Our Place in the Universe

You win some, you lose some.
Sometimes you win the lottery.
Sometimes you lose everything.
It’s anyone’s game.

Right Where It Ends

They would never know the streets like him,
how the music of his MP3 player would blend into his environment,
this soulful movie would play inside his head,
it would be so real
and if you’d watch it,
you wouldn’t feel so alone anymore.
You’d feel understood in a world that never seems that interested in you.

They would never know the quietness of walking these streets after midnight,
with only the occasional car in the background
and you wonder where these people are going at such a late hour-
you wonder about the murderous missions
of men trying to hide the bodies
and men trying to hide themselves.
All these people you will never know
or
do know and if they’d only stop
and talk to you,
you wouldn’t be so alone anymore.

They would understand your pain if only they saw you,
stumbling around at night,
calmly walking home,
hoping your parents are asleep,
because you don’t want to talk to them,
you don’t want them asking about you,
all the things that are going on
and what the hell you are going to do with the rest of your life.

And you wonder whether these people have a destination
or are just driving around?
How many times have they driven around and found themselves returning to the same place all over again.

We run and go back.
We fall back to where we belong.
When we don’t have anywhere to go, we go back to the place we know so well- even though we’ve been trying to run away from this place for so long.

This would be such a great movie if people could only see it
but when you try to explain the plot,
people don’t know what to say.
Like your life it doesn’t really have a plot,
it’s just a series of moments.
”It will be great, trust me!”
and they nod and they would if they could see it
but you’ll never make this movie.
You’ll never have the capital nor the work-ethnic or dedication.
It was only beautiful then,
in these streets only you know so well,
when you were all by yourself
with the music playing your eyes,
and the drugs peaking
and slowing down the closer you came to home.

For one moment you felt understood,
in that one moment,
you were ready to face the rest of your life.

If only the movie would stop then,
fade to black
the credits roll
but life goes on…

and eventually
we all have to go home
and go to sleep.
And when we wake up,

the streets will never be the same again.

Picture from: https://hiveminer.com/Tags/eneade%2Cman

***

TELL YOUR GOD…

Scrub…

There’s too much gore,
it seeps down through the floorboards,
and drips down
on
the new generation,
those who were told fairy tales
instead of history.

And even in the savagest of days,
it became obvious to the storytellers
that people rather wanted to escape
the awful truth
that is human nature
and the beautiful environment they destroy
in order to create their failing utopia.

They prefer stories of heroics,
turning ordinary men in biblical saints
and the soldiers into daunting warriors,
and people would shudder in their presence,
the quick draw,
the bolt of lightning,
the bullet carrying them into oblivion,
how they never see it coming,
the smoke billowing out of the revolver.

And they need these stories
don’t you see?
They need them or else they will lose their minds.

And it gets so dark sometimes,
when you look back far enough,
when you notice the gore from the ceiling,
when you notice it on your shirt,
when you see people scrubbing it off their clothes
every day
and when you tell them what they are doing
they say they know,
and they shrug
and they say ”that’s how it’s gotta be.”

Scrub, scrub…

And they tell you to not worry,
cos
the people won’t stand for it.
Eventually they will get of their ass
and fix their gory mess
and make it look like it never happened.
They will find a way to turn back time.
They tell you that the eaters of children
will eat themselves too,
the hunger is too great
and can never be fully satiated.
It’s too powerful and too meaningless
and we are not meant to cope with it,
it is meant to destroy us.
And when that happens,
the darkness will slither away
and the light will come through.
And once people see it they will travel to that place
and inspired by the light
they will create a better world,
a world that will never repeat the mistakes of the past.

Yes, yes, don’t you worry young man,
the light will always take over.

The light always takes over.

And the way to do this is to keep those kids
young,
because in their smiles
you can imagine
the light coming through.
And it’s so beautiful,
you’ll forget about all the gore.

Scrub, scrub…. 

But you can’t stop it,
But it can’t last,
age will take away the light…
You remember the limerick an aging angel or demon once told you:
”There are things that are coming
and things we won’t see coming
and are coming anyway.”

***

Eventually you will conform
because that’s the sane thing to do
because living with open eyes
is a good way
to lose your mind.

So you will scrub the gore on the floor
Scrub, scrub…
and listen to the stories
and after a while,
you will even start to believe the stories.
They will give you hope.
They will give you dreams
about all the things you could achieve,
about being the main character in one of those stories,
to be an old man and look back with pride
and say to your foolish and privileged grandkids
”all you gotta do is work hard.”
And sometimes you had to be a little vicious
and cut some throats.
It’s the way the world works,
it’s the bloody game we must play.
And as you sit on your throne,
and look down on your kingdom,
you will actually believe you deserve all of this,
this kingdom where you have 24/7 cleaners who scrub away the gore,
making sure you will never see it.

