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Omnipresent idols

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She has idols whom she worships every day. She connects to them via attaching her fingers to a small shining platform that she carries around all the time. The worship consists of the movements of the right thumb – up and down, up and down.

Her idols are insatiable. They require that every day she takes her life away. In the mornings she wakes up as a holistic being akin to a cup from which she drinks coffee. Irreversibly this cup falls on the floor and breaks into pieces. Her identity splits into multiple; each one is a lifeless fragment. The spilled coffee is a flow of her thoughts – chaotic, useless, wasted.

Her idols are capricious. On some occasions her devotion is rewarded. A wide grin appears on her face; her blue eyes squint and start shining; her eyebrows rise and form a shape similar to a rainbow. This usually happens when hundreds of red hearts or white “thumb-up” signs appear under her photos. On other occasions she is punished for a reason unknown for she never skips worships. Nevertheless, her face turns an earthly green color; her hands start trembling; her lips bend in a direction opposite to a smile; a frown covers her forehead with wrinkles. Her blue eyes cold as ice fix on a photo of a kissing couple. I wish I had a boyfriend, a thought flashes in her mind.

“Delete them! Come on, Eve! Just do it! Never install them back!” her classmate exclaims when she sees Eve shedding tears over a poor grade.

Eve’s thumb is shaking as it drags one of the idols to a rubbish bin. Done! Blasphemy committed. Another idol is following the fate of the first one. Eve’s lips are pressed tightly. Her heart is pounding in her chest. Done! As the last idol is broken into pieces, the shards of Eve come together, and she becomes an integral being before the glue of night sleep restores her. 

On the next day Eve enjoys how a fresh wave of energy from a gulp of coffee spreads around her whole body. Oatmeal that she has for breakfast is warm and melting on her tongue. For the first time in months she looks at her friend Julia who sits opposite her and not into her smartphone. Eve notices slight changes in Julia’s face: how her lips smile, how her brows either frown or rise in surprise, how her eyes shine. These alterations are akin to magic which enchants Eve. Later in the day, Eve clutches her hands, trembles with excitement and gasps with awe as she plunges into reading a scientific book. “So interesting!” she exclaims. 

Her awakening lasts several days, and then a serpent crawls into her unsuspecting heart.

“You’re gonna burn in hell of social ostracism,” it whispers, “let them back into your life.”

“They’re demons!” Eve desperately exclaims feeling how her heart skips a beat.

“You’re in an illusion now! The real life is there! You’re missing it!” the serpent continues to insist.

Her trembling fingers reattach to the shining platform. They start flying across it, reviving the idols. The coffee is wasted again. The right thumb continues the worship as if it was never interrupted. Up and down, up and down… Tap, tap, tap…

Debate between artist and scientist.

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Artist: Science is boring. It’s like constructing Lego. Darwin came up with the theory of evolution by bringing together many facts. How tedious this must have been! Art is much more exciting! It’s all about inspiration! It’s a venture into the unknown!

Scientist: You speak like an old-fashioned romanticist. Inspiration is a popular term to describe how neurons form connections that create a groundbreaking idea. We have it in science too. Remember the widely known Eureka? Archimedus exclaimed it when he discovered displacement.

Philosopher: Why do you need to be so dichotomic? Both scientists and artists experience inspirations.

Scientist: Artists are like monkeys in the zoo. They just imitate what they see, and unintended subjective distortions are taken for “shifts of paradigms”, “new ways of seeing the world”. People are like herds and artists are like meadows. For some time, audience consumes the artist. Gradually this becomes boring. The audience migrates to another meadow and neglects the artist. On the contrary, in science we raise fundamental questions, dare to investigate the depths of universe. It makes us immortal.

Artist: Oh, come on! Who needs to know that water consists of H2O molecules if one can just drink it?

Philosopher: Both art and science rise questions and look for answers. The only difference is in methodologies.

Scientist: What kind of methodologies do artists use? That’s absurd. It only makes sense if you confused “an artistic gift” with a methodology. People are either good in science or in art. Not both. These are mutually exclusive entities. Kids born with “innate talent” are generally uncapable of calculating 2 + 2.

Artist: Well, at least we are not imprisoned behind the bars of axioms, hypotheses, theories, algorithms and alike. We are people of feelings, not rationality. When we say that 2 + 2 equals 10, we shatter worldviews, challenge stereotypes, and encourage thinking outside of the box.

Philosopher: I have never seen a scientist without feelings… Creativity is the soil where trees with fruits both of science and art flourish. Arts and sciences stand on common grounds. Achievements within these realms are made due to hard labour and are equally remarkable. I would tell you, my dear friends, that every scientist is an artist and every artist is a scientist. Be free from the illusions of binary divisions, my dear disciples!

The use of hyperboles by Márquez in One hundred years of solitude

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In this essay I will analyze the use of hyperboles by Márquez in his novel One hundred years of solitude in order to interpret what the author conveys about history of his home country Colombia. I will focus on exaggerations in representation of politics, technology, science and art in the key setting of the novel, Macondo, that represents Colombia. I will argue that by means of hyperboles Márquez communicates the distress about purposeless fights for power or wealth and generally out of pride. I will mobilize Marxist approach to argue that according to the novel internal struggles make communities vulnerable to degrading influences of capitalism. Furthermore, I will use post-colonialist approach to show that Márquez by means of exaggeration depicts Western technology as a medium that introduces capitalism into Macondo. The writer also criticizes science for the sake of acquiring knowledge and art for the sake of art rather than for doing common good.

