I don’t need wine, cos’ I’m intoxicated with words
Bury yourself in an inexplicable sweetness of my words. – Olya Aman
The walls are never a prison, and any roof never stifles me. I manage to preserve the adventurism while being locked and isolated, for my words are real, as solid and true as every imaginable experience. They are the product of chaos, clutter, greed, insatiable hunger — love, tender feeling, sexual satisfaction, loving enthusiasm, and every possible set of emotions and reactions.
Like a hundred amorets, a swarm of words flies about my head. They leap from idea to idea and shot their arrows of completed sentences and passages into my willing heart. My imagination clothes the naked days with tender feelings, and in my happiness, the uneventful life turns into a fascinating adventure.
I worship the blank pages, ready to accept my writing. I trod on printed lines and shrug my shoulders with a delightful feeling of doing something venturesome, something magical, and absolutely unbelievable.
A day without my sweet mental struggle causes me every imaginable woe. And my heart beats almost painfully when a glimmer of a beautiful sentence makes my breathing strangely oppressive.
That is love. That is why I write. So if you don’t want to read me, that’s fine. I get my share of dope, pure intoxication, complete happiness in giving my words a chance to live and love.
I am too deliriously happy to care if you don’t like it
When I write I cannot tell if it is pain or pleasure. Every fraction of a second is such pure, beautiful madness. “What can be better than this?”, I say with something between a sob and a laugh.
My wayward nature wishes to be subjected to this strong guidance I feel inside me. Above all, I wish my stories to be written, released. When it happens, and I click on the ‘publish’ icon, I feel as if I shake hands with this independent being I’ve created, and my heart goes pit-a-pat against my chest.
It doubles my happiness if you can attune to the tragedy or laugh heartily with my protagonists — but if none of this happens, that’s fine.
I detach myself from the farther life of my stories
My dreamy and even dreary eye is following my heroes in their final stride to adult life, without my motherly watchful attention.
I reconcile myself to any ridiculous trappings. Acts, attitudes, external objects and people, bad stories written in the past, weaker characters brought to life in the present — all are the necessities that are wending my way to a future masterpiece.
I am resolved to let some of my breezy writings live. The truth is painfully simple: if I cannot make head or tail of some of my past work, there might be neither there. If this happens, I allow myself a prolonged moment of hilarious laughter.
I’m not to be bamboozled with negative feedback
There is something positive in the entirely negative criticism, as there is something damaging in a too favorable one. I am on good, or at least on good-humored terms with both.
I receive the first with that serenity, which is a characteristic feature of my personality, and which is close to gayety — an impulse to work harder.
The bare truth is — my story is liked, not me. I’ve changed since then. It is not me anymore who wrote it. I feel detached from any praise it receives.
I say to my fellow-writers, “Camp out, so to say, away from your finished work.”
Share my fondness for living in a story-book style. Turn the page, start a new chapter, without hesitation, with curiosity and desire to learn something new.
Notice the eternal bliss that is always with you. Don’t let any feedback deprive you of this delicacy of life. It is better to make mistakes often, being happy in the process, than making them often just the same, but with your heart in pieces.
You have words enough in your breast. They beat against one another like birds in a net, struggling to get free. Let them loose with no regrets.
Penetrate the darkness which clouded over the fate of one girl
This story begins in a sheepfold — it associates with kids — gropes its way through dreadful life mutilation, and stops where only death reigns. – Olya Aman
I reveal this tale in the first person — the way it was told to me by my cousin, let it be written. I’ll use all my mastery over the written word to give it the voice and mood of the people involved.
I was guilty of an act of naughtiness every time I had any chance to tax my parents’ patience. I wanted a dog, and when my mom agreed with few objections, I chose the ugliest little creature ever existent. I always was the black sheep of the flock, and my dog was no better. When my mom was holding my hand in front of a cage with the eight offsprings of our neighbor’s huge German King Shepherd, I saw her scowl at the little baldy black pup—and I knew instantly which one to take home with me.
He was the smallest of the brood and, surprisingly, grew up to be the biggest of the eight. He did everything with a bang; he barked in season and out of it. Dundee, the name I picked to commemorate my love for the famous movie Crocodile Dundee, was mad with rage at cats and rats, and mad with love for kids and chickens. He would let all children do what they pleased with him, ride on his back, drag him by his tail, pull his ears. Dundee licked the faces of girls and only the hands of boys.
It was our second year together when I began to suspect that Dundee was unfaithful to me. I discovered that he had fallen in love with the prettiest thing in our village.
Alisa, that was the name of the girl, was somewhat handicapped. She seemed to live in a dream, talking about flowers and imagining herself to be a dandelion. She danced, not walked, sang instead of talking, and was dressed only in green.
