"seeds and feathers" by Tanya Rakh

Below these words is a piece by Tanya Rakh, that she wrote on account of a dream. She asked that I post it here. There are several books by Tanya among the links towards the right of the page.

seeds and feathers

to Peter Marra
New York City
Dimension 4

Dear Peter,

I had a dream only you could write. I was trying to rest, and I don’t like dreaming. Too much sweat and trauma.

A theatre, the balcony of a sold-out show. My husband holds me close. I am warm.

The music ends. In the row behind us, an old man stands and gazes through the crowd, his face a shade of wonder. He announces how good it is to feel such warmth and energy, to see so many couples holding each other close.

His family stands beside him, silent. They are ghosts.

He needs to tell us something important. A treasure box of seeds, a vase of incense. He and his wife used to light one incense every night, a token of their love. I don’t remember what he said about the seeds. Small, round grains from a distant land.

I know where to find them. On my knees in a bright green meadow, I gather handfuls of seeds in my palms, scoop them into a small, lacquered box. It’s important that I fit them all. The seeds are overflowing, but I smooth them down and the box holds everything inside.

A dozen incense sticks lie scattered across the grass. Most are the color of dried soil, a few striped like feathers. Ashes of feathers. I gather them into a vase. This is important.

Back home, I sit in the middle of a large, white carpet. My husband is cooking lemon chicken. I want to stop eating animals because I love them, but I haven’t stopped. The flesh is delicious, and my hunger is strong.

The old man used to cook lemon chicken for his family. My husband tells me the man’s recipe was different, an old technique I can’t remember. Meat and vegetables in a thick, yellow syrup. I am collecting piles of seeds from the carpet, trying to remember where I left the incense. There isn’t much time. Dinner is almost ready.

They sit around a table in a sunlit room: the old man, his wife, his daughter, a few other relatives. There is no food, only a bouquet of lavender, yellow, and pink roses, pastel shades of Easter eggs. The man tells us he is 34 but appears much older.

His wife is telling a story, eyes bright and alive. Everyone is listening except the old man. He is restless. He takes the roses from her hands and passes them around the table, one for each person, announcing his gifts. The relatives look uneasy. An uncle protests the interruption, but the old man doesn’t understand. His wife continues her story.

She leaves him that year, when the incense won’t light. He dissolves into rage. After she moves out, he comes to her new home with a gun but is dragged away by the crowd before he can shoot. His daughter watches in horror from the open front door.

I am watching a documentary about Gaza. The footage is seven hours long but I only see the first nine minutes. Dinner is almost ready, and I need to tell them about the treasure box of seeds and vase of incense, but the scene keeps changing.

The daughter loves her little brother very much. She tries to keep him safe. When I arrive, she gives me a grand tour of their house, gracious and cheerful, dressed in pastel cardigans and short blonde hair. I remember the seeds but forget to speak. The vase gathers dust on a bookshelf upstairs. She doesn’t know.

The old man’s new wife has dark hair and a sinister posture. They receive a phone call from a stranger who offers them a box of money for their box of treasure. The old man and his wife argue about the treasure; he can’t remember what it is. I tell him of course it’s the seeds, and the stranger who called is only him, just thinner, angrier. They can’t hear me. They agree to the exchange.

The daughter has embraced a spectre of faith in a blind, fervent prostration. Always hopeful, she tries to convince her family to follow her path. She wants to keep them alive. They roll their eyes and dismiss her. Her mother is not there. Her little brother is a shadow.

The table is set, the new wife in the mother’s place. The daughter’s hair is long and dark. She is quiet now. Her stepmother stands over the table, proud and sinister. She tells the daughter to be careful; she must not let the sewing needle in her sleeve pierce her skin. The daughter does not answer, retreats to her room.

Camera close-up. The girl smiles at the audience, laughs off the hidden needle. She unbuttons her blouse to show us. A belly full of jagged scar tissue, ruins of kitchen knives and lighters. Her breasts a theatre of piercings, sewing needles threaded over, under, through. Nipples nearly gone under cuts and metal bars.

“See?” She grins. “What more could one needle really do?”

A treasure box of ancient seeds. A vase of burnt feathers. I am already forgetting.