Work Text:
| В твоих глазах В твоих руках В твоей душе В твоих словах Твоё житьё |
I see fear. I see despair. I see suffering, so much suffering… I hear your heart. I wish I could restart. |
I dunno if this counts as "inspired" per se, but I came up with it after having a nightmare. It's a funny thing, y'know – the war, like, I lived it for twenty months of my life, and sure, afgan comes back to me every now and then… But these days, though, in my dreams I actually see stuff more like scenes from the films I grew up with. Maybe not so funny – this one in particular had me waking up in a cold sweat.
Ooh, the look in your eyes – that's a dead giveaway for some awfully morbid curiosity.
Alright, I'll fill you in.
So there's this soldier huddled up in a trench and parallel tracks down his dirty face get washed clean by tears as he holds a photo of his family. His uniform's torn, his hands are leaving bloodprints all over the paper. And then, not even a meter in front of him, an enemy grenade touches down in the mud – and you know it's the end for him right there. But just as the thing's getting ready to blow, his whole family shows up: mother, father, sister, wife. They're like, apparitions – black and white as if they've stepped out of the picture…
Ach, sure wouldn't come close to calling it a good dream if that was all that happened. But oh no, it doesn't stop there. The soldier shuts his eyes tight and sorta embraces his kin as the grenade's 'bout to go kablooey. And instead of the spray of gore and body parts flying all over the place like you'd expect, the whole world around him starts going warped. These ghosts, or shades or whatever, they're writhing around and twisting before my eyes and I'm helpless to do a goddamn thing to stop them as they fall upon their guy.
Well, I guess I did cut things off by virtue of waking up, hah…
But, fuck, the feelings – the sheer desolation – that stuck with me worse than anything in the last year. No way in hell was I going back to sleep after that! And then after a few minutes of lying there in a daze, I jolt up with an idea I just had to put down on paper. Grabbed my notebook off the bedside table and started jotting out everything I could remember from the dream.
Long story short: took me under half an hour to put together those lines – and I felt like shit the entire time. Why they had to be bilingual, I don't rightly know. Just because, say.
Nah, I wouldn't consider the act of writing any sort of "exorcism". It doesn't go away, not really – the fear for your life, I mean. But it's a thing wannabe-artists do to try and make like it's something else. Still fear all the same, but turn it under a different light and it puts an ounce of power back in your hand…
You've got to have that control. Otherwise, that shit keeps haunting you.
It's like… Your memories, your fears as well as your joys. They're with you 'til your dying day, then poof. There's no "life review", no flashing before your eyes, no nothing – snuff it and that's it, as far as what used to be you is concerned… But, if you can make something beautiful out of it, that stuff will last beyond you. Any artist worth his salt gets to live forever.
As for the kind of stuff my brother gets up to… You tell me – you think what he's doing is beautiful? Makes me sick, honestly. But maybe he's not so different from me. He's making something out of his fears, too. The fact is, what he does is gonna outlast any skazka I'd ever pull out of my ass.