A hundred years later they will make movies
and TV-shows
out of these ordinary men and warriors
and it will inspire people
and the real subjects have been dead so long
and you wonder what they will think,
you wonder if they will us the truth about who they really were.

And if they would
would you even listen?
Or would you choose not to-
because the stories are so much better
and it’s easier to live with yourself that way.
Or would you simply tell them to shut up and start scrubbing,
because the kids will be home soon
and they will be hungry.
And
Remember:
soon when they be old enough
to ask uncomfortable questions.
They will ask about the blood seeping through the floorboards
and you have to warn them not to upstairs and look,
you gotta convince them that it’s better to stay down here,
where it’s warm
and
the illusions are thick with glitter
and
smell like bleach.

***

193

Not everybody wakes up.
Not everybody can redeem themselves.
Not everybody gets a chance to become a better person.
Some are on the right path but die along the way
and their story never gets a happy ending.
Not everybody gets a happy ending.
Nobody’s even entitled to an ending.
Sometimes life just ends.
In the middle of a pop song- you should have been more careful, you should have turned to the right…
Poof.
All of it,
the light in their eyes,
the struggles of the past,
the dreams for the future,
gone, goodbye, sayanora, go fuck yourself.
Like it was nothing, like nothing ever happened, like nobody was even there.
It can be so impersonal,
a big mean surprise.
It can be such a pitiful sight,
seeing the strong wither away into oblivion.
Even those that are considered lucky didn’t even get luxury of dignity
and were deprived the sanctity of their final words-
they forgot them the moment they wanted to share them
and when they remembered the words,
they forgot the meaning of them.
Some, perhaps even most, never got over their personal demons
continued in their darkened path of bad habits and misunderstandings.
The moments of enlightenment too brie
and too painful to linger.

I don’t want it to hurt,
I don’t want to it to be near,
I don’t want to go away
and I’m asking you this,
if you’re listening
though I don’t think you even have that capacity anymore,
to leave me alone for the next 200 hundred years.
I promise I will only waste 193 of them.
The rest will be time well spent.

I promise.

***

Monika

With the awareness of death,
after the last comforting and terrifying word of scripture,
after counting all the stars,
after reading countless peer-reviewed studies
about the lack of human meaning
in
this dark room filled with stars and planets,
and after everything is said and done
after all the warnings ignored
and the future becoming increasingly finite,

love
is
the
only light
that
can
be found
in
the void.

***

TAKE IT EASY

Yesterday during kick-box training my trainer stopped during one particular exercisewhere I had to exchanged two punches to the other guy
and then receive two punches in return
and the trainer told me to ”take it easy,”
cos ”you don’t know it yet but your face is drained of all color. You won’t notice it until it’s too late and then you’re hugging the floor.”
It’s true,
I didn’t notice anything until I was on my way home
and I felt dizzy and tired,
and it wasn’t until I had a good meal inside me that I felt better.

None of this is something to be ashamed of I guess,
but that’s how I feel.
I should be tough and handle this training
but apparently I’m too weak.
And whenever I leave training,
my trainer always reminds me to ”take it easy”
cos he can see that I’m stressed out too much.

It’s been a tough week for me,
at my job I’ve received negative feedback
because I make sloppy mistakes.
On a personal note,
the boss also told me that my language is too coarse
and when I come into work,
I’m complaining too much
and my colleagues get distracted because of this.
cos more often than not,
I start about something negative
and it’s tiresome listening to some naggy motherfucker all the time.
This affects the work environment.

Naturally she has a point,
cos I know I ain’t easy to deal with at times.
I can feel how uneasy she feels in my company at times
and that she doesn’t know how to deal with me.
Same with my colleagues who’ve witnessed on multiple occasions how quickly my mood switches
from casual to jolly
to depressed.
I could be having a good time
breaking balls with colleagues
then suddenly I’m lost in a ruminating thought
I start hating myself
I feel embarrassed cos they didn’t laugh at one my jokes enough
or
I’m haunted by this fear that I did something inappropriate
and they’ll talk amongst themselves
saying what a piece of shit I am.
And I’m constantly checking myself,
watching my language,
making sure I don’t touch anyone,
cos that would freak me out,
would spur on my OCD
and then I’d fear losing my girlfriend,
the one I love.
And
I know I should challenge my OCD
and not recoil into it.
The more you recoil into it
the stronger it gets.
But it’s too hard
and even after a few victories,
one failure can put me seemingly back to square one.

