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the archive(s):
issue no. 6:
Morning Glory/ Ilya Zaychik
There's a word in Russian that doesn't quite translate into English. A word, perhaps, that pertains specifically to the harsh and brutal history of Russia. The word is toská. It is approximated by days like this: cold, a steady rain falling turning leaves into a brown amorphous mush, not unlike the consistency of cereal when neglected in milk. The trees are bare, between winter and spring, disgusting snow-slush ready to make way for pretty flowers. But not without days like this first. When the gray, wet rhythm of the sky pounds away at black metal staircases, tin cans, and anything else it can get its hands on. The cars passing through puddles make their contribution to the soundscape, splashing by every so often, rounding out the song. It is a day of toská. Toská is waking up to no sunshine, no lights on in the apartment and cleaning up after last night's party. Every beer bottle emptied into the toilet‹sounding like water tumbling out of a long slide into a pool, a sudden, deep splush! then nothing‹weighs a little more than one expects.
I move lethargically this morning, finally getting all the beers in the cases, putting them outside with mementos of other parties (to be redeemed for the benefit of another, greater party). Dan and I clean up the apartment, windex, sweep, scrub, and make breakfast. But there is toská. It is dull and slow and heavy. It is raising expectations too high, reminiscing too much, it is smoking deliberate cigarettes in the doorway, looking out onto a slippery back yard, imagining that this gloomy day is more fitting to Warsaw, as I remember it, with its rough, squat-gray, USSR, two-story block complexes, painfully utilitarian and demoralizing. Toská is repeated, prolonged sighs, a melancholy déjŕ vu that can't be shaken off with a simple, 'whoa, that's weird.' It's a specific sadness, an attempt to recapture moments long gone and a quiet dread of such moments in the future. It is memories too strong to draw out and make sense of, just inescapable vignettes of the last time it rained like this and I was waking up at midday with my girlfriend, warmed by each other, lazily, smoking cigarettes and playing backgammon till dinnertime, blowing off all my work. Then it was nice and slow, and sure we were a little depressed by the weather but we kept the doors and windows closed, made hot chocolate and talked quietly, keeping our bones and tips of our noses warm. This is what I am reminded of now, those exact moments, this exact weather, back in October of last year. I don't know a word for that day then, in Russian. I only know toská.
Axel comes over to get his boots and socks and stays for breakfast. We joke, throw ketchup packets at each other, but I cannot unburden myself, or get warm. Axel and I sit at the kitchen table, with the door open.
"What's wrong, Zed?"
"I don't know, man. I just wanted a party like Snoop Dogg's. I knew it wasn't going to happen, but in the back of mind, I was hoping it would. You know, bitches and hos, people playing dominos with blunts in their visors, my momma comin' home at 6 in the morning, but the party still jumpin'."
"Well it was a good party."
"Yeah, I had fun, no doubt, but‹." I did. I remember the fun. But I had plans, schemes, plots that didn't come off perfectly. I was pining for a music video, and now, the morning after, I have just home movie reruns and this...this weight. Toská.
"But what, Zed? Do you think Snoop Dogg is happy?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
The phone rings.
'Hello...Hey man, what's up...I'm alright, you know, post-party blues...oh yeah? I know, man, it's this weather, it's really crushing me...how was it? Just alright?...yeah, I hear ya, you always get let down in a way...I know, I know, there's somethin' missin' in the mornings. There's an exact word for it in Russian, that feeling...nah man, I'm just chillin' at home, I got a lot of work to do...yeah maybe later, but around like 11 or so, no earlier...yeah, I'll give you a call, fo' sho'...alright, peace. Don't let that shit get you down...thanks, you too...alright bye.'
"Who was that," Axel asks.
"Snoop Dogg. He's not happy."
"I told you."
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