Returning Home

«I am sorry», I say, «I haven’t come to see you in such a long time»

She looks up at me, same as I remember, exactly the same despite the simple fact that at least six years have passed since we last met. Yes, I think to myself, exactly six years, we met last at mom’s funeral, argued the way we always do about some shit that wasn’t important I am sure. It’s never important in retrospect but seems crucial, essential in the moment.

«Don’t bother», she says looking up at me. No, she has changed, but not in a way that I would expect. I thought she’d be older, tired, bitter, disappointed, stuck here in this shithole far from people, from civilisation, hustle and bustle of a large city, but it’s me who looks older and tired and bitter and disappointed. She seems fine, content, young, younger than me despite the smile fact that it’s me who’s younger and it’s me who has been living a full, exciting life in one of the largest capitols of the world. It’s me who’s supposed to be happy and content but somehow isn’t.

«You look like shit», she tells me standing up and I want to say something rude, hurtful, my old anger comes back like small, never dying fire ignited by a touch of a lighted match. But she reaches out to me and smiles and instead of lashing out I say something different, but more truthful, I guess.

«I guess I do, I feel like shit too»

And it’s true. I am tired and I am lost and I don’t know what I was thinking when decided to come here, what I was expecting or hoping for. She can’t help me, she never could and why would she.?

«Will you come inside?», she asks, I nod and follow her. Our old house swallows me up, I disappear inside its dark belly. I know every room in this building, I understand it not with my mind but with some deeper, older knowledge that comes before thinking, it’s in my blood.

«He’s happy that you are here», my sister tells me.

«Who’s happy?»

«The house», she says, «It’s yours as well as mine»

«Don’t be stupid», I say, «It’s just a house, a pile of old brick and wood, nothing else» But I know she’s right, I can feel it.

The house is dark, I can barely see anything inside but still would walk from one room to the other without bumping into furniture or walls, when you spend in a place as much time as I spent here, it becomes a part of you, grows into you and you grow into it. Like trees with their roots entangled.

«Are you hungry?», my sister asks, « I made your favourite cake, the one you liked so much when we were kids»

«How did you know I’d come?» I say surprised. I know what she’s going to say a moment before the words actually sound.

«When you live with someone for as long as we have, you grow into people, like trees growing next to one another»

«Do you know then why I came?»

«Not yet, but I’m sure you’ll tell me»

She turns on the light, it’s so bright, my eyes need to adjust to the whiteness that fills every nook and cranny of the room.

«Don’t be shy», my sister says setting the cake on the table, then disappears in the kitchen, «I’ll make tea. Or coffee?»

«Tea, definitely tea»

I look around. The house seems so empty, it’s so old, so different from everything I am used to, the door is cracked in the corner from the day when dad got angry and slammed it too hard.

«Why don’t you fix the door?», I ask my sister when she comes back with a cattle and two mugs. She shrugs.

«It doesn’t bother me»

I know that she’s lying, she was right, people do grow into one another like roots of old trees.

«So why are you here?», she asks.

I sip my tea and take a small bite of the cake. I can’t really explain why I came

«There is no logic reason», I say carefully after momentary silence.

«Give me an illogical one then»

«I lost my notebook», I say simply as though this can explain anything. But it can, it certainly can, at least my sister understands, she nods.

«I have all my notes and passwords and phone numbers there, I always thought it was safer than computers, something physical, you know», I continue. I am old-fashioned like that. I don’t trust the internet, it’s all connected, it’s all out there, enormous web reaching into everything and anything.

I don’t say that passwords to all of my investment account is in that notebook as well. I had completely forgotten about it for long four years, up until a conversation with a cab driver a few days ago. It seems some of the shares that I own have gone up a lot in price and I might be rich. Maybe even very rich.

«How can I know anything about your notebook?», she asks. I shrug. I can tell her that she knows everything, she has always known everything, she has a talent, a gift from god or from devil or from out mother and her mother before then, generation after generation. People used to come to our grandmother if they didn’t have enough money to see a real doctor or if they had money but doctors couldn’t do anything, grandmother could, not always,, but more often than not things worked out. I can’t say it aloud, can’t bring myself to say it, I have been hating the superstition, the backwardness of it, of this place, their way of living, my way of living, what it meant and where I came from. We argued about it on mother’s funeral and now here I am.

«You can do it yourself», she says, seems to be reading my mind again. Maybe it’s a part of the damn sorcery of this place. I want to leave but I want my notebook more. Maybe I am rich now. Maybe I can say good-bye to the damn job I hate and the small apartment that I am sick of and old car and many, many other things.

