For Colton...
by Remoy Philip
The weight of my eyes were blinded open by the morning sunlight glistening off of the frost that had settled on the concrete that was my seat. I had been sitting against Andreev's publishing house for a couple hours and was escaping the frigid winter air by trapping my own body's warmth against the cold red brick. An hour earlier four blank box trucks had quietly rolled past down the gravel roads of Yalta giving each person in our queue some hope of a better life, at least if it was only for one more week.
Stalin's red army bills had been posted all along the city square walls, but to my juvenile mind, something so politically charged had escaped my mind and was overtaken with my building hunger. As I sat there exasperated, I looked up and down the queue and saw the dilapidation of buildings along with hard broken faces which both had been overshadowed by the communist propaganda which in the end seemed to overshadow us all. I wish it had been more of an abrupt or shall I say, quick change, but for some reason, politics and change aren't so drastic when you are a juvenile, it just is another extension of life that doesn't need to be expounded upon. My mother, God bless her, kept her cracked smile steady along with her daily routine of cleaning and preparing daily meals for her family. Her smile would not be shaken as the size and bulk of our meals would dwindle down from hearty to downright meager. And for this reason, I find myself once again sitting against a frigid wall waiting, and more importantly, hoping to gain a sizable weekly food ration.
Papa had lost hope. Well, at least that is how my eyes defined his demeanor. He would struggle home from days upon days at the coal factory, it still was our home, to spend dinner with his family, but his body was weary and his mind distracted. There were moments though. Good moments. Every so often, when everyone else at the table was caught up in the holes of life's servitude, that I would happen to see his eyes connect with his lover's eyes. My mother's smile, if it were any more possible, would brighten and widen. But then my brother's cracking voice, would break heavenly moments such as these with his frustrations echoing in a jumble of our political ancestors along with lateral allusions to "America." The dankness of the room wasn't enough for him, he had to fill the air with more polluted thoughts of what we "should have" or to what we "had lost." Why couldn't he keep it to himself.
I had heard stories of America. I had. A place where boys and girls played without worry. A land supposedly governed by liberties and open freedoms. A place where parents looked at their families as an heir of glory. A place where people could pick and choose. What a thought. No waiting for the necessary was available to the lucky Americans. The sun must be shining on that world. However as I grow day by day this fairytale is losing it's splendor and power in the spectrum of the reality that chases me now.
There, the whistle blows. I rise to stand alert and ready for the green coated men to tell me what my family needs. The queue begins to slowly shuffle forward. The broken concrete becomes somewhat treacherous with the translucent ice that covers it. I carefully put one foot in front of the other in steady concentration so that I will not fall and loose my place. My mouth bearing the smoke of my burning lungs; lungs not in heat, but in stagnation of the cold air. We move forward and forward. Each one of us, whether young or old, steps forward in the anticipation of the size of this week's ration. It is my only hope. My families only hope.
I wonder if there is queue in the World of Parts. I wonder if the first in line get to choose what reality they get to get as their gift of life or will it be a life hidden in a lump of coal. Maybe there is a Stalinesque god, delineating which life you will get to live. No choice ever. Maybe it's no choice required. I wish for choice. I pray to you Stalin for choice. Please give me choice.
I turn to look behind. The line rocked back and forth as the ones behind me walked slowly and carefully to their predestined means. Heads were low, shoulders were bent, and a chorus of previously inhaled air was exchanged for their comrades pollution. I turned forward and saw how close I was to the goal that my mind had been so sublimely caught up with. Almost there. I'm almost there. Such anticipation like this can squelch any pain. I assure you of that fact. This food would feed my bodies' hunger, but my cerebral thoughts of hope was feeding off the anticipation. The anticipation of more. An anticipation of life that could be, would be, and that should be better. We all are.