GOTTA KNOCK A LITTLE HARDER
Every day we experience different feelings. Today I experienced a completely new one. It smelled like peacock feathers. It lasted only a moment, but I will remember it for the rest of my life…
“NO PULSE!” Everything became blurry. So many colors, sounds, words, faces, places, lights. Sometimes I get lost in it all and don't know where I am. All memories blur, creating a distorted, tar-dripping portrait of myself. Only individual images emerge from the nightmare image, then take the form of the bone beads I so desperately desired.
“WE'RE LOSING HIM!” I only remember things whose names smell unpleasant. As a child, I lived in an old, damp house whose walls were overgrown with parasitic fungi, and the perpetual grayness of the windows revealed a distorted image of reality. One day, my mother was cleaning. She began sweeping the furniture of a week's worth of dust, ironing clothes, and arranging them in the crumbling wardrobe. She also threw her father's body, which had been decomposing for days, out of bed, probably unable to bear the smell of rotting flesh any longer. My mother burned the body in a rusty bathtub that had stood in the middle of the yard for years, frightening the local birds. She explained that this was how funerals for rulers used to be.
"Quick, respirator!" I remember cutting off my father's finger with an old pair of pruning shears before the corpse was devoured by the raging flames. I removed the bluish skin and flesh with a blunt penknife, and hung the white bone on a string. But now the corpse bead is beginning to transform into a shimmering white stain, and the scent of peacock feathers is replaced by the fragrance of wildflowers.
"THE PULSE IS NORMAL!" I've always wondered what people see at the moment of death or just after. They say they see light then. Will I see it too? I wonder what lies beyond. If a new life awaits me there, is it worth pursuing? "PULSE IS NORMAL."
FOREVER LOVE:
Do Red Fish live in canned food?
I went to bed a loner, and six hours later, I was no longer one. If death could be defined as part of a cycle that leads to a change in a person's personality, I certainly died that night. Moments later, I was born a completely different person.
On November 4th—exactly 19 years and 23 days ago—I appeared—the man from 1984. The fact that I have survived to this day makes me special. A while ago, I tried to wall myself off from the world, but today I'd love to hit it with a heavy hammer, wanting to punch a hole in it and escape. I want to make my world bigger. I want to make room for her in it, because I believe I will create space just for the two of us.
Lying in bed, I saw Red Fish hovering above me. I knew that because of her, long-dormant feelings were beginning to awaken and swarm over my head.
Yesterday, she was also sitting alone on a bench. It was then that I realized I wanted to offer her eternity. Today, however, I'm afraid to approach her. Fear paralyzes my muscles – LEAVE ME! – I want to approach her, but something holds me – HELP! – I crave closeness – I BEG…
…And suddenly the fear vanished. She, too, disappeared. And I dissolved into it all and became nothing but a shadow, searching for its owner. The Red Fish that had led me here, sensing my doubt, were beginning to rot, revealing their white skeletons. HELP! – I once again longed to wall myself in, lock myself in a can, and cease to exist. And then she touched my hand.
November 5th – exactly 19 years and 24 days ago, I appeared – the man from 1984. I am tested every day. The fact that I have survived to this day makes me proud of myself. Some situations and behaviors may contradict this, but whether it's good or bad, I have to make my own decisions.
That day, I sat down next to her. I don't know her name yet, but maybe in time I'll learn her story. Perhaps one day we'll walk the Red Fish together and swim with them through green meadows. But for now, I want to sit on the bench with her. I want her because…
Sometimes the touch of a hand, that other hand, is enough. A girl's hand. A woman's hand. Hand in hand. Sometimes that's enough.
SPEAK MY LANGUAGE
I like fairy tales – everything in them is so simple. Sometimes, when I'm feeling good, I feel like I'm in one of them. But today I was in a completely different fairy tale. For a moment, I felt like I was playing the main role, and then they asked when I'd vacate my seat.
The morning brought the song of a crane, building a large concrete nest for hundreds of other people's children. Meanwhile, the green curtains, trying to shield the apartment from the new day, carefully selected the light, allowing only a few rays of sunlight to filter through moth-eaten holes. Lying in bed, I felt my heated body begin to melt and sink into the worn mattress. Fearing for my very existence, I stood quickly, tripping over an old, out-of-tune violin that, longing to remind itself of itself, emitted a mournful sound. I struggled for a moment to regain full consciousness, but my body refused to obey. Hunger, which had been increasingly trying to make its presence felt, finally took over and steered me towards the kitchen.
With a headache, I took each step, feeling that each one was making me older and slowly transforming me into a corpse. The faster I tried to reach my destination, the harder it was to cover the next few meters. Losing my balance every now and then, I fell to the ground, ashamed of my incompetence, and tried to hide from the shadows in a crack in the rotten floor. Passing a cross hanging on the wall, which had long since ceased to be a symbol of my faith, I knelt awkwardly, as if in contempt for Christianity. And just as I fell before it every night, this time, in my conversation with God, I cried out to him in prayer that I hadn't forgiven him.
By the time I reached the kitchen, it was already dark. Forcing myself to open the refrigerator, my exhausted body protested, slowly sliding down the wall, and I, trapped within, drifted further and further from reality.
