Saturday 19 March 2011

Big moon

Big moon is coming. Tonight the wolves will come to worship their creator. I look forward to it. The moon is my creator, too. I will sit on the hill with them howling to the god that rules the waters.

My loneliness will disappear for a moment. I'll be dancing in the light of the creator with my brothers - wolves.But tomorrow I will come back to my human life pretending I stayed up long last night watching some rubbish programme on TV.

The moon is a great mystery. It is so close but yet so far. It influences us, it moves our imagination, it makes our lifes worth living. We will wonder about it, we will try to reach out for it. We will make up stories about it. But most importantly, we will dream about it. We will dream that we come from the moon, we will dream thay we will go to the moon once we are done here.

Every night I dream that I am on the moon and I am happy there. In my dreams, I am walking green fileds and feel the most beautiful and simple of the feelings: happiness. I dream that on the moon with me are animals. The moon is not different from the earth. It is only smaller. It is green and lush and is much nicer than planet Earth: it has no humans.
No humans is its blessing. The only thing that keeps it alive. I hope people will never go living on the moon.

Sunday 6 March 2011

Alfred

You are sitting by the kitchen window. It's six o'clock in the morning. Radio is playing quietly so it doesn't wake everyone up. It is still an hour for Mandy to wake up. You are so bored and tired of the sleepless nights. You wish you could just normally fall asleep, like everyone else does, like all the other people do. But she won't let you do that, she'll make you suffer till the last day. Sometimes you think that this day is happening now, but then after a moment you realise that you won't get lucky yet.

'Maybe tomorrow?', you are asking with hope and fear. No answer, just laughter from beyond the night.

You belong to her; you did for last twenty years. Why is she holding on to you for so long? Can't she just let you go? Why is she keeping you? All the others are gone, quickly (most of them); Andrew died immediately, Ted from next door the same, they probably didn't even know what was going on. And you? Twenty years!! Fucking twenty years!! She sits on your back every time you start coughing. It is so painful! She puts pins in your chest, squeezes your heart, stops you from breathing, but always leaves you here. When are you going to meet her properly? Even though you know her so well, you never saw her face.

She knows your desires, and she is vicious, she wants to watch you suffer and laugh into your painful ears...

Alarm goes off in one of the bedrooms. It's Mandy getting up to get the kids ready for school. Their lives are quite ordinary, but you are jealous of them.

You wish you were ordinary too. How funny! When you were young being different from others was everything you wanted, and now...Being just ordinary would make you the happiest man alive! That's it, if only you could live: breath, walk, sleep. That's all you wish for. Isn't it ironic? All the dreams you had, all the great and good intentions will never happen. Your stupid heart won't allow it happen!

Mandy is in the kitchen, she puts the kettle on.

- Good morning, did you sleep well? - you ask.

- Not really, my back and legs were killing me all night. Did you manage to sleep at all?

- No... just can't lie down... you know, it stops me from breathing.

- I know - she sights.

Even though you didn't ask her to, she makes you a cup of tea, just the way you like it.

That will be about it for talking side. You don't talk as much as you used to. What about? All you can ask her is how she feels and you know that she'll complain about the back pain and pain in the legs. All she can ask you is whether you managed to get some sleep and you'll surely answer that you didn't. You just don't sleep anymore.

- Did you take your medicine? - she asks.

- Not yet.

She reaches to the cupboard and gets the box out. It's full of leaves of different tablets. The little white one is the most important. It keeps you alive actually. Sometimes you wonder what would happen if you didn't take it. How painful would it be? Would it be worth it? Maybe.... But what if they managed to safe you? All the time maybe!! Just maybe! And what ifs! Your life is one big what if!

You squeeze out all the tablets and capsules, they are big and small, sweet and bitter, of all shapes and sizes. All together there are fifteen of them.

That's your daily routine: swallowing tablets. For you tomorrow could start now, Monday, May 5th is finished in Alfred's book.

