“Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.”
Søren Kierkegaard
I got back on track and started striding energetically along a solid country road marked on the map as “out of use.” It was indeed an old driveway, with small trees and bushes overrunning its shoulders. It appeared as though vehicles hadn’t passed through there for long-bearded years and probably wouldn’t have been able to anymore, but for me, after having spent two days on rugged terrain, it was a gift from heaven.
I marched forward with enthusiasm. Bears and other trifles didn’t bother me. I was just a few miles from the happy ending of my journey. I still had to cover the stretch, but now I saw it as a delightful challenge — the last stroke of a masterpiece — rather than an inevitable effort. Something had positively changed in the world, and that something was my own perception.
I was welcomed by a splendid, bright morning. The smooth watercolor skies were scantily diluted with solitary lazy clouds. The airy mixed forest along my way, scattered with small, cheerful glades, was full of light. The rocks there looked smoother, without sharp edges, sculptured whimsically by the greatest masters of landscaping — Sun, Wind, and Rain. More green rush spread upon the trees, and, at the sunny clearings, brave green shoots had pushed through the undercoat of the withered, matted grass. Dozens of big and small streams fed the flourishing land like pulsing veins. The air was calm and warm, and birds and small animals showed their presence now and then, prudently keeping far away from the two-legged alien.
Yes, it was I. I walked briskly with a feeling of causeless happiness growing inside of me. The smooth, hard, almost paved earthen surface of the road was perfect for hiking. The vicinity looked clear and safe, and all the landmarks I observed on the way matched the map. In such circumstances, I could switch my brain from a permanent state of alertness into a contemplative mood. However, this time I intended to set my thoughts in order rather than let my mind ramble as usual.
Nothing comes out of nothing. No, I wasn’t a well-read retard, tongue-tied and slow on the uptake. Yes, I was very sluggish at getting close to people — there were good reasons for that trait — but it wasn’t the subject I was going to ponder about along my way. The memory of that awkward rendezvous with Redhead refused to leave my mind. That cozy personal shelter, a sarcophagus, a fence of detachment I had built and decorated for many years didn’t fit me anymore. You cannot let somebody in your heart without breaking up with some part of yourself — otherwise there would be no room for the newcomer. I had to demolish my inner bunker, bring it down, throw it away. I had to take people as they come, without judgements, and let bygones be bygones, or… run to the woods and stay alone. The latter option didn’t seem attractive to me. The wind of change was rustling everywhere now — in the woods, in people’s hearts, even in politics. I was lagging well behind the pace of time. That was the thing I had to care about really, not the bears.
Walking through the bustling nature in its spring and thinking about how to rearrange my life, I inevitably came across those distant corners of my memory where my reticence was rooted. My mind was leaping from one memory to another, like the hand of a supplicant would run through a chain of beads until it came to a particular one.
It had happened about ten years ago. Once in a blue moon, my mom and dad got a voucher to a health resort with one attached condition: “No Children Allowed.” They were seriously overworked and really needed those two weeks of rest. So, to my discontent, I would be sent on an honorable exile to our not so close relatives, who lived in a not so close town. I will call them uncle and auntie.
The landscape there, as well as the town, were different. Instead of a place with forested hills and abundant water bodies, I found myself on the border of a dry, windy northern steppe. The town was small and dirty, and it looked like a temporary settlement on the edge of a no-man’s land. There were plenty of caravan houses — with neighboring outdoor toilets in screaming white and powdered with chlorine lime — that had dropped their anchors at the fringe of the town for long years.
Our relatives, however, lived in a modest condo. Like my family, they had a small, cramped apartment, where, besides my uncle and auntie, lived their three boys who were a few years older than me. For those times, it was a huge family.
Bored, without friends, I was loitering around the house after school. Not far from my temporary lodging, I found a vast expanse of dunes overgrown with patches of thick, resilient grass. Such sort of greenery consolidated the ever-wandering sand, turning the dunes into more or less stable hillocks, which were a joy to climb. I could roam among those sandy hills all day, studying the meager local fauna, which mainly appeared in the form of apathetic bugs and flies.
From the top of the hills, I observed silver streaks of some mysterious shine that would appear on the horizon at noon. It was probably drying salt lakes or pools of hot air, trapped at the lowlands and reflecting the sun rays. I had already learned about all those things from my books, as I could read since the age of five. That shining occupied my imagination. To explore this phenomenon, I desperately needed binoculars, possessing which, to be honest, was like a pipe dream. That precious piece of optics was much more than just a handy thing. Possessing it gave you a certain status in society. Other kids would have done everything for you, only to have one single look through the eyepieces. Meanwhile, I had neither status nor binoculars.