To begin with, the exaggerated description of the rivalry between Conservatists and Liberalists emphasizes absurdity of this civil war that makes society susceptible to later exploitation by banana company. For example, Márquez writes that “Colonel Aureliano Buendía fought thirty-two civil wars and lost them all” (Márquez 197). The hyperbolized nature of this statement is apparent: there was only one armed conflict between Conservatives and Liberalists that received the name The War of Thousand Days and lasted from 1899 until 1903 (Britannica). The exaggeration evokes a feeling of bitter irony about the fact that someone could be so persistent in a mission doomed for failure. Moreover, the hesitation that one of Colonel’s political advisors speaks out: “for almost twenty years we’ve been fighting against the sentiments of the nation” (Márquez 86) additionally reinforces the illogicality of internal struggle. Another hyperbolized account that depicts absurdity of civil war is the fact that Colonel Aureliano Buendía survives a “dose of nux vomica strong enough to kill a horse” (70). Colonel epitomizes Liberalism because Colombian Liberal Party “represented coffee plantation owners” (Britannica) and Aureliano Buendía likes coffee without sugar and drinks a lot of it: “his mugs of coffee at five in the morning” (Márquez 107). The exaggeration of his survivability shows the insoluble nature of the conflict. Neither Conservative, nor Liberalist ideology concedes the arena of popular minds, and thus their rivalry is irrational because no side can ever win. This idea is also conveyed through the fact that weapons of unknown origin bring down both Liberalists and Conservatives throughout the novel. For example, murderers of Colonel’s sons are never found: “someone in the crowd who was never identified fired a revolver shot” (119). Captain Aquiles Ricardo, a Conservative, “was brought down by two simultaneous bullets whose origin was never established” (79). According to my interpretation, these bullets symbolize futility of ideological struggle since people are deprived of agency and a mysterious force assigns victories.

The hyperboles deployed to convey the purposelessness of social divisions lead to the climax of the novel, which is the exaggerated account of destruction brought by the arrival of banana company. It extracts resources from Macondo and leaves it in ruins. While discussing the way in which Márquez depicts the introduction of capitalism into Macondo, I will include historic accounts of events that served as basis. Banana company that arrives in Macondo is drawn from United Fruit Company, an American corporation. In One hundred years of solitude it becomes an epitome of destructive imperialist capitalism. I will prove it by drawing attention to the following details about the company. It uses dishonest methods to maximize its profits: “the scrip system was a way for the company to finance its fruit ships” (147). Also, the workers are exploited and left powerless: “terrible working conditions” (147). Márquez depicts capitalists as hyperbolically inhumane:

     because the child accidentally bumped into a corporal of police and spilled the drink on his uniform, the barbarian cut him to pieces with his machete

                                                                                                                               (118)

Furthermore, when the citizens of Macondo protest against exploitation, the United Fruit Company persuades the Conservative government to stop riots by force. The army gathers a large crowd of people with a pretext that authorities will arrive and offer compromise. Instead, the soldiers open fire and murder three thousand people. Then the bodies are loaded on the train and taken to the sea. The train has “almost two hundred freight cars and a locomotive at either end and a third one in the middle” (150). This exaggerated description emphasizes the horror of capitalist system. Another criticism of capitalism is ingrained into the hyperbole of a rain that lasted for four years. Márquez says that one of founders of banana company, Mr. Brown, “unleashed the storm” and that “it rained for four years, eleven months, and two days”. After that “Macondo was in ruins” (154). Mobilizing Marxist approach, I argue that this description alludes to the long-term negative consequences of exploitation. It is possible to assume that the metaphor of destruction refers to the economic collapse that happened in Colombia during the Great Depression when the prices of exports fell (Britannica). Márquez blames capitalism for the downfall because under this system of exploitation people were deprived from creativity and could not easily recover when exports of coffee and banana ceased.

Capitalism, together with destruction of native culture, are brought into Macondo by Western technology and its exaggerated description emphasizes its large-scale impacts on Macondo. For example, when the train first arrived, “the town was shaken by a whistle with a fearful echo and a loud, panting respiration” (111). This description by evoking anxiety foreshadows the decline of Macondo due to capitalist exploitation. Exaggerated nature of the account further reinforces the large-scale nature of capitalist impact. Also, Western technology is used to eliminate magic that has always been part of life in Macondo. For example, when José Arcadio died, there was a strong smell of powder coming from his corpse that could not be extinguished. Only the engineers from the banana company succeeded in liquidating the smell by covering “the grave over with a shell of concrete” (69). This victory of science over magic symbolizes the death of national believes in supernatural powers.

Hyperbolized description of scientific paths pursued by four philosophical figures in the novel – José Arcadio Buendía, Aureliano Segundo, José Arcadio Segundo, Aureliano Babilonia – emphasizes its uselessness since it cannot save Macondo from destruction. From post-colonial perspective enchantment with exotic knowledge, pursuit of omniscience through the pathways opened by globalization makes households unstable and unhappy. Similarly, Aureliano Buendía’s art fails to obtain social significance. I will start with considering the philosophers and then discuss the artist. Márquez writes about José Arcadio Buendía’s exaggerated passion for science:

      That spirit of social initiative disappeared in a short time, pulled away by the fever of the magnets, the astronomical calculations, the dreams of transmutation, and the urge to discover the wonders of the world.

                                                                                                                                 (12)

This description suggests that prioritization of entirely intangible dreams over social obligations impedes the development of Macondo. Eventually José Arcadio Buendía loses his sanity after “he connected the mechanism of the clock to a mechanical ballerina”. Once again Márquez uses hyperbole to emphasize how ridiculous this pursuit of useless discoveries was:

     That discovery excited him much more than any of his other harebrained undertakings. He stopped eating. He stopped sleeping.

                                                                                                                              (43)

Yet other examples are stories of José Arcadio Segundo and Aureliano Babilonia who spend most of their lives deciphering Melquíades’ parchments that are written in Sanskrit, “the private cipher of the Emperor Augustus and <…> a Lacedemonian military code” (200). When Aureliano Babilonia succeeds in understanding that the parchments describe the history of his family, Macondo gets destroyed by the strong wind. It is hard to believe that two men would devote their lives to learning foreign languages, however, this hyperbole emphasizes that “knowledge in itself is useless without action” (Deaver 10). Now I will discuss the artist. Aureliano Buendía writes poetry during the civil wars only to burn the whole trunk filled with it in a fire. He says: ““They’re things that a person writes to himself”” (Márquez 89). Also, since youth, Colonel creates gold fishes. However, in the end of his life they start to be collected as relics, and he stops to manufacture new fishes. In my opinion, Aureliano Buendía’s failure to serve a higher social purpose with his art leads to his death as an artist.

