#4 THE WAY THAT SHE DIED

*
Where are you?


What is she saying now, Mama?
She says that it is late and she must go.
And what does he say?
He says he loves her and he can't live without her and he will go with her to the end of the world.
And what does she sat now?
She says that she's going further away than the end of the world and that he can't come with her and they mustn't see each other ever again, even if it breaks their hearts.
And what does he say?
Oh, shut up now. He says nothing. Leave your mother alone and watch the dance or we go. You fucking know it by heart already. Says her Lover. I keep quiet.

Outside they smoke while I crash into every puddle I see. Mama doesn't notice. She doesn't care about new shoes or clean clothes. Her Lover doesn't either. He doesn't care about us. They smoke as I cry jumping in and out thinking in and out again in and out always in and out only in and out.
Then the dancers appear and for a moment I believe that there's gonna be magic.

Oh, little rabbit, come here.
One of the dancers calls me. Mama gives her a cigarette and her Lover hits the matchbox and there is fire.
So you want to dance, your mother tells me.
And her face is ugly, like when I play with Mama's make-up and later there is trouble with Grandma or even more trouble with Mama. And the other dancers are smoking and talking and ugly too. And no-one moves, no-one uses the hands or the feet, no-one wears feathers.
So you want to dance. And they are talking, laughing and talking, smoking and talking, stroking and talking, kissing and talking, just like I would do, except that I don't talk, and I don't laugh, and I smoke only when I steal money from Mama, and I don't like being stroked or being kissed but sometimes I can't help it.
So you want to dance. And the dancers are real and wear real clothes and talk real words and don't have a real need to dance. They are fake. They are fake. They are fake. And I don't understand what kind of work Mama does for them because she said she is an interpreter and I thought she interpreted their movements to the normal people. But she lied. She lied. They are normal people. There is no magic.
I don't talk. I don't move. I look down and my clothes are all wet and I am still standing in a puddle.

Grandma pretends to be asleep when we arrive and I wonder if they notice and I wonder if she's safe. I try to go to my couch, but Mama says no, she says I'll wake up Grandma and she pushes me into the bathroom and I think Not tonight, but she can't hear me now. She's too far. She takes some pills, and puts some others inside my mouth and I have to swallow because I am afraid she will make me swallow her way. There are pills on the bathtub and on the floor and we step on them and they are still there. She undresses me and laughs and smokes and it's so very cold.
You're a dumb child. An idiot. And you were rude to my friends.
I lie on the floor. My eyes are red and I feel water in my head. Not tears, but muddy water moving up and down, up and down, in and out. I try to stand, but I don't know which are my hands and which are my my feet anymore. Maybe I moan, because she says Oh, shut up, idiot, you have nothing to cry about. Save your tears for when you grow up and have real trouble.
Another kick, and now the water is in my stomach, but there is nothing to throw up. Her Lover comes in and laughs and they're both naked and I think maybe they'll forget me now. If I stay quiet on the floor they may not see me and go. But they see me and she says Tonight you'll sleep on your baby bed, just so you see how nice I am, and stand up now, you lazy slut. I try. The lover goes for the bottles while Mama pulls me up by the hair and throws my dirty clothes in the bathtub.
She pushes me into the bedroom and I think Not tonight as I climb inside my baby bed.



[Not part of the exercice... 9 years gone by since the day she went away, still a stranger]

TIRITAS

Trrrralalalala. Ok, so after that, a disclaimer... Now. I get the feeling that people is a bit confused by my sudden writing outburst. Confused and worried. Don't be. As someone much more intelligent and funny said, DON'T PANIC. The numbered texts are actually exercices for my Creative Memoir class, that is, they are memories, which means, they are things that more or less happened to me, but in the PAST. Not now. I am kinda alright now. So if you see a text with a title with a number preceding it, it's a creative writing exercice... and most of it I guess really didn't happen at all.
Things are ok here. Aimee Mann is playing tomorrow. Dylan comes in November. All the girls are with their periods now. So yesterday was Mountain Day and they all went to the mountain to have icecream and sunbathe. There were no classes except for me in Hampshire. There was all the Dessert Dilemma Showcase. I wonder if it is like this every 28 days.
Soon begins the lottery for DV visas (green cards for the US) and just because Russian natives cannot apply for them I want to apply. Because you can only be considered native of another country if you say you prefer the country of your spouse or of your parents, but not if you move to another country, take its citizenship and live most of your life there. So, there is something in me that wants to put up a fight.

#3 BORN DURING AN ECLIPSE

*

Where are you?


