When all my pores fill in with the overwhelming present, I must commit suicide. Sensational suicide is existing as a metaphor, and therefore, it is fully justified. It helps to create, connect, kill, resemble, dissolve, renew, build, and comprehend the Self within the Other. My writings always juxtapose the facts and fiction, sometimes corresponding to reality, other times deviating from it.
GRAND EMPATHY
There is a war. There has always been one, less or more physical. Some are silently perceived by this egocentric continent, while others are loud, more disturbing, close, extreme. My kids are the same during the war, everywhere – sobbing, trying to accept, escape and understand why is somebody taking away their toys suddenly. The same that I asked for 23 years ago. NATO bombarded Belgrade when I was at the age of 3.
My war experience smells like basement’s strawberry jam, mixed with moldy concrete and the unfamiliar crowd of people that happen to be in the same shelter as us. It pictures a lot of Roma kids occupying one metal bed with a flower pattern. It sounds like the siren that burns the ears while alarming the state of emergency. At that time very young uncle was on the field, ready to protect the county. My other parents, the grand ones, decided to stay in their house and expose instead of hiding from the potential bombing. They were feeding me, my mama, and a big Roma family in the basement with the tones of jam and fresh-baked wheat bread. My jelly fingers could not understand where the toys are and why is grandma’s face pale most of the time. Still, I was pretty calm in my mama’s lap imitating the siren as if it is the jingle from the film we are all having a role in.
GRAND CAMELEON
Today I was bitten by the rat with the name Pandora. Impressed by her gentle, so human-like hands and the way she eats her rat food, I indeliberately attacked her privacy and she showed me my place. This afternoon is sitting alone in front of a Czech Catholic church breathing the air of the second country with the biggest number of non-believers. Tonight I am in a small underground bar almost 50m beyond the surface, surrounded by a language that sounds like my mother tongue without a chance to understand it. I am slowly and deliberately disappearing in these people’s faces and my own beer glass. I can transform into anything I want to.
Initials N.K., the jar persona, multiple identities, the empty-faced person seeing for the context to apply to her unformed reality. Seeking for nothing, anything and nobody. N.K., the traveler, the one that never belongs, just passes through, grabs, and loves, insanely and intensely living the life that is happening at the moment. N.K. the future, memories, thoughts, and occasionally actions.
GRAND ESCAPE
Today is the war again. The war I can not do anything about. The one far away physically, moreover far beyond mine or any individual’s power. Today I am going away from the known, my everyday life due to the overwhelming pile that attacked my heart, my brain, and my soul and escaping in my manner, to myself. In my suitcase, there is a big rounded rye bread called Doppelmisch, packed together with the jar of plum jam I aimed to give to the person who will land me the couch in Prague for a couple of nights. The person I never met in my life. Born in Delhi, living in the Czech Republic. The escape has to be official, glamorous, thought throughout. It can not require already known. Therefore, the gift has to be current fact – Serbian jam and German bread. Moreover, in case of an emergency, I am fully prepared.
Once back in the past, the Czech Republic experienced the same terror from the Russian army as Ukraine does now. Tanks entered the city of Prague aiming to liberate the people that did not need and wanted to be liberated. A student burned his body as a statement. 15 more students repeated the same.
My body like this bread can be cut so easily, with one simple stab in the stomach or directly to the heart. It is so easy to die. So easy to disappear. Like a worm, somebody just steps on your body and decides that you are not part of this film anymore. You become a stain. A stain of jam, belonging to the society that won’t bother scooping you up. In case of the war, you are not asked. In case of emergency, try to survive. To exist, one must multiply.
Ústi nad Labem hl. n., the border
back & forth
März 2022