To conclude, in my view, Márquez’ One hundred years of solitude by means of using hyperboles evokes bitter irony about the purposeless confrontation between Conservative and Liberal parties that made Macondo uncapable to resist exploitation by capitalists. Since it is an allegoric description of Colombian history, it also cautions against repeating the absurdity of civil war in the future. Exaggerations also evoke fear of inhumane behaviors, such as banana massacre, propelled by capitalism. The novel laments the fact that Colombia is becoming increasingly Westernized by adopting capitalism, technologies, sciences and does not follow its own path of development. Márquez criticizes atomization of society by ridiculing the acquisition of knowledge that cannot sustain lives and creation of art that does not serve any significant purpose.

 

Works-Cited

Clemente Garavito, William Paul McGreevey and Others. “Conservative-Liberal Struggle, 1840-80.”Encyclopædia Britannica. Web. 13.03.2019 <https://www.britannica.com/place/Colombia/Conservative-Liberal-struggle-1840-80>.

Deaver, William O. “Cien años de soledad: The Critique of Sophism and Pseudo-Science.” Theory in Action 6.1 (2013): 8-28. CrossRef. Web.

Marques, Gabriel Garcia. One hundered years of solitude. A division of The Hearst Corporation 105 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10016: Avon Books, 1967. Print.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “The War of a Thousand Days.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Web. 13.03.2019 <https://www.britannica.com/event/The-War-of-a-Thousand-Days>

Waiting in vain

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The events in Gabriel García Márquez’ novella No one writes to the Colonel take place in a particular town in Columbia and in a definite time period, autumn 60 years after The War of Thousand Days. Despite of this, all readers can relate to the phenomenon of purposeless waiting depicted in the novella. In my opinion, this phenomenon is skillfully portrayed through plot and illustrative details that evoke a feeling of resistance.

The novella portrays several months from the life of a retired colonel and his wife who are waiting for pensions to arrive, hoping that the money will elevate them from poverty. They also hope that their cock will win a cockfight and bring them wealth. The space in novella is divided between the internal world of the colonel and his wife’s house and the external world of post office, the lawyer’s office, the politician’s office, pit for cockfights. The internal world is filled with purposeless conversations, such as about how bad October is and indications of unbearable poverty: the colonel “lacked a mirror for a long time”. The external world is filled with irony from the postmaster about colonel’s confidence that pension will arrive – “The only thing that comes for sure is death”. Another reality of external world is corruption – “That retirement law has been a lifetime pension for lawyers”. When the colonel attempts to interact with the external world, he is uncapable of taking agency to achieve happiness and instead chooses to tolerate suffering. When he has an opportunity to sell the cock to one of rich people in the town, he fails to bargain a satisfying cost and keeps the cock despite of having no food left in the house. He chooses to wait in vain for miracles.

I believe that the plot as a depiction of a period from life, without definite beginning and end, together with vivid descriptions of poverty inspire on reflection about the interactions between internal and external world and leave with a question whether agency is possible in any circumstances.

Eleven stolen heads

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Madina Abdullaeva is a fourth-year Uzbekistani student in university X in country Y. She is pursuing her degree in Engineering. In mid-October she learns about a university competition and decides to take part in it.

“Do you have any ideas?” her friend of Y nationality asks her.

“Yes! A robot that detects racist attitude in people. It warns about it,” Madina replies with a strong Uzbek accent, “It regularly scans humans’ brains… It’s trained to recognize racism…hmmm… what type of brain activity correlates it!” her eyes are shining.

“Sounds cool!”

The countdown towards the competition begins. On the first day Madina shuts up in the apartment that she rents. She starts research that lasts all day and all evening. Her friends send her a message calling out for dinner. Madina does not reply. She is focused on the work and her phone is on Do Not Disturb mode. Her friends shrug and go to the café without Madina.

While they are enjoying sushi and milkshakes and sharing lighthearted laughs, Madina’s fingers are moving non-stop across the keyboard. Her eyes are attentively scanning the screen. In the same way eyes of a dog who is waiting for its owner are scanning people who exist a shop. When the owner appears, the dog’s eyes flash with happiness. Similarly, Madina’s eyes widen with joy when she comes across a good idea.

On the second day Madina can only talk about her findings. When she joins her friends of Y nationality at lunch, she speaks for half of an hour about medial frontal gyrus, right putamen, medial insula and the complexity of their interactions that produce unobjective hatred between people. She also delves into the realm of machine learning and outlines how a robot will be taught to identify hatred caused by racial stereotypes.

At first, Madina’s friends are attentively looking at the girl who is sitting in front of the plate with steaming rice and who is gesturing in an agitated manner. Gradually as they finish their meals, they start to wonder if anyone else will have opportunity to speak and share their news. As last drops of hope evaporate, guys and girls start leaving the table one by one. In the end, Madina is left alone with the riсe that cooled down on the plastic plate and the speech that is still carrying on in her mind.

Over the course of the next days, Madina can be seen in a café, or in the library, or in an empty classroom. While her locations around university change, her clothes – a sky blue sweater, black jeans and colorful snickers – remain unaltered. She invariably buries herself among piles of papers with designs and notes. Madina skips meals to save time and her eyes are shining with passion.

“You’re going crazy!” her friend of Y nationality tells her, “Just relax!”

No one among Abdullaeva’s opponents puts so much effort into their work. Jim Brown of Y nationality brags that he will spend just one hour on the presentation. He is a tall muscular guy who goes to the gym regularly. He is remarkable for having biceps that are larger than his head. “Improvisation is the key! I’m greater than the scum that surrounds me!” he proclaims among the circle of his close friends. When just one week until the day of competition is left, Jim Brown is still seen lifting weights in the gym in the afternoons and drinking beer with his friends in the evenings.

                                                                           ***

It takes Madina 10 hours to put together her presentation.

