Her name was Rosalind

– Please, can you visit my mum? She would really appreciate this – a young woman with big eyes asked me. I agreed. I agreed because of those eyes. They were staring at me with this desperate question mark hanging between us in the thick air. Therefore I agreed.

Rosalind was lying in a bed. Her face was so pale that the colour of the white bedding seemed to be gray. Her eyes were closed but when she heard my steps she opened them. She looked at me, with all her consciousness and curiosity. Her pupils were huge, probably because of the medicines she had been given. The intense shade of blue, or rather navy, of her iris's embarrassed me. It didn’t match to her nearly translucent skin and petite body. Her eyes were too determined to belong to  such weak flesh. She looked at the chair next to her bed so I sat down.

– I was waiting for you; my daughter told me that you would come – an old woman with the biggest eyes I had ever seen said. I nodded, looking straight in those eyes. I tried to say something but for a moment I was speechless, enchanted, hypnotized, so she carried on.

– She had a wedding last Sunday. It was a lovely celebration and she looked so beautiful. I wanted her to be happy but I believe that because of me she couldn't.

– No, Rosalind, it’s not true – I disagreed but the words didn't come to me easily – I talked to your daughter earlier and she was so pleased that you could be with her during this special moment. She showed me the pictures – you both looked absolutely amazing. You need to be proud of her.

– I am, but I'm not proud of myself. I cause so many problems to people around. – Her eyes became darker – It’s challenging to stay with me now. It’s challenging for people who love me, don’t you think so?

– Life is a challenge, Rosalind. Everything we need to face is a challenge. But that’s the sense of us being here. – I said, despite the fact that I didn’t know what to say.

Rosalind smiled. She touched my hand, squeezed it very gently then she looked at me even more intensely than before – Do you know what Franz Kafka said? Let me quote him to you: The meaning of life is that it stops – she said as if she fully agreed with this statement. She opened her eyes widely – 

– What do you think?

I agreed because of these eyes. They were staring at me with this desperate exclamation mark hanging between us in the thick air. Therefore I agreed.

She closed her eyes.

She died a few days later.

White Other

09/03/2010 - How did I become White Other?

That day I was standing in the front of a railway station in a small city in the middle of England and I was looking around curiously. During the next couple of years I was going to hit the bottom and overcome my fears and then achieve more than I had ever dreamt of; I was going to reject myself to discover who I was and then accept myself; I was going to cry so badly that it made me laugh. That trip was going to be my own wordless but meaningful scream. But that day, in the middle of March, when I was standing in the front of the railway station in a small city in the middle of England, looking around curiously, I didn’t know this.

I looked at the old surface of the station, made from carefully laid red bricks; at modern buildings with huge windows with offices inside; at shops, one with posh suits and another one, on the other side of the road, with cheap shoes. I drank in, absorbed this scenery. I inhaled the smell of my take away coffee, mixed with curry from an Indian restaurant next to the station. I absorbed, imbibed every single person passing by: a black woman carrying her lovely cappuccino baby, an Indian lady wearing a pair of flip-flops despite the winter weather, a very old, pale gentleman with his very old, ginger dog on a leash, its red collar reminding me of something. I soaked up the sounds around me and I noticed that I hardly understood anything. It wasn’t the Queen’s English I had been taught at school. Even if it had been I wouldn’t have been able to, as I had only got a C. But the words around me were a strange mixture of different accents and pronunciations which made me confused… and would carry on doing this for a long time… for too long…

I picked up my rucksack, spilling my coffee. It was either bad luck or a good omen. I didn’t know and didn’t care. I just grabbed my not quite heavy belongings: the rucksack with 5 t-shirts, a jumper, a pair of trousers, underwear, a laptop I still needed to work on my projects and a book I always hugged as a mascot when I was sad, and I went to explore the city which had picked me to live in. I was childishly naïve enough to believe that these were enough to settle down here and be happy. I didn’t know that day that courage is not enough to face all problems, that openness should be secured by a door chain and that an attitude fades when it’s watered down by negativity, like brandy. As I didn’t know this I courageously walked into the city with an optimistic grin on my face, stopping every time when any guy said something to me I was unable to understand.

Then I heard this low voice which gave me goose bumps: “Kurwa!” Definitely I was able to understand this, and it made me ashamed. The guy looked at me and said in our first language: “A new arrival?” I looked at him surprised. How did he recognize this? That day I didn’t know that during the next couple of years I also would be able to identify our people at first sight.