Page 406 of Eternal
When Alexei took my little brother to sleep somewhere else, for his well-being.
And me? What about my well-being? It never really mattered.
My footsteps wake the floorboards, and the memories. The old couch is still there, dirty, worn out, and I drop onto it, automatically.
It’s weird, this feeling…
I feel at home, but not like when I’m with Damir, not that kind of home. This house aches, it reminds me I followed the same path she did. That I started drinking too, started destroying myself with whatever I could find, to make it stop, because thinking hurt too much, because breathing wasn’t enough anymore.
My eyes land on the box under the TV, a broken blue shoebox full of VHS tapes.
I reached out, my fingers trembled a little.
A half-faded label: “Summer 1997- Azra, 7 years old.”
And I want to see it.
Little mehappy. Little me, who didn’t yet know how much life would wreck her a few weeks after this was filmed. I plug in the screen and insert the tape.
Play.
The world flickers, then brightens. And there she is.Mom.
The real one, the one from before, the one I’ll always love, the one I’ll always regret.
We’re in the garden, the irises are beautiful, purple and yellow. I’m running barefoot through the grass, laughing.
She’s laughing too, behind the camera.
“Want me to say it again, my angel?”
“Yes,Mommy… I like that poem. Can you say it again?”
Her voice... It’s like honey, like cotton, like a warm blanket in a cold winter. And yet, I know what comes next. Her voice, ruined by years of vomiting, vocal cords burned out with alcohol.
Near the end, I could barely hear her. A few weeks after this video, my mom disappeared, not physically, but everything else. She became a terrified, exhausted, almost-dead version of herself.
But I didn’t know that back then. I laughed. I smiled.
“You’re the iris of my world, pure and tender, and you have always been my breath.”
And in the background, that music, coming from the house. It didn’t match the poem at all. But I didn’t care. I wanted to hear everything, all at once.
“You’ll never forget that poem, right?”
I nodded, picked a flower from the ground, an iris. And I ran to her, laughing.
I hugged her tight. The camera wobbles, she laughed.
“I promise, Mommy, I won't forget.”
Tears fall silently. Like my sadness has always been mute. And it always was. Alone and mute.
I get up. The video is still playing. I can hear us. I look around the house. The shelves. The table. I see blood stains no one ever cleaned. And then I see it. At the top of the bookshelf. Mom’s favorite poetry collection. Hidden behind a row of books.
That’s when it all comes back. She never let me touch it. Ever. And that night, when we were attacked... She ran here, grabbed that book, held it against her chest. Then she held me. One last time. And she put it back. Exactly there.
I take it, and open it. The screen still flickers in the background. The tape loops.