“Could you, please, review my speech and correct grammar mistakes?” Madina asks one of her friends of Y nationality.

“Yeah, go ahead,” the friend replies lazily and does not look up from the screen of the MacBook with charts for Mathematics class.

Madina and her friend are in the library. When Madina starts her presentation in a low quiet voice, people around look at her with comprehension. One girl packs her things in an annoyed manner and changes the seat.

“Yeah, it’s Okay,” Madina’s friend comments in the end of the talk with indifference and continues compiling graphs.

Madina’s blissful heart jumps from her chest into her throat. Her grammar is approved by a native speaker! Wow!

“Thank you so much!” Madina exclaims, peering into her friends’ emotionless face with her faithful eyes as brown as a beagle’s.

“Shhhh! Please, be quiet!” someone nearby hisses with irritation.

                                                                        ***

On the next day Madina’s heart is bouncing while she is waiting for the meeting with her supervisor. The professor is still busy reviewing the presentation of another student. 5 minutes pass… 10 minutes pass… Madina starts to look at her watches more often. She even opens Google Calendar and checks the time of her appointment. Everything is right. Eventually, half of an hour late, the student walks out of the classroom. It is Jim Brown. His chin is high up and he is grinning triumphantly.

“He has just made the whole presentation for me!” Jim whispers into Madina’s ear and winks at her.

Madina’s stomach shrinks, her nose crinkles, and she frowns. That’s unfair! Her mind is screaming inside her head. However, she suppresses this exclamation and lets Jim pass by. As Madina enters the room of the supervisor, the following thoughts are flashing in her head: I’d love him to give extensive critique, but no intervention. I’ll do everything myself!  

After Abdullaeva finishes her presentation, the professor just nods and says: “It’s Okay, Madina. Good job. Good luck!”

Madina leaves the office with her head lowered. Her lips are drooping and shaking. There is a tight knot in her throat. She stares at the world with her big tear-soaked eyes, while her stomach is shrinking more and more. Then everything inside her succumbs to this process of shrinking until she becomes as tiny and helpless as an ant.

                                                                         ***

On the last day before the competition Madina is resting in the armchair for the first time in three weeks. She is reading her favorite book and listening to the melancholic melody of rain outside. Suddenly she hears a noise. Her heart falls into her feet. Someone is walking from the kitchen towards her room. Oh, my God! Madina is shaking and hopelessly reaches for her phone but cannot grab it because there is no power in her trembling cold fingers.

“Who is here?” she screams.

No response… The steps cease for a moment… Boom, boom, boom – Madina’s heart is ready to burst in her chest.

Then the steps resume, and she cries out when she sees a skeleton. It is covered in spiders that are weaving webs in its eye sockets and around its bones. It is holding a dead peacock in curved phalanges of its right hand. The peacock has died recently for the colours of its tail are fading away in a rapid succession. The left arm is squeezing a black bag that is filled with some round objects the size of human head. Voices remarkable for their purely Y country’s English accents are heard from inside the bag: “Hey, Madina. What’s up?”, “We’re making Y great again!” Suddenly the skeleton drops both the peacock and the bag, bends its knees, makes a salto and turns into a wolf. The wolf howls and charges Madina to rip her chest apart.

“Oh, my God!” Madina screams and awakens from the nightmare covered in cold sweat and breathless.

                                                                     ***

It is Madina’s time to present. She walks on the stage and faces twelve judges – professors of X university. One of them has been to almost every country in the world. Another has volunteered for Human Rights Watch organization. The third speaks with the accent of Italian community in country Y. The fourth is involved into providing help to refugees. The fifth objects against the Trump wall. The sixth has an intercultural marriage. The seventh wears a kippah. The eighth gave a talk in Silicon Valley. The ninth contributes to the research on the Universal Basic Income. The tenth is an animal rights activist. The eleventh is dedicated to the problem of climate change. The twelfth is unremarkable.  

Abdullaeva has about three minutes to prepare. She is feeling butterflies in her stomach. Madina connects her laptop to projector, opens her presentation, occasionally glances at the audience and gasps… The twelfth professor has transformed into a skeleton from her nightmare. It is walking among the rows, cutting off the heads of other professors. Every head that falls on the table is collected and replaced with the head from the black bag. The neck and the new head attach perfectly. All the heads look identical. No one notices the crime of head stealing. Madina starts flickering and itching her eyes to get rid of the illusion. However, it does not go away, even after the head of the last victim is stolen.

Then Madina is asked by the moderator to start her presentation. Throughout her whole speech she is staring at the impudent skeleton that is sitting beside the eleventh victim. The skeleton is smiling encouragingly. When Madina finishes, the black bag with stolen heads explodes with screams: “Bravo! The idea is great! Madina Abdullaeva deserves the first place!” Madina bows and can not suppress a happy smile. As she leaves the stage, the skeleton vanishes in the thin air and the ovation fades away.

After an hour, Madina and other participants of the competition are informed that the prize was given to Jim Brown who forgot the words in the middle of his talk. Jim jumps up from his chair, claps his hands, and shows victory signs with his hands.   

Madina runs out from the hall and locks herself in the bathroom. She bursts into tears and weeps uncontrollably. She falls to her knees, her head is squeezed between her arms, her shoulders are jumping up and down. After an hour of shedding tears, she stands up and looks in the mirror at her red puffy eyes. She turns on the tap and starts washing her hot face with cool water. Then she starts staring at the vortex created by water flowing down the sink. This endless process of disappearance echoes her despair. Almost a quarter of an hour passes before she rises her eyes. The mirror reflects the skeleton behind her. It is smiling triumphantly.

Venus trap

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Fiona, a second-year university student, woke up in her rented apartment. She sat down and stretched, spreading out her arms like wings. A broad smile appeared on her face upon recalling yesterday’s resolution: I’ll never go to a shopping mall again. To prove the seriousness of her oath, the girl donated a huge part of her belongings to a local charity organization.