There’s all these things I want to achieve:

I want to be a great boxer,
and I do a match one day-
become a decent amateur (despite the fact I’m close to my thirties and I’m just starting out).

I want to be a great writer
and
create multitudes of
short stories,
novella’s
novels,
screenplays
and plays
cos there’s so many stories in my head
but I’ve wasted so many of them
and I never finish anything.

I want to be a great Buddhist,
be meditative and calm
and teach people how to approach life.

And all of these things are hard
and I guess I want too much
cos I also gotta go to work
and I don’t like this work but I gotta make money.

I gotta sleep on time
or
else I’ll be tired and cranky at work.

I gotta eat healthy too or else I’ll feel bloated
and my man-boobs will get bigger.

My girlfriend tells me
to just focus on having fun with boxing and writing
but I haven’t been having fun doing either of those things in quite some time.
I feel horrible when I’m doing it
and I feel horrible when I’m not doing it.
So I don’t do it as much anymore
and just mindlessly watch TV shows and movies
and dream about doing it in the near future.
And when I go to sleep I dream about this man I want to be,
even though I don’t think I can ever be this man.
I think it’s too late to be this man,
I lost my shot for being this man,
this interesting and inspiring artist.
I think it was there somewhere in the past
but I fucked up
and choose self-pity instead.
Cos that was always easier,
cos telling yourself you will always fail
is easier than working hard and
achieving something…

So now that I’ve gotten this out of the way,
I’m going to get some lunch
and after lunch it’s time to make myself some coffee
and do some writing.

But before I do
I’ll remember what my trainer said:
”take it easy,”

You got that?

I think so.

No thinking,
you gotta be sure.

Yes I’m sure.
I mean how hard can it be?
Just relax, take it easy, have fun.
Should be doable right?

Right.

***

THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE

So I was having a discussion with the girlfriend of a friend of mine,
a university student from America
finishing her masters in Holland
and the topic was ”white-privilege.”
A light-skinned girl, she’s intensely dedicated to the subject.
She tells me about the different experiences of races in society,
and how whitey got it easy on many fronts.
Even if whitey is poor with bad upbringing,
it could never be worse than a black man whose poor with bad upbringing.
There are hidden forces working against minorities,
they were forged from its colonial inception,
covered in the blood, sweat and tears of slaves.

”Sure things are better” she says,”but we are still behind, still make relatively less money, still have less people in high government, still get killed by gangs and cops more frequently,
cos history is against us.
Cos we haven’t completely fixed it yet.
Cos we got fucked in the past.”

And
it’s awareness that will heal us,
the white man needs to be aware of his privileges,
how much easier he’s got
cos he ain’t gotta deal with the bullshit the minorities do.
And there’s truth in all of that
but it ain’t the whole truth.
My issue with intersectionalists like her,
is that they tend to collectivize too much
and don’t grasp that suffering is more individual than collective.
Even if one group receives more shit than others,
it still doesn’t mean they suffer more.
Suffering is personal,
suffering is spiritual,
it’s in the mind.
And when you suffer inside your skull,
when you get lost in the mess of the self,
that’s the worst pain of all.

They talk about THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
and there is such a thing
but it ain’t as big as they think.
There is so much more
and so much better. 

Each individual is different
even if they never had an original thought in their mind.
Some are offended more easily,
some have autism and therefore have extremely sensitive stimulus,
some were beaten by their parents
and are always angry but they don’t know why.
Some wanna change the world
others want to fix this one.
Some are scared every day
while some seek dangerous thrills in order to feel alive again.
We all suffer
and even if we got all the privileges in the world,
we can still fuck it up so badly,
we can give it all up for something ridiculous,
we might be blind to our own possibilities
and the possibilities that society can provide for us.
We might not be aware of our innate flaws
until it’s too fucking late.

We might never really know ourselves.
We might feel like we are missing something
but we can never grasp what this thing is.
We are all in one way
victims of society
but we are as much victims to ourselves
to our upbringing
to our genetic programming.

We are all deliriously fucked up.
But we are all human,
and some of us too much so.

We’re
all
part
of
the
the HUMAN EXPERIENCE,
and we come in different colors,
different countries,
different religions,
different offspring,
different cultures,
different genes
and so much differences
and most of them don’t matter
and most of them can be overcome
and most it can be solved by mere acceptance.

