Snow Leopard and Dark-Iris Lakes

Because I’m not sure how long the main character
is planning to stay – in fact, he’s just walked out
to watch the fireworks flowering turquoise and green
as the snow gets heavier and bright – let’s just say that for a long-distance
runner and an occasional sprinter, he’s one of those erratic treasures
with eyes so intensely cerulean and wild –
one could safely embark on a starship adventure to a far off
planet, knowing those deep, shiny irises will be visible
from space. Two astonishing lakes –
the kind that would turn you into a believer
in distance and play. Soon you will take a crash course
in wild swimming and deep-water
diving, soon you will learn to construct a spaceship
equipped with an advanced telescope lens to help you cope
with the mounting contradiction of velocity and longing
once leaving becomes the inevitable conclusion
of testing out space. You will learn how to bring distant objects
closer – rivers, cities, forests – closer
like the highway spiralling out of a faraway kingdom
you found yourself running around. Back
to our runner – he’s based on an ex
of a neighbour who used to be a friend of a colleague
until something (everything) happened – we can study this
forever, but the fireworks are getting louder and the snow
has covered all the lakes, the forests and the villages –
throwing them into a further, harder-to-imagine distance
full of countries wrestling with latitude
and maps. How beautiful
the sky tonight – the way it’s shimmering with dark –
and even though the snow is turning into a full-scale
blizzard, you might be able to detect
the woman practicing cartwheel after cartwheel
in the playing field outside. Some describe her
as the girl with the gift for gymnastics and singing
in crowds. Others struggle with her inconvenient tendency
to speak her mind. In any case, you’ll recognise
her hard-to-pin-down accent. She’s based on three
best friends, two rivers, a long-lost tormented lover, an autumnal
moon poised above a red-oak forest, a skylight
half open to the dark, a snow leopard, a midnight
thunderstorm, an unsent letter, a romantic train guard
holding a rose in a busy train station, a maple leaf on a silver
pavement, a grand piano on the seventh floor, and an entire
country whose borders have been fluctuating
for centuries, and she carries them all
with such burning intensity, there’s a very real risk
she’ll soon be burning the story she’s about to lead, throwing
the ashes into a raging river from some glittering
Eastern European bridge just as the blue autumn
leaves start to blend with the first
signs of snow – a case of a character bigger
than all kinds of storms and sudden weather, stronger
than any towering bridge, wilder than the ever-changing
map of Eastern Europe before, between and after
the war/s, and while I know
you’d rather head back to those delicious
blue lakes – and I’m totally with you on that – I must
introduce you to another character, the one who’s rarely
running late. You might want to reach
for a few bracing cocktails before we kick off. Are you ready
to defy distance, matter, logics, the spectacular
fields of applied mathematics and theoretical physics
and watch how a brief course of events
turns into a chaos indefensibly long? In short,
please welcome our comrade – a devoted, fervent
socialist. I suspect he’d appreciate it if you stood up
when he enters the room. What a way to land back
in the wonder that is – say – England in the years leading
to 2019. Where shall we begin? Outside, a lightning storm
is spiralling the streets into a sequence of luminous
and pitch-dark scenes. As for our comrade, right –
another drink? Yes, he’s a narcissist – you’ve    
got it – yes, he’s a little bit of a misogynist. Sure,
he’s upper-middle class – but only
in this story, which is surreal and fictional – Everybody
Calm Down – he’s based on five high-school friends, several
pious atheists, I mean – saints, twenty-six
hangovers, seven didactic lectures, the longest
summer heatwave recorded to date, the magnetic theatricality
of protest politics, a Sunday in Trafalgar Square, a promising
vegan deli, two pleasant pubs somewhere faraway
in the English countryside, a rose
as a symbol of – wait for it – dissent, a significant
proportion of the UK poetry scene, and a few
of my worst nightmares during those years, in which
for the first time, for some reason, I found myself running
in the streets of 1930s Krakow as if there was something or someone
I had to see. The massive distraction that is politics
has led us astray, yet again, from those deep beautiful
lakes, although I’m not sure the distraction is politics, it is
