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25.06.2015., četvrtak

NAKED SOLSTICE


I was born in 1991.
I am always born in 1991. Dates may vary, but the year remains the same. In this story I was born on summer’s solstice, June 21st. I was never born on this date before, but that matters not to me. It matters for the story, however. In some stories dates are very significant. Some authors like to play with numbers.
My son was born on December 21st, 2012. I don’t know why I even have a son, since he’s not making an appearance in the story. Did I really give birth just to honor that particular date? I don’t know much about it, but it has something to do with the end of Mayan calendar and beginning of a new time. Returning of divine feminine… Things like that. Although, wouldn’t a daughter be more appropriate for that ‘feminine power’ thing? I really don’t know why my author decided for a boy.
My sister’s name is Maja, which is pronounced the same as Maya, yet has no resemblance with mentioned mythology at all. It’s nothing more than a meaningless coincidence but some writers just love coincidences.
My name is Lea, but everybody call me Lee. As I mentioned, I was born in 1991. We all have an original story where we appeared for the first time, and when that story is over we move to another one. We find a new author or an author finds us. It’s a bit like acting, except that we don’t act, we don’t pretend being in the story, we really have to live through it, feel it, instead of pretending to feel. Well, maybe it’s more like reincarnation. No human soul lives only once, just as no character soul lives in only one story. For mainly sentimental reasons most of us like to keep a memento from our first story: name, gender, nationality, phobia, hair color… It’s the one thing that remains the same through all stories, even when everything else is completely different. For me, it’s the year of birth.
I am always born in 1991.
I am not always a girl and I don’t always have brown eyes and hair, but in this story I do. I’m telling you this because my current writer won’t. This time I have an author who doesn’t care about my looks, who’s not keen on material descriptions, but rather wants to explore the depth of my feelings.

* * *

“Let’s just go to Visoko for the weekend!” I begged my sister: “I really want to see the pyramids and go on that Solstice celebration on Sunday. It will be my birthday and that’s the only birthday present I want from you!”
I lied. I lied a lot. I didn’t care about Bosnian pyramids, I didn’t even believe those hills really are any kind of pyramids. I didn’t want to spend my birthday on some lame hippie solstice party. I just wanted, needed to get away from this village, to a city, any city, with proper stores and night life and, well, life! But how could I tell that to Maja? This was her trip, her pilgrimage, her mid-thirties crisis. After recently ending a long-term relationship, loosing a job, being single, unemployed and childless, she got inspiration to visit her country of origin (our country of origin) with her estranged sibling, trying to connect to her roots and her sister, me, who was never close to her to begin with.
How could I tell her how much I hate her village (our village)?
She enjoyed making new/old friends, feeding the pigs, using compost toilets, cleaning her father’s (our father’s) grave… She still remembered the language (our language) that I never even learned. Being nine years older than me made all the difference in the world.

I was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1991, in a village which name I can’t (nor want to) pronounce or remember. It’s a primitive country with a complicated mixture of religions and nationalities. At the beginning of some war, my father was killed by his best friend and neighbor, due to those differences. I don’t know the details of that story and I never want to find them out. My mother never wanted to talk about it, even though she never forgot. You can still see it in her eyes, in her moves, even in her rare smiles. She escaped from her village (our village) with me and my sister before it was attacked and pretty much destroyed. She never came back, because there was nothing and nobody to come back to.
What kind of country is that, where it’s normal to kill your neighbor just for being slightly different?

I was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but I don’t remember that. I remember only Canada. It’s where I grew up, went to school, had a first kiss and a first child. I was always Canadian and only Canadian. Maybe part of the reasons I never got close to my sister is the fact that she never stopped being a Bosnian girl, and I never started being it. My mother and my sister were strangers in my country. Canada was always mine, but it was never truly theirs.

