Atarata

Psychic shock waves. A "disturbance in the force" if you will. I have given this phenomenon the Sezjeghn name Atarata. I have experienced it since as far back as I can remember. I used its cryptic pictures to save my mother's life.

I have these dreams. They're nothing more than pictures. When I view them in my sleep, I know them for what they are. I always see them, they as stationary objects, while I seem to be in motion. As if I'm walking while looking at a photograph that was snapped on accident.

These "pictures" almost never show what exactly is to come. Rather, when I experience the pictures later, in real life, in real time, I am alerted to an upcoming hallmark in my life. The emotional upset of those close to me is always tied in. Whether for good or bad. Alas, usually bad.

Scripturally, fortune-tellers of current times can only achieve their powers via demonic inspiration. This does little to assuage my nerves. My only consolation is that I cannot actually foretell the future. Merely the emotional upset of those I love, to within three hours of the source.

Lately, I've been bombarded by atarata. Yesterday, at 11:15 am, I was struck by one. I was at work when the picture slid into reality over my eyes. I recalled a recent dream. In it I was wearing a blue shirt I did not currently own, lamenting my back, working a die-cut machine and pondering over a wristwatch I also did not own. I remember thinking to myself as I dreamt it: "That's odd, I don't wear watches anymore."

The cryptic nature of these dreams often causes me to eventually forget them. Until they occur, of course. I have never written them down, nor written of them, until today. I was always afraid that I might be empowering demons by paying close attention to such an uncanny ability. Or at least amusing demons.

When this particular atarata came to pass, I was wearing the mysterious shirt and watch. Both recent gifts from my doting bride.

I called everybody at lunch, giving them the heads-up. My family, as well as my wife's family, have come to greatly fear and respect my warnings. My sister kept my nephews home from school. My mother wrote my number next to the phone in the home she resides in as a guest, and told everyone in earshot to BE CAREFUL.

Last night, I re-called everyone. My mother reported that she had mopped the floor of the elderly couple she cares for. Before she could warn anyone, their grandson rounded the corner in a run. He slid into the oven door, shattering the glass.

Despite this alarming news, I felt that it wasn't an answer to my riddle. Being that the boy wasn't seriously hurt, I sincerely hoped that it was, though.

In the past, I experienced atarata before Angela's death, my mother's near death, my step-father's last time driving a car, my mother's hip-shattering car-accident, my aunt-in-law's food poisoning, my dad's back-breaking motorcycle ride, the extension of my jail sentence, yadda, yadda, yadda. You get the idea. So I feared that the mop and oven incident wasn't The Event.

My wife's close friend, Kim (as of yet, no Cer name), won 4 tickets to the Renaissance Festival in Sterling, New York. A short drive from Rochester. She and her husband offered the spare tickets to my wife and me. We were to go this Saturday. Those plans were finalized on Tuesday. Again, this particular atarata occurred Wednesday. Yesterday.

Yesterday, Kim's other close friend, also a regular acquaintance of my wife, checked in to the hospital in the early afternoon (I don't yet know, but I bet it was around 2 pm). She had a stomach aneurysm. Today she died. She was 21. Needless to say, Kim is devastated. And so, my wife is devastated. And I, excuse my selfishness, now must attend my first funeral rather than the Festival I had my heart set on. I don't know, though. I've managed to dodge countless funerals. I can't handle the grief of others. I don't cry for the dead. I cry for the pain of those left behind. Maybe I can dodge this one. Seeing as how I'm married now, though, and therefore have two consciences to goad me through life these days, I'm skeptical.

Tonight, I had another one at 8:00 pm. At 11:00 pm, Kim called. Quite distraught still. Although that is the three hour mark, to the dot, I don't think it's The Event. Happily, though, when the atarata struck, I had a weightless feeling rather than a sense of foreboding. More exciting, we were talking outside a house we liked, with our Realtor. One can only hope, eh?

By the way, today I started chronicling these strange events in a little notebook. I write a timestamp, leave a gap, then describe the atarata. The gap is to be filled in later, when I discover the event it heralded. I hope to trap my future picture-dreams in this notebook as well, before the atarata slips the real time picture over my eyes, making me woozy with the wash of recollection. I do have one trapped already. Unfortunately, it feels quite heavy.

Oh, yes. Make that three, while I'm at it. Jennifer Plezmar (spelling?), whoever you are, our fates are linked. In a park the crowd will be in a panic, we will seek shelter in a bunker? A restroom? A beige-bricked building. Somehow, you get lost. Or taken. Who are you? Who are we all running from. Please, God. I hope you're not a future alias for my wife.

And my dear sister, in dreams the whole family has seen how you die. And I fear that I know where.

PENDING List

I promise to get back to these stories and explain A.S.A.P. Honest.

• infamous blue coat
• the infamous Mustang
• Brother-in-law through sister
• "Camp"
• Jerry's kids
  

Towels

I always find myself folding towels a certain way on laundry day: my grandmother's way. Fold the towel width-wise twice, then tri-fold to finish. I've never known anyone else to fold towels this way.

