6/12/2024
Balkan Memories - Corsican Psychedelic Rock
by Zulfikar Ahmetovic
No time.
Lost in memories like in a dream.
Bad memories. Good memories.
Flashes: my green card expired.
Expelled.
No way to fix this.
Back to Bosnia.
No way. A warrant on me like a sword of Damocles.
Visegrad at distance. The river. THE BRIDGE.
Grandpa Zulfikar patting me in an airport, we both weird, he disheveled, an eye - his left eye, eyelids retracted into an empty socket. People around staring at us as we were phantoms.
People around us progressively vanishing, long faces, bad smell.
No homeland. No nothing,
"We gypsies are wanderers," grandpa Zulfikar suggesting to me. Low voice. His lips tight close.
"Sorry for your late grandpa," uncle Leon suddenly at my side.
Uncle Leon laughing. Roaring.
NOT HIS OWN ROARING LAUGH- Someone’s else.
Airplanes taking off.
Music around. Strange music. Fascinating melody, taking me into dreams first. Then turning nightmarish, me sinking.
All the good things I've done in my life. My books. Strolls to the bridge, My tiny office at Hoover. Books again, almost falling on me, they tumble down, white wall exposed - then the color: RED.
Blood sprayed on it.
Fresh red blood.
All the bad things I've done in my life. That goat I seized from a farm, the only one they had, I was eight. I saw those people once again, in a street. Begging for food.
A lanky man standing by,.
Never his face to be seen,
The sight of the Turks I killed at distance with the first sniper rifle I ever held.
They coming up from the valley. Haunting me.
The other ones.
The other rifles.
College sights. Uncle Leon picking me up, driving me out of state. Two days drive - motels - fake ID cards - all in one second. Handing a strange long rifle over to me. Black thugs sight from a rooftop. Gang kind of thugs. Uncle Leon reassuring me, "Think the scum they are," me aiming, shooting them down. Three days later three mexican foreigners all of them pachuco style. Three months later a note from uncle Leon: the wrong cartel down, the wrong smugglers down, good work of yours, kid.
Patting me like he was granpa Zulfikar.
Stomach burning, Bowels burning.
Me an eighteen college boy.
Those faces.
All the people I killed staring at me in a row.
Still. Pale. Emotionless. No regret, No accusation from them.
Just their stares,
THAT smell.
Unable to move.
The lanky man by my side. No face. As always.
One eyed grandpa Zulfikar shoving me ahead.
Another phantom.
Tall, handsome, blue eyed.
His face almost like mine, the face I always forget, the face I retrieve in the mirror when shaving, the face I forget.
But pale.
THAT smell.
Me walking on four feet. Faster and faster. Me galloping.
THE CENTAUR.
My heart pounding,
I wake up for two seconds, soaked in sweat.
NO GUILTINESS.
SURVIVING AS A MATTER OF FACTS:
Then sinking again.
All that blue see around me.
The hills, the mountains, mountain dirt roads, Bosnia mixed with Corsica,
Places. Houses where I slept for one night, houses I lived in for months,
My baggage light as always,
"We gypsies are wanderers".
Deep cold. Freezing. Fists clenched. Teeth rattling.
All the bad things that I've done in my life coming up altogether, haunting me, no chance to escape.
I.ve sailed the darkened seas on a great big clipper ship, I'm closing in on death. *
I wish I was dead.
I can't stand THIS PAIN OF REMEMBERING.
Why must I endure this torture forever.
My legs shaking.
My arms shaking.
My whole body shaking.
Me howling.
I can't die.
I come from thousands years ago.
I'm no human deep inside myself.
I exist since ever **
I'M THE CENTAUR.
I YELL.
"Turn him down, block him."
Hands over me, Strong hands.
Voices. Men's voices.
French voices, almost italian voices, surfacing from deep below, Jeannot, Ange forcing me down.
My arm uncovered, a tourniquet, a needle.
Some hours half unconscious.
Strange, no thirst.
Unable to move,
That smell gone, someone washed me.
Good smell on me.
Clean clothes on.
People shuffling around,
Then one voice.
"Good to see you recovered, mr Ahmetovic."
Cigarette smoke.
Brinks by my side.
* Lou Reed, Heroin
** Michel Tournier, Le Roi des Aulnes