“Well, Lee… Happy birthday… ” Maja said unenthusiastically when we got off the bus in Visoko. It was Saturday evening, day before Solstice, my birthday. We took a cab to a nearest hotel and to be honest, I never enjoyed a ride so much. I was pleasantly surprised to find traces of civilization in this forsaken land.
After checking-in and taking our bags to our rooms, Maja invited me for a dinner.
“We can go out and find a place that makes ćevapi, what do you think?” she said.
“I’m a vegetarian,” I replied.
“Yeah, well, you’ve been saying that for years and you still can’t stop eating meat,” she sounded annoyed.
“I’m not gonna eat it anymore,” I replied, just as annoyed as she was: “Not after seeing you kill innocent chicken!”
The truth was, I did want some meat. Being a vegetarian was a decision I could postpone a bit longer, after all, like she said, I’ve been postponing it for years. I didn’t care about lives of chicken either, though it was disturbing to watch Maja killing them just to prove to the villagers that she truly belonged. But me eating meat or not wasn’t any of her business, and I wasn’t going to let her decide about my dinner for me.
“Bosnia is not a good place to be a vegetarian,” Maja said, not giving up.
“Actually, I think it’s a perfect place!”
“Why? To prove that you don’t belong?”
“I don’t have to prove it!” by this point I was almost yelling: “It’s fucking obvious that I don’t belong!”
“Well, that’s your fault! You never tried, not once, and we’ve been here for a week already! We traveled a long way, after a long time and who knows when or if we’ll be able to come again.”
“I don’t want to come here ever again. I never asked to be born here!” I snapped. My act that this trip is at least bearable was rapidly falling apart.
“You know what, if you really want to know, nobody asked for you to be born at all,” Maja replied angrily: “Dad badly wanted a son! I was his daughter, he didn’t need another one!”
Her words stung me more than I could imagine, wakening disturbing feelings I didn’t want to feel. Attack was the only defense, and she was the only person available to attack.
“I may not be a son,” I told her: “But neither are you! And your… our father has a grandson now, but not thanks to you, his wanted daughter. I gave him something you never will, because you are not only unlovable, but unfuckable as well!”
After that Maja slapped me. She never slapped me before and I knew, even at that very moment, that I totally deserved it. But there was no going back.
“I’m going back to our… my village tomorrow,” she said quietly: “You can stay here or go wherever you want until our flight home, just stay away from me.”
I didn’t say anything. We just went each to her hotel room. Thankfully, we never even considered sharing a room. It would be too awkward after a fight like this to have to enter the same room. Heck, even being in the same city is too much closeness for me and my sister. Back in Canada we live in different time zones.

First thing I did was to lock the door of my room. I didn’t trust anybody in this neighbor-killing country and I just lost the only protection I had – my sister – my guide and translator.
I still smelled like compost from her/my/our village, so I took a long shower and put on some clean clothes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep and I didn’t want to think, so I gathered all the courage I had and went out to find a bar or whatever place that sells alcohol. I was relieved to find that streets were crowded with people, it made me feel safer, along with few beers that were pleasantly cheap. Considering that I was drinking alone in a bar filled with cigarette smoke, listening to conversations and songs in a foreign language, I was fairly happy, as much as possible in a situation like that. It was still a way better experience than milking cows and removing feathers from dead chicken.
Then I heard a song. It wasn’t much different than all the others, but it sounded so familiar. I felt like I could almost repeat the words, I could almost understand them. I was sure that I heard that song before, a long, long time ago. Was this a déjŕ-vu experience, or was it too much beer in my brain?
I left the bar urgently, hoping that somebody put a rape-drug in my drink. That thought was way less scary than the possibility of very old memories resurfacing. No! I couldn’t afford to remember war. Death. Father who didn’t want me. No! No!
I needed a walk.
So I walked. I didn’t know where I’m going and I didn’t care. Tears were running down my face. I wanted to go home. To Canada.
I didn’t notice anything or anybody around me, until the sign appeared. Bosnian Pyramid of Sun, it read. I remembered that it was the place I told my sister I want to go to for my birthday. It was the hill where evening Solstice celebration will take place, but also a good spot to watch the sunrise. Since I had very little hope of being able to get some sleep, I followed the sign. I’ve never seen a sunrise before, so why not start today?
Then there was another sign, pointing left. Bosnian Pyramid of Moon. I don’t know why, but suddenly it felt like a better way to go. Nothing was right that night, so instead of right I just went left…