There is another thing too, I remember mother and grandmother shaking in convulsions, possessed by spirits, by devils or ancestors or some weird madness that used to make them less than human, and more than human at the same time, somehow. They would crawl on hands and knees, howl like wild animals but cure diseases, change lives. Maybe something beautiful and profound always comes with something ugly, two sides of the same coin.

«I shouldn’t have come, it makes no sense, I’d better go», I rumble. My sister doesn’t let me, she grabs my hand, there is something wilful, commanding and angry in her face, in the way her eyes sparkle, but when she speaks her voice sounds reassuringly calm.

«You are tired. It’s late and it’s a long drive. You didn’t get what you came for too», she adds after a moment.

«What did I come for?», I ask stupidly, don’t know myself, my life has become so hectic at the moment. I need the stupid notebook of course, but there is something more to it too. Maybe this place was calling for me, maybe it wanted me to come home.

I stay of course. Before everything here seemed so irritating, every waking hour I dreamt about leaving, but my old room seems almost reassuring, blissful. Perspective does wonders.

I have a dream that night, or maybe it’s a weird kind of reality that hides in the cracks between dreams. White and blue moonlight pours through the small window, chases away darkness, makes it hide in the corners, crawl under the bed. Moonlight is everywhere, everything seems to be made out of it, filled with it. Suddenly I am not alone in the room, there are two of us, maybe more, I am afraid and not afraid at the same time, I tell myself it’s a dream. The other person, if a person it is, doesn’t have shape at first, it’s a blob of darkness and light mixed in equal proportions. It changes shape, it grows and flows, twitches and turns with unearthly elegance and grace, turns into something new, unseen, unheard of.

I pretend to sleep, I can’t move, but I feel calm somehow, I feel at home.

It comes up to me, it looks like my mother and my grandmother and a little like my sister and a lot like my dad, but somehow it doesn’t look human at all, it looks like the forest outside the house and a valley further down the road ant the blue lake that I liked so much years ago. It’s this place, everything at the same time and nothing at all.

«We missed you», it says in dozens of voices. I don’t respond, I can’t speak, my tongue won’t obey me and I might be sleeping after all, I must be sleeping, of course.

«We will give you what you want, we can give you what you want»

It’s so weird, I don’t know what I want, I can’t know, I never knew, I keep chasing everything and everybody till the moment I get that, this, him or her or whatever and the moment I get it stops meaning anything to me. I would like to say this, but it’s too complicated, too messy.

«I want my black book», I remember suddenly. Yes, this is correct, it’s simple too, it will do, it must be important.

I say it or think it loudly enough cause the creature in the room nods, it’s this place and my kin, generation after generation, it’s me. It nods and moonlight fills everything, moonlight boils and rushes around me, drowns me in darkness and I sleep, I sleep, moonlight fills my dreams with darkness and I sleep for an eternity and when I wake up it’s already noon, the sun is hight, I need to get dressed, go home, get to work, I took a day off, but it’s a five hour drive from here.

«I had the weirdest dream», I tell my sister when I meet her in the kitchen, «It was about mom, I think»

But I don’t remember the details now, It’s all blurred.

«You don’t want to stay longer?» she asks.

«I can’t», I say, «You know I can’t, I’ve got work, but i’ll be back some time»

I won’t, though, I know it and she knows it, time and life are like whirlpool, it picks you up and carries you away.

I find the black notebook on my bedside table. It wasn’t there when I was leaving yesterday, I am sure of it. It wasn’t anywhere. It was nowhere, in a parallel universe, but here it is now. And then I remember my dream. I remember it so vividly.

«What do you want?», it asked. I smile to myself. It’s just a coincidence, I think, it can’t be it, things like that don’t happen in real world. But maybe they do, somehow, to some people, out of nowhere.

All the passwords are of course there and I check the accounts, my 300 dollars turned into 20 000 almost as miraculously as my notebook materialised on the bedside table, it only took a few years in stead of couple hours. Modern technologies perform magical tricks too.

«You could have asked for anything», I tell myself as i lie in the bed that night. I’ll go back and will be prepared this time. But it might not be there. What if miracles happen just once? What if this was just a dream, a coincidence? What if the damn notebook was sitting on that table yesterday? The more I think about it the better I understand that I won’t go back, I can’t, I won’t risk the magic, it’s too rare. 20 000 is enough for the downpayment, it’s quite a miracle already.