Her father was a simple widower. About a month before the dreadful scene, Victor brought the most heartless and deceitful person of the entire region to our remote village. He was known to beat his wife when liquor got into his head. There was definitely a screw loose in his head when it came to pretty young ladies. Women and men alike scolded Victor for associating with this vile person. But Alisa’s father turned a deaf ear to all those warnings.
Victor never left his precious daughter home alone.
That unfortunate day, a call from his malicious friend forced him to go out late at night. He claimed the occasion not worth explaining on the phone and demanded to see Victor in person. Victor looked in his daughter’s room. The girl was fast asleep, and he thought somehow it would be ok to leave her for a couple of hours unattended.
At the same time, in my room, my furious beast was out of all sorts. It was the only hour when my dog was invariably by my side. Dundee was continuously whining and scratching at the closed door. He never behaved like that before. I gave in and let him go.
We learned from Victor the account of the events that followed.
“I heard the loud barking when I was halfway to the pub where I had the arranged meeting. Dundee almost knocked me to the ground. The brute was pulling the sleeve of my coat and dragging me homewards. Then I had a notion, you know, a tightening in the heart. Something was amiss with my girl.
“When I approached the house, I saw the light in my daughter’s bedroom. The dog rushed past me, barking viciously all the time. When I entered the room, Dundee was on top of that man. My Alisa was sitting on her bed with her nightdress on the floor and her pretty little face agitated. I covered her in a blanket and ran out of the room to prevent her from seeing the scene of a murder.
“I couldn’t help the man. Even then, being so much shaken by what happened, I thought he richly deserved his cruel fate. I needed to save the fragile mind of my precious daughter.”
Victor called the police and the ambulance. The death from fatal wounds inflicted by a German King Shepherd named Dundee was stated.
The dog, though, was nowhere to find.
The law said to put the beast to sleep in a case like that. Police officers and volunteers searched through and through, but they didn’t find Dundee.
Alisa was not seriously harmed. She continues to be a beautiful dandelion in her green dress, walking the fields and singing her songs even today.
We seldom talked about the dog. I believed him alive, hiding somewhere.
My father told me some years later the true fate of my brave Dundee. That horrid night Victor called my father, and only when my dad took the dog out of the house and into his van, aiming at his brother’s farm a hundred and fifty miles away, Victor called the ambulance and the police.
Shortly after my discovery, I went to my uncle’s farm to learn about my friend’s further life.
Here is what my uncle said:
“Your dog was worth his weight in gold. He lived a solitary life on my farm, running after the rats and cats and affectionately mothering the chickens. He never expressed any even slight attachment to me or any human being. His heart was forever given to that little flower girl, I think. I often saw him wandering among the fields with a bunch of dandelions in his mouth.”
I saw the earth’s elevation under the only tree in a vast field quite far from the house. It was his favorite spot, my uncle said.
I battled out of my lethargy and laid a bouquet of dandelions on his grave.
Let me strip life of all that’s unimportant and tell you what’s left
Olya Aman
I am naturally taciturn. After the tragic death of my father, it was easier to get a full version of a Bollywood movie out of my expressive face than speech out of my lips. This peculiar characteristic of mine stays true to me till this day.
Simple life firmly impresses true values upon your memory
My family lived in one of four identical solid wood houses built close to each other for collective farm workers, near a wheat field about a mile from the rest of the villagers. Beautiful flower beds in front of it and a neat looking vegetable garden behind it were the objects of envy and admiration of all the women of the neighborhood. My mother said that it was from her that the village ladies learned to hang linen the ‘right’ way, placing it on a rope grouped by size and color.
Delicious memories of my childhood were made not from the riches but from unconditional love and care of my dear parents. My light heart and bright visions thrived in an atmosphere of slight monetary tightness because the right people were beside me. My mother and father found each other at the humble beginnings of their lives, and their union gave us the brightest bliss that would last a lifetime.
My family was an example of true devotion and love that does not consider poverty a misfortune, but rather a way to be inventive. My father made the best toys out of anything that he could find close to his skilled hands: a piece of wood, a branch from a tree, or a chunk of plastic someone tossed away.
The list can be endless. He made a wooden doll for my sister and presented it dressed in the cutest outfit my mom made from various pieces of cloth. I still have that doll, the dress she wears now is knitted by my crafty hand and the ugly-looking shoes and hat are the results of my niece’s experimentations with threat and a hook.
The whisper of beauty beyond the tomb
My father was a forester, an occupation that barely provided for our family but which he would never change for a more highly paid job, like a combine or a tractor driver. He was on duty going around the encampment spots and making sure no one was abusing the unfortunate forest for its wood, when the sound of a fire alarm brought him home.
The unusually hot summer weather in July 1993 endangered not only forests but all the grass fields of the area. The windy weather made the progress of the wildfire rapid and valiant. The woman and the infant, our next-door neighbors, were sound asleep and hopefully never sensed the pain of a horrible death.
