Smrt fašizmu, sloboda narodu!

my aunt said, the tongue is the last thing to go, meaning that after the legs stop working, after the mind turns inward on itself, after all the other indignities that await whoever lasts long enough, you can still talk any old nonsense and you most likely will.

when i was a child, overhearing one half of conversations that always ended with this is long distance, it’s costing you a fortune, that sometimes ended in tears, i would concentrate on the sounds of the language, willing them to resolve into something i could understand, and there were times when i felt i almost did. it was like the radio dial in our car, which if you turned it continuously would occasionally yield a voice amid all the static, a phrase even, but the dial kept turning and the voice would be lost and only crackling sounds remained.

you’ve been away so long, my other aunt said, but you look younger than the last time we saw you, yes really! why would we lie? and i did not know how to interpret it, what the real meaning of such a statement was. when i visited more often she would make highly personal remarks about my body, or what i wore, which were supposed to mean a kind of care. i think this is how it was meant — who but someone who loves you will tell you that despite your fat ass, your insistence on making terrible choices and failing to live up to your at one time considerable potential, you haven’t completely fucked your life up, yet. which is to say, that there may be hope for you. when she said i looked young and beautiful my heart sank, she might have said that to anyone. i might as well be anyone.

you see how we live now, it’s terrible. yes terrible, agreed my other aunt, but it looked no different from the last time i was there, they looked no different. they pleaded with me to accept a tiny shot of cognac before i left, and i did, all of us saying an old partisan toast as was their custom. she thinks she’s such a communist but you should hear her when she’s frightened, then it’s all oh god please help me my aunt said, rolling her eyes while her sister pretended not to hear.

i drove back in the full dark in silence, looking for an exit i was not sure of and thinking oh god please help me, help me anywhere but here.