We gotta be aware of our differences
but we gotta be aware of what connects us,
we gotta be honest about the past
but we can’t wallow in it.
We gotta move on,
hold hands as we does so,
tell our brothers and sisters
that the road is arduous and long
and there are still many evil people out there
and so many misunderstandings
and so much brooding violence
and so much confusion
and
it’s so easy to get lost along the way.

And yet we gotta try
even if we don’t agree with each other,
even if we see people bumping into brick walls.
Even if all the signs point out
that the future is as fucked as the past.
We gotta do something about all this mess….

It’s quite something,
isn’t it-
this HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

”Don’t you agree?”

***

Can the Neighborhood Be Saved?

As a child I didn’t grow up with Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,
it was before my time and from another country.
Instead I grew up like most kids back then,
blinded by different collections of action figures,
they were all pretty much the same
but they were dressed in different ways.
I rewatched countless tapes of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
I thought Shredder,
in his modified Samurai suit,
with blades sticking out from his palms and shins,
was the most bad-ass of all.
There was the Disney Palace,
the murmur of angels in the background,
the star that flew around it,
the jingle that will forever be stuck in my subconscious.
There were cartoons bashing each other’s heads in,
those who could never die,
there was always the victor
and the sufferer
and the game never got old.

But even if it aired in my time and in my country, it wouldn’t have caught on. The world had changed too much. No matter how inviting Mr. Rogers’ smile, the kids rather want to see something that sparkles or explodes. They rather want to watch a swashbuckling hero stab a series of nameless villains then hear the wise words of a sock-puppet.

The times have changed now. There’s too much available. The marketers know the game too well. The parents let it happens, the parents couldn’t have done anything about it even if they wanted to. The parents were too distracted themselves by the newest gadgets, building up their pension and Christmas bonuses. The marketers got them in their pockets too. It’s everything you stood against Mr. Rogers. But you see, in your day, television entertainment wasn’t as evolved as it is now. Now things can be created out of thin air, by computers. Now there’s so much money at stake. So much money. And you don’t fuck with the money Mr. Rogers.
They won’t let you fuck with the money. They’ll kick you out of the air if you do.

I’m sorry Mr. Rogers but the assholes of the world have won. Look no further in how little people care now about good morals, about being nice to each other. It’s too difficult to be empathetic, it’s much easier to dismiss people’s pain.
There’s so much pain and misery. There are people debating whether or not to give people medical assistance if they can’t afford it- they should have taken better care of themselves right?
There are the unfortunate people who lost their minds through either either neglect or genetic predisposition and the fortunate ones who pass them on the streets, telling the unfortunate ones that it’s their own fault.
Or at the very least, that their pain is not their problem.
There are people in charge of the government now who favor objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand- if anyone can play a witch without make-up, it’s her- which states that selfishness is a virtue.

But you were special Mr. Rogers.
You were all about love. All you wanted to do is tell the truth and make them understand. You understood that you didn’t have to patronize the kids, that you didn’t need to manipulate them. That there was a higher goal in having a broad children’s audience.
You could teach them to be good to each other.
You could tell about the horrors of this world,
how ugly people can be to each other,
how good people can be murdered for no good reason,
how people can fall out of love,
how people are scared for things that are different,
why sometimes we get a little sad because the world is a tough place
and we have to be alone sometimes
and we have figure things out for ourselves
and sometimes we love will leave us
and they can never come back
except in our hearts and minds.
And we have to accept things
even if we don’t want to,
because if we don’t
this world will be unbearable.
And it’s full of vultures waiting for desperate children who can’t handle this world
And sometimes we let the vultures eat our children
because we don’t know what to do,
we don’t know what to do…

And I wish I was more like you
Mr. Rogers,
I wish I was as pure as you
but I guess it’s too late for that.
I’ve done too many bad things,

I have too many bad habits,

patterns of thoughts I can’t seem to get rid of.
I feel uncomfortable with children,
I don’t know what to say,
I’m afraid to embarrass myself.
And I wished I lived in your neighborhood,
I wish you could tell me
that things are going to be alright
and that it’s okay to be me
and that I shouldn’t be like you,
cos nobody should be the same
because otherwise the neighborhood wouldn’t be so colorful.

