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Sacrifice

Published by
Jacob Haqq-Misra
 in dream. 2 Comments

Last night in my dream I searched for various ways to kill myself. I was in a bathroom, so I toyed with using a frayed power cord in the outlet and contemplated dropping an appliance into the bathtub. Though I searched slowly and thoughtfully–and free of anxiety–I couldn’t find any method quick and painless enough.

The strange thing about the situation is that there was a reason I needed to do this. I have little recollection of this reason other than that it was for a good purpose that helped out others (perhaps my family). In any case, I was not trying to end my life out of frustration, anger, boredom, or depression; instead I felt this was something I needed to do–perhaps it was in my destiny. As I contemplated the prospect of nonexistence, I was pleasantly surprised to discover no fear of death although part of me felt like I didn’t yet fully understand the realization of impending death.

Jacob Haqq-Misra

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Days We Won’t Forget

Published by
Traverse
 in memory. 0 Comments

Everyone has those days that they’ll never forget. Those days that have had such a large impact on someone that it changes them for the rest of their life.

I know I’ll never forget the happiest day of my life- the day that I got married to Alyssa, the kind of girl that every guy dreams of. I also know I’ll never forget the day that she was torn from my life.

I still remember hearing the phone ring, her voice whispering over the line. “I need help” she said, barely audible.

I remember getting to the scene of the accident. I remember her car being in the ditch, I remember the truck being on its side in the middle of the road. I remember all of the flashing lights and police officers and EMT’s. It all seems like a bad dream to me now. But the sun was shining by the time I got there. The sun doesn’t shine in bad dreams.

“You need to stop,” said a police officer as he held his hand to my chest in an attempt to restrain me.

That’s my wife!” I shouted as I saw her being lifted into the back of the ambulance.
I remember riding in the back of the ambulance, holding her small, cold hand in mine as she drifted in and out of consciousness, whispering “I love you” and “hang in there” to her, not even caring if she heard me or not. I remember the gash in her forehead. I remember the blood running down her arms. I remember the bloodstains in her shirt.

The worst part of this ordeal was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital, and the doctors coming out, telling me there were no improvements, hour after hour. Eventually they told me I needed to go home. I refused.

I was allowed into her room on the morning of the second day. I sat on the edge of her bed. Her hand found mine and held it weakly.

I love you,” she whispered, her eyes barely open.

“I love you too” was the last thing I said before I heard her heart monitor flatline. I held her hand in mine, tears running down my face, as doctors rushed in and pushed me out of the room.

I’ll never forget that day. It’s a recurring dream that haunts me every night I lay alone in bed. I’ll never forget that day.

Traverse

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My life as a tiger

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 5 Comments

Once there was a Bengal tiger in Russian zoo. It was born and spent most of his life in a small cage. He had just enough space to make a couple of steps, jump, make a couple of steps and jump again. Then the tiger had to turn around and repeat the same routine in opposite direction. I have read somewhere that usually in wild a grown up tiger needs something like 16 to 20 sq.km of habitat, otherwise it get stressed. I wonder how much space a human being needs. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, that particular tiger lived in a cage the size of 16 or 20 sq.m, and, obviously, was very stressed. When such an animal as tiger get stressed, it feels uneasy, and can’t rest. That tiger was restless. All it did from dusk till down is pacing the cage. 2 steps, jump, 2 more steps, another jump, turn, 2 steps, jump, 2 more steps, jump, turn around, 2 steps, jump… You have the picture. Naturally, tiger’s living conditions had to be improved. The story goes in the time just after the collapse of the Soviet Union and total collapse of everything on the 1/8th of planet’s landmass, circa middle 1990’s. As it happens in times like this, some people used the situation to the full, and made crazy fortunes. If you ever tried to get from 0 to 100 in just above 3 sec., let’s say on a powerful motobike, you can figure out how it is. Somebody, let’s call him Mr.S., made it from living in a shared with few our families run down apartment in sleepy suburbs to amassing a fortune Imelda Markos could only dream of, comparing to each a budget of a middle size African country is just a pocket money, in a couple of years time. So one day this Mr.S. visited zoo by chance. He spent a good deal of time in front of this cage with Bengal tiger, watching it moves. Maybe he was in nostalgic mood, maybe this cage reminded him the apartment he grown up in, or probably deep down he was a very sensitive person. Some say he was bored, some he was drunk. Whatever the reason, Mr.S. was touched. He went to the zoo director straight away, and asked him, how much money zoo needs to improve tiger’s living conditions. I know this story from the first hands, as a friend of mine, non compromise poet and alcoholic, worked there as a zookeeper, as it was one of very few jobs he could fit himself in. Next day the construction has begun, and soon everything was ready for the grand opening. They set an artificial landscape, so tiger could have a little lake to bath, a cave for him to hide and a little forest resembling jungle; that small provincial zoo somethat tripled in size. In attendance of TV crew, press and Mr.S., they brought in crane and lifted the cage.

Continue reading ‘My life as a tiger’

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Father

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 0 Comments

Many times I was about to sit and write a very personal memory: about my father; but every time something stopped me from doing that.

Death underlines life. If life is the sum of our memories and experiencies, where should be total. My first teacher taught me how to do it in primary school. Write numbers you want to add right under each other. When you put them all, draw a line and add numbers in each column. Under the line there will be one number, “total”. It’s easy to say, but not so easy to do when it comes to a life of somebody you know well. It’s amazing, actually, how scarce my memories are. He was a very kind and simple man. What I remember is just little things: my father caught just in his underwear on his way to toilet late in the night; his shaking hands when he hold my newborn son for the first time; he is sleeping on a sofa in living room, covering his face with a newspaper. Little, random and unsignificant memories. I remember him reading me his poems impromptu, or running around our house in a search for a pen. He would write his poems on anything: old receipts, shits of paper, newspaper clippings… he would leave them anywhere: you could find them in the kitchen, in the toilet, under the bed, on TV, on the floor, between book pages… He was a hardworking man, killing himself with a hell of a job (that was my first impression of it, when he took me there: hell, as he worked on a metal plant. Fumes, dirt, unbearable heat and red liquid metall running under the overpass he had to stay on long shifts). But he would always say: I’m a poet. Indeed, he was. I never was fond of his poems and everybody in my family annoyed by them, though. He, probably, didn’t have a talent, but there was no shortage of enthusiasm and commitment. He stuffed with his poems a pillow case, and then few shoeboxes, and then plastic shopping bags when he ran out of boxes. Nobody wanted to listen to him. Continue reading ‘Father’

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