I can’t believe I climbed that hill called Pyramid of Moon, in the dark night of my birthday, drunk and alone. It was a steep path, I fell a few times, but I was determined to keep going. Somewhere along the way I lost my fear, as well as the sense of time. Mosquitoes were buzzing all around me but they didn’t bite, at least I didn’t feel any bites. One part of me knew very well that I was covered in dirt, blood and tears, but it was a tiny part, largely ignored by the rest of me.
The rest of me just kept going. When I reached the top, or something that looked like a top, it was already getting lighter. The darkness was fading away. I turned off my flashlight and just stood there, waiting for the sunrise. I looked around, having no idea where the east is.
I’ve been a city girl all my life, without any connection to nature. Well, all my Canadian life, at least. All the life that mattered to me.
The light came fast, from all directions, or maybe there was no direction at all. It wasn’t the sun. It was very bright, white light, but it turned to gentle light green. It was so intense that I had to close my eyes, but even with my eyes shut I could still see it, it just penetrated through me and all around me. There was a sound, too. A buzzing, similar to a sound of a working fridge, well, maybe a fridge filled with mosquitoes.
My head buzzed just the same.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. The time was not passing. There was nothing except the sound and light.
Then they were gone. It was just me. Just for a second.
And everything came back to normal. Or so it seemed before I opened my eyes. I wasn’t prepared for what I was about to see.
A naked guy was sitting in front of me…

