"I hadn't grown up in a bubble; I was raised in an enormous oblong glass box. The extraordinary thing about this glass box was that I could see everything of the world without. But to that world, I was completely invisible. The box was impermeable, it was impossible for me to shine in the radiance that showered around it. The glass simply reflected its bright glares. None of the beams reached within."
“19? Only 19?”
…the disappointment.
(Continue reading Part 1 here)
Pavel Guzenko- Eyes
The glass box had a connection. Several connections actually, and they all involve cables, electricity, radio waves and machines. They call this connection ‘media’. The media were our eyes.
For the most part, these eyes consist of a large, blank white mass called a cornea, which has no meaningful or obvious purpose. Then they have a large, spectacular iris that can change both color and shape- this is for the idle talk, often of the unnecessarily overrated and celebrated, which surrounds the pupil. It is the pupil that is the real deal, a massive black hollow in the core of it all. It can see nothing but that which is shown into it and that eventually becomes its temporary focus. Another extraordinary thing about the pupil is that the image formed on its wall is always upside down, never upright, never straight. Yes, the media is an eye, just like an eye.
I would watch through this eye, all the pain, sorrow and suffering, all the evil, brutality and savageness, all the pomp, show and drama.
But just as my heart would bleed when my sight unexpectedly wandered there, just as I could feel the lump grow in my throat, just as my body would numb and my blood would freeze, I would feel something, something that doesn’t allow any of it to actually happen, something that makes it all just a mere whim of my imagination, something that makes it all fake…
Relish.
When a plane crashed into the World Trade Centre, my first notion was excitement, not anxiety- but borderline exhilaration. I was eight, and it was then that I was introduced to ‘terrorism’, ‘attack’, ‘bomb’, and ‘war’, I was introduced to the world outside.
And to think in that first split second of introduction, I had relished it.
To read of so many lives lost at once- I shook my head mournfully, even joined in throwing horrible curses at these ‘terrorists’, perhaps even felt like cursing, even felt the genuine sympathy, grief and horror. But only much after I’d felt the relish. Maybe, a little too late.
I didn’t realize it then. It had been drowned in the series of events that followed. Our peace was threatened for the first time.
And there was a crack on the glass.
It always brushed past me, so smoothly, I dismissed it as soothing. It was, undoubtedly, relish always is. It was only when it brushed too many times did it strike me. When I saw the first bombs of a new war crumble the shattered pieces of Afghanistan from the safety of my glass box, then Iraq. Then, when I saw through my eyes all the other cold wars and old ‘disagreements’ resurface between nations, known and unknown, I felt it in me, the hope, the relish, the want…for more.
I never really believed it was evil. In fact, it was human. Wasn't it?
All this time the glass cracked, and I began to notice the cracks, too, my eyes could see them, somehow I had a feeling they were causing it, helping it- my eyes, those eyes.
And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a gaping hole in it, as if someone had neatly cut it out. And that someone kept coming back for more. That was when our ‘kind’ got threatened, us distinct people- bearers of the glass boxes.
And just like them, my glass, my protection, my invisibility was getting weaker, endangered.
Yet what haunted me even more, what haunts me even now, was that even when I heard their blood had been spilt, they were being torn to pieces, mutilated by those bombs, and when I would read their numbers in the morning, those of my neighbors and alleged ‘companions’- though why it shouldn't matter for all the other innocent blood was beyond me- even then I felt the brush…the relish…the pleasure,
For the most part, these eyes consist of a large, blank white mass called a cornea, which has no meaningful or obvious purpose. Then they have a large, spectacular iris that can change both color and shape- this is for the idle talk, often of the unnecessarily overrated and celebrated, which surrounds the pupil. It is the pupil that is the real deal, a massive black hollow in the core of it all. It can see nothing but that which is shown into it and that eventually becomes its temporary focus. Another extraordinary thing about the pupil is that the image formed on its wall is always upside down, never upright, never straight. Yes, the media is an eye, just like an eye.
I would watch through this eye, all the pain, sorrow and suffering, all the evil, brutality and savageness, all the pomp, show and drama.
But just as my heart would bleed when my sight unexpectedly wandered there, just as I could feel the lump grow in my throat, just as my body would numb and my blood would freeze, I would feel something, something that doesn’t allow any of it to actually happen, something that makes it all just a mere whim of my imagination, something that makes it all fake…
Relish.
When a plane crashed into the World Trade Centre, my first notion was excitement, not anxiety- but borderline exhilaration. I was eight, and it was then that I was introduced to ‘terrorism’, ‘attack’, ‘bomb’, and ‘war’, I was introduced to the world outside.
And to think in that first split second of introduction, I had relished it.
To read of so many lives lost at once- I shook my head mournfully, even joined in throwing horrible curses at these ‘terrorists’, perhaps even felt like cursing, even felt the genuine sympathy, grief and horror. But only much after I’d felt the relish. Maybe, a little too late.
I didn’t realize it then. It had been drowned in the series of events that followed. Our peace was threatened for the first time.
And there was a crack on the glass.
It always brushed past me, so smoothly, I dismissed it as soothing. It was, undoubtedly, relish always is. It was only when it brushed too many times did it strike me. When I saw the first bombs of a new war crumble the shattered pieces of Afghanistan from the safety of my glass box, then Iraq. Then, when I saw through my eyes all the other cold wars and old ‘disagreements’ resurface between nations, known and unknown, I felt it in me, the hope, the relish, the want…for more.
I never really believed it was evil. In fact, it was human. Wasn't it?
All this time the glass cracked, and I began to notice the cracks, too, my eyes could see them, somehow I had a feeling they were causing it, helping it- my eyes, those eyes.
And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a gaping hole in it, as if someone had neatly cut it out. And that someone kept coming back for more. That was when our ‘kind’ got threatened, us distinct people- bearers of the glass boxes.
And just like them, my glass, my protection, my invisibility was getting weaker, endangered.
Yet what haunted me even more, what haunts me even now, was that even when I heard their blood had been spilt, they were being torn to pieces, mutilated by those bombs, and when I would read their numbers in the morning, those of my neighbors and alleged ‘companions’- though why it shouldn't matter for all the other innocent blood was beyond me- even then I felt the brush…the relish…the pleasure,
“19? Only 19?”
…the disappointment.
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