You’d tell me these bad men
who are glorified by too many people,
people who should know better,
aren’t really winning.
And it’s because they don’t see it,
even though the right answer was always there.
The higher plain,
the game-changer,
some of us see it right at the end.
They will understand that they’ve wasted so much time
worrying too much
or hating each other.
Thinking too much of the past,
building a fantasy world inside their heads,
putting their names
on top of tall buildings
in plaques made of gold.

You’d tell me:
”I know you want to change the world
but now you gotta look out for yourself.
You gotta show the world
and all its misguided creatures,
what it means to be human.
You don’t let them change you,
you don’t let them away your light.
It’s what happens to so many of us,
and if we could keep that light inside us
and share that light,
cultivating it
by helping others,
collectivize it in one beautiful image
for the world to see.
And it might not change the world
but it might change
the mindset of some,
it might make them feel better
the less fortunate ones,
the ones who see no way out.
And wouldn’t that be nice?”

”Yes it would,” I’d say,
and then I’d smile and look away,
and I would wish I wasn’t so cynical,
that I was more like you. 
And you’d see that familiar glare of mine
and it wouldn’t dishearten you,
you would understand.
You’d finish by saying:

”Love is at the root of everything. love
or the lack of it.
And what we see and hear on the screen

is part of who we become.”
And I’d wipe away a tear
and tell you I need to go home

”but I’ll be back,” I’d say,
”because I like it here.
I really, really like it here.”

***

You Got a Problem With Me?

At first he pretended that nothing unusual had happened. Just another fit of rage. Just another asshole who looked at him the wrong way. People get hurt sometimes, it happens. When things cool down, everything will turn back to normal. The adrenaline helped. The adrenaline justified the violence. He kept shaking as he was holding the gun in his hand. The ringing in his ears wouldn’t stop. The victim kept screaming for help, his wife was crying was next to him. Someone was phoning the police and informing them of the address. He screamed for the witnesses to shut the fuck up and they wailed in fright.
Normally he didn’t have a gun with him but he was especially paranoid today. He was sure someone was watching him. Sometimes he could hear them in the walls. Sometimes he could see their shapes running away when he spotted them in the corner of his mansion.
Someone told him to drop the gun.
Did he knew this guy or not? He couldn’t be sure.
He saw himself shooting the man, saw him crawling on the floor, saw another round explode in his back. He knew what he asked him before he shot him.
”You got a problem with me?”
The man begged him to drop the gun. And for a second, he knew what he had done. He knew this awareness would slip away eventually and when it did, he would start running again. He would look for the monsters again.
”Just pull the trigger,” he said, ”please just pull the trigger…”
The wife of the victim would not stop crying. He pointed the gun to the woman and looked at the man- friend, enemy or hallucination?- hoping this would make him shoot him. But he didn’t have it in him. He could put the gun to his own head but he knew he couldn’t do it either. There was something inside his head that wouldn’t allow it. It needed him to live. No matter how miserable he was or how dangerous he was to others.
And I never meant to hurt everybody, I swear…
Sirens in the distance. From the window he could see the red lights coming closer. Maybe he could make them shoot him.
But that’s just what they wanted wasn’t it! He suddenly figured. That was their plan all along! ”Not me,” he said, looking down at the grieving wife, her shirt covered in the blood of her dying husband, ”they aren’t going to get me this easy.”
He bend down, the grieving wife held husband close to herself, hoping to protect him. He grabbed the husband’s hand, the other was still holding the gun. He squeezed the husband’s hand as he looked into his dying eyes.
”Don’t worry you’re safe now,” he said, ”things are going to be alright from now on. You always fear that they are stronger than you but in reality, it’s they are the ones who are really afraid. Now that they know we mean business, they are to hide for a while. But I’ll keep looking. I’ll always keep looking…”

***

A Number

On the 3^rd of March 2018, on the same day that Russia would reelect Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, journalist Illya Kholodov from Novayeta Gazetta disappeared. He was last seen saying goodbye to his wife as he headed to the nearest voting polls, to watch out for any irregularities. Screaming was heard in the neighborhood and a speeding car.