It was an early fall. The mornings and evenings were bitter and cold, while during midday, the weather was summer-like — warm and dry. Short, heavy rainstorms weren’t rare and usually raged at nights. During my first promenades, I saw sporadic flocks of birds usually moving in one direction — to the Southwest. I didn’t know that the town and the adjacent area lay on one of the world’s most significant routes of bird migration.
One day, that drowsy place changed. It came alive like an avalanche.
Thousands, or maybe millions, of birds flooded the sky, drifting at various speeds and heights over my head. I saw immense, well-orchestrated gaggles of geese, even, military-straight V-formations of big cranes, huge, chaotic flocks of small birds of unknown species flying stubbornly southwest, wave after wave. I stood on the top of a dune with my head thrown back and my mouth open, watching that magnificent and disturbing spectacle. In contrast to the inviolable stillness of the ground, it looked as if all the living creatures on the Earth had grown wings and were escaping from some ominous, imminent danger. Finally, I got cold feet and retreated home.
The father of the family spotted my confusion immediately. He put all things aside, took out a big, glossy book, and gave me one of the best lessons I had ever had in my life. The book was an atlas-identifier, which contained brief yet comprehensive information about the birds that could be spotted around the town. My uncle turned out to be a dedicated amateur ornithologist and an avid birdwatcher. That evening, he guided me patiently through the amazing world of birds, their habits, and secrets. His kids and even his grumpy wife joined us. In the end, it turned out to be a perfect family event with tea and delicious pies.
That evening, my childish mind learned something very important: People do not live in a particular country, city, street, or apartment. Rather, they live in the world of their minds. That forsaken, almost black-and-white world at the edge of the desert wasn’t dull at all. My own brain made it bleak and uninteresting. In fact, it appeared to be full of bright and breathtaking things, like a Byzantine mosaic hidden under a thick layer of sludge.
That night we broke all the possible rules a proper family must follow and parted from the gathering after midnight. After that improvised lesson, I could tell one bird from another and knew their habits, routes of migration, and much more. My mind was like a black hole for new information. But the most exciting outcome of that unforgettable night was that I got binoculars! My uncle, to the envy of his own kids, lent me his binoculars. He was very busy at work and passed on the duty of being a birdwatcher to me. I couldn’t even dream about such a treasure! The binoculars were old-looking, compact, and heavy. I was so delighted, even shocked, that I took uncle’s treasure with me to bed. I couldn’t wait for the morning to come and didn’t sleep well that night. I was sure: All the puzzles of nature would be solved with the advent of a new day.
The next day, I rushed to the dunes straight after school, equipped with the binoculars. Strangely, there weren’t too many birds in the sky that day. I wandered among the dunes for a while, looking for a better spot, and came across a group of local kids. They were older than me and looked untidy, but on the whole, seemed friendly. A couple of them smoked cigarettes. After making small talk, I told them who I was and what I was doing there. Then, to my surprise, they offered to include me in their risky adventure. According to their story, they had recently discovered a secret bunker hidden far in the dunes and needed some help exploring it. I saw their envious looks fall on the binoculars, and I naturally felt like I had become the leader of their group. I was over the moon. Fortune had never been so generous to me. The day before, I had got the binoculars, and now I was invited to investigate a secret underground base! Who knows, what could be hidden there — pirates’ treasures, Ali Baba’s cave? Without further ado, we marched straight to the place.
It was quite a long walk through the maze of sandy hills. To my greatest disappointment, the secret bunker turned out to be just a small pit dug into the ground, covered with planks and a shallow layer of sand. A few steep steps cut out of the soil led inside. A big, rusty corrugated sheet of iron, which appeared quite out of place, was lying nearby.
The kids told me that the dugout was just an entrance to the bunker, which was supposed to be much larger, and they put all their hopes on me to inspect that forbidden object. However, before I began, I had to promise not to tell anyone about that place as well as what would happen there. They made me take my solemn oath with my right hand placed on my heart. After the ritual, one of the older kids, quite arrogantly, took the binoculars away from me. He explained that I would not need it down there, and the thing would be much safer in his hands. I didn’t like the turn of events, but I could hardly argue with him, being alone against the crowd. Then, they took me to the entrance and nearly pushed me down the steps. At that moment, they looked mean and evil but still didn’t show any signs of overt aggression. I went down the steep steps.