My father entered the house in an attempt to save the mother with her baby. He perished with them.
The memorial service for the three victims of the fire was performed on the same day. My mother became a frequent visitor to the village church and talked a lot with our priest after every Sunday mass.
The priest told her:
“Those who have lived but are no longer with us implore us to step on a road of recovery. You need to continue living under the united care of the love remembered and the love still felt. The marks of grief and regret awaken the health-diminishing powers within. You need to learn contentedness again, even if more from good-mother-nature than from people.”
Father Peter was not only the old and wise priest of our ancient church, but the best friend of my father. Maybe that is why his following words helped my mother to find the strength within to live and to love:
“Material advantages of fortune are lost amid the true treasures of sincere affection. Loving people can lend fresh vigor to your life. The luster of the loving eyes, the brightness of the sincere smile, the beaming of the compassionate soul whisper of beauty beyond the tomb.”
My father’s last words are imprinted in my memory
“Now it is a custom to be fenced from the plants by stone walls as if we have nothing in common with them. It is not enough to simply plant a flower in your house — in this case, it will feel itself a prisoner. It needs to be precisely invited.”
I believe those were the last words my father said to me. He found me struggling with some kind of weed looking plant and sat on bare soil beside. It was so awesome to see him sitting on plane earth. I mean, it was normal for a kid to ignore the caution from adults to put something under your little butt, but for my wise father to do so seemed the coolest thing for a 5-year-old me.
My father was a person who had the vastness of nature to lose himself in. He had internal respect for all the living. He transferred this value to me on the day he said those words. With each passing year, I grow more familiar and confidential with the surrounding scenery. This intimate connection helps me cope with many life trials that are tossed on me. Every time I call up before my mind’s eyes the greenery and fragrance of the fields, mountains, and forests, I lift a dusky curtain of grief inch by inch and recover my balance.
Losing my father stripped life from everything unimportant. Let me tell you what’s left.
My life holds onto family values and support from caring people.
As confused as our existence can be sometimes, only family gives us the heart to cope with all difficulties. I’ve learned to value the power of it. Our devotion and love are gaining in strength with passing time and experienced together challenges. There is no one in this world so close and dear for me as my mother and sister, my husband, and kids. Nothing can disturb the equanimity of my mind because I have the support of loving people.
I welcome love and compassion and let these feelings do their healing deed. Kind communication can always draw a smile from me in the gloomiest time of my life. My family and close friends help me recover my will-power. To be with loving people has something of the divine in it.
My mom shaped our delicate souls with unconditional love
The snow was deep, the morning was happy, and the planned activity for the day was the most cheerful. A nearby forest was a place for kids’ games and enchanted stories about hidden treasures. The kids from the entire village gathered their sleds, skis, and simple hunks of plastic (those were the best things to sled down the main hill) and met at the designated place.
I put on my best coat. That white-pinkish fake fur made me look like a tiny cloud of thick mist on skinny legs — and taking my makeshift sledding gear, I ran to meet my friends. We had a blast! My face was red, my lips chapped, and my eyes watered from the frosty air, happy shouting and too much laughing.
When I came home at last, much later than my mom allowed me, I looked like a drenched grey mouse. My lovely fur turned into a dirty wet mass. The look on my mother’s face said more than words could. But she composed herself, closed her eyes, and sighed with a soft smile on her lips.
I understood fully her words many years after. At that time, they only meant that she was not cross with me, “You know I love you, cutie pie. Life is a collection of happy moments, so let us have another one together. I will make your favorite pancakes. How about that?”
My sister and I were sitting at our small square solid-wood dining table covered with a sunflower tablecloth. My mom always made our house look like one of Stephen Darbishire’s summer paintings. We had color sprinkled in each room: handmade pillows, embroidered pictures, and lacy doilies on every surface.
I spilled my tea, dotted the space around my teacup with sugar, and put the cuff of my shirt in jam with no reproachful comments from neither my mom nor my sister. The green tea with ginger, lemon, and honey was my mother’s masterpiece. Accompanied by hot pancakes, straight from the pan, it was the greatest luxury of my childhood. I needed to possess a remarkable skill to finish the previous round and soft delicacy in time to stretch my hand for a new hot one before my sister did. It was a fun little competition. Even nowadays we play this game mostly to amuse each other and to make our mom laugh heartily.
Looking back now, I rarely remember the ruined coat. I remember the pancakes. I remember the warm tea warming my frozen hands. I remember my mother’s smile.
To someone watching from the outside, our life may have appeared marked by loss. My father died when I was only three years old. My mother was twenty-eight, left alone with two little daughters and a future she never expected to face by herself.
Yet somehow, she never allowed sorrow to become the language of our home.