“Hi,” I said, confused: “Are you ok?”
“Yes,” he smiled: “Who are you?”
“I… I’m Lee…” I said, surprised to hear his voice, hear him speaking English. How did he get here? Who the hell is he? I was just about to ask him that, when he asked me the same question:
“Who am I?”
“You are asking me?” I thought I heard him wrong.
“Yes,” he smiled again, repeating the question: “Can you please tell me who I am?”
“I don’t know who you are. How should I know?”
“Oh,” he sounded disappointed: “How did I get here?”
I just looked at him in disbelief. There was no point answering his question. He could clearly see it from my expression that I am just as surprised to find him here as he is. Well, precisely, I was more shocked than surprised.
“Where am I?” he tried another question.
“You are in Visoko,” I said.
“Where is that?”
Oh God!
“It’s in Bosnia! Have you ever heard of Bosnia?”
“No, I don’t think so…” he said, looking confused: “Where is Bosnia?”
I smiled. Few months ago I didn’t know the answer to that question myself. Good old times!
“Europe!” I said: “Just don’t tell me you never heard of Europe!”
“Yes, it sounds familiar…” he looked like he was trying hard to remember: “I think I’ve heard of it…”
Familiar! Europe sounds familiar?!? Who is this guy? Why is he naked? What the hell should I do with him? He wasn’t going to give me any answers, that part was certain, but everything else was plain crazy.
I looked at him closer. He was white, young, but I couldn’t determine exactly how young. Not particularly handsome, but he wasn’t ugly, just average. His hair was light and curly and his eyes, well, when you can’t really determine the eyes’ color I think it’s called hazel.
“What do you know about yourself?” I asked him.
He stood up and looked at me closely.
“I know you,” he said.
“No, we don’t know each other,” I told him: “I’ve never seen you before.”
“But I’ve seen you,” he said: “I know you.”
“Are you… Are you saying you’re from Canada?” I asked suspiciously.
“Where is Canada?” he asked.
Oh God, dear God!
I wanted to run away. He scared me. It all sounded like a joke, a bad joke, but I’ve never seen anyone looking so sincere and honest. I could forgive the lie, I could even laugh at a joke, but what if he’s telling the truth? How do I deal with the truth? What do I do with a guy who doesn’t know or have anything at all?
I turned around, but he grabbed my hand.
“Please,” he begged me, in the sweetest voice possible: “Please help me”
I turned back to him and he released my hand. Oh what the hell! It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go anyway.
“How can I help you?” I asked. I meant it. I meant it with all my hearth. There was something in his eyes, something that felt familiar. He was lost. I was lost too. He was lost because he didn’t know where he is and I was lost because I knew…
“Tell me who I am,” he asked again.
“I don’t know who you are,” I repeated: “I’ve never seen you before”
“So… You know everything except me?”
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say.
“And I don’t remember anything, except you…” he continued.
I shrugged my shoulders. Even if I knew what to say, there would be no point saying it…
“Tell me more about you,” he said: “Maybe it will help me remember.”
“Ok,” I agreed. Maybe he was right. I knew I couldn’t help him remember himself, but I could definitely help him remember that he doesn’t know me from before!
“How old are you?” he asked me.
“24, as of today”
“Today is your birthday?”
“Yes”
“That’s great! Happy birthday, Lee!” he smiled. Suddenly, he leaned towards me and kissed me in the cheek. It happened too fast for me to protest and it felt too good to understand. My whole body felt warmed up and transformed by that kiss. It wasn’t anything sexual, it was more than that, it was something I never felt before. The only way I could think of to deal with that feeling was to simply ignore it.
“Sit down,” he told me: “And tell me everything about yourself!”
“Do you have any clothes?” I asked him, still standing.
“I guess not,” he said looking at his body: “Is that a problem?”
“It’s weird,” I replied, taking out an orange shawl from my purse. It’s a huge, ugly summer shawl my sister gave me last year and insisted that I take it to Bosnia, even though, or maybe because she knows very well that orange is definitely not my color!
“Wrap this around your… equipment,” I handed it to him.
He smiled and did as he was told.
“Ok, now that I’m dissent, can we talk?”
I took out dark chocolate from my purse and shared it with him, along with my life story. I talked about my country, city I grew up and still lived in, my job, my friends, my mother and sister, my son. He looked at me amused, never interrupting my long monolog. The sun was already high in the sky when I finally stopped talking.
“Let’s go down the hill,” I suggested: “There is a water spring there and I’m really thirsty.”
“Good idea,” he smiled and added: “I really loved your story”
“Does it sound familiar?” I asked him: “Does any of it sound familiar to you?”
“No, not at all,” he answered: “That’s what makes it so interesting.”
“So you see, you can’t know me from before.”
“No, I do know you,” he insisted: “I don’t know your story, but I definitely know you!”
We continued talking on our way down. I was starting to feel really comfortable with him. He was a great listener and that’s a rare trait in people. Maybe he had to be, since he didn’t have his own story. He asked me lots of questions and I was happy to answer them all. None of them was awkward or inappropriate, they came from simple curiosity and genuine interest in getting to know me better.
“So what brings you here, so far away from home?” he asked me.
“Oh, I was born here,” I said.
He stopped walking and looked at me: “Why didn’t you tell me that in the beginning?”
“I don’t like to talk about it,” I admitted. But as I was saying it I realized that no one really asked me much about it, no one really cared about my origins except for my sister. I realized I have no problem talking about it to him, who is as unbiased as possible, and I needed to have my version heard, I needed to get it out of my system. By the time we reached the spring I’ve told him everything I knew and thought about Bosnia.
“This water is amazing!” he said and I had to agree with him. Maybe it was because I was so thirsty, but water never tasted better.
“Where are we going next?” he asked happily.
“Let’s go to the city and get something to eat,” I said.
“Sounds great!” he smiled. I’ve never seen anybody smile so much, all the time. He looked like the happiest man on Earth but he didn’t have any reason at all to be happy. How can anybody be happy without a past?
“Oh, look, a river!” he eed: “Let’s go for a swim!”
“We can’t,” I protested: “There is no beach, it’s dirty and dangerous! And we don’t have swimsuits!”
Of course, he didn’t need a swimsuit. He just took off my shawl and stepped in the river.
“Come on!” he called me: “The water is great!”
I came closer and put my hand in the water. It was cold. Still, the day was hot and I was sweaty from climbing the damn hill. I wanted refreshment but it was so inappropriate. Then again, I just spent the whole morning with this guy who was wearing nothing but my shawl. A stranger with amnesia I found on the hill after climbing it in the night in which my sister abandoned me. Nothing was appropriate anymore.
If he can do whatever he wants, why can’t I? Nobody knows me here, anyway. Plus, it’s my birthday, and I’m not getting younger. One more year and I’ll be half way to that scary number 30!
So I took off my clothes and stood naked in front of a stranger. I stepped in the cold river and he pulled me in. We laughed and played in water like little kids.

