimpsed of a fleeting thought that “misery likes a company”, that just had arrived with a coffee in his hands.
“I hope you don’t mind” bragged Loxy.
“C’mon, in… Not at all” she replied, thinking “Man, give me a fucking break with your fucking cat”
They walk to the kitchen. The table was littered with unrelated things: leftover bagel, dirty glass with dried white streaks of milk on the outside, a DVD with a few crinkled candy wrappers on the top, a spoon, appropriate but not a related object. Lisa extended her hand to move the mess aside, increasing the density of the chaos. Loxy pulled the cups from the holder, extended one cup for Lisa “cream and sugar, as you like” and put the cup holder on the table. “More mess” she thought with disgust, and then “who cares”.
She was silent and distant, pretending to be attentive while he was rehearsing his loss and pain over and over again… they finished the coffee in silence. “I would be going” Loxy said.
“Have a great day,” she replied. “Thanks for the coffee. Hey Loxy!” she suddenly remembered “I have something for you”. Lisa got up, went into her bedroom and appeared shortly back with her finest possession, the bronze statue of a Egyptian cat that her aunt Tina, archeologist, brought for her, from her conference in Egypt, when Lisa was twelve years old. Lisa never let the statue leave her side, but today she felt that her neighbor is in grater needs.
Lisa extended her hand, Loxy extended his and they both stood there speechless for a moment, glued by the bronze cat in the middle. They looked into each other eyes with compassion and gratitude and two pair of eyes started to fill with tears… just for a moment.
“Thank you” all he could say.
“Enjoy” she pulled out her voice from somewhere painfully deep, below her diaphragm.
She did not bother to lock the door when he left.”He definitely would be back soon”.
She reached across the table, for a pack of cigarettes, searched for a lighter… found one by the stove and lit the cigarette. The warm of the smoke in her lungs was pleasurably transforming into nicotine and was readily absorbed into her bloodstream.
Lisa tilted her head, closed her eyes and indulged into her usual daydreaming. Today she was in her red organza daydream dress, light and beautiful; she was dancing: with high jumps and low sits, wind was blowing her long mahogany hair in all directions and drops of rain, upon touching her skin, vibrated with sounds… orchestra music for her performance. Imaginary people were stopping and tilting their heads up in bewilderment. From their perspective, she looked like a red cloud bouncing on the wire, stretched from one skyscraper to another. And then she saw herself slipping down and falling… her dress did not reminded her a red cloud anymore, but of a red saltiness of blood diffusing in a fresh water.
Her cigarette dropped on the floor from her relaxed hand and it brought her back to reality.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
fragments(because i love)
Why do I write?
Because I can.
And not only… but I have something to say, and I know how to say it.
And not only… I understand the power of the written words.
And not only…I feel the essence of the language and can translate it into sound.
And not only… I can breathe life into the white static.
And not only… I mastered bravery and I can open my soul to everyone to march through.
And not only… but because I can descend into the darkest and scariest places that the human mind can fathom. And I can look into the eyes of Death and argue with God.
And not only… I can endure pain and injuries with a smile on my face, and can die and be reborn over again.
And not only… I can take you with me every time I want and any place I wish.
And not only, but because every day I take the pen in my hands, I master the purity of my intent.
And not only.
I write because I love…
Because I can.
And not only… but I have something to say, and I know how to say it.
And not only… I understand the power of the written words.
And not only…I feel the essence of the language and can translate it into sound.
And not only… I can breathe life into the white static.
And not only… I mastered bravery and I can open my soul to everyone to march through.
And not only… but because I can descend into the darkest and scariest places that the human mind can fathom. And I can look into the eyes of Death and argue with God.
And not only… I can endure pain and injuries with a smile on my face, and can die and be reborn over again.
And not only… I can take you with me every time I want and any place I wish.
And not only, but because every day I take the pen in my hands, I master the purity of my intent.
And not only.
I write because I love…
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
letters (...)
Prison of Silence… The torture for my Mind from the Depth that lies beyond the grasp of my consciousness…
“…circles under our eyes
are darker and wider.”
“I did not sleep too much lately.”
“..it is going to be a nice day tomorrow.”
“…it seems like the wind is not that cold
and strong anymore.”
darted disconnected phrases;
tension hidden beneath words,
conversation guarded
from slipping unto
the danger zone.
fear to reveal more
than the flat surface can bear.
…sudden and mutual attraction…
hard hit of a tidal wave
that withdraws back quickly,
leaving two lost souls behind
that was brought together by accident
and left to the mercy of a brutal life.
many more nights would not
offer much sleep
many more days would flow unfriendly.
and wind will blow strong
in this cold indifferent Universe.
“…circles under our eyes
are darker and wider.”
“I did not sleep too much lately.”
“..it is going to be a nice day tomorrow.”
“…it seems like the wind is not that cold
and strong anymore.”
darted disconnected phrases;
tension hidden beneath words,
conversation guarded
from slipping unto
the danger zone.
fear to reveal more
than the flat surface can bear.
…sudden and mutual attraction…
hard hit of a tidal wave
that withdraws back quickly,
leaving two lost souls behind
that was brought together by accident
and left to the mercy of a brutal life.
many more nights would not
offer much sleep
many more days would flow unfriendly.
and wind will blow strong
in this cold indifferent Universe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)