It's me, Dmitriy

There was a time when I was still sane without Avraam, Lior, and many other voices that I am yet unable to identify the names of in my head. I was young, the age of 16 to be precise, when my journey to "the state," as they call it, or Israel, began. It was a sunny morning, and my mom and my girlfriend were by my side at the airport of Kyiv, "Borispyl." The airport was vast and built solely of glass and steel. The hallways were big yet not too big to lose oneself; the organization of the airport was neat and clear. We were standing at the boarding area of the second floor right before departure, where you can still hug your relatives and friends before departing from them to passport control. My girlfriend was my exact age, maybe a bit younger; it didn't matter. I can't recall right now when her birthday was. She was short, shorter than average, and so was I, so it didn't matter to me either. I thought, like many other boys, that shorties are cute. She had short black hair. She was thin, thin as boys like, yet she thought of herself as too thin and always wanted to gain some, as it seemed to me, unnecessary weight. She was always pale, as if the sun never touched her face. She could not afford to go outside without top-notch makeup, and today was no exemption. Her eyelashes were unnaturally long, and her thick black eyeliners were spread from the eyes almost to her temples. We were standing in a row at the boarding desk when she hugged me. It was cute and sad simultaneously, almost as if I were to depart without return, although we both knew it was not true. We had already planned my winter vacation in Ukraine. - So this is it? - she said sadly. - No, you, you know it is not. You know I'm planning to return this winter. - It's a long time, she said with her wet eyes. I can't say if I can bear it. - I know you can. Half a year is nothing to worry about; time will fly by without your notice. She smiled indifferently as if these words didn't bear any meaning. She was always like that. She was prone to smile or cry, yet untouchable by insignificant things. The things I could say were insignificant, and I was departing for a long time which was significant. We strolled onwards in a row of awaiting passengers, and my mother held my hand as if to ask a question that did not follow. > Could be readen on her smiling face. She was happy, yet that happiness was stirred with grief in a cocktail of raw emotions that swarmed her face. It was a kaleidoscope; sometimes, she was too proud of me to admit that it was a hard decision for us to take, and sometimes, she was too saddened by my departure to admire the new horizons the repatriation could open for me. She could not yet foresee that she would accompany me in my journey in the following years. The flight was calm; there was no turbulanсу along the way. I met my guide at the vast halls of the "Ben Gurion" airport. I had two big suitcases as if I were simultaneously moving all my belongings from Ukraine. There was even a tuxedo that I had no occasion to wear even once in Israel since it was always too hot for that, and I had no luxury to attend any special events requiring such an outfit. The guide's name was Leonid, a short, bulky man in his twenties. He wore a shirt with short sleeves and shorts quite fitting for the weather. Although the flight arrived at night, it was pretty hot outside since it was the end of August, and it is always hot in summer here. A couple of students were already gathering around him from Moscow. There was a boy and a girl, and I didn't have the opportunity to see the girl's face at our first meeting since it was dark, even at the airport, as if the lights were dimmed to prevent the harm it may do to my sick eyes. I was suffering from astigmatism, which meant the lights were spreading into thin lines from their sources, causing my eyes to wet or sometimes making me cry. The boy was tall and thin, quite handsome for a Russian who was often stigmatized for having round ugly faces. His face was bearded and oval, and his eyelashes were significantly long to make his face stand out from the crowd. - Hello, hello, - said the guide charmingly. We shook our hands. I never knew how to approach people, so I said nothing. We walked through the vast hall of the arrival area so quickly that I could not remember how it looked, and because the lights were dimmed, there was nothing that my eyes could catch during the walk. We headed for the car, a big offroad truck, which initially surprised me. The girl took the front seat and, using the darkness and the charms of her high-pitched voice, started flirting with the guide and occasionally made remarks on her life in Moscow. At first, we took ordinary flat roads of the city streets, but then the highway surprised us with the sandy landscapes of the desert. I knew we were set to live in the desert for a year, yet its sights stunned me initially. The road was pretty bumped with big holes, and that's when I realized why we were using a truck for our journey. The place was desolate, to say the least; we road past a military base seen only by the lights it was emitting. There was no city, no village apart from the one we were heading towards. There was nothing of green; the only colors my eyes could see were the yellow color of the sand and the black of the darkness of the night. We arrived at the small camp called "Nizana." It was a small student village with tiny one-floor houses. That was the time I finally saw what the girl looked like. It was quite a saddening look; the charm of unknowing her disappeared. Her face was a bit deformed as if she was a victim of occasional beating in her childhood. She had tilted horse-like teeth; disgust quickly overwhelmed me and everyone from the car. It seemed that no one was willing to speak to her anymore. Yet she insisted on keeping the chat we started in the car. She kept spitting names of the streets that had no meaning to me since I was from a small town in Ukraine and knew nothing about Moscow. We quickly dispersed to the houses we were assigned to. That was one day before the repatriation program was set to start. Three other boys already inhabited the house, and one of them met me on the house's veranda since he was smoking and saw me coming. He was tall and thin, thin as if he was from Aushwitch; he always said so about himself. He often showed his rib cage to others, and it was funny, at least to him. He was an orphan, and both of his parents died from alcoholism. He told me he was an orphan; his parents died from alcoholism. He called himself Batman as if trying to defend himself with jokes. He showed me my room, and that was the end of the day. The next day we had a meeting at the bunker; it was the only place with wifi there. The guide told us about the program; the schedule of the working days. We were supposed to study Hebrew four days a week since Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays were our day-offs. Then he showed us the canteen, a big one-floor building with a vast hall and small kitchens. There I had my first breakfast in Israel. That was an omelet with a cup of milk. I was sitting in the company of my roommates, who were also having omelets since there was nothing else edible for breakfast apart from it and some yogurts. As we headed for the house again, I saw some stray cats and tried to approach them to pet them. They were wild and didn't let me pet them. One was ginger, the other one grayish with black stripes along its back. It was fascinating how they ended up in such a desolate place like our student camp, a long road from the nearest city of BeerSheba. It was almost an hour trip from there. At home, we met with the girls who lived in the nearest house to us. They were of our age ranging from sixteen to eighteen years old. And one of them told me that she saw the future and I might die from stomach cancer, although I did not smoke back then. We played card games and told each other who came from which place, sharing memories of our previous experiences. I told them that I was a dancer and a ski fanatic. The other girl was a gymnast and showed us some cool tricks she knew. She hung on the crossbar face down and made a split spinning her body in circles. She was a pole dancer, actually. Batman joked she was a stripper when they left. Afterward, there was nothing to do apart from going to the pool. And the pool was nice. It was colossal, blue, and clean. The place was calm, although it was swarmed by the students like us. The sunbeds were all occupied, so I took a chair and placed my belongings there. While swimming, I lost my golden cross there, but a guy who went by Vlodymyr saved it. He was a swimmer. He dived and found the cross and returned it to me. We chatted for a bit about the cross. It was surprising to him to see me wear a cross since we were Jews; at least, that's for whom the program was planned. I explained that my father was a Jew and my mother was Christian. I still held some religious beliefs back then. On the following day, the studies started. We were welcomed by our charming teachers at our small one-floor barracks. Everything consisted of barracks in the schooling area. Even the teachers' offices were barracks resembling a green cargo train wagon. The teaching was primarily in Hebrew, although we knew nothing of it. We managed to communicate with some English and gestures. It was a peculiar technique, as the teacher explained to me afterward. It was supposed to expose the students to Hebrew from the starters in order to facilitate learning. It seemed as if I was sinking into misunderstandings, yet we were lucky to have some students that had already known some Hebrew, so they helped everyone on their journey. They translated some phrases they already knew and helped us learn the alphabet too. And that's how the days went by. We were constantly learning. We were studying at school and doing our homework at home. Since there was no internet at home, there was little else we could do there. Our first trip was to the community of refugees nearby. They were living in tents, and the main attraction was the trip to the desert. We spent hours walking the area around the camp finding exceptional nothingness. Then we sat under some dry trees writing our wishes for the year. I wrote that I wanted to continue loving my girlfriend and learn Hebrew as much as possible. There was nothing wild in my head to write about. It was empty like the desert itself. It seemed that nothing would change, and I would be stuck at the students' camp forever, and I'll stay there as the guide for new students. We returned to the refugee camp and had a meal for the night. It was a pita with hummus. We slept in the tents prepared solely for the students. Some of the students