She never pretended pain did not exist. She simply refused to let it become stronger than love.
She understood something I only began to appreciate after becoming a mother myself: children do not build their childhood from perfect days. They build it from moments. From the way someone looks at them after they make a mistake. From laughter around a kitchen table. From muddy coats that matter less than happy memories.
Now, when I watch my own children discover the world, I often think about that winter afternoon.
The coat disappeared long ago. The pancakes are gone. Even the sunflower tablecloth has faded with time.
But the feeling my mother gave me that day has never left.
Perhaps that is what love really does.
It quietly teaches us that different moments pass, but the warmth we receive inside them can remain with us for a lifetime.
I act often with fear and bravery chasing each other in my eyes… – Olya Aman
L. is a good nurse, and that alone tells a lot about her. She was born in Rwanda, adopted and raised in Europe. L. moved back to Rwanda when she learned her way and made sure that helping her patients was her aim in life. After the genocide her native country needed support, her least lucky people needed her knowledge.
L. is a fine creature, her big almost black identical in size and shape eyes cause people to confide in her. She learned early on to listen, and this skill proved to be invaluable in her profession.
“Every day is like putting Humpty Dumpty back together again,” she says. “I begin my harum-scarum day and see the transformation, one person at a time.”
“I was 12 when my new parents took me to Europe. I have my first memories linked with horror and fear, loss and grief. Those memories shaped my personality and in some way, I am grateful for the background I have.
“My good, generous and loving parents had to put up with a lot. I was not an obedient child, rebelling at anything and everything. I was in constant emotional pain at least first five-six years or so. The lesson of the genocide period in Rwanda left my whole being in ruins. Nearly one million people were killed. I lost my family, my friends, everything I ever loved.”
“Love and patience helped me to gradually come back to believing again. Jane and Matt—my stepparents—are my rocks in life. I owe them my new self, or, rather, the return of my old happy before-the-horror-self. I remember and I mourn, I often cry, but now mostly because of happy memories.”
“This transformation came with the knowledge that I wanted to make a change. A woman that nursed me in the hospital imprinted the longing for the same profession in me. By that time I knew that Rwanda was in the reconstruction period and the system of health needed human resources. I was going to come back home.”
“The most precious resource of the post-genocide Rwanda was its people. Thousands of community health workers traveled from home to home providing the necessary care. I willingly joined the rural health tribe.”
“The health workers were selected by the villages they served. The people of my native village decided that I would care for them. It was the happiest day of my life.”
“At the end of every day, I am tired and full of joy and sorrow. Both mixed together comprise my life and make it unforgettable. I take both and grateful for both. The new coming day is ever more incredible because of this mixture of emotions and I always start it on a positive foot.”
“I am happy to be home. To lead the life of purpose is stimulating. I often in a state of inward merriment and I encourage myself to prolong this feeling because it is contagious. People around me can feel it and, consequently, become happier from my presence in their life.”
L. is very contented in her profession. She is a link in a chain of remarkable alterations for the better.
L. confided in me and gave her permission to share her story. She only asked to make an emphasis on the happy side of it, showing to my readers the importance of positive, grateful approach to life. She mentioned several times that love saved her sanity, and optimism of her parents, being contagious, helped her to get better physically and emotionally.
I found patience at a crisis in my life… the blessing that greeted my nature – Olya Aman
Keeping the kids nice and neat, the house cozy and welcoming, the food tasty and nourishing—I reduced my restful, sleeping hours to about four a day, comforting myself with thoughts about excellence and perfection of my life.
In three months I felt as if I was groping forward a few steps in my daily life and strolling backward with increasing speed. The little one cried almost every night with no obvious reason. I often lost my temper with my four-year-old.
The growing family forced my husband to accept an offer of higher pay and longer absence from home, often being away on his business trips for weeks in a row. Left alone with kids I could not find energy enough to keep my old acquaintances and friends. I was busy and very lonely.
I kept reproaching myself for lack of attention to my husband and kids. Too often I ended up snappish in my manner.
The atmosphere at home became suffocating. My husband was providing for the wellbeing of our family, and I was devoting myself fully to the kids. Although our generous impulses had the best intentions, the outcome didn’t provide lasting happiness.
I was aching to the distant time of those happy days when my husband was at home every night. The tears I shed on the occasion of his coming home from another business trip caused the sacred emotional transformation. The only solution was to reunite our family, sacrificing some pleasant but unnecessary luxuries on the way.
My husband decided to go back to his old employment with lower pay and higher healthy, meaningful time spent with his family. With each day at home and each family dinner, the healthy and benign atmosphere was coming back to the house.
We abandoned our expensive car for a cheaper and a trifle less comfortable one and our pompous yearly vacations for a lovely countryside escape. When a chain of unlucky events at my husband’s work culminated in his losing the position, we didn’t despair. We lived out of our humble savings and occasional company commissions that I still received now and then.