Yesterday it took her 3 hours to transport all clothes doomed for donation to her Mercedes. Those neighbours who occasionally peered out of the windows could see a girl in a blue hoodie, black leggings and colorful snickers carrying huge plastic bags – 5 per arm. When Fiona was driving back, she felt as though she obtained wings. It seemed to her that she was not sitting behind the wheel, but rather floating in a cloudless sunny sky. Never again! Never again! a happy thought was buzzing in her head.

Everything in Fiona’s life up to this moment screamed of addiction to shopping. Her poor grades screamed addiction. She was constantly thinking about shopping malls, which screamed addiction. The tumor of emptiness that was growing larger and larger inside her screamed addiction.

This addiction that lasted for two years was finally overcome.

Today while brushing her teeth, Fiona was humming to herself: My grades will skyrocket!

Then she started flying around the kitchen. All her movements were unusually confident and powerful. She was wearing Calvin Klein underwear and a silk gown.  

Firstly, to one shelf to get a pan.

After that to another shelf to grab Quaker oats.

Almost immediately back to the cooker.

When the burner was on, she soared to the kettle and turned it on.

Throughout this activity, there was never a moment when the thought: I’m free! left Fiona’s mind.

Eventually breakfast was set up. The girl landed on the chair in front of her bowl with steaming porridge and a cup of coffee. Fiona switched on her iPhone to check social media. Hmm… an email… Fiona thought and tapped the screen. From Amazon… recent orders… suggestions… Hmm… I’m not interested in this anymore…

The girl put the spoon full of oats into her mouth. Several touches transported Fiona into Instagram.

Wow! So amazing! she gasped when she saw a new photo of her favourite model. The slim young woman was standing in front of an endless sea. She was wearing a light blouse from Nordstrom collection that was flapping in the wind.

Fiona felt a wave of unconditional love. She wanted to become a source of happiness for her magnificent role model. She wished to express gratefulness for daily inspiration. There was not a large choice of options of how to convey the breathtaking feelings. Fiona coloured a heart underneath the photo in red. Then she carried on chewing oats.

While driving to university in her Mercedes, Fiona felt that her wings weakened due to the email from Amazon and the sight of the model. The girl decided not to pay attention. For around a quarter of the first lecture Fiona was focusing on the professor’s speech.

Then flashes of memories started distracting her, like pheromones of a sweet taste distort the trajectory of a fly. The girl was recalling how she would sit at lectures and enjoy online-shopping. The surrounding world would cease to exist. Billions of splendid dresses would diffuse through her skin and substitute her blood cells and neurons. They would be endlessly circulating in her body and constantly firing in her brain. After each session Fiona would wake up to reality with a bitterly blithe smile.

Soon these memories became so lucid, that there was nothing left to do except to bring them to reality with several strikes of keys on her MacBook’s keyboard.

The lecture ended. The graphics of clothes got stuck in Fiona like threads of dreams. They intertwined with a blissful memory of ordering magnificent high-heeled shoes on Amazon. The agitated imagination set her hands to constant shaking. Only touching the smooth fabric of the blouse identical to the one that was on the model from Instagram could stop the trembling.

I shouldn’t fall into temptation, Fiona was still trying to resist.

After the second lecture she got her essay back. D+! That’s inevitable! I’ll never get even C! she wailed in her mind with an inextinguishable sadness. The inner struggle was over. Fiona dropped her MacBook into her backpack, put on her coat and left the classroom. The tread of her high-heeled shoes could be heard all around the university building. It resonated through the walls and caused a magnetic eraser to disconnect from a whiteboard in one of the classrooms and fall. The eraser hit the floor with a hollow and dull sound.

Here I come, Nordstrom! Fiona thought, turning on ignition in her Mercedes. The engine roared and the car moved ahead. Fiona’s hands were tightly squeezing the wheel and shaking uncontrollably. Her palms were sweating, leaving drops of moisture on the leathern surface. Apple watch on her wrist was detecting a pulse as fast as 120 beats per minute.

Then the colossal building appeared. It seemed as though infrastructure respectfully moved aside. The pheromones of sweet dreams and memories were all leading Fiona here. The highway kneeled in front of the department store, and Fiona’s car rushed down. The girl felt the painfully familiar knot of jubilation in her throat. Nordstrom was as majestic for Fiona as a Venus trap for a fly. She rushed into the store with her head freed from thoughts. There she found comfort.

Her fingers were caressing the soft fabric of clothes. She was blissfully burying her face in the soft folds of attires. She was inhaling the head-spinning aroma of luxury. Fiona did not suspect that her movements stimulated the trigger hairs of the Venus trap. The mouth of the carnivorous plant was shutting down above her head.

Under Auroras

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A green parasol with inscription “STARBUCKS COFFEE” provides sunshade for a couple of young immigrants. Susan and Michael sit opposite each other and wait for their French Vanilla Mochas to arrive. The woman is wearing a light blue dress with a big brooch which depicts a lily of the valley. The dress exposes the woman’s thin arms and slender legs for it covers only halves of her thighs. Susan has her latest version of MacBook in front of her and is focused on typing. Her eyes as brown as truffles are moving from left to right, while manicured fingers hit the keys with both English and Russian letters.

One time the woman gives the camera to her husband and leaves the table to pose for a photo. She is standing with her knees bent, with head cant and thick flying hair, while the camera is clicking. Then she sits back at the table and continues typing until barista serves coffee. “Thank you,” she says with a big smile, closes her laptop and puts it aside.

“How is the article going?” Michael asks his wife.

“Very well! I’ll submit it by the end of the week,” Susan replies and takes a sip of her sweet drink, “Oh my God! It’s so tasty! I love it! Sometimes I think that we’re in Paradise. Can’t believe it. A job that I absolutely love. Affording such amazing coffee on my birthday! In such country as U.S.! I’m in a philosophical mood today, you know? I believe that with hard work you can achieve anything. We achieved our Paradise together,” she tenderly puts her fingers on her husband’s hand that is resting on the surface of the table.

“I have a present for you, Susie,” Michael takes a small box out of his bag and gives it to his wife, “Happy birthday, my dear!”