I hate life. I hate you, you in the mirror, you too weak to stand and do what needs to be done. You're poisoned, they tell you, like it's a new thing, and call you in to purge you and know nothing so you stay back and drink milk and to hell. You can decide how miserably you want to die. I hate you, I hate you, all broken and gray, shattered into glass, scared to touch yourself, trembling, nothing to puke except vodka and aspirines and you didn't even die.
But who are you? I hate you. I was afraid. I tried. You liar, you cowardly liar. Just look at you staring at the door wondering if someone will come. You disgust me. I hate you. But I tried, I'm telling you. I did as you said, at last I did it... And you failed. And look at you now. Drinking milk, eating bread, growing obese. I am proud of you, little monster. I should have drowned you at birth.
Is that you, Mom? Mother?

SECRET MESSAGE

Mi manchi...

#2 PAINT IT BLACK

*

Who are you?


For an eternity, I hang in black completely naked. The is in my eyes and mouth. My hands are fallen leaves around the bathtub bar.
I can see you, little brother, through the mist, and I reach to protect you even now that I will die.

I wake up shivering and Dad is punching the bathroom door hard, I go out and fall in a maze of blankets and sheets and stuffed toys. He tries talking to me, but I can't talk back. I hear the voices laughing in dreams and we all play and dance in circles and go to sleep, until Dad shakes me and something is wronf because I fainted in the bathtub and I can never ever take another bath.
How to explain blackness?
There's an empty space movin between my bones. When it's in my head I can't talk because the empty space is in my mouth. It has eaten it up. And if I can't speak Dad will take me to see the doctor again. But I'm never sure who it is I have to see. The doctor or the dentist. What's wrong with me this time. If it's the dentist I brush my teeth. If it's the doctor I only comb my hair twice.
Even after my near-death experience, I sit at the table and for an hour and a half I study with the door open and no music so I can get the black jacket at the end of the year. Of course I get distracted easily by the dead people, but in the end they are nice, except at night, when they won't let me sleep and I have to bang my head against the wall to make them shut up. If that doesn't work I prepare myself cups of hot milk and camomile, five or six of each. If that doesn't work, I bang my head harder. If they're still awake, I cry and hope Dad wakes up and helps me... but he never does. I knock on the wall between our bedrooms, I knock harder, I cry louder, I open my door... but he never wakes up and he never comes and I always bang my head until I see the red eyes of the dog of the Baskervilles disappear from my window. Then I close my own eyes and everything goes black.

SI TIENES UN HONDO PENAR, PIENSA EN MÍ

Another week gone by. Still here, becoming an fashion icon on campus... for real. They love me. And I am getting used to the whole only-girls-nothing-to-do-nowhere-to-go business... I get desperate at times, hysteric. I scare myself and others. Stop in the middle of the road. The other day I helped someone who fainted... I got to use my First Aid knowledge at last. Later I was in shock for no reason. This week I've been giving classes, five classes, and I've done it well. My students like me. They say 'Hi' to me and smile. And I wonder how did I manage.
Yesterday I had to yell at a sales assistant, because he wouldn't understand that I really really wanted to return my cell phone. In the end I did it. I don't want a cell phone anymore. Nothing to do with cell phones in America. People here are sometimes obtuse. Many are so inefficient. I don't understand. It's so frustrating. There are so many people, qualified people out of work in the world, and here you find folks earning good money who don't know what's an adapter or a SIM card (woking at the electronics department).
Friday night and no plans except to lie in bed and forget till tomorrow about my assignments. One of them about the aesthetics of my memoir, another about Donne, another about 'The White Man in the American Imagination'... that one is going to be irritating.
Is it four weeks or three that I have been here? Three. It seems an eternity. A deep blue eternity.

#1 (LET YOUR SKIN BE MY HIDING PLACE)

*
Who are you?


All day long I've been munching on this giddy feeling, making bubbles behind my eyes and between my teeth, because I knew tonight it would start. A memoir.
While I scratch my first words, I look in the bathtub. It fills up with blue water, real blue, although the bathtub is white and I didn't put anything in the water to make it blue. Just my foot. A flower of a foot. Very well-behaved and heroic, lady-like despite its size. Always dreaming about becoming a prima ballerina, but there you have it now, just a foot in a bathtub, always mistreated and forgotten when sloppy caresses are given away. I am not very much of a feet lover.
I dive in the bathtub. It's so low I feel I'm being buried underwater. No-one must know I took a bath. The water is no longer blue. Now it's gray and pink, and I have never seen a water that changes its mind so quickly and without chemical help.
As I go down I search for words amongst the colours. Words that I have lost or that have run away from me. Someone is behind the curtain and I hold my breath, letting one of the missing words escape again.
I open my eyes as I stick my head out. The water is yellow and green now. My body is red. Behind the curtain still lurks the invader. Is it the same person? Is it just one? The one who has been there for hours sharpening her nails, waiting for me. When she began I was still young. The colours are melting back into blue. Blue... blue... blue... with a few strands of black.

