Tag Archive for 'string'

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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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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Gypsy story

Published by
Maria Cohen
 in memory. 0 Comments

“I’ve seen you where you never were
And where you never will be
And yet within that very place
You can be seen by me.
For to tell what they do not know
Is the art of the Romany.”

Have you ever thought about gypsies? What is it, being a gypsy: belong not to place but the road? Gypsies are famous for telling fortunes and for their craft, which is selling luck to everybody, while always insisting they have none. I tested this fact with an old gypsy woman selling amulets when I saw her last time: “What bâk the divvus?”-”What luck today?” “Kekker rya“-”None” was the reply, as usual, -”I never have any luck.” Being gypsy is like being a mirror that reflects all things but not itself, and shows you what it knows not.

That gypsy woman though knew her trade well, and was famous for her charm and luck bringing amulets: some were of very elaborated designs. I had to travel quite a way to meet her first time and once again few months later to take it; I have heard about people who waited for their amulets for years : “the time didn’t come yet”, or being refused to have one.

My one was a necklace; a string, made of a black thick horse tail hair, with silver coins, snake, a moon and stars on it and some knots; this string was adjourned with a little heart shaped nut and a chip of wood. “It will work as long as you believe in it”, said that woman. - “Never cut this string with knife and be careful not to lose it, otherwise your fortunes would be reversed”.

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So what I think…

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 0 Comments

I was chatting with Silvia today, and she told me what putting memories in eternity is very intimidating.
It is indeed, we need to extract them as we take out meet from a crab: first, dismember the corpse and then suck in.

crabman

Memories tend do hide. They like to stay in the shadows. They like privacy.

I love Internet. It makes privacy Universal.

I feel excited, looking at the blank field of my new post.

It reminds me Genesis. My fingers over 28 letters of familiar alphabet are the one of a creator. If I perform a little magic and put them together, the lines of symbols on the screen will transform into something else. It has a message in it. It is like a DNA string:

No death

How we encode our life is entirely our responsibility.

A rich life you can’t put in a few words. There are just to many things to say. So what I think is: important is not where to start, but to start writing. There is no such thing as importance, actually. All the memories and dreams are equally important.

Boris,

Far too deep! Even I couldn’t write this much philosophy in English, even if I were a missionary with an agenda.

But I did forward this to a friend.

Regards,

Kai———- Forwarded message ———-
So I decided write simply about what I feel like writing now, not have to.

I remember I’ve read once a book. It didn’t have the end and the first 50 pages were missing. So I could learn only about the middle of the story. I could just guess it’s beginning and possible end. I still don’t know the title and the name of author.

My life is such a book.

I actually remember myself like this:

selfportrait-at-the-age-568.gif

Memorycemetery is also such a story, but with many storytellers. Let’s just type in whatever we like in this space, like in a game where you write something, fold the paper and pass it on around friends to make a tale.

Boris Kislitsin

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