My husband, freed up from the necessity to go every day to the office, finally could devote his time to his music experiments. He used to compose wonderful pieces when in college.
My husband was shutting himself up in his study at night, interrupting his work for rounds with our crying son. The little creature grew quieter with time, sensing my increasing tranquility. I had my full night’s sleep thanks to my husband’s loving help. Our older son got much attached to his father with his bedtime stories and childish fighting games.
Sometimes the artistic progress was dishearteningly slow. Producing music, though, became more familiar with each failing attempt at reaching the desired effect. I believed in his talent and future success. I encouraged his persistent work.
The daily treadmill of our home life was sweet and enchanting, notwithstanding the portioned to us hardships. I liked to see my husband, to hear him about the place and at his music work.
One year left us with a feeling that we’ve accomplished a lot of good for our family, which no money could buy. The second year brought the first small yet increasingly delightful music projects. My husband and a few of his college friends got back together and created a small-movie company.
All three of their movies presented at the festivals didn’t gain recognition. My husband became an instigator and a powerful motivator for his small company lot.
His music grew strange, turbulent and insistent, soft and plaintive—and the movie they produced with not much money but with great blissful inspiration became a winner.
To linger here or to feel that you belong… — Olya Aman
T. is a lean, long-backed, large-headed Lebanese, with surly tones of his voice and coarse features of his face. We scour the country together every now and then: I—on my feet and he—on his wheels. His wheelchair is a speedy little beast, accelerated by his mighty hands and skillfully maneuvered by his flexible torso.
T. is my dear friend. You would never believe looking at his expressive and full of exhilarating energy face, that death had been hovering over him just three years ago.
The dark night in T.’s life crept slowly on, unexpected and unwelcomed. The sun rose and sank, and he was dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever.
A weak, thin, and pallid face was looking at him from the multi-squared mirror lights of the hospital ceiling. Outside the window strangers in and out, smiling and crying, old folks and newborns—all colors of countenances and personalities were passing through his painful perception for forty-three thousand agonizing wakeful minutes of his confinement to the bed.
When starting to sit down to his meals, still dispirited and sad, the realization that the chains of grief were the heaviest of all fetters came to T.’s mind. The belief in a higher intelligent plan and purpose was still holding him tight, not letting him sink into that despair completely.
T. needed to return to the world he belonged. Hour by hour the drop of every happy memory brought back first feeble streams of life. The fairest consolation came in disguise of a prayer. He applied himself with assiduity to the task of reviving his inner and outer strength so his family could be proud of him.
He made off as fast as he could to lay his spirits to the ground and managed to get himself out of the bed and on his wheels with surprising speed. Every morning he called before his mind’s eye a vast amphitheater of loving faces of his dear people.
He didn’t feel his legs anymore, but that missing part of his body was substituted by strains of overly agitated nerves of his arms and spine. He followed on the track of strengthening his torso every instant he felt the need to hue-and-cry to the missing limbs.
T.’s life hanged heavy on his hands even before the turning point that left him without legs. Being 32-years-old, he had been poring over various subjects. It seemed a matter of impossibility to center his life around fitness and body healing strategies now when he lost almost half of it, but this idea was firmly impressed upon his mind. T. became transfixed with the desire to achieve the heights he didn’t even think possible for his fully-functional healthy past-self.
He set his heart firmly on a goal to become a physical therapist working in amputee rehabilitation. He became a world known inventor of dynamic specific strengthening exercises that flex and tone the muscles. His online teaching courses are empowering. His own experience gives him psychological advantage to motivate people who suffered a loss to set goals and move on with their lives.
The impressive stateliness that radiated from T. was adopted from his mentor. The simplicity of his mentor’s life stirred T. profoundly. This person was happy, chasing his dreams and loving his family. With neither legs nor arms he was shining with heart strength and will-power. Every trace of T.’s essence strove to be worthy of the second chance he was given.
T. still had a realizing sense of his weakness and captivity. But he was recovering his life-balance by an effort of willpower and desire to set an example for others.
He conveyed a message that whatever happened to him was not a run of ill-luck but a fortunate wakeful blessing. He shared many talks on how to accept the past and devotedly love your-past-self and present-self.
He received many compassionate comments on his media channels. The influence which his sincere contented personality exercised was deep and lasting. People saw a humble person just like themselves, never repenting on his helplessness, but actually claiming to be powerful enough to uplift his own spirit and inspire others to do the same.
“Unlike her mother, she loved herself just the way she was”
I met Natasha when I was in hospital as a child, on some trifling issue with my collarbone. We got together somehow. The simplicity and cheerfulness of her nature was the best recommendation for me. Natasha was always disposed to chatter, and I loved to listen to her stories. So, when she invited me to snatch a meal at her parents’ house on one of the weekends, I agreed with delight.