LYRICS

Jen is bringing the drugs.
She wants to get real fucked up.
She used to laugh and smile,
But the years of denial.
Have taken their toll on her dial.
But, me, I do as I please.
I caught you and set you free.
Cause I have been left alone by the people I've known.
And I don't know when they're coming home.
And Jen don't wanna be seen,
But I saw her in a swank magazine.
She had an airbrushed face,
But the lines of distaste were crossed without crossing of legs.
And I don't wanna be found.
So when you get home, I'm skipping town.
I'm leaving to go someplace
where nobody will have any clue where I am.
And Jen is bringing the drugs.
She's gonna get me fucked up.
Cause love is an inkless pen.
It's a tavern, it's sin.
It's a horrible way to begin
(Margot & The Nuclear)

EN OCASIONES VEO MUERTOS (O GORRIONES)

Exercise in automatic writing for my Creative Memoir class about an episode in life that happened many years ago... nine years. I wrote what I felt then, not what I feel now.


You're lost little girl. Because she is gone and you are stuck in a strange country where you are not allowed to show your true face lest they get too scared, lest you get too scared yourself. You're lost little girl. You are not even allowed to mourn properly. She went away two days ago, maybe three, no-one really knows how or why, and you are stuck here and they made you go to class and you had no black clothes to wear, only a gray and orange sporstsuit. Painfully orange. You're lost little girl. You can't tell anyone she's gone. They could distrust you. They could ask questions and you don't have any answers. No one has given you answers. No one has given you anything except for empty words and pained looks, as if they knew anything about her, or about you for that matter. You're lost little girl. The children are playing. They look at you out of the corner of their eyes. Maybe they already think that you're not the happiest girl that they have ever met, as they have been telling you for years, and you always laughing inside. Maybe one morning of painfully orange isolation is enough to break up all the masks, to darken all the smiles.
It's the first of October and your birthday will come soon. The weather is fine. Even the trees look beautiful despite the attempts of your class mates to murder them with volley balls and footballs. One of your friends finally approaches you and catches an unguarded tear in your left eye. "Is something wrong?" "Oh, well, my dog just died." He believes you. You keep that lie for months. You are good at lying. You are not good at living your own life though. It feels like an old movie that someone had been watching over and over again, damaged with the use. You're lost little girl.

THIS WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME (I'M STUCK WITH THIS FEELING)

At last I have the courage, the inner strength, and enough whatever-ism to write here. I know I promised virtually everyone to tell all about my surrealist misfortunes in the first days... But I really just want to forget all about it. Like the hurricane Ernesto getting me in Philadelphia and being responsible for the cancellation of zillions of flights (of which no one informed us), like all the luggage with all the medicines lost, like no adapters for the laptop and the rest of the electronic devices in the whole county, like no Internet, like no cellphones, like no possibilities to contact home, like a room that looked as the ones from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"...


Then all the academic mix-ups, the mass-shopping trips in WalMarts which is the embodiment of the Evil Empire, going to bed at 9pm, waking up at 5am, meetings and meetings where they only confuse you more and more, lots of first years screaming about the Backstreet Boys and Avril Lavigne, $300 spent in postcards and others decorations for your rooms trying to make it cheerful, but now it looks kinda psycho.


And all the stupid parties. Only girls of course, cos this is an only girl college, so the parties are strange... and the rugby team is really scary. The lesbian population is around 70% Some of them really agressive. Last year some of the TAs had real problems. Great, with my record of obsessive psycos...


And there is food at all times, strange times... Like lunch at 11 or dinner at 5, but good food anyway. Lots of vegetarian food. Lovely. But apart from eating and doing whatever you have to do for class, not much to do here. The campus is magnificent. Lake and horses and grass and squirrels and pretty buildings... and that's it. We're stuck here. The village has one bookstore. One pub. Three cafeterias. A couple of stores. One cinema. One bridal shop. That's it. If you want to go anywhere else you have to go on the bus. Takes at least 30 minutes. We live in complete isolation from the real world. In our leafy tower, combing our hair, reading our manifestos, and longing for holidays.


In one word, and as The Beatles already said many years before, HELP ! Here are some ways to reach me, use one, two, three, all of them, but do use them...
Phone in my room: (001) 413 498 4062
Cell phone: (001) 264 591 1033
Mailing address: Olga Arnaiz , Mt. Holyoke College , 50 College St. , 1200 P.O. Box, Blanchard Campus Center, South Hadley, 01075 MA, USA
And if you want to come and visit you are more than welcome... my room is bigger than in Canada and England, and though it doesn't have great views, well, it has great decoration... and the dining hall is the best on campus.