Pink Wool Hair

Pink Wool Hair

Pink Wool Hair


Translated by: Elizabeta Bakovska

Mu daughter’s name is Tear.
Tear – like the drop that hung from the edge of my eye as I gave her birth with my teeth clenched. Tear – as the water that washed my smile when I first held her tiny body in my arms. She has the name of these ants that I want to let run and stop pushing like sticky noodles under my eyelashes, but I can’t. I can’t. Because I am not free. Because I can never be free again.
When I gave birth to my Tear, I thought there was no pain bigger than that in the world. I thought that if I lived through this breaking into smithereens, I would survive anything. I thought that every pain was followed by joy, because that’s the way it was with Tear. I thought many things, but I never thought my end was near, that it waited for me in front of the gates as a faithful dog. The day I felt the deadly scythe passing through me, I saw the happiness of my dearest died like an extinguished candle. Their painful moaning, as they punched my cold chest with their hands squeezed tore me apart. I am here, I yelled. I am here, I repeated. But they couldn’t hear me.

My body was buried at the city resting place. After that, there was no joy. After that, there could be no joy.

For forty days and forty nights I wandered without a body thorough my house. I was everywhere, and I was nowhere. My shadow was gone, my reflection was gone, the sound of my steps could not be heard. In the evenings I would lie down next to my man and I watched him wrinkle his face in his dreams. He spoke as he slept, calling my name. I am here, I wanted to tell him, but I had no mouth to utter a sound. I would press against him and he would shiver from the cold. I wanted him to turn towards me, tell me that he remembered. But he would only cover himself and remain with his back turned towards me, not coming to my side of the bed. Before it dawned, I would go to Tear’s room. She was little, her hair was still fort like feathers. I would kneel to her small bed and I watched her breathe fast. She slept with his little mouth open like a cracked pomegranate, her hair was sprinkled with drops of sweat shining like blossomed lilacs on her hairs. Tear moved all night long, she fought some nightmares that tormented her. I knew it was my fault, that part of me had remained there so she could continue to see me. Tear shed her name on her cheeks in her dreams, and I would break into pieces, like a soul breaking into pieces, because only my soul had remained of me.

Tear is crying now, and I can’t come closer to her as then. I can’t try to hug her, as she shivers from my dead closeness. She buries her face in the covers, whines, quivering in youthful pains. I want to run to her, put my arm around her thin shoulders and offer her comfort in my lap. I want to put my fingers in her hair and caress her until the night falls and her hardship grows dry. But I can not move because I am tied to the wall, with my eyes frozen, with my glassy look towards the shelves descending from the ceiling across from me. Tear is crying, she sheds her name on her cheeks. If I had a heard, it would break in my chest, but this plastic emptiness has enslaved me, it makes me stiff to life.

This mess started when they came to say the last good-bye. I got in the car with them. They felt cold from my ghostly presence and my man kept on turning on the heating. They were both silent. From time to time he would look at the back seat as if he feared that Tear would disappear unless he turned. With no emotion on her face she played with her doll’s pink wool hair. The car stopped at the graveyard. Tear would not come out. Her father begged her to come out, only one more time, only then. I don’t want to go, screamed Tear and she shed her name in her doll’s hair. Mommy will come back, she said. I shriveled like a medlar when it turns too ripe. I touched her, and she shivered from my closeness, She shivered like a stalk of grass. Like a small leaf torn from the tree. He father grabbed her in his arms and hugged her, as if he was a rope holding her from breaking apart. Mommy will be back, repeated Tear. And my man only let his mute sorrow run down his cheeks.

I stood on the pavement in front of my grave, as the tear drops passed through me like through mist. I started to silently pray to God and all angels to help my daughter forget me faster. I prayed to them to wipe off her name running down her cheeks and be with her because I could no longer be with her. Tear kneeled down, all in mud, squeezing her pink wool haired doll. Her father tapped her shoulders telling her it will all go away. Let it go away, I prayed to God and all angles, let it go away faster.

All of a sudden, my body started to tear from the ground. It was too soon. It was too early. I was not ready to say good-bye. I was not ready to forget. I resisted and I tried to get hold of something, but the things just kept on passing through me. I resisted and I moved as much a soul could move. But I flew higher and higher, I watched my little girl and my man becoming more and more distant, as they grew warmer as the cold of the dead left with me. I didn’t want to let them go, I didn’t want to leave.

Out of nowhere, the world disappeared in front of me I was in a dark tunnel with light; if I had eyes, it would burn them. The light sucked me towards itself, and I scratched the walls of the tunnel with my imagined hands, I ran backwards with my imagined legs, I slid on the ground and I tried to stop my departure. I don’t want eternal rest, I yelled, I just want to be with my little girl. I just want to be with my little girl! I screamed without a voice, and I started to cruse everything on the ground and above it, everything mortal and immortal.

Somebody must have heard me, somebody must have had mercy, because the next moment I felt Tear’s little arms around me, I felt her wiping her little nose off my hair. I heard her little heart pounding as she pressed it against my back. Tear squeezed me, tear squeezed her pink wool haired dolls as her father dragged her to the car. She squeezed me as they drove to the house and her father covered her body and whispered her to sleep and dream of nice things. Tear squeezed me long afterwards, as she shed her name down her cheeks, on the pillow, in the bed sheets, as she shed her name in my pink wool hair.

AuthorVerce Karafiloska
2018-12-19T12:31:20+00:00 January 17th, 2016|Categories: Prose, Literature, Blesok no. 105|0 Comments