I found nothing particularly exciting in the shallow, bogus bunker. The earthy walls, with a few small niches, were poorly lit by the light that came through the narrow entrance. There were neither windows nor vents in that place nor a secret passage into Ali Baba’s cave. It looked more like a grave than a bunker. Having barely started, my quest came to its end. When I turned back, I heard a rasping metal sound, and the whole place suddenly turned black. The way out was shut. I wasn’t scared, because I hadn’t realized yet what had really happened. The spirit of a brave adventurer was still glowing in my heart.
Then, I heard the kids’ shouts mixed with bursts of guffaws. They were screaming and howling like a pack of beasts. Their voices were mocking my gullibility and threatening to bury me alive in the pit. The kids shouted and jumped on the iron sheet, which was thrown over the only entrance and exit, producing an unbearable, thunderous sound, which conjured one of my oldest and almost forgotten fears — the swarming darkness. It had originated from the earliest days of my childhood when my parents and I had lived in our “first apartment.” It was a small, uncomfortable lodging the family of two young doctors had been granted on completing their Ph.D. fellowship and returning home.
I recollected with stunning clarity when, at nightfall, the only source of light in the apartment was a dim, reddish glow from a stove, and I would lie in the crib waiting for it to come: Invisible, yet perceptible movements, muffled squeaks in the pitch-dark room, animated by mute, dancing flames. Now I was prone to think it had just been rats poking around in search of food rather than a swirl of demons. But when I was trapped in the pit, under the rattling iron lid, that horrid flashback turned my mind inside out.
The raging noise outside didn’t stop. The kids were jumping on the iron sheet, screaming and singing aloud that I would be buried there alive and never be found. Then, it suddenly stopped, and one firm voice (probably the kid who had seized my binoculars) declared that I had to sit quietly until they let me go out, and if I made even the smallest attempt to escape, they would crush the walls of the pit, and I would be left there forever. I wasn’t scared of being killed, as death was an abstract thing for me then. I was terrified by the kids’ perfidy.
I didn’t remember how long I sat there squatting on my shins, stiff and cold, with my teeth clacking. There were no voices or bursts of laughter outside anymore. My inner voice told me that the kids were gone, and I could leave the place safely. The silence outside, however, seemed to be suspicious to me. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of my credulity again. I had no sense of time. Had minutes or hours passed, I didn’t know. In the end, I gathered all my courage, what was left of it, stood up, marched to the exit, pushed the heavy iron sheet aside, and looked out.
Not a soul was around. The sunset had painted the sky, in all its vastness, blood red. After the short relief, another wave of horror struck me: I had no idea how to get out of those sandy hills. I rushed to the top of the highest one and looked around. Far away, I saw my torturers walking slowly away as if nothing had happened. Suddenly, I felt weak and dependent, and I wanted to run after and plead with them to not just leave me behind among the endless singing dunes slowly being devoured by the rising tide of darkness. You know, to be alone and to be left alone are quite different things. I called out to them, but they were too far. The wind swallowed my cries. Then, they went out of my sight.
The sun sank, leaving just a dim crimson glow above the horizon. The flickering lights that appeared in the twilight looked deceptive and gave me no indication of where to go. Struggling with bouts of panic, I tried to figure out how to find the way home. Then it struck me. The footprints! I easily found them on the soft sand and started tracing them back. I had to hurry, as the night was fast approaching, and the cold wind was burying the tracks under the sand.
I reached home late, shivering and exhausted, and found auntie standing on the balcony, looking anxiously into the distance. The small yard below her was empty of grannies and playing kids, dark and quiet. I rushed into the house and discovered that all the male members of the family were out to search for me in the dunes.
The hardest part of the incident was telling my uncle that his binoculars were gone. Too bad, it was a family relic — a gift from his father, who had owned them fighting in the war against the Nazis. I lied that I had lost them, but I’m sure the truth was written on my face. My uncle didn’t utter a word of reproach. We drank some hot tea in silence and went to bed. However, he got scolded by my auntie for encouraging me to hang around the dunes and not sit at home and do my homework. She mused what the consequences would have been if I had been lost. I shrank when I heard it, and only then did I realize what the end of the story could really have been.
I lay in my bed and couldn’t help but overhear their tense conversation through the cardboard-thin walls. Then, the apartment fell silent. I couldn’t sleep; instead, in the middle of the night, I caught a fever and started raving, imagining that the evil kids had returned, and they and the swarming darkness had again taken me into their custody. I remember gripping something big and reliable, like my father’s hand, for support and as my last hope, leading me out of the raging hell. The nightmare vanished in the morning, but I stayed in bed all day. The supporting hand that I had held onto all night turned out to be just a wooden bar on the headboard. My relatives decided that I had a bad cold, and my uncle got another portion of scolding. However, auntie treated me cordially to chicken broth and raspberry tea. I felt much better, not because of the food but because of them caring for me and their warmth and attention. The next day my parents arrived, and I had to leave the place forever.