But everyone else only just starts. You can hear Ann walking in the bedroom. The door to her bedroom opens and you can see her walking to the bathroom in her dressing gown.

- Good morning - she says still yawning.

You both answer and Amanda goes to Paul's bedroom to wake him up.

He never gets up by himself; he could sleep through his whole life if he was allowed. "Lucky git!", you think.

Mandy prepares breakfast for everyone. You watch her cracking the eggs on the frying pan.

- Paul!!! - she screams so loud that surely all the neighbors are up now as well whether they like it or not - get up! You'll be late!

Not even a sound coming from Paul's bedroom.

- I'll go... - you say and get up. The attack of cough grabs you by the chest. You are leaning against the table half standing. Mandy looks at you with pain in her eyes and gets back to making the scrambled egg. She's seen it so many times, but there is nothing she can do to help you. It must be hard for her to watch you..

It finally stops. You go to Paul's bedroom.

Everyone is gone to school and work and you are still at your post. Your favourite place is by the kitchen window. You can watch the world from here. Well, as much as you can see of it. At least you are very well informed about what time people go out and when they are coming back. That’s all you can do during the day. Ok, there is TV to watch or books to read but how much can you watch and how much can you read? You used to read a lot. A lot. You don’t feel like it lately. It seems to be taking too much energy away from you. Shame though, you used to like it so much. It was taking you away from reality. And now… that’s all you need: escape. But you are afraid to get tired, more importantly, you are afraid of dreaming. All the books and their stories are in realities that in most cases make you wanting to be there. It reminds you of the days when you were young and healthy and used to think that nothing can break you. It seems to be true in some sense. You were supposed to be dead twenty years ago but you are still here, a phenomenon for cardiologists. They talk about you at their meeting and show the case as an example for student doctors. Scientists and researchers are wondering how your heart is still beating. No one knows the answer, not even you.

You cough and all you can think about is whether, when it stops, you will still be alive. And it stops. You are still breathing, with more difficulty, but still breathing. You were spared again. She is standing next to you holding her hand on your shoulder. You don’t dare to turn your head but you know she is smiling with cold sarcastic smile of a winning death. You take a sip of cold tea and look out of the window. The day is beautiful; trees, covered in blossoms, are swaying to the orders of the wind. Mariah from the ground floor is taking a dog for a walk, George just pulled over in front of the blocs of flats and is getting out of the car. He saw in the window and waved at you. You waved back.

He is very good friend, if it wasn’t for him most of the stuff in the flat wouldn’t be done. He helped you with the renovation in the kitchen and hallway. Well, you sat there chatting away about politics and local gossip and he did all the work. You were helping as much as you could but there was not much you could do with your condition. So frustrating!

You get up to make yourself another tea. As soon as you get up the phone rings and it annoys you.

- Who the fuck could it be? - you say loudly and pick up the phone.

- Hello?

- Hello!... Dad? Hi dad, is mum home? - it’s Eva, your oldest daughter. She has been in London since last year; you don’t know how to speak to her. She resents you which doesn’t make things any better.

- No - you answer - she’s at work...

Moment of hesitation on the other side of the line.

- She will be back around six... - you say and hesitate a little bit. You want to ask how things are with her, what is she doing and when she is coming back but instead you let the uncomfortable silence to continue.

- Ok - she says finally - I’ll call again at six... It’s nothing important. Just wanted to say hi.

- All right, speak to you later, take care - you say and put down the phone.