A Mother’s Heart
I was aware that Natasha felt somewhat uneasy to introduce me to her mom. But Natasha sensed a kind and open heart in me and wanted my smiling face to cheer her family.
I did my best to not show my astonishment at seeing her mother. But I bet it was all written on my over expressive face. I never before or since saw a woman so big. I was just a shy child and on my asking if there was anything I could do to help her with setting up the table or getting the tea ready, she became suddenly annoyed and left the room without saying a word.
I felt her unease and pain as my own. I didn’t think a moment but acted on impulse. Rushing right after her, I hugged her and cried bitterly in her soft bosom.
Natasha’s mother was a beautiful woman, shy and gentle, kind and sincere in everything she did. She, just like me, was oversensitive. She had a way of noticing even a slight change in people’s attitude towards herself, and she took it too close to her heart.
That was a magic night. I do not remember laughing so much ever since.
Second Encounter
I left the hospital in a week and we lost each other, being a few years apart and busy with our lives.
In my last year at university, just before moving overseas, I rented an apartment with my friend. The kids next door were noisy little devils. On one occasion they were fighting in the little corridor we shared and ruined our shoe shelf. Their mom came out of the door just at the time when I was vainly trying to rescue my boots out of the younger boy’s hands.
I was so much taken up by the drama in front of me that I didn’t right away realize that a lady next door was dragging me out of the fighting boys’ way and into her apartment. I found myself in the kitchen, sitting at the table with the lucky boot in one hand and a cup of fragrant tea in the other.
I was well rewarded for my pains with love and hospitality bestowed on me by my old friend Natasha.
“Forget about the little rascals, Oly,” Natasha was the only person calling me so. “They will get their share of motherly affection when I’m done with you.”
We hugged and kissed, we laughed and chatted till midnight, Natasha’s husband dealing with the kids.
We were throwing tea parties almost every night since then.
Her husband adored her, children obeyed her ALMOST every time, and unlike her mother, she loved herself just the way she was.
Natasha needed to go out more often, though. I knew that, she knew that, and her husband secretly asked me to encourage her.
Her mother died at 43. Too many health complications caused by extra weight. So, Natasha needed to change her life to be there for her family.
I asked her a few times to run some errands for me, excusing myself by the business of my working and studying schedule. Then I offered evening walks instead of evening tea rounds. Half hour strolls gave way to an hour one, temp getting faster, music accompanying conversations.
Natasha loved music. Her tuneless yet sweet humming was pleasing to the ear. I found out there was a dancing studio nearby. The time worked for both of us and I urged her to try. She became friendly with the elderly woman instructor. Gradually that kind and sincere lady took the place of a coach in Natasha’s life.
I got into a habit of sending Natasha a motivational postcard each month with little writings coming from my heart. She sent me photos of her-improving-self in gorgeous dresses she crafted for her dance performances.
Natasha turned 44 last year. She always had a fear in her kind heart to have a similar fate as her mom had. Natasha stopped thinking this way the day she felt a deserved pride from being herself.
Although her health improved significantly with some weight loss, the bigger change was in her attitude toward herself.
To the outside observer, Natasha’s body didn’t change very much. Maybe some curves got more prominent and sensual, that was all.
She WAS and IS bathing in love coming from her husband and kids.
In her eyes, there is a real, rattling satisfaction. She goes about singing and dancing, knowing how to showcase her inner and outer beauty. A growing admiration from the men and women of her dancing studio and applause from the smiling audience proved to her the thing she always knew but seldom voiced proudly.
Here is a conundrum indeed! How soon can you solve it?
Olya Aman
My object in parading this private affair before the reader is to commemorate the remarkable series of events and convey the evidence of what love can build and what it can destroy. – Olya Aman
I present to you here a true story with written evidence that came to my possession through the hands and words of the primary witnesses, who happen to be my friends. I intend to preserve everybody’s incognito in this tale, so let me reveal no names, no places.
Imagine a tiny town where everybody knows each other. If you think this place quiet and unremarkable, you cannot be farther from the truth. People here invent the most mysterious crime affairs to amuse themselves. The outcome of this tale proved to be the zenith of one family’s happiness and, hopefully, the nadir of their troubles.
Mother
I was asked to exaggerate nothing and suppress nothing from what happened more than thirty years ago. My imagination tends to people the darkness of those days with additional terrors sometimes. I’ll do my best to restrain from it.
I used to be a night-club, knock-about-city young girl who was determined to teach herself a lesson by marrying a simple police officer and moving to the smallest town ever existent. After the hubbub and bustle of a big city, I hoped to find soul-soothing serenity in the three-story walls of ancient buildings, corner grocery shops, wooden benches close to every threshold, and the grand loving eyes of my man.