“Oh, wow! Thank you!” Susan opens the box and her rounded eyebrows rise, she closes her mouth with her hands.

“It’s so pretty!” she starts walking around the table to give her husband a hug. He also stands up and they lovingly embrace each other. Then Susan puts the ring with a brilliant on her left middle finger.

Suddenly a person wearing rugs appears. He is strolling down the street with an absent gaze and a large plastic bag full of trash. He decides to rest under a parasol next to Susan and Michael. Susan’s lips pull up and her nose crinkles. She anxiously looks around and notices that other customers of Starbucks start frowning. Susan quickly puts the ring back into the box and hides it securely into her handbag. She also packs her laptop into her bag which she places on her lap.

Michael says, “There’s no need to be so worried. He won’t rob us.”

“How do you know?” Susan asks in a trembling voice, “I hate when these tramps come so close. Why the government doesn’t do anything about them? I actually hate these tramps who enjoy living like animals.”

Michael objects: “Susie, don’t call them animals. They don’t enjoy such life. Our society determines inequality. You and I are just lucky to have both suitable qualities and circumstances…”

Michael waves his hand at the barista.

“May I have a bagel, please?” he asks.

“Are you going to give it to this tramp?” Susan’s eyes become tense and narrow.

“Yes. I feel sorry for him.”

They continue drinking coffee in silence for around 10 minutes. Susan often glances at the man who is sitting on his plastic bag and staring at the blue sky with his red and emotionless eyes. Each time she shudders and hugs herself.

“Susie, let’s not spoil your birthday. We have different views but that’s okay,” Michael suggests peacefully.

“I want this tramp to disappear. I can’t bear him,” Susan says not caring whether anyone else hears her or not.

The barista approaches with the bagel.

Susan with her brows frowned observes how her husband approaches the man and gives him food. They exchange some words that Susan does not hear due to the traffic noise. When Michael comes back, Susan exclaims:

“I’ll call the police, so that they remove him from here. He is not supposed to be in the café because he is not paying. Why is the staff ignoring him?”

Susan takes out her phone.

“Oh my God!” Susan exclaims and shows the screen of her phone to Michael, “Look at this!”

Michael feels how his heart skips the beat when he notices unexpected fear in the raised eyebrows and opened mouth of his wife. He glances at the screen and reads: “Solar Superstorm Warning. Danger of solar superstorm hitting the Earth. Power grid in North America will be destroyed in 60 minutes. Do not panic. Check local authorities.”

Michael frowns his brows and his lips become tight. Susan starts googling “sun superstorm” on her phone.

“Let’s go! We have to get to the closest bank and withdraw money. Otherwise we will lose it,” Michael exclaims and looks around. People are yet unaware of the approaching catastrophe.

Susan does not hear him – she is too focused on skimming an article about solar superstorm. She sees with the corner of her eyes how Michael approaches people at the other table. They all jump to their feet. Gradually noise around Susan intensifies, people are engaged into nervous discussions.

“Let’s go! To the bank! To get the money!” Michael repeats loudly, as he approaches Susan.

“What’s the point?” Susan exclaims, raising her tear-soaked eyes that are black as night, “Money is useless now! Think about how many people will lose it in just one hour! Do you want to be murdered with so much cash on your hands?”

She stands up and looks at the sky. She is left breathless: Aurora is shining across the sky. Bright blue, green, magenta colors are reflecting in her eyes. Susan’s fingers find her wallet in her hand bag. She quickly walks into the café, leaving the bag with her laptop on the chair.

“I’d like a cake, please,” she gives the last cash she has to the young woman who looks shocked. The woman accepts cash and gives a plate with the cake. She is still not realizing that soon cash machines will stop working.

Susan approaches the poor man and gives him the cake. He is completely distant from the panic surrounding him. The pauper is enjoying the bagel; he gives Susan a toothless smile.

Susan smiles back and buries her face into her palms to hide the tears that rash out of her eyes that are dark as endless universe. Her shoulders are shudder due to laments.

 

Life-changing dream

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Genes determined that by the age of 19 Karina was very slim, with a fragile skeleton, narrow skull and lantern jaws. The bones of her arms were visible reflecting the little volume of her muscle mass. Karina’s legs were slender with knees touching each other when she was standing straight. She had a friend Rachel whom she thought she knew perfectly well because together they did their homework, went to lectures, and were friends on Facebook and Instagram.  

On one day Karina woke up in the night and sensed not a bedsheet underneath herself but a rigid fur. Her nostrils took in a damp air of a cave. She sat down and her heart sank when she did not see the ceiling and walls of her dorm illuminated by reflections from streetlights. The impervious darkness that was surrounding Karina made her hands shake, her heart beat speed, and her head spin. She collapsed back on the fur and pressed her eyelids together as tightly as she could.

Karina woke up again when it was already the morning. What she saw first made her gasp. The cave not only remained the part of surrounding reality, but also obtained definitive shapes due to beams of sun that were getting inside. Through the entrance an endless sea was visible.

Suddenly Karina realized she was not wearing any clothes. Her cheeks turned bright crimson. This color intensified when the girl noticed that she was surrounded by naked people. One man with large muscular arms was sitting nearby and striking two rocks together. Repetitive clashes were routinely intensified by echoes. He had large brows and hair all over his tanned body.

Karina covered herself in the fur trying to relax the muscles on her face that immediately contracted in a grimace since the fur was covered in drops of dry blood. The girl remained motionless. Meanwhile, there was a constant whirl of activity around. Some women were producing diverse sounds that did not make any sense for Karina. The females organized themselves in a band and left the cave presumably to search for food. Children were restlessly running around and shouting so loudly that Karina’s head started aching. She was shifting her eyesight from the kids to a man in the middle of the cave chamber who was patiently grinding two wooden sticks together.

Eventually Karina felt that she could not bear it any longer. She stood up and headed towards the entrance of the cave. As she passed among men and women who remained in the cave, they all resumed their activities and did not stare at their uninvited “guest”. Outside of the cave in a distance Karina saw people walking along the marine and perhaps collecting seafood like turtles, seashells. However, the girl did not join them, but wondered away along the sea.

