Pleased in some vulgar fashion over the shoe’s undignified demise, I walked back to Charles Square. Around me, Prague crooned: bike messengers darting along important routes; troopers of business big and small marching with those shining loafers and heels, one two, one two; children with colorful backpacks skipping their way home from the wisdom and enlightenment of institutions (and what disappointment awaited them!) to the safety of their homes. It was exhilarating, all of it—was existence alone not revolution? Our efforts to establish routines in the nature that forbade them, to understand depths we could never reach, to declare truths even as we collectively snicker at the word’s virginal piousness. What a mess of contradictions the gods created when they graced us with self-awareness. Without it, we could run around the woods like wild boars, dig in the dirt with our snouts to find worms, bugs, seeds, nuts. During breeding season, we could howl like wolves in December, alpha females pawing at the backs and ears of alpha males. We could mate for weeks and then toss aside the burdens of sex for the rest of the year. After this, we could hoard food in underground foxholes and sleep, sleep through Leden, únor, B?ezen, Duben, no have to go to the office grocery shopping oh God is that person looking at me do I have something on my face my shoes are falling apart is North Korea threatening us again my back pains have returned do any massage parlors actually provide handjobs and are they open to servicing women otherwise that is sexism and I’ve had a stomachache for three years now, should I get it checked out but it is fear and stress and what will the doctor prescribe? There, in our underground paradise, shying away from God’s sun and his fucked-up curse of Eden, the cocktease heaven that never comes, we could be like Hanu? and his race, the floating connoisseurs who do not know fear despite the looming threat of Gorompeds.
Alas, we are what we are, and we need the stories, we need the public transportation, the anxiety meds, the television shows by the dozens, the music in bars and restaurants saving us from the terror of silence, the everlasting promise of brown liquor, the bathrooms in national parks, and the political catchphrases we can all shout and stick to our bumpers. We need revolutions. We need anger. How many times will the Old Town of Prague host the people who’ve been slighted bellowing for a change? And are the people truly speaking to the charlatans of Politik, calling to the bone and flesh of their leaders, or is this a disguised plea to the heavens? For fuck’s sake, either give us a hint or let us perish altogether.
I was not a part of the revolution. I was a slogan left on the side of an abandoned building, a mum witness to changes in weather patterns, moods. I was the statue of Jan Hus, with his sharply sculpted cheeks covered in a finely trimmed beard, his spine straight like a king’s and not like a scholar hunched over his books, quietly observing Prague with turmoil in his heart and peace in his soul, both of which conspired to get him killed. I was the work of Hanu?, the ticking timekeeper of the universe, a jester performing his trick dance again and again to fresh hordes of eager visitors. I was the lion of Bohemia drawn within the crest, the dark eagle of Moravia, the crown jewels resting in a display case inside the castle. I was organic matter transformed into a symbol. My existence would forever be a silent statement.
As I passed Old Town, the protesters gathered by the hundreds, loitering around the statue of Saint Wenceslas upon his horse, holding signs condemning T?ma and Zajíc, condemning all men of power sitting in rooms and designing the future of the world, chanting against systems, chanting for change, chanting for hope, and it was still early in the day and I wished that by nighttime the crowd would grow into the thousands, like in the days of the Velvet Revolution, when our nation was so alive that its outcry thundered across the globe, breaking free of the greed and exploitation of men who’d lost themselves. Every single one of these bodies who’d decided to cast aside the ceaseless distractions, who’d decided to put on shoes and take a sign and march around the cobblestones of the nation instead of watching a bit of television, was a single act of revolution, a single particle within the explosion of the Big Bang. I felt confident in leaving the fate of this world in their hands.
I left the revolution behind me. The way horse hooves echo on the cube bricks of the main square. The way languages sing together over beer and coffee with whipped cream. The shivering visitors of the winter markets, their gloves soaked with grog spilling over the edge of a flimsy cup. The excited shouts of boys about to try absinthe ice cream. The bringers of change, actors in their own destinies. Those who love Prague, have always loved Prague, those who stroll every weekend around the same street and project holograms of history onto its physical reality. Those who dream. Those who lean on the statue of Christ crucified and kiss and grope each other with the hunger of dying beasts. Those who hope to die by jumping into the River Vltava, and fail. Those who use the free subway newspaper to wipe the sweat off their brows inside the sweltering train. The massive history, this metropolis of kings, of dictators, of book burning, of bloodstained tanks standing still in indecision. Through it all the city is here, its pleasures small and large cast upon the daily walkers rushing to offices and shops to participate in their habitual existence. They will not quit. God, they’ll never quit, and though I had to leave them, I loved them all the way to hell and back, through peace and through turmoil.
Even the Sun Burns
I RETURNED TO STR?EDA, the village of my ancestors.
The houses that used to thrive had been scarred by winters, their walls cracking open and rooftops sagging. The old distillery was boarded up, gagged, sprayed over with the bawdy truths of graffiti. As the motorcycle engine sliced through the disturbing serenity of the main road, curtains behind windows opened, eyes on the intruder—a man coming home, perhaps, but they had no idea where he’d been. The old convenience store was shuttered and a few houses away a brand-new Hodovna supermarket stood out like an empty plastic bottle in a field of daisies. Ahead, the sky was morose and sable, and the sour smell of an impending rain shower crawled underneath my helmet. The scar on my leg itched, and I could not scratch it.
Half the gate of my home had collapsed and rotted through, a spongy mess of black bugs and dirt. The other half stood tall, faded brown, a welcome memory of my grandfather coughing and cursing as he painted over the judgments cast upon us by our countrymen. I let the Ducati fall into the dirt and stepped over the ruins, into a field of tall grass covering every inch of the front yard, including the sandbox and a tub of green still water. The walls of the house were cloaked in vines and the front doormat was topped with a generous pile of dried cat shit.
The backyard. Feathers and brittle, dull bones of chickens were scattered in the mud. No flesh, no skin, all eaten away by the elements and by felines. Inside the rabbit cages, bits of fur stuck to the ceiling. The coney skeletons recalled Sunday afternoon feasts, haunches and loins slowly roasted with bacon and paprika, with Grandma presiding over the crockpot and muttering to herself, Almost, almost there. Everywhere lay engorged worms, dead gluttons that had reached nirvana, having stuffed themselves with game until they burst and dried out. Mixed with the mud, the remains of the farm had become mush, a porridge that pulled on my shoes like quicksand. The strings on which my grandfather had suspended the rabbits after execution swung in the breeze. I looked closely, marveled at the resilience of the simple material through storms and scorching summers. It had wanted to remain as much as the vestiges of things that used to be alive. The outhouse smelled of nothing at all—the pounds of excrement underneath it had long ago become soil, and perhaps the outhouse could be taken down and the few square meters it occupied turned into a strawberry field. I wished for a cigarette. The piercing smell of my grandfather’s tobacco smoke hit me, as if he were right there puttering around, working and cutting, presiding over his own piece of the world.