Someplace Lilacs Grow
“What the fuck man, not again, I fucking hate this smell, it’s terrible!” says my friend. He says that a lot when he hops into my car. It’s a car scent, lilac. “Stop it, it’s perfect, you don’t understand” I reply, start the car and my mind flies back 5 months.
Beautiful summer day, near the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Her fatherland, rain, trees surround us and sing with the wind, songs I can not understand. I follow her, she’s fast, but I keep up. Finally, we reach the graveyard. That’s why we are here; I let the girl talk to her grandma, they have not met for ages. The sound of the soft grass melts in my silent head, I start thinking “What a wonderful place to rest in peace.” She finds the scythe and starts to work like a grass cutting machine. She’s mad, she swears out loud, remembers all her relatives, who should have done that, but did not. She’s gorgeous, yet aggressive! “This is the most complete creature in the universe,” I think. Her hands are fragile, she’s shaking from anger, completes her job, her body and clothes are soaked with sweat. She sits down and cries. I don’t try to stop her. I don’t try to help. I can’t. Even if I wanted to.
We run from the rain to an abandoned house, she hugs me so hard I can feel her pulse in my veins. We kiss. She won’t let me go. Her grandma’s last picture is looking at us. I close my eyes, she unzips my pants, we make a little show for the late grandma…
[Car Horns]
My heart beats as if I’ve just smoked 25 cigarettes, I maneuver, we don’t crash. “What’s wrong with you, bro,” my friend asks. “It’s nothing, I’m just not here” I reply. He’s sick; I continuously hear his nose singing some Irish music. I try to ignore that and slowly lower side windows of the car. Like Alice, I have to run as fast as I can, just to stay in place. I’ve lost my marbles, my mind is blurry. The food does not want to slide down to my throat; I blame it on the chef.
I created cells inside my brain, out of all cells I’ve been in, the first one is a very special one. All your life you will remember it with an emotion that you otherwise experience only when remembering your first love.
“It’s your time to go” she wakes me up. “What, why?” I ask. “You can not stay here, my relatives might see me, you have to go.” “ But . . .” she shuts my lips with her kiss and my brain pours out from my ears. I’m devastated, I have to go, I walk to the door as slow as I can, I look back, tears in her eyes. She runs out, shouts “Wait! I’ll create a bouquet of lilacs for your mother.”
I turn the key and drive, listen to our songs on the way, cry and enjoy the nature. The smell of lilac disperses inside my bones. The day before I hated it, but now I’m ready to have it in my car forever. My mother smiles. I’m happy she loved it. I drove 280 miles to bring them home.
Months pass, we never meet, girlfriends, one night stands, cigarettes, pain. I wake up from a strong wind in my dream. Dante says strong winds symbolize the restlessness of a person who is led by the desire for fleshly pleasures.
I stand in front of a cashier. She thinks lilac car freshener is not the best choice. I think her make up looks gross. We are judging each other from inside while smiling and being over-respectful from the outside.
All the items I bought are slowly sliding in front of the red light “tu” and the number on the “tuu” computer screen is getting “tuuu” bigger and bigger. A woman next to me says to her “tuuuuu” husband that my “tuuuuuu” pink shoes are strange for a guy”.
I sit in my car, close the door, +35C, I close all the windows, I turn off the air conditioner. I feel like I insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no celestial body at its “center.” Back to 1600 for a second. I open the air freshener lie back, close my eyes and turn on our songs. It brings back so many memories. The higher is the emotional arousal, the better and more you remember, not my idea, but “Mechanisms of emotional arousal and lasting declarative memory” Cahill L. & McGaugh J. L. (1998) prove it, so…
I wake up. I don’t want to suffocate in my car like some helpless dog in front of a 24/7 supermarket. I put the air freshener down and drive to work like nothing happened. I forget about it, it becomes the part of my daily drive.
“Ahhh, not again this smell” he gets mad, “Throw it out! I’ll buy you another one!” “It has a story in it, I can’t, even if you hate it.” He smirks “It has a story, what the fuck? For fuck’s sake!” is in his head but he keeps quiet, that’s what friends are for. I drive, without speaking, I hope the lilac plant at home will bloom next year. It never does. My father says “That’s a guy,” but I’m not sure plants have gender either because I was the weakest kid in our biology class, and I got higher marks because my teacher liked me.
I’m at work, Lilit writes me how much she loves me (my friend, sometimes I call her Lilac) I ask “What do you want?”, as nobody tells me such things without a reason, my childhood was bad. All we did is torture helpless insects and smoke imaginary cigarettes. There were no computers, “What do you want”? “Nothing” she replies, “That’s all I wanted to say.” I feel guilty, she’s so nice. I’ll buy her a chocolate or something and try to win her heart. Something she can’t refuse. Will again use the money to hide my cheap heart and beg for forgiveness.
Everyone is gone. It’s only me at the office, singing out loud some Spanish song I don’t understand. I try to complete the story about the lilacs but my mind scatters away. Like everything in my life, this one will also be incomplete. I’d cite theorems from Gödel, but this is not an article about modern logic.
“Can you please stop the record?”
“Can you please stop the record?”
“Can you please . . .