I woke up on the ground, covered with my shawl. My guy was sitting next to me, naked, eating some berries.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t sleep all night,” I apologized.
“It’s ok, I like watching you sleep,” he said with a never ending smile of his. He offered me berries in his hand: “Have some. They are delicious.”
“Where did you get that?” I asked him.
“I foraged them. I was hungry.”
“You can’t eat that!” I protested: “They may be poisonous!”
“They are not,” he tried to assure me: “I know which are good and which are not.”
“How can you know?”
“I don’t know. I just know.”
There was no point arguing, but I wasn’t going to eat his berries. I got up and started getting dressed. I throw the shawl at him: “Let’s go! I want some real food. Do you like pizza?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Right! Why did I even bother to ask?

I was relieved when I managed not only to find pizzeria but also a waiter who speaks English! I ordered two vegetarian pizzas and two beers. Guy seemed happy with my choice, as always. Being a tourist suddenly didn’t feel so hard, I almost enjoyed it.
Then I remembered my sister and all my joy faded. I looked around, wondering if she’s still here. I knew how much she wanted to get back to the village, but maybe there was no bus scheduled for today or maybe she decided to stay and check out this place before leaving. Guy noticed my uneasiness.
“What’s wrong?” he asked me.
“Nothing,” I said: “I was just thinking about my sister. We had a big fight yesterday and I don’t know where she is.”
“What did you fight about?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” I replied: “But I was really mean to her. I don’t know if she’ll ever forgive me.”
“Why? What did you tell her?”
“I told her that she’s unfuckable,” I said. The words were just coming out of my mouth before I could stop them. There was no need to tell him all those details. There was no point. Still, for reasons that I couldn’t figure out, I was desperate to tell him .
He laughed: “Unfuckable? Is that even a word? What does it possibly mean?”
“It means,” I explained it to him, as well as to myself: “Her worst fears. It means that she’ll never find a true love and become a mother. And these are the only things she wants, nothing else matters to her.”
“Do you really think that about her?” he asked me, not laughing anymore.
“No,” I whispered, trying to stop the tears. My pizza just arrived and I was soaking it instead of eating. But it didn’t really matter. After being naked with this pastless guy who was now sitting across me wearing only my shawl and therefore attracting everybody’s attention, my falling apart couldn’t seem to make a difference.
“Then why did you tell her that?” he asked softly, melting my hearth: “Why did you want to hurt her?”
“Because…” I sobbed. I couldn’t continue. The waiter brought me a glass of water and some tissues. He talked to me, but I didn’t understand much. His English wasn’t all that good.
“It’s ok,” guy told him: “She’s fine.”
“She…” I cried: “She said that… her father… never… wanted me…”
I took a tissue and blew my nose. Guy handed me a glass of water, but I took the sip of beer instead. I had to calm down just enough to be able to tell him. If I don’t tell him now, I will never tell anybody, because I just admitted it to myself and that was so hard to do, too hard to ever admit again. It was a burden too heavy for me to carry alone and guy was the only person who could help me, the only person without any burden of his own. If anybody could handle it, it was him.
“I never knew my father,” I told him, calmer on the outside, but dying from the inside: “I couldn’t care less if he wanted me or not. But I can see my sister saying those same words to my son. I know her, she knows me, and one day she will tell him. He will ask me if it’s true and I will have no choice but to lie to him or to hurt him. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. I was too young. I had to give up a lot because of my kid. And I wish… I wish I never stayed pregnant. I suffered a lot through all of it, but I don’t want him to suffer too. I never want to see him suffer. He was a mistake, but it wasn’t his fault. None of it was ever his fault.”
I buried my head in my hands, in an effort to make everything around me disappear, to cry in privacy. I never cry, so there was a lot more that needed to get out, a lot more than I was saying or even realizing.
Guy started to talk, something about forgiveness and something about how even if my father didn’t want me it doesn’t mean that he didn’t love me, how people don’t always know what they want, how blessings often come disguised as a disaster… I didn’t care much about his words, but it was comforting to hear his voice. A father I never knew, a brother I never had, a soul mate I never searched for, a strong male support that I never had – guy was all that in that moment, the moment of weakness and pain, but pain that felt so good because it was no longer a secret, I was no longer carrying it by myself.
“Thank you,” I whispered to him when he finally stopped talking. I raised my head and looked at him through tears, he smiled and I smiled back. Finally, we were able to eat our pizzas in peace, in silence. Words were not needed anymore.