snuck some weed into the tents. I yet was too much of a good boy to participate in this. The guides seemed to know about this yet decided to do nothing. There's nothing much to tell about the studies; time passed without notice. Every day was almost identical to the other. Once, one guy sprayed pepper spray into our vent, forcing us to evacuate from the house. There was also a guy who cheated seventeen times on his girlfriend that stayed in Ukraine. There was an occasion when I had a fight with one boy, the same one who sprayed the spray, yet the guides and the students were fast enough to split us. As a joke, he grabbed me from behind and didn't let me go. Cruel games that boys sometimes play on each other. I hit his forehead with the back of my head to make him let me go, and so it ended. There was also a girl who liked how I sang songs at my place, so we had a short chat. Yet I was too loyal to cheat on my girlfriend; she also had a boyfriend who visited her once. As he said, "I've come to f**k her." The winter vacations started with some boarding problems. The guards stopped me and my friends at the airport for some inquiries. They asked me where I was from and why my passport had a Malaysian stamp. I was shocked, yet the investigation wasn't long; it was five minutes. My friends waited loyally for me, and we continued our journey through the airport. The flight was short; again, it was only a two-three hour flight. The winter sight of Kyiv was stunning. It was bizarre to see the snow after half a year spent in Israel, where snow does not fall in winter. My girlfriend met me at the airport, and we went to her place where she lived with her parents. The apartment consisted of three ordinary-spaced rooms. The hall was decorated with old-fashioned carpets on the floors and the walls. There were cabinets of glass holding glass plates and cups. We sat for dinner with her parents, and that's how they first met me. Her father was a tall, thin, beardless man. He was surprised that I had flown back to meet my girlfriend. Long-distance relationships were something new for them. We chatted about my life in Israel, the camp, and my studies. He did not allow us to sleep with my girlfriend, so his wife had prepared a separate room for me. Yet we ended up sleeping in the same room that night. My girlfriend asked me to come via the phone, and I snuck into her room while everyone was sleeping. The next day we headed to the post office to collect some stuff she had bought online. It was nothing, some tools for her makeup. The row was long, and we were late for dinner with her parents. She tried to force me to do nothing, and I told the worker we were late. She ignored my request to serve us first, and we waited as everyone else. My girlfriend was pissed off. - You should do something, - she said to me. - There's nothing I could do, - I said, - We can't cut in like it is nothing; the other people are also waiting for their shipping. - The parents are going to be pissed. They do not expect us to be late; they expect us to come when my cousin comes home. - It is nothing; I think your cousin is a good enough distraction for them. We finally got her package and went to the metro to take us home. The Kyiv metro was a prominent place with wide halls. The metro train was packed, and there was nowhere to sit, so we stood hanging our hands on the crossbars. She hugged me briefly, although she was still pissed we were late. The parents were not pissed at all. They didn't even notice us coming since her cousin came first and started telling them how her studies at the university went. She was a student of an advertising major. Her job was to create short films; ads for the Internet, and she worked as a consultant for the online store. We drank a lot of wine at dinner, so everyone was a bit drunk afterward. She told us she was skipping lots of lessons because of her drinking problems when we went for a walk without their parents. Yet she was fine; no one had a grudge against her at the university, and her grades were good. We strolled down the snowing streets of winter Kyiv as if it was nothing since the roads were cleaned from the snow and sprinkled with sand, and only some icy roads were of some difficulty to transcend. Her sister also told us about the projects; she had deadlines pretty soon and needed to figure out how to complete them without grouping with someone from the course. Or she could do just that. Grouping up with someone to complete complex projects was often allowed. So it was also a valid option for her, so I reassured her. After a couple of days, we went to my small town, to my mother. My mother had no reason to meet me at the airport since I had been staying in Kyiv for a week anyway. We took a ride by bus, and it was a long road. The bus was intercity, and it was grand. It was blue and had many seats where we could sleep comfortably on our way to Yuzhnoukrainsk. The bus was half empty, so it was not buzzy. It was a calm long ride. We enjoyed the sights of the snowy fields along the way. Nature is beautiful at this period of time. The winter covered everything in snow, the areas, the trees, the roads, everything. One could take a bit of snow in one's hand and see the small paintings of the snowflakes. There were occasional stops for the restrooms, which were horrible. It was just a muddy hole instead of a proper toilet where you can not