Ghost

Today it’s Autumn. Just a yellow Autumn with its golden lace. Rain. It’s dark outside, reflected lights shaking in puddles. People under umbrellas or just covering themselves from rain with their hands, rush home without looking down, assisting raindrops in disturbing the stillness of the rainwater in the little lakes reflecting the sky.

Sadness. I’m standing in the middle of the street. People pass by, swearing at bad weather, swearing at Autumn, piercing wind and bad day at work. I’m standing in place, but time flies by with great speed. I notice every look, every sadness, every suffering. I stand, but everyone passes by. I see everyone, but nobody sees me. I am a manifestation of stupid faith in emotions…

Ghost.

I look up at the sky, but I don’t feel it. I am, but I am not. I always appear here on this day of the year as a symbol of Autumn, as a symbol of suffering.

Tears. Have you ever felt something that made you cry? What could have caused this? Mockery? Irony? Desperation? Maybe you know better than the ghost?

Feelings. Feelings are far from emotions. Compassion is a feeling. Anger is an emotion. Why do these little things belong to different classes? I don’t think about it. I’m here, but I’m far away. Why do I see, why do I hear if I’m a ghost? I know how to feel. Both people’s thoughts and my ruminations…

Hanging on the edge of a precipice, what are you thinking? Death. Have you ever felt this before? Have you ever died, do you know what that means? We all go through this sooner or later.

The moment the hand lets go of the edge of the cliff and you fall down, time is arrested and slows down, like a dense river from which you can no longer get out. Does the last thought become a curse or a salvation? The last question – “Who am I..?”

We all go through life, but we only begin to think about its meaning when we feel bad. When we cry, when we’re sad, when we die. It is not death that is terrible, but how it comes about. That depends on who you are. I’m a ghost. I wasn’t always like this. I lived too, I had my joys, too. I thought it would always be this way, but as you know, every coin has two sides. I’ll try to explain… But I don’t remember who I am.

The rain turned into a rainstorm, people are gone from the street.

Midnight. Sky, violet from heavy clouds, disappeared in the streams of water, lost in vast space, entangled in Autumn, but no cry of thunder or the anger of lightning can be heard. It’s just raining. But I’m still standing in the street like this. Ghost… what am I looking for? Why did I come back here like a criminal returns to the scene? When will my powerlessness give me peace? Sky! Tell me, give me the answer, WHO AM I?!..

Thunder struck, splitting the sky into two halves, lightning lit up the street, reflecting as a bright fire of unknown force in thousands of drops, thousands of new streams poured from the sky, washing away everything that was on this road, washing away everything that this street heard, what the trees saw, everything that stood here for hundreds of years…

***

The street was empty. The damp air smelled of cold. A drop ran down the roof and fell down, shining in the morning sun. It’s still empty here, but after a while, people will come back, rushing to work, counting every second, their years, their dreams. But I won’t be here. Yet in a year, on this very day, when it flashes through my mind like a déjà vu and starts to drive me crazy again, I’ll be back on this street. Again, that rain, sadness, dampness. Who knows, I’m just a ghost looking for something that is long gone…

– Autumn 2005