сердцевина

зачем ты это сделал? (why did you do this)

ты что опять натворил? (what have you done, again)

i shudder, the salt brine covering my hands, my wrists. the ocean swallowing me.
                   
 he was an echo, etched somewhere deep inside, 
                             carving out a shape.

rugged hands, holding the knife, he grinned, his eyes never serious. nothing was ever serious to him.

 all of life was a game, fitting squarely into the palm of his hand.

“Юль, ну что ты опять плачешь?” he said, and i wiped at my cheeks, my eyes stinging.

salt brine, rugged skin, the smell of черёмуха, floating somewhere in the late, summer air. my father, grinning, peeling the skin of an apple.  i watched as the curved rings fell to the forest floor, 

the ants crawled to it, devouring the flesh.

i blinked and saw my grandfather, skin weathered and strong, brows furrowed as he carved hard, rigid rock into tiny figurines. 

my father outstretched a palm, the peeled apple at its center.

“давай, хватит реветь. съешь яблоко.”

he didn’t know that i was crying because it was only a matter of seconds until he would disappear again.

the grin my father wore shifted into the one my uncle had, and he laughed—belly deep.

i took the apple— bit into its core. 

sweet. 

i bit into a seed. 

and my mouth exploded into bitterness.

he grinned, ruffling my hair.

“kind of like life, isn’t it, малыш?” 

in his eyes, i saw my mother. her hands softly peeling the apple, pursed lips stained crimson. the apple was always hers, right from the beginning.

i watched as he faded, dissolving into a warped, stolen

memory.

 fragmented. 
half-real, half-imagined.

i looked down, the ocean tide pulling me towards its center, 

and,

the apple peel was still there,

                      rotting

             onto the ocean floor.

---

note: a woman reconstructing an absent father from the fragments of people she actually knew.

translation: сердцевина, russian : core