She was strolling bare foot in green grass under burning sun and gazing at the wild landscape. Her hands were still clutching the fur skin wrapped around her body despite of heavy drops of sweat that appeared on her forehead and back of the neck.

Suddenly Karina froze. In a short distance she noticed several large and extremely thin hyenas each reaching her chest. Her hands were strongly trembling as she crumpled the fur in a measly semblance of a shield. Ugly muzzles were approaching; robust canines were glittering in the sun. The closest hyena attacked. Karina screamed in a high-pitched voice she never thought she possessed; felt how the jaws closed around the fur skin. It seemed that the canines have pierced her hand. Simultaneously she experienced pain and suffocation as if her spine crashed as it hit the soil…

Loud calls and shouts resembling those that Karina heard in the cave arouse. The girl felt that the hyena let go of her arm. She opened her eyes and saw how several strong and muscular men and women with large stones and wooden spears were fighting against the hyenas. Karina collapsed.

She regained her consciousness in the cave. A woman who could hardly be described as gracile with a scar across her cheek sat nearby consuming mollusks whom she extracted from shells that were burned. Behind her back a fire was flaring, and other members of the band were holding mollusks in their hands waiting for them to open up. The woman noticed that Karina was looking around and made a strange sound, simultaneously stretching her arm and dropping a mollusk on the fur beside Karina.

Karina sat up, deeply sighed and started to slowly move her eyes towards her right hand that was still hurting. “Phew,” she breathed out, noticing that her arm still consisted of three parts and only deep scratches covered by the blood that dried out were visible. Her spine was aching, but this was a tolerable pain.

Karina realized how thirsty she was. She caught the woman’s look and imitated drinking from a bottle, then made a pleading sign. The woman frowned, took the mollusk and threw it on Karina’s lap. The girl shook her head and scratched the back of her head. Then in an inspiration she performed a gesture she would make when drinking from a brook.

The woman repeated the gesture, then stood up and headed in the darkness of the cave. Karina followed, wrapping herself in the fur – the farther they went from the hearth, the colder the air was getting. The large round shoulders of the “guide”, her strong arms still visible for the girl due to the glow of the fire did not mind the frigid condition of the cave’s intestine.

Finally, Karina shaking from head to toes heard the sound of streaming water. At the same time, the silhouette of the “guide” vanished in the darkness and the girl’s heart started skipping beats.

Suddenly someone’s hand grasped Karina’s wrist making her gasp. It took her several seconds of desperate panic to convince herself that she was grabbed by the woman and not a cave bear.

She was being pulled down, so she kneeled and felt how her hand was plunged into… “Ahhh!” Karina screamed withdrawing her hand as quickly as possible from the water cold as hell. The echo was still repeating “Ahhh”, while Karina heart was pounding in her queering chest. She heard the woman beside her drinking. It took the girl a while to regain control over herself and manage to satisfy thirst by lapping the water like an antelope.

On the next day Karina woke up both thirsty and hungry. After she has rubbed her eyes, she began searching for the woman who took care of her yesterday. However, all the women around were unfamiliar. So, Karina ventured to go and find the brook on her own. As she was kneeling near the stream, she kept glancing into the depth of the cave and imaging how a bear would attack her and tear to pieces.

When she came back to the camp, she took several stones and approached a man who was in the process of making a tool. She sat opposite to him and waved. The man ignored her gesture, however, all people nearby started staring at Karina. When she exclaimed: “Hey!” others made themselves scarce. The man still did not rise his head. However, his lips became curved downwards and a frown appeared on his wrinkled forehead. “Could you, please…” Karina began when suddenly a man roared, grabbed a bone lying next to him, stood up and hit the girl’s head with it.  

A stream of tears rushed out from her eyes as she ran away and hid behind a stalagmite. A half of the day passed before she gained enough courage to approach a group of women who were busy striking stones together and possibly making tools. She anxiously observed their reactions: nobody frowned, nobody roared. On the contrary, one of the women – in whom Karina recognized her “guide” – immediately turned towards Karina and started showing where to strike the stones. Her fingers were dirty and with long broken nails.

Karina spent four days manufacturing her weapon. During this period, she fed on mollusks whom other women brought to the cave. The polish on her nails was wiped off and a nail on index finger got broken. Still, she felt warm gratitude towards the woman with the scar while she was giving the final touches to the spear.

On the fifth day Karina departed from the cave with a group of female gatherers. Her friend was among the band. They wondered away so far from the cave that Karina became terrified as to how they would find their way back. While she was anxiously looking around, her companions were calmly collecting seashells and turtles and dropping them into fur skins. She made an incredible mental effort to memorize the route as they walked back loaded with seafood. This habit of memorization saved her life when one day she went to the savannah with her scarred friend and several other women to hunt hedgehogs and collect ostrich eggs.

Hunting and gathering required a lot of patience and endurance as the band roamed the landscape under the heating sun. Suddenly, Karina felt herself sick. A loud buzzing noise invaded her head which started spinning uncontrollably. Everything became blur. Then darkness…

Karina awakened still in the savannah in the high grass. She must have been lying there for a long time since the sun was closer to the horizon and the unbearable heat receded. The girl’s head was bursting with pain and she needed water. Nobody was around. Holding back tears, feeling hatred to the woman with the scar whom she considered her friend, the girl staggered back to the cave. She was recollecting the way with enormous efforts. By the time she reached the entrance of the cave she was not sure if her head was aching due to the heat stroke or mental work. Surprisingly she managed to get to the brook and drink despite of her exhaustion. Then she curled up in her corner of the cave and fell asleep immediately.

Karina woke up in her dorm and heard knocking on the door. “Phew,” she breathed out and wiped away the sweat from her forehead. She sat up. Her blanket was lying on the floor and her bedsheet was craped. Knock, knock, knock!

“I’m coming!” Karina exclaimed and walked to the door feeling herself as light as if she got into zero gravity.

“Hi, Rachel,” she said smiling and immediately felt shivers down her spine – Rachel was frowning.

