On How I Became a Writer (Part 3)

What I am about to write is not what I intended for this evening. While the content will be about my writing journey, it will not be the one I initially envisioned. Instead, I will be sharing a short piece of fiction I produced in high school. 

Earlier today, my mind snagged itself on a row of barbed wire surrounding a minefield of controversy. My thoughts were entangled in several social media posts and the ensuing comments. Their ignorance and resentment ensnared me, and I lost myself in rage and resignation, but also self-doubt. That these people were so unwilling to accept the possibility that they may be wrong, or admit that they lack the knowledge to be so certain about their opinions, while I spend everyday questioning my own beliefs, frustrated me. And the ease at which they recite verbatim the talking points of those whom they never bother to question or critique, then call their opponents sheep while ignoring the irony, drives me towards despair. Finally, I begin to doubt my own beliefs, not because they lack evidence or validity, but from exhaustion. 

So, I squandered the time, energy, and focus for tonight's original content on a rant that played out in my mind. A wasted moment. At the very least, I could have written it out. Used it for a future post.

Sigh.

(A "Portrait of a Cossack Woman" by Serhii Vasylkivsky. Why a Cossack woman? Why not. Also, I needed an image.)

I am not certain when I wrote this, though some time in high school sounds about right. It  stemmed from a ninth-grade writing assignment. We had to write the first chapter of a potential novel. Mine was set in Russia, on the edge of a steppe, where three Cossacks--two men and a woman--meet to discuss something. They are ambushed. I believe one of the men, the father of the woman, is killed. The other two flee together. Thus ends my first chapter of what I had hoped would be a work of historical fiction.     

I am beginning to think I should return to it.

Anyway, one day, while thinking about what I had written for that assignment, I also thought about my grandfather, who was a Cossack, fought in two world wars and a revolution, escaped with a much younger woman to the United States, and fathered three daughters, one of whom is my mother. While working in his garden, he had a stroke, and died shortly afterwards. All of that inspired what follows.

Do svidaniya, Deda

(Goodbye, Grandfather)

    He stopped and leaned against his scythe. Beads of sweat dribbled from his straw-like gray hair. He wiped them away with his white cotton shirt. With a creased, dirt-stained hand, he tipped back his straw hat, allowing the hot rays of the noon sun to strike his face. He breathed heavily. 

    "Eighty-five years," he whispered to himself in Russian.

    He stood in a large field of light brown wheat. With each dry summer wind, the stalks shook, rippling like waves. From the blue sky, the sun beat down on the field. A lone crow, black wings spread wide, soared overhead. 

    The old man staggered through the field. Reaching the edge, he found a garden filled with trellises covered with grapes. In the entrance stood an arbor. He passed underneath it.

    Sitting there, beneath the shadows of the trellises, a haven from the sun, he spent the entire afternoon picking grapes. He would select one, stare at it, and note its color. Then, his coarse, scarred fingers would caress the smooth, moist skin. He would place the grape on the tip of his tongue. Closing his mouth around the grape, he allowed his teeth and tongue to squeeze out the sweet juices. Finally, slowly and carefully, he swallowed. He would stand there and sigh, waiting for some time before choosing another one. This ritual went on for three hours.

    "Eighty-five years," he whispered to himself in Russian.

    When he finished eating the grapes, he sat down on the dark, loose soil of the garden, and smiled. Beyond the shadows of the trellises and arbor, a dry wind continued to frolic in the wheat fields. The sun still bore down, but lower in the sky. In the woods, on the opposite side of the fields, playful screams rose and fell as figures ran among the stout trees. A bell rang for supper. Voices called to each other. In time, silence returned to the area.

    "Eighty-five years," he whispered to himself in Russian.

    A tear trickled down his wrinkled cheek, a sigh escaped his cracking lips, and a smile spread across his drooping face. The old man shut his eyes. Three days later they buried him in a grave beneath cloudy skies between the wheat fields and the garden of grapes.