The incident in the dunes annihilated my faith in people. Naturally, I simply avoided the company of strangers. Any smile, any sign of attention directed at my person made me profoundly suspicious and reserved. With time, the burden eased, but it never left me completely. Some part of my soul was left forever in that damn pit. I didn’t tell my parents about the abominable event in the dunes. Deep inside, I felt ashamed for being so weak and vulnerable and appallingly stupid, too. That particular incident probably was one of the biggest blows my mind ever got in childhood — biggest, but not the only one.
I had heard or read somewhere, or maybe it had been my own thought, that we come into this world to learn one big lesson, which, in turn, defines the meaning of our existence. Summing up my early childhood experience, I could put my lesson into three simple words: impunity of evil. I don’t know why, but life or, let’s say, the circumstances over those years had tried to persuade me of that wretched conclusion. It didn’t mean that the bad guys did not get their punishment; it meant that the name for them was Legion, for they were many.
Some years after the incident, my uncle and auntie’s elder son had visited our family — he was going to enter the vocational school in our city — and told me the sequel to the dune story. The binoculars were too conspicuous a gadget to vanish without traces in a small town. After I had left, all the three brothers had run a continuous search for their family relic and had finally found it. Up to that moment, the binoculars had already changed hands a few times and were in possession of a pretty disreputable kid, the leader of a local youth gang.
The first round of negotiations was very tense and brought no results but mutual threats. The brothers, who had some friends around too, marched through the town and declared a state of war. They and the evil kid’s squad met on the outskirts of the town, among the same primordial dunes — two armies of little men, ready to fight, armed with their bare hands and pocket knives, just in case things got too hot. But before the gory fistfight started, two of them — the uncle’s middle son and the leader of the enemy gang — came face to face to discuss the matter once again.
The current owner of the binoculars agreed to return them, but he claimed that he had got them in return for something valuable and demanded compensation. The uncle’s son, however, argued that the binoculars were a family relic that survived the five-year war with fascists and had to be returned to its legal owner without any conditions.
“I don’t give a fuck about that war, kid; it’s your problem,” said the evil boy. “Pay for it, and the glasses will be yours.”
“Ah, you don’t respect our heroes? Then, you are a fascist,” replied the uncle’s son and turned to his warriors. “Boys! You see? They are fascists! We’ll crush ’em! Fascists never win!”
Those words had more than the impact of an ominous curse on the enemy crowd. In those times, if somebody got the reputation of being a “fascist,” it meant that the person was an outcast. He would have no support, no friends, and no right to mercy. 26 million Soviet citizens were killed in the Great Patriotic war, two-thirds of whom had been civilians. Though three decades had passed since the war, people still remembered their pain and anger, and passed those feelings onto their children.
The evil kid turned to his squad to give them orders and saw that he had no army anymore: Nobody wanted to fight for a fascist. His soldiers had turned away from him. He returned the binoculars to the uncle’s sons and left the battlefield under the gazes of hatred. To be honest, the story sounded like a glitter of justice to me, but, above all, I was happy that my old uncle got back his precious glass.
When you grow up, gather some wit and stop tilting at windmills, the practicality of life gives you very a tempting and universal solution: If you can’t beat them, join them. I stubbornly refused it. I didn’t want to be a member of a bullying crowd. It wasn’t a heroic standoff on my side; it was long-lasting, mainly passive, and sometimes pointless resistance.
In 1980, when the WHO reported about global smallpox eradication, and John Lennon got lead shot into his chest, and Mr. Reagan took his seat in the Oval Office, I got full-fledged juvenile depression. The world didn’t give a damn about the last event. I did. Something was deeply wrong. I could sit all day long in my room and stare for a long time at the lamp hanging from the ceiling. I then changed my current school for a better one, with a smaller population of le fruit d’une nuit ivre, and that move slightly improved the situation. I started to go out more frequently and made a few new friends there. Books and music were the common things that brought us together. We listened to and read exclusive artists and writers, such as Jean Michel Jarre or Ken Kesey. We were non-conformists who never created conflicts or assaulted anyone.