One day day before his disappearance, Illya’s was visited by his old childhood friend Konstantin. Konstantin was deeply connected, a man who has long disappeared among the Russian elites. Normally he would never show up in this neighborhood, but her he was, in front of his door in his thousand dollar suit with his silver Lexus parked outside.
Konstantin’s bodyguard waited outside as Illya invited him in. Illya offered him tea and as he was boiling up the water, Konstantin pretended to admire this small and humble apartment. He noticed a display case where inside it, lay a series of old pictures, from faded color to black-and-white. These pictures dated back from World War 2 to Stalin’s reign of terror.
They sat down for tea. Konstantin asked where his wife was and Illya told him she was at her job- as one of the editors of Novayeta Gazetta, Konstantin then went straight to the point.
”All you gotta do is survey the place and say that nothing was out of the ordinary. That’s all. You write down that everything was square and that you didn’t see any irregularities.”
”But what if I do see irregularities.”
”That’s the thing, even if you do see something you don’t see something.”
”Why bother? Nobody is going to believe.”
”The right people will.”
”If I do that I will forever lose the respect of my colleagues. I’m sorry I can’t do it.”
”Who cares about their respect? I’ve something better than respect: a nice big envelop every month, for a whole. Every month you’ll have more money than you’ll make in a year. That’s better than respect.”
”You’re fucking kidding right? You know me. I’d said no to big fat envelopes for years now. If I cared about money I wouldn’t be fucking be here. Why would I change my mind today?”
”Look I set this up for you. My superiors had other ideas with you but I changed their mind, don’t make me look like an asshole here. You made it difficult for us in the past but you didn’t cause us enough aggravation to get really angry. Now it’s different.”
”How is it different?”
”The people are more restless than ever. The big guy is worried. Things need to look a little more clean now…”
”It’s not going to look clean you know that.”
”It won’t if people start looking. But we need to make sure it’s not overly transparent. If people gotta look for corruption, it’s not really there. It needs to shine for it to be real. If it don’t shine, it ain’t real.”
”Why do you need me anyway Konstantin. It doesn’t matter if this district votes against him. You’ll have enough votes. Even if he doesn’t get enough votes he’s still gonna win. Even if I say the whole thing is a giant rip-off, it doesn’t matter. You don’t fucking need me to do anything.”
”Exactly, that’s right. Even if you don’t comply things will turn out just the same. That’s why you are gonna do as your told. Cos you don’t wanna get hurt for something that isn’t gonna make a difference in your life.”
”It ain’t me Konstantin, I’m sorry.”
”You’re making an awful lotta noise lately. We can’t have that right now. You know there were a lot of people aiming for you but I held them back. If it wasn’t for me, we might not even have this conversation.”
”So I should be grateful is that it?”
”All you dopes should be grateful. We could make you guys disappear of the fucking earth. You know you don’t exactly contribute anything to this country? You’re just costing us money. And you don’t fuck with the money. There is nothing in this world that’s stronger than money. And for what? You’re just hurting yourself. All you’re doing is costing us money and wasting our time. We have wasted so many times on you fucking dopes. We’ve made it clear, we’ve made countless examples of you guys but you never fucking listen. You just don’t fucking get it.”
”The Russian people deserve better…”
”Oh grow the fuck up! How many times do we have to repeat this dance? How many bodies does it fucking take? Nothing is going to change. This is how it’s always going to be. Look at our history. Something is deeply wrong with the soul of this country. We own this country’s soul. We’ve had a chance to do penitence after the fall of Soviet-union. Yet we still fucked-up. Now it’s our time to burn.”
Konstantin got up and he buttoned his jacket he said, ”you were already pushing it last election and we let it slide. We ain’t gonna let it slide this time Illya. Just confirm to me that you will do as your told. If I go back and tell them you said no, I can’t protect you anymore.”
Illya sight and considered it, but as he looked to the left, he saw his father’s picture inside the display case. He remembered how he died, he remembered how hard he worked, he remembered how little time he spend with him. He then made his decision.
”I’m going to do my job. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Konstantin looked at him mournfully and then shook his head. As Konstantin headed for the door, Illya got up and yelled after him: ”you know what my father used to say? It’s better to die for a beautiful dream than to live in a nightmare.”
Konstantin gave him one last look and then walked out the door. He hadn’t even touched his tea.
The case of Illya Kholodov’s disappearance would forever be unsolved. One day, after six months of investigation, the wife of Kholodov visited the police department again and accused them all of corruption. She screamed that blood was on their hands, she said that God would judge them in the next world. Even though she was a woman in her fifties, it took three young police-officers to carry her out of the building.
The case-officer who was supposedly working on the disappointed of Illya Kholodov- though had long given up after certain people told him to stop looking- went home early that day and when he got home, he locked himself in the bathroom and weeped. Through his tears he asked God the same question over and over again: ”what am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?”
Illya would become just another faceless figure. Another number on the long list of missing journalists. The hope is that perhaps, if the numbers are high enough, the people will rise up and demand change. If the numbers are high enough. If the numbers will continue to mean something. Maybe after six more years.

***