A strange, warm melody coming from my room roused me from my sleep. Lying on the cold, icy floor, I watched a large, emaciated white rabbit in a large red top hat sit down at the living room table and begin talking to someone. His companion was a tall, pale man with a crown of thorns on his head and bleeding wounds on his hands and feet. After a brief discussion, the rabbit removed a dead pigeon from the top hat, clutching two dice in its claws, and then handed it to his opponent.
As I continued toward the melody, I felt my energy returning. I grew stronger and, as it were, younger with each step.
When I reached the room, I saw a naked woman playing the violin. It was wonderful to see her once again giving in to her greatest passion. I slowly approached her and embraced her, letting my hands remind me of the soft, smooth skin that had been taken from them. I closed my eyes, longing to fall asleep beside her. Then the warm melody faded, replaced by a screeching sound that pierced my mind. I opened my eyes and found my hands no longer caressing the woman they desired, but the shriveled corpse of a ghost with a knife embedded in its chest.
Suddenly, a fat peacock, its feathers caked with tar, flew into the room through the open window. It began to brush off the black slime, and when the process was complete, before me stood no longer a bird but a crouched figure in a tattered black cloak. When it rose, I saw its cadaverous face and bony hands, still covered with remnants of rotting flesh. With a quick movement, the figure plunged a skeletal finger into the ghost's heart, and the ghost, as if awakened from a long sleep, followed it into the living room.
The terrifying rabbit stopped playing and, along with its companion, approached the black figure, allowing it to stab them in the heart. The three, jumping and making awkward movements as if to the rhythm of the worst melody in the world, followed their savior. Terrified by this, I began to flee.
As I entered the bathroom, I felt my feet sink into the green grass, and fear gave way to composure. Enclosed within four walls, far from the ghostly figures, I grew smaller and smaller, and with me my worries. I walked to the bathtub and turned on the taps. Standing on the edge, I stared at the waterfall of clear water. I began to bring the burnt matches scattered throughout the bathroom to the soap dish, then lay down in it myself, eager to throw myself a funeral. As I emerged into the middle of the vast lake, I lit some wood and within moments felt a heat enveloping my body. The smell of burning hair began to compete with the smell of hot grease and escaping protein. And when my body was completely consumed, I emerged and rose to the ceiling. Then, betrayed by the wind, I began to fall, losing myself in the depths of the lake.
When I woke, a wave of artificial light flooded my eyelids. I lay soaking wet in the bathtub, completely oblivious to what had happened.
On November 4th—exactly 21 years and 11 days ago—I reappeared—the man from 1984. The fact that a year has 365 days, and a leap year 366, doesn't give me the right to waste time. Looking at my watch, I realized how little of it I have left—40, maybe 50. It's time to forget the past.
Scraps, puzzles, photos, a written page. Every gesture or sound—everything has meaning. All of it is a thought or a memory. These are images, decipherable only in their own world.
MAZOHYST OF DECADENCE
Sometimes, when I'm feeling down, I hide in the closet. Then it becomes my whole world, and my worries seem smaller. I stay there until a shadow opens the door. Then I come out, and that someone makes me walk on hot coals again.
The room was dark and smoky, and the torturer, as if in a sadistic trance, focused solely on inflicting pain on his victim, rendering me invisible to him. He pulled a box of matches from his pocket, and moments later, the smell of sulfur began fighting with the air, for every inch of space. A war had broken out, a battle for independence, a march toward existence. Yet the scent quickly invaded my lungs, as if knowing he couldn't win. But even there, he was defeated. Meanwhile, over the match flame, he heated the needles, which, blushing with shame and filled with inner hell, manifested their arousal. Slowly, he lifted the hand of the man lying before him and began to drive the needles, nearing orgasm, under his fingernails. I wanted to scream, to rush to help, but the paralyzing human scream awakened my fear, which tightened its grip on my throat and prevented me from moving. After a while the needles lost their color and became cold and indifferent.
As he picked up the kitchen knife from the ground, I began to pray for death for his victim. However, I knew full well that after the spectacle of the needles, it had become nothing more than an elusive dream for the man before him. Watching him sever one finger after another, only the vomit kept my scream from escaping, drowning me in the last remnants of my humanity. Choking on the whole situation, I closed my eyes, but that only made the pleading moans and panic in the victim's rapid breathing more distinct. The sound of the knife being thrown aside filled me with hope, but when I opened my eyes, he already held a large, rusty nail in his hand. He positioned it over the mangled hand, then drove it in as deep as his own compassion—not through. Then he began to drive it home with the sole of his boot, until finally the rusty nail appeared on the other side. But that wasn't enough. He grabbed it and moved it around inside the bloody wound. I didn't want to look at it any longer. I longed to escape this sick reality, to escape, to forget. Then I noticed a kitchen knife lying next to me, its blade covered in dried blood and small pieces of flesh. Gripping the handle tightly, I picked it up and felt anger and a yearning for freedom stir within me. I began to quietly approach my tormentor, and when I was close enough, I struck a killing blow and lunged towards him.
The kitchen knife, clutched by my two-fingered, mangled hand, shattered the mirror—loneliness began to force its way into my body through the festering nail wound, offering me death.
Sometimes it seems to me I'm like a mirror, becoming a reflection of the person looking back at me. No one likes to see their own imperfections. But sometimes the reflection is distorted. Sometimes it seems to me I'm reflecting myself.
Spring, summer, autumn, winter.
Whoever dies, doesn't exist.
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