Still, I was somewhere at the bottom of an emotional well. One sunny day, however, I got fed up of my idleness and decided to take practical steps and chase those long-playing blues away. I wanted to handle the situation and followed a well-trodden path — I consulted smart books. I bought some of them and borrowed others from our family library. I hardly could ask my parents to sort out my psychological problems, for in those times they probably needed help more than I. My mom and dad worked as hard as anybody I had ever met in my life and preferred to solve their personal issues with their own will and wit, rather than asking for others’ support. So did I.
The variety of books about depression were reassuringly rich. I chose a few volumes arbitrarily and started my study. The first book claimed that the main cause of depression was capitalism, so I simply skipped it. The next one was more unbiased, and I managed to pick up a few fresh thoughts from it. I used to have a habit of making concise notes about every chapter of a book I read, which was a practice I copied from my dad. Soon, I was a still unhappy owner of a few notebooks full of thrilling facts about all shades of dysphoria, broken-heartedness, and melancholia topped with a feeling of gloom and decorated with sparks of despair. All the bookish knowledge I acquired could be summarized into three simple recommendations:
If you want to chase your blues away…
- Walk a lot and get plenty of fresh air;
- If it doesn’t help, talk to your doctor; and
- If it doesn’t help either, take antidepressants.
Considering my age and position, the only option I could afford was fresh air, as there was plenty of it outside. So, my best friends and I walked for miles in the suburban groves and parks, wearing small fur hats and talking for hours, as it is said, about life, the universe, and everything. Those were the times of my spiritual resurrection, as our sincere solidarity and genuine support for each other restored my trust in humanity. Later on, however, each of us got facial hair and other doodads, as happens at a particular age. We started to quarrel and even fight with each other because of girls and matters of pride, and soon our boyish brotherhood was forgotten. It was a fun time, anyway.
I still believe that only a person himself or his close friends and family can solve his psychological problems and ease suffering (I mean a mentally healthy person, of course). I don’t believe in those confident guys who knock on your door carrying, as they say, “a set of tools” to fix your brain as a plumber fixes a broken pipe. You can’t buy caring souls unless you can’t see any difference between true love and prostitution. And if you don’t have such caring souls in your life, you have no other solution but to become the one. The saying “You got to make good out of bad; that’s all there is to make it with” is just a cute sophism. You might have to carry out much a harder job: to make good out of nothing.
Well, a couple of years passed, and my friends and l hit sixteen, and most of our conflicts were solved or forgotten. One day, we gathered together again to have some fun, specifically to check out a brand-new service advertised in a newspaper — a hotline for people with depression. I tweaked my voice to make it sound as despondent as I could (it didn’t take me too much effort) and dialed the number. I thought I would have to wait in a long queue, but the answer was instant. A harsh female voice asked, “Who’s there?” “Excuse me… I’m deeply depressed. I need to talk to somebody, right now, or I…” I said in a miserable voice. I heard a puff of annoyed breathing, and then the woman replied, “Call afternoon, the same number. I’m an inspector. No help now, pal.” I tried to ask her what she particularly inspected, but she had already dropped the call. I looked at my buddies who were squirming in a fit of laughter and shrugged. Probably that hotline was a cleverer thing than I had thought. As Nietzsche said, “What is falling, that should also be pushed.”
Mentioning Nietzsche and skipping ahead of the timescale of events, I cannot help but tell you one more anecdote. Back in my university years, one late winter evening, a not-so-close female friend of mine and I went out for a walk in the city. We strolled down an alley along the river bank, dressed in warm coats, and talked leisurely about philosophy, anthropology, the big bang theory, and other things two young people of the opposite sex would find interesting. The bottomless black sky, dotted with big, quivering stars, laid spread out above us, showing no interest in our conversation.
“Of Nietzsche…” my friend started in a breathy voice. “‘And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee…’” She made a wide gesture towards the sky. “What did he mean?” I pretended to be going through some intense process of thinking and finally said, “I guess it might mean the following: You wake up in the middle of the night, somewhere in the woods and, looking at the sky, slowly realize that somebody had stolen your tent.” That girl and I didn’t go out after that anymore.
Those recollections rushed through my mind, like the scenery outside the window of a running night express train, and disappeared into the farthest corners of my memory. Striding along the abandoned road, I had to focus on the present moment again. No, I couldn’t dwell on the past anymore, regardless of how comfortable it was. I just had to let it go. What was done was done. What had happened had happened. I had to turn a new page. Life and the bustling nature, like a drill sergeant, shouted at my face straight at that moment, “Chop-chop, boy! Get movin’! Don’t miss the target!”
© 1995–2025 Alexander Daretsky. All rights reserved.