“I’ve been waiting so long for you! Did you forget that we arranged to have breakfast together?” Rachel grumbled.

“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry, Rachel,” Karina folded her hands in the pleading sign, “Let’s go to drink,” she folded her hands as if drinking from the brook, “and have something to eat.” She imitated sucking out a mollusk from a seashell. Rachel’s eyebrows raised, her eyes widened, and her mouth opened.

“Aren’t you going to get changed? How about brushing your teeth?” she nearly screamed in a high pitch, staring at Karina’s nightshirt.

“Where are they!?” Karina exclaimed looking around for hyenas and immediately felt that her cheeks turned crimson color.

“In your room. What’s the matter with you?”

“Oh, that dream…” Karina mumbled wondering whether to describe it as a nightmare or not. A hundred of questions were whirling around in Karina’s head: Rachel, what are your hobbies? What makes you most annoyed? What makes you most happy? What are you most scared of? Would you ever abandon a friend? If you would, why? What do you value in people the most? and so on. She was trembling with jubilant excitement as she looked forward to getting the answers.

Reflect or construct?

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They met each other while they were volunteers on archaeological excavations in Israel. At first, they just spent time in the common circle of volunteers, keeping each other’s names in memory: Jack and Lily. Two young people in mutual attraction soon found out that they lived in cities situated relatively nearby.

Then she began to approach him, when he was lying on the ground, resting after the tiring day of fieldwork. Lily would lie besides the young man on artificial grass of a yard circumscribed by houses where volunteers lived. The girl was attracted to strength that Jack’s body with larger robust bones and muscles illuminated.

While they were discussing similarities and differences in their life experiences: films, books, travels, they were getting used to each other’s presence, manners of speech and gestures. Being together simultaneously with perceiving sounds of nature – high-pitched whining of jackals exotic for ears used to city noises, singing of invisible birds – increased levels of dopamine in both young people. Consequentially, joint stargazing became a habit recorded in neural pathways.

On one evening Jack and Lily had a philosophical conversation:

– You know, I nearly canceled the whole trip altogether ’cause my Mom got very ill. Fortunately, doctors didn’t diagnose anything life-threatening, – Jack said thoughtfully, sensing Lily’s head on his shoulder. The weight of this head with burnished dark hair was stimulating sensory neurons to deliver signals to the brain that instead of provoking attempts to get free from the pressure caused the increase in levels of oxytocin.

– That’s great, – Lily replied. Then she added after a short pause, – I was also hesitant about coming, – she smiled, trying to catch Jack’s eyesight, – my friends were trying to change my mind: “why would you spend half of the summer in mud?” – Lily laughed, while her hippocampus was recreating the faces of her friends.

– I think, it’s our destiny… There is a meaning behind the fact that we both had obstacles. It means we should be together, – Jack suggested. The dim light from the far stars was hitting his retina and traveling to area VI of his brain. Was there any meaning behind the appearance of the universe?

Lily was not responding for a while. At first, she was blithe about his hint on having feelings towards her. Then, she perceived the meaning of Jack’s words and compared them to her own world view:

– Well, I doubt there’s a meaning out there…

Then the conversation faded away…

When the season of excavations ended, Lily and Jack kissed one last time before parting. Alas, their romantic relationship started to decline rapidly after separation. Jack was relying on somebody to bring them together, however, no coincidences happened any more. On whatever concert of popular music band or other excavations Jack went, Lily did not. Online conversations between them were happening less and less often. Lily felt that Jack’s efforts to support their status of a couple attenuated, and she assumed that it was partly because of his waiting in vain for an external force. Lily did not want to reflect meanings, she wanted to construct them. So, after sending a break-up message to Jack, she started a new relationship.

Did this decisive action trigger Jack to reconsider his world views? Let’s ask his ancestors, the early humans, who performed rituals in attempts to reflect meanings of the external world. Their believes into the ability to have control over nature slowly pushed their cognitive evolution forward. Their world views are fossils in the layers of coeval outlooks. No wonder, Jack blamed Lily of sinfully disobeying the Higher Order and put a lot of effort into exhibiting a flawless behavior in his every day routine.

Beginning and end

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Juliet with eyes closed from pleasure was slowly sucking up chocolate milkshake through a plastic straw. She wore an elegant evening dress that made her slender body look attractive. A bangle butterfly bracelet surrounded one of her thin wrists. Juan stood beside her, feeling how his arms were sweating, even though it was a warm summer evening. The young pair was on the pier Torpedo Wharf facing the Golden Gate Bridge lit up with torches.

‘The water is so mysterious. When I was a little girl, I wished to become a mermaid,’ Juliet whispered.

‘You’re like a mermaid,’ Juan said, and the pace of his heart beat sped up when he looked at her…

In the Pacific Ocean, miles away from the place where the couple’s feet touched the ground, a young pilot whale was suffocating and swimming with great difficulty. He was starving but could not eat because his stomach was full of plastic mistaken for food that has not digested. It was hard for him to breath; he lost his pod; he was lonely.

‘May I call you… my mermaid?’ Juan asked in a quiet voice that was nevertheless thick with emotion. Juliet turned to face him, and he saw her wide smile.

‘Of course,’ she replied. Juan, feeling blithe about the beginning of “forever together”, embraced her graceful waist. 

The pilot whale gave up the struggle and let the ocean current to carry him; his heart pulsing slower and slower…

Juan and Juliet’s lips started getting closer. Due to an impulse, Juliet’s hand that was holding the now empty plastic cup let it go. Both her arms passionately wrapped around Juan’s neck. The cup fell into the “mysterious” waters of San-Francisco Bay.

The sunset was reflecting in the opened but motionless eyes of the pilot whale as his now dead body was floating on the surface in solitude. 

The black butterfly that was attached to Juliet’s bracelet suddenly came to life, flapped its wings and raised in the air unnoticed because the only pair of eyes that could have seen it was closed due to a flame of passion ignited by the kiss. The perturbations that the butterfly produced pushed the cup further into the ocean…