Tag Archive for 'life'

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.

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What makes you happy?

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 0 Comments

Our life depends on our perception of reality. I do not remember if I told you the story of Jacob’s girlfriends’ uncle. He is serving few life sentences in America. 30 years ago before getting there he was a well known brain surgeon. He divorced his wife and left his former family and grown up children for another woman. His first wife was found dead shortly afterwards. The circumstances of her death were not clear. Some people say he was accused in murder by his children who wanted revenge and money. Indeed, he was rich. Whatever happened, if he killed her or not, nobody can tell anything now for sure – things can terrible mesh up and become very confusing in 30 years time.
In jail he learnt Jewish, Torah and became a rabbi.
When Jacob and his girlfriend went to see him, he was a very old man, in his early eighties. He told them that in the last few years his life dramatically changed to better. Apparently, they moved him to another cell, so he could see a tree from his window instead of brick wall now.

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A mystery of coffee pot

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in dream. 1 Comment

 “I am one of the forgotten ones who refuses to be forgotten.” -M. O’Reilly

Once I have heard a story about one Japanese painter. Unfortunately I do not know his name. Anyway, as far as the story goes, he started to paint rather late, like Van Gogh, in his early thirties. Soon he abandoned his job and commited all his life to painting. He lived long and died in his eighties. He never married or had any children, as he devoted all his life to his art. He produced a large body of works, well over 3000 paintings and countless sketches. He struggled most of his life, though in his late years he became very well known, and could sell his works well.

That’s not the point, though such a commitment deserves respect. What really fascinates me is the subject he had chosen: a coffee pot. He painted nothing else, but one and the same coffee pot for nearly 60 years.  After his death not a single sketch or painting with anything else but this pot was found. My first reaction to this story was laugh. How strange it was: to spend all your life doing nothing else but painting endlessly, over and over without a shadow of doubt or showing any interest in a different subject same object, a coffee pot. I thought he didn’t have any imagination, or was caught in the frame of his routine. I know some people who never ventured as far as 50 kilometres away from the place there they were born; they were fine with that and didn’t see any point in going somewhere else. Was he like them? Or maybe he could see something else in that pot every time he would paint it? Was his life a quest for perfectness? What was in this pot for him, and why he had chosen a coffee pot anyway?

I wanted to find answers, but more I thought about him, more questions I had. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I wish I could find an album of his paintings. It is my dream for a long time, but I couldn’t come across it. They told me there’s one, compromising all his life span and works. I imagine a very thick folio, few thousands pages thick, each of them depicting a coffee pot. I long to leaf through those pages, from his first drawings to the last unfinished work. I want to solve this mystery. Some people say, I’d love to meet Jesus Christ or Buddha, or have a chat with Lao-Tse, Pope or Leonardo da Vinci. If I’d have a chance, I’d like to meet this Japanese painter, whose name I don’t know and whose paintings I’ve never seen.

Boris Kislitsin

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Fate

Published by
abraxus
 in dream. 0 Comments

In my dream I was lost. It was a very pleasant feeling. I was in a place I have never been before. It looked like a forest, but I couldn’t see much because of mist. So I walked and walked and walked. The grass was soft, and I was barefoot. It was a very pleasant walk. After a while I could hear a song, reminding me a lullaby my grandmother used to sing. I thought she was there, and went in that direction. I came to a hut. There was no door, and I could see a fireplace inside and nearby it there was a very old woman. She didn’t see me or at least didn’t pay any attention. I came closer. She was blind. Sitting on a floor, she was humming her song while weaving a carpet. It was already very long and looked very strange. It didn’t have a shape. It rather reminded a cloud. If I looked at it, were wasn’t any partcicular design, but many complex ones. When I looked at it closer, I could see many different patterns, though it was difficult to follow them: I tried to do so few times and was lost each time. When I looked again, I couldn’t find that string again, or saw different things. There were many knits weaved in together, and each of the colored strings was telling a different story without the end or beginning. It was impossible to say there this carpet started. It looked more like a net, actually. She worked very fast, picking a loose end from here and there, pulling strings apart and binding them together again, adding a new one. I was staying there for a long time, watching her work and reading the carpet.

 In front of her were there laying many different strings, short and long ones of different colors. Suddenly she asked me: give me yours.

I said: I don’t have any. She answered: everybody has. Give me the one you like.

I picked one from the floor and gave it to her. She told me, pointing with her hand: your home is that way. And I left.

When I woke up, I thought about this dream and what it could mean. I knew it was a special one. I thought I have met Fate. The strings were that some people call lives, and some call dreams. But what was it about? I felt like I learnt a lot by reading those shapes and following strings, but when I tried to remember anything of it, there was nothing. Nil.

Abraxus

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