You feel angry. Angry for not saying what you wanted to say, for not asking how she was. You feel sad that she didn’t want to talk to you, that she didn’t want to share what was happening in her life from her own initiative. It hurts not talking to your own child. It hurts physically. You have to lean on the wall not to fall. You are getting short of breath again. You try to calm yourself and wait for the pulse to come back to its normal rhythm. It takes good few minutes before you are able to restore yourself. You go to the front room and put the telly on. Oh, yes your favourite time killer – watching television. You wonder sometimes if you are already brainwashed or are you still thinking for yourself. Hard to tell really. You might think that you are thinking on your own, but in reality, you think what “they” want you to think. And who are they? Doesn’t really matter. Some sort of Big Brother, someone who knows what is best for you and every human being on the planet, someone better and wiser than all people taken together. Oh yes, you’ve seen it all in your lifetime. They were all the same, different names and different faces but they all had the same hypnotised expression in their greedy eyes. You lived through the times of forbidden thinking and you somehow managed to keep sane. It wasn’t easy, you had to pretend that you think like the party and its good is your main concern. Behind the closed door, however, you were thinking free thoughts; you were listening to the forbidden “devil’s” music and watching films by the deviant directors. You used to organise viewings in your tiny flat in Krakow. People would come in couples or threes every ten or fifteen minutes not to raise anyone’s suspicion. Mandy would prepare some snacks and you’d buy vodka. Even little Eva was allowed to stay up and watch the films. They were the days! You sight slightly and smile to yourself. Everything was different then, everything was much easier, your heart was healthy and full of life. Sudden thought came through your mind and your face turned sad. Will you have a chance to see Eva before you die? Will you have a chance to tell her everything you wanted to tell but never found the words to express it? Does she know who you really are and what you really think? Will she ever understand that you actually love her? Love, the word scares the living daylight out of you. You only said it out loud twice – to Mandy. Sometimes you think kids are scared of you. Why? You never wanted to hurt them; you just didn’t know how to show them your feelings. Do they know now? Will they ever know?

Your eyes water and breath becomes shorter, you straggle for air. You panic for a moment but you know you’ll come back to normal in a short while. Slowly inhalations become more and more regular. You breathe as normally as a person with heart failure can.

News music on the telly catches your attention. You sit up and try to understand what the presenter is saying.

- ... despite many predictions nothing catastrophic has occurred today! - voice from the TV was informing. - There were many predictions suggesting global catastrophes such as floods, hurricanes and earthquakes. However, nothing of this nature happened today. The reason for the predictions was unusual planetary alignment involving our planet. According to NASA Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are positioned in a line with the Sun...”

“Yeah, what next?”, you think to yourself.

-... the distance of the planets”, continued the presenter, “however, is too great for their gravity, magnetic fields or radiation to have any effect on Earth.

You change the channel.

- I don’t care if there was a disaster today - you say out loud.

Suddenly you are ashamed of your own words. You are angry with yourself. ‘This would be great news for me but not for the kids or Mandy... What if it happened today, I would never see Eva again.’ The thought makes you hurt again. You are getting short of breath again and slowly trying to get it back to normal. Pain eases a little bit, enough to get up and go back to your watching position by the kitchen window. You sit for a moment but it’s boring and you go back to the front room. Reading is your next best option after staring out of the window and watching TV. You walk up to the shelf and look at the titles. They are all decorative collections of Russian classics. Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky or Gorki don’t really appeal to you this morning. You read all of them already. You want something light, something that will take you to the times when you were young and free when you could do whatever you wanted to do and go wherever you wanted to go. You want to go back to the times when you still had dreams and believed in them. When you had dreams you wanted to be a vagabond, free spirit sleeping wherever faith will take him. Many times you would take the atlas and travel in your imagination to the most distant places on the earth. You wanted to walk through the tropical forests, climb the mountains, and ride on horseback on the prairies.

In Ann’s room there are books for teenagers. That’s what you want to read, something that will take you away from that unbearable reality. You pick up a book about adventures of Tomek Wilmowski, a young boy who travels around the world and has lots of incredible adventures. There are many volumes; each of them is taking place on the different continent or country. You pick the one which is happening in Australia. It is edition with rough cover and pages. On the front is a drawing of aborigine men holding spears and boomerangs. You wish you could go to Australia and visit all the places you read about. Sudden sobbing shakes your entire body, the pain in the chest makes you drop the book. You sit on Ann’s bed and wait for the physical pain to go away. Then you pick up a book and take it with you to the kitchen.