Calm and quiet were showering upon me thick and fast. The monotony of my existence started to grind me away soon enough. I managed to hold the rapture of boredom and adventure starvation for the first three years, and the three that followed were hell for both of us indeed. My husband should have known better than marrying a woman like me.
We were living in constant gnawing anxiety. The real reason for my unhappiness was in my allusion to pain. I was sure that my relationship was lacking the spark. I was longing for emotional suffering and physical agony. It seemed to me that only torture could make me feel alive. The grim orchestra in my head was playing about the passion I lacked and the pain I craved. My tumultuous thoughts were driving me nuts.
I droned my days away in that gloomy town. Household chores: cooking, cleaning, a little bit of reading, and dreaming about some other man beside me, some different life endured. I should have found something to do in that dreary place. But what could I find with my political science degree? Too sophisticated for that place I was.
Oddly enough, only fear still kept us together. My husband, I suspected, feared loneliness and to set everyone’s tongue wagging about our private affairs. I feared my son rejecting me for breaking the family and my inner desire to inflict pain on myself and my husband. Trouble was brewing; I was asking for it.
I anticipated some unfortunate event for some weeks before that day. It started as always with a silent breakfast. Both my husband and I were tired of keeping the picture of a happy family for the sake of our six-year-old son. Mind you, we never as much as raised voice to each other. We simply didn’t talk but for hateful ‘good morning’ and ‘have a good day’.
My husband made his lunch, put a few apples in a bag for our son to take to his grandma, and both of them were gone with the usual ‘see you tonight’. At half-past six, my husband came home. I warmed up his dinner and said, “I will call your mom and ask if they are home by now? I will pick him up and take him to his karate class at seven-thirty.”
I picked the phone and dialed the number. Our son was not there. His mom thought we had some other thing scheduled. My husband grabbed the receiver from my shaking hand and pushed me gently aside. “It’s ok,” he said to his mother. He told her we forgot about some other arrangement and that he was at his friend’s place. What was he talking about? What friend? What kind of arrangement? Those questions were whirling in my head.
This done, my husband looked at me in a strange way. The intensity of his gaze silenced me. It was a look of a hungry, watchful reproach. “I’ll find him. Don’t you worry,” he said, picked up his jacket, and was gone.
Father
My family was always unspeakably precious to me. There was nothing I couldn’t do to save it. Bare it in mind while reading this narrative of mine. I loved my wife more than anything. I knew from the very beginning, she was not the woman a simple chap like me could catch and hold still in his hands. She needed drama, and drama was a rare coin in my native town. I had to mind that currency myself.
It was a custom with us to take our son to my mother’s place, so my wife had a day to herself. She said she needed that time alone, and I submitted. I seldom could say ‘no’ to anything she wanted. I usually drove to the parking lot of a three-story apartment building where my mother lived.
Our son used to get out of the car, give me his ‘see you later, dad’, enter the building and his grandma’s flat on the second floor all by himself. This brief trip gave him a sense of maturity, something to add to his list of ‘I can’.
What was wrong this time? Why wasn’t he at his usual place?
When home again, I said to my wife that I knocked at each and every door of this building, asking about our boy. No one as much as saw him that day. She blamed me, and I, half-expecting such reaction, didn’t object.
She was out of all sorts, now saying in her querulous, rattling whisper how she missed her son, now flinging distinct words of hatred into the air, now shedding a gust of tears and scratching her face, now heaving convulsively barely able to talk, imploring me to do something.
That was her niche in life, her long-awaited drama. So much feeling in every gesture — that was my beastly little girl again. I had to slap her on the face to bring her back to senses.
What an outcome from this insult! I never as much as raised a thought against a woman not talking about a hand. She caught my hand and pressed it to her burning cheek. She kissed it, then higher. My arm, shoulder, collarbone, ear lobe — what an electric shock was going through every little cell of my body! It had ceased to be my own.
The desire we both felt expanded into a series of scenes with pain and pleasure united, angry kisses, throwing each other against all surfaces. Bruising her flesh, she was getting the unsettling inner feeling out, releasing her emotional distress. When all was over, she was lying on a couch in dreamless slumber. I went out into the night to look for our son.
Grandmother
My old, cast-away husband was out of our lives for twenty years. He left us when our son was twelve. Not that he planned it. They sentenced him to three years for a drunken scuffle in a local bar. One man almost died from the severe beating my husband was to blame for. He got out of jail and out of our lives.
On our son’s thirty-second birthday, the old beggar brought his shaking frame to my flat and pleaded to have a chat with his son. I was beside myself with indignation, to say the least. I hated my husband for leaving us. Over a year, he was patiently asking for permission to be a part of our family.