And it never fails. I always find myself folding them that way. But I hate her. I hate her memory. I long for when I can forget her. Either by joining her in Death, or by being freed by the loving-kindness of God.

Until then, I fold every towel twice. Once her way, then anyway but hers.

Things I've Been Hit With

• An epiphany!
  
• A car
  
• A truck
• Aluminum baseball bat
• Wooden baseball bat (there's a DISTINCT difference)
• Pepper spray
• Gun
• Knife
• Lead pipe
• 2x4
• Rock
• refrigerator
  
• clothes dryer
• door
• plate
• mirror
• drinking glass
• glass
• belt
• boot
• foot
• fist
• diamond studded ring
• hand
• knee
• elbow
• head
• bottle - I wonder if it would have hurt less if it had broken
• nails from a air-powered nail gun
• teeth
• Friggin' more teeth
• chair
• desk
• couch
• book
• bola - it HAD to be my own...
• tree limb
• staff
• nunchaku - flippin' ninja wannabes

It's been a while.

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List of Injuries

Trying to list from head to toe:

1. Dog attack - small scars, thank you plastic surgeon
   
2. Dog attack - scar across eyelid - damn, that was another close one
3. Dog attack - chipped tooth, scar in lip - what's with the face, damn it?
4. Molar torn in half - Now&Later x filling = PAIN
5. Torn acromio-clavicular ligament - hit by a car
6. Dislocated shoulder (the OTHER one) I was a stupid kid, at times
7. Hyper-extended elbow - it came with the dislocated shoulder...
8. Crushed ulnar nerve - sparring, I missed - Look ma! Fire doesn't hurt me! What's smells tangy?
9. Pinched nerve - made worse by ACL issue - I think I did this jumping from a building trying to escape some rowdy enemies.
10. Hip displaced - hit by truck - it's not that bad, really
11. Shifty knee - running from some other nut job - I returned the favor
12. A BROKEN BONE!!! My little toe! - Rock climbing. Didn't know about the rock buried in sand when I leaped of a small cliff.
13. Every ligament in my heel EXCEPT the Achilles (which is a tendon anyway). Rock climbing in wrong shoes.

I know there's more. Those are just off the top of my head. I'm always amazed by how few injuries I picked up on the streets.

Born Free

I rock. Literally. It's a habit. Some think it may stem from some form of Autism or something. I didn't always rock though. I think it's from other things...

In the dark I like to listen to my music and imagine that I'm a panther running through the jungle. I run at an uncanny speed for what seems like forever. In life, I can run fast but I can't run for very long. I can only ignore so much physical pain. But I dream.

Long before I ever read the Bible, I thought of myself as a watchman, a protector. So, when I read this, it gave me an indescribably intimate feeling. It's my favorite scripture:

Isaiah 40:29 He is giving to the tired one power; and to the one without dynamic energy he makes full might abound. 30 Boys will both tire out and grow weary, and young men themselves will without fail stumble, 31 but those who are hoping in Jehovah will regain power. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not tire out.”

Identity of a Man, Through a Woman

MOM
Chrysochlorous eyes, old beyond their years by several lifetimes. The rays of a warm sun after a cold winter morning were the curls around her face. When she made herself up she was the most beautiful woman on earth, to her son. A smile, always too quick to spring to her lips - always just beneath a surface. She couldn't get a good job because she dropped out. She couldn't keep any job because she silenced her doubts with crack cocaine. When she lost enough jobs and wracked up enough warrants, she'd run. She'd gotten good at it; she ran away from home at 14, she ran away from her first child - her daughter. But there must be something there, whether it's guilt or a hunger for love. Because she dragged her son through it all. She never forgot to feed him (even if it was just barely edible); never sent him off to school without adequate clothing (she'd drop him in the Salvation Army box to fish stuff out), and always provided shelter of a sort ( a literal shelter, friend's house, abandoned building, tent, car, some man's house...). Of course she couldn't find a good man, but maybe she could change a bad one, if not herself. If they changed for the worse, she'd just run.

I didn't want a man, I just wanted her. Her lived in clothes and stale tobacco hugs, her chirpy singing in the morning, her ever-ready smile, her bedtime stories, her burnt food, the sun we shared after a cold winter morning warming the car we slept in up in the mountains.

I remember her pain. The pain in her eyes as she explained that she had to take Tylenol up her nose because her throat hurt - and that I should knock. The pain in her face when I said I'd rather live with Grandma; she had never hit me, let alone beat me, before that day. She told me in earnestness that I'd grow up to be smart and strong. How could she be so sure? HER son. What did this creature know of such things? This creature that was little more than a flickering flame at the bottom of a lantern's cracked and grimy cyclone?

GRANDMA
Warm chocolate chip cookies - my favorite - and Grandpa's promise of more to come if I chose to stay. But Grandpa didn't wear the pants anymore; he made a mistake with some woman in Thailand, and Grandmother castrated him with it.