something else – not history, not ideology, not even
the dark luminous horses of populism soaring above
every river and bridge, nor the cries of sainthood
in the age of faux victimhood – no, it is something
else, darker than these. Although in this version,
the comrade will turn into a painter – an artist who believes
in Art for its own sake. We’ll come back to this
later. For now, the mountains are covered with snow, the rivers
are flowing with shimmering frost. Listen, you are on a mission
to embark on a starship towards the deepest blue
lakes. You’re focused and impatient – fasten
your seatbelt and don’t be distracted – only a few more
characters to go: meet Dora, an uptight cello player with a tendency
to declare open season on cats. There’s Val – a young
professional with a considerable past, Remi – French, Laura,
an Italian living in exile (her words), and finally –
a messenger. Yep, a real one. I’m still looking into
the practicalities of a downright divine
intervention, but in the meantime – I’d be up for testing
the ground. Is anyone pregnant? Is anyone up for
rolling in a field naked? Until we sort out
these questions, let me take you on a winter break
far away in Zakopane – a resort town in southern
Poland – somewhere
between 1922 and 1927. Let me know if you can see
the girl playing in the snow – she’s strong
and muscular – there – you can tell it’s her
by her wide, palest-green eyes, there’s something
rebellious in the way she lets go
of her mother’s hand, lifting her younger
brother up in the air, chasing
her cousins like a furious leopard. I had no idea
she could cartwheel like this. I’m not sure I recognise
her confidence, her uncontrolled laughter, her incredible
smile. She’s stronger than anyone
around her – yes, I recognise that. I don’t think she notices
me, and if she does, she could never imagine
being a grandmother one day. It would make her cartwheel
out of this fragile picture, catch the first train
and throw up. I want to tell her don’t let go
of your mother’s hand. I want to tell her you don’t understand
what’s about to happen – you’re not stronger
or bigger than this place and sudden weather, the country
you will run away from is so much larger
than you – it won’t even notice
when you’re gone, neither
will it care, it won’t bother to write down
your parents’ and grandparents’ names, the entirety
of your cousins and friends, there will be no
hand left to hold onto, no addresses, it will be up to you
to memorise these traces of places and names, and yes –
good luck with that. I want to tell her, listen – don’t take it the wrong
way, but could you please go? I’m trying
to write a story with actual fireworks – I have a brilliant
set of characters, it was supposed to be
funny. Have you heard the one
about the zealous socialist believing in Art for its own sake? Me
neither! I’m in the process of devising some kind of a divine
intervention – a Socialist, a Saint and a Populist go into
a Stoppard play – something along these lines or
temperament, there’s supposed to be a full-blown tension
between Dora and Remi – the latter arrived two hours
ago, and already attracts a hell of a lot of attention,
there’s a strong possibility that someone becomes miraculously
pregnant, even though I haven’t worked out
why Laura is in exile, why Val is rereading the same
letter while chain-smoking all night, there are some unresolved
issues with flying cello strings and a few alarmed
cats, but instead of sorting them out I’m pushing
the door open and walking outside, raising the night
like a glass – holding this fear like a country
changing its mind or its borders, a snowstorm erasing
all traces and maps. I want to tell her, look –
there are two delicious cerulean lakes my readers
would really appreciate if I could finally
lead them to. It was a promise I made – not only to them
but to myself – that I shall not be distracted –
and I’ve just completed the most elegant starship
fitted with telescopes, cameras, long-distance
fire and snow, you see – there’s this blue-eyed absolute
treasure – he was supposed to symbolise the aesthetically-pleasing
tension between a growing, unbearable distance
and the shattering impracticality of creative
attention – he’s based on an ex of a neighbour who
used to be, well – the short story
is – would you mind taking back your, our
history and placing it on some random steep mountain or a faraway
bridge, maybe drop it into a raging Eastern European river by mistake,
would you stop repeating all those cousins’ and friends’ and
parents’ names, I’m building a starship, I’m taking us
back to where it feels safest, I’m taking us back
to the lakes.