“I don’t understand why you don’t want to know anything about your country,” guy told me as we were walking by the river: “If I knew where I was born I would go there and learn as much as possible!”
“What if you found out it was a dark place?” I asked him.
“Look around you, Lee,” he said: “This isn’t a dark place. It’s full of life! Good food, beautiful nature, friendly people…”
“Friendly enough to kill their own friends and neighbors!”
“Don’t blame the whole country for actions of one person. Besides, you don’t know what really happened. You don’t know why it happened. You don’t even know why war happened and by refusing to know you keep it all alive. You keep the tragedy of your family locked in time, frozen and preserved, blocking the present joy.”
“I just want to go home,” I told him: “I want to hug my son.”
“Having Bosnian origin doesn’t make you less Canadian,” he said.
I said nothing. I just took his hand, squeezed it and held it while we continued our walk in silence. I finally felt safe. I was safe with him. A guy without name was giving my name a meaning. A guy without past was connecting me to my own past. I looked around. He was right. It was peaceful and beautiful. The sun was now low on the sky. I stopped walking and looked at the sun and clouds around it. That’s west, I’ll remember it now. Guy looked in the same direction as me, and then suddenly he said: “I have to go back!”

“Back where?” I asked, surprised. Did he finally start to remember?
“Back to the Moon Pyramid!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said: “But I have to go. Will you go with me?”
I wasn’t keen on climbing that hill again. But I was less keen on leaving my new friend alone. I followed him. I was very tired and my legs hurt, but he was walking fast and determent, almost running. It was very hard to keep up with him. He was slow and calm the whole day, so I couldn’t understand this sudden rush.
“If you don’t know why you are going back to that hill, than why go there at all?” I tried to get some information out of him. Any information.
He stopped and turned to face me: “Why did you go there tonight?”
“I don’t know,” I told him.
“Exactly!” he eed, like that explains all his motives, like nothing else needs to be said. Before I could protest he was on the move again.
“I was drunk!” I yelled, trying to catch up with him. Like being drunk explains why I went left instead of right. Or why I planed to go right in the first place. Like anything about this day can explain anything at all.

We were back on the top of the hill before sunset, but just barely. The sky was bright orange, the same color as my shawl which was still wrapped around guy. He was calm again, smiling as ever.
“Happy birthday, dear Lee,” he said softly: “Thank you for spending it with me”
Then he leaned and kissed me, just as he did in the morning, only this time he kissed my lips instead of my cheek. His kiss made me fall apart and it rebuilt me at the same time. I looked into his eyes and I knew. I didn’t know from when and where, but that didn’t matter. I knew him from before, and that before went way beyond any memory could reach.
“I remember you,” I whispered.
He nodded but didn’t say anything. Nothing needed to be said. We both remembered now, we both knew. That was enough.
I hugged him and while we held each other the light came. Bright white turning into light green. And sound. Just as before. Nothing but light and sound in and around me, moment of eternity, absence and return of time… Sunset.
When I opened my eyes guy was gone. Sun was gone. I was alone on the hill, holding orange shawl in my hands, now my most valuable possession. I remembered. I remembered the name of my village, I remembered the way home.
Never say never.

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