My son and I agreed to see him now and then, with one condition, he had to keep it a secret. My son didn’t mention it to his wife. I never openly met him outside. Were we ashamed of him? He WAS a dosser, after all. Or were we punishing him in this way? I don’t know for sure.
I was angry with myself for being silly and liking, I couldn’t admit at the time, but LOVING was the right word, my husband, during all those years he was away. I couldn’t shake off the inveterate distrust which weighed for all those years on my spirits.
That is why when this alien and strangely familiar person asked to see his grandson, I could only stand rooted in the ‘No’ and ‘Never’. It was a very trying time for me. Eventually, he had tamed me. One day my son and I submitted to his pleadings and promised to arrange everything.
Grandfather
I was old and sick and tired of my lonely life. I had reasons of my own to leave my family. The rods of iron with which prison surrounded me were ever-present in my mind. At some point, I felt that my life was at its lowest ebb. Then and there, like a pitiful mongrel, I crept back meekly to my family. For the first time in my entire life, I humbled myself to pleading for forgiveness with all the patience I still had left in me.
I went to my old hut near the lake. I used to go there in the glorious old days when fishing. This shabby place was creepy, just as I was at that stage of my life. But still, those walls were much better than any bench I used to call home. For over a year, I waited for my wife and son to soften for me. I didn’t put my mind in total blank with the drink. I abandoned this degrading habit because I knew it could force me to lose every inch of the ground I had gained.
The day my son patted me on the shoulder and promised to let me see my grandson, my heart gave a great bound. This news almost turned me giddy. The thought half maddened me with delight. I spent the following couple of days getting ready, putting things in order at my lonely cabin. The little chap needed a cozy place to stay. I exhausted myself with plans for the future rendezvous with my boy. I knew just then — I’d lived through all misfortunes to see my grandson, to get things straight with my son, and to pray for my wife’s forgiveness.
I didn’t remember myself being as tender-hearted as at the moment my son brought this boy in his car on that day. I was fool enough to shed a couple of tears. I wanted to wipe away the wrongs my family suffered through with this last effort of submissive affection. All the gold left of my wasted nature, I poured at the feet of my grandson. I keep the memory of those two days in my heart of hearts.
Son
The air was close and stagnant in that hut. This old man was kind but rude, and he looked almost cruel. I liked him right away, though. How can it be is clean past my comprehension even now, thirty years since? He said, “Don’t middley-coddley, there a good boy. Nothing to be worried about. We’ll have a rattling good time fishing.” The old man said I could call him grandpa, and I did. I knew by my childish instinct, that was seldom wrong, he was my friend.
I remember as if it was yesterday that I never felt myself so mature, so bold and courageous, so skilled and manly. I stayed with this wrinkled weather and life beaten person for two long and memorable days. What a blast! Running in the fields, making birdhouses, playing with the shabby little dog, fishing, and cooking our fish soup over a riverside fire.
My father came with the haste of happiness in his feet in the evening of the second day. I haven’t seen him like that before. I was happy to see this change, and perhaps a little piqued too.
Mother
My husband could not sit down alone to wait through the crisis of our life. He left the house that night after we had the most sensual experience. He remembered that he was leaving an anxious heart at home and phoned me a few times, updating me on the progress of his search. He called me tender names, and I didn’t humor him as I used to.
On the second day in the early evening hours, he came home. I met him with my entire being, imploring for some uplifting news. He didn’t have any. Then I gave him a defiant look, and with mockery, I eagerly blamed him again for what had happened. I should have gone to look for my boy myself. Why did he persuade me to stay at home and wait for some developments? Oh, how my heart sank under a dread. It was beyond words.
Then he confessed. He said he didn’t plan it. We barely exchanged a few words those days, and he simply forgot to tell me he’d arranged for our son to spend a day with his grandfather. I didn’t even know the man existed. My husband never mentioned him. I assumed his father was dead. When he came home and saw my worried look when I was talking on the phone with his mother, only then he felt a plan forming itself in his brain.
He wanted to enliven my love for many years now. He didn’t know how to shake that lethargy I seemed to live in. He said that the pretense of searching for his son, the common disaster he invented, the tears and worries that both of us shared for almost two days brought us together. We were a family, at last, a mother and a father struggling to find their son.
Oh, how mad with rage I was. I called him nasty names. I was storming through our house, smashing the furniture. But in the midst of all those turbulent feelings, there was a glow of hope in me. Hang it all; he was right. I deserved the shock and shake I’d got. I was alive with burning emotions. I breathed passion in the air.
The strange march of events during those two days changed the course of our lives forever. Happy life ever after? Oh, by Heaven, no. But eventful, for sure. We made it a rule always to break the monotony and to meet our passion half-way. When our boy enjoyed time with his grandparents, we had our hurry-skurry adventures. I used to tell him, “Remember it doubly and trebly to make me FEEL your love.”
Olya Aman 