sit, only squat. When we finally arrived at the bus station in my small town, we took a taxi since it was already late and my girlfriend and I had three suitcases; one big for me and two small for her. My mother was glad to see me and a bit bitter to see my girlfriend because she always felt jealous of her, as if she was taking too much time off of mine and not letting us chat without her. My girlfriend was always energetic, so she grabbed all of my attention toward her. She didn't even let me watch anything on the Internet except for the pictures of cats on i********: and movies we watched and laughed at together. She wanted to be physically and mentally connected to me, and at and at times it was a bit wearing. Time went by; we had a couple of meetings with my friends who happened to be in town. At one such meeting, we met my school friend Julia, who studied at the School of Arts in Kyiv. She had a dream of becoming a singer, yet she smoked. And she smoked a lot. She told us she was using honey to compensate for her bad habit. We ordered lots of tequila shots and some fried chips. The time passed, and in the present day, I was a twenty-three years old soldier at the recruitment center. I woke up alone in the tiny apartment that I rented. I had a cigarette or two before I started my day. I had already ditched my long-distance relationship with my girlfriend over a dispute about who cheats on whom. She was clearly cheating on me because she posted photos with the new guy the day we split. I was preparing my breakfast, consisting solely of two chicken slices, when the voice from the other building that was in front of mine screamed: - You should eat more vegetables, it is not good for your health. I was surprised at how one could see what I was preparing my meals from the other building. > I thought. The voice multiplied and persisted in talking to me while I was watching some videos on youtube. - Look what a childish boy he is, - said one of the male voices. I started chatting with them, and they told me it was a love game and I was in some show. They talked with me about the girls I liked and proposed ideas for approaching them. And I participated in the craziest one. We planned that I send her a box full of roses' leaves. Yet there were no delivery services at the place she lived at. So I decided to take on a journey personally. I planned to deliver the box by myself. It was a long road, at least an hour and a half. On one of the buses, the voices called me to get off because they saw the girl on the streets. So I did that and stalked a group of girls until I saw it was not her. They were just schoolgirls. Yet I recalled that my vision was not great and tried futilely to stalk them again, but there was no sight of them; they had already disappeared, and I could not find them. I was ashamed and disappointed. I returned to the nearest bus station and waited half an hour for the bus to take me to her place. Yet when I finally got there, I quickly returned to reality; although the voices encouraged me to persist, I realized that it was a childish move and refused to continue, leaving the box on one of the benches near the building she lived in. Until this day, I do not know who received the flowers. My friends picked me up from the highway near her small town, and I told them I was acting in a film. They said I was nuts. The next peculiar occasion of voices hardly interfering in my life happened on a day when I was at my father's place. It was deep at night when the voices said that I had a blood clot in my head. It seemed as if I saw a long small pipe connected to my head. The voices said they were going to kill me with the blood clot. I ordered an ambulance. The paramedics came fast and took me by my hands to the ambulance. It was a short walk, yet I moved cautiously since I was shocked and afraid of making fast movements. When we entered the ambulance, I took a seat, and the agent said: - If we are not killing him right now, I'm going to suicide. - So shoot yourself, - I screamed. Then I heard the noise of a firing gun; he killed himself. - Oi, - said the other voice, presumably another agent and his girlfriend, and I heard another gunshot. The paramedics were shocked to witness me saying such words since they had heard nothing. The voices belonged only to my head. Then came the voice of my friend: - What have you done? - he screamed. It was a long ride, I was simultaneously terrified and satisfied after what I did, and when we finally arrived at the hospital, some voices told me I should run because the police were chasing me. I tried to hide behind the backs of the medical personnel there. It was a long time for me to wait for a psychiatrist. And every second, I was frightened that somebody was going after me. The voices didn't stop telling me about the consequences. - You are going to sit in prison all your life,- one said. - The police are going to kill you,- said the other agent. - We are going to let you run for your life in the fields like in the films, " joked another. Finally, a nurse took me to the emergency psychiatrist's room. It was an organization of a couple of rooms behind two closed doors that opened only after calling the guard via a communication device on the wall near the door. The guard opened the two doors, and I came in. He had a gun on his heap. - He is gonna kill you," said one of the voices. And I was