I somehow still appreciate the savory smell of grilled onions, the nauseatingly clean smell of bleach, the superstitious smell of pot roast. It wasn't just pot roast that was ominous, it was dinner in general. The salty criticisms, snide remarks, the yelling and screaming that was invariably served for dessert. There weren't too many musical tones in that place. The ones I do recall seem ironic now, if you think about it: the theme songs to "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy".

Thin celeste colored ice on a sidewalk. That was Grandma's eyes; the cold and venomous eyes of a snake.

Her fluffy hugs and monochromatic moo-moos shielded diamond-bearing fists. The sweetness of chocolate-chip cookies was overcome by the coppery taste of blood in my mouth.

Toys, that could only be played with after chores. Chores that never stopped coming, unlike the chocolate-chip cookies. Two in the morning, dragged out of the guest bed I'd been sleeping in for 5 years now and beaten bloody again. I had left my ice cream bowl in the sink. Maybe this is why Mom was so hurt when I said goodbye, why she acted so scared. Maybe this is why Aunt Mercy is so weird.

SISTER
I know why the caged bird sings: it's supposed to. My sister didn't look like a bird, but to see her move commanded your thoughts to birds in flight. Unlike me, she was dark, long, sinewy, stream-lined. Her hugs were gentle, frail, bony, fluttery - like her voice. Her voice was fluttery, like she wouldn't dare express full confidence; like a caged bird always sounds out of place, because it's not free.

It was us versus the world. Unlike most siblings, the only rivalries we participated in were who could stuff the most Atomic Fireballs in their mouth, or who could shoot the most shot-glasses of lemon juice without making a face!

I fell in love with classical music watching at her recitals. I reaffirmed my demands for freedom watching her run her marathons. She always smelled faintly of some powder. Talcum when she was in ballet. Gold-Bond when she dropped it for track & field - despite the repercussions.

When she could no longer kowtow to Grandma, like our mother she towed her children around in search of a father-figure.

Her eyes were puddles of refreshing rain-water contained in mud holes.

AUNT
Aunt Mercy had eyes the green of used, dirty money. Her hair shone like polished gold. She had a sly smile. Her size belied her movement, which flickered like the candles she burned throughout her home. When she hugged you - or made contact at all - it was always distracted. Not like it was forced, but like it was restrained.

She gave me my first Snickers bar; salty-sweet, delicious. I also tried potato-salad for the first time outside her home - gritty, awful. Her home. She'd grow frantic if you disturbed the tassels on her throw rugs. Everything smelled of incense, scented-candles, disinfectant. She smelled of beer, and of the hunt. Despite her alcohol-slurred speech she spoke in soothing tones - the better to con people with, her means of living. I don't mind potato salad these days. I don't really care for Snickers, though.

Grandpa's body finally caught up with his spirit and died. Aunt Mercy was there when it happened; she was the only one in the room. She said his suffering had finally come to an end. He had known about the cancer for three weeks. Everyone understood. She seized all the property. Grandma had a stroke and fell into Mercy's custody.

Perhaps she finally felt empowered, controlling the fate of the woman who controlled her. If not, then maybe when she took her mother's life too. I wonder sometimes, if she ever felt love, or if she ever will. I wonder, too, if she'll ever be strong enough to show love. I intend never to find out; I know enough about the darkness to identify those consumed by it.

WIFE
Another woman. A different one, not family. This one brings the essence of musicality into my life.

As my body and mind fought over which gives me more pain, I was soothed by this girl as we danced in the rain. In my storm-tossed heart is a safe, quiet place built by this girl and her warm embrace. Because of this girl who hides my tears, I've accomplished the responsibility of my years.

She chooses only the prettiest songs to sing. She holds me at night, like I hold her in the morning. Laying beside me, through her language of hums, I've learned the specialness of sun on trees - and apple blossoms.

Though I'm often distracted by her loving sighs, I can hardly get mad when met by virid entrancing eyes.

Though she's already done it, she still tries to please me. Only she knows how I like my coffee! She prepares my “gourmet” meals for the entire week. Still, she says I'm the one who's humble and meek. She's able to clean our home phenomenally quick. But she'll take the time to make me chicken-noodle-soup from scratch when I'm sick. Unmatched as a woman - especially as a cook! Yet she can recommend (to any man) a good movie or book. So, I found the courage to love again, and I love her - as much as I'll love my children. And I'll be glad to share, with them, my best friend.

They'll grow up to be smart and strong, like my wife says I am in the songs she sings. Her view of me reminds me of a flickering light once calling a boy such things.

ME
My mother is still without a home of her own, though she knows now that she has someone who loves her. All people make mistakes. All the more reason we shouldn't be so unforgiving – especially with ourselves. Anybody can change, they just need someone to turn up their wick, help them clean up and let the light shine through.
But, then again, some people don't need to change themselves; they simply need to alter course.

When I could finally meet my own eyes in the mirror, I saw chrysochlorous eyes. I saw strength, intelligence, my mom.

I am a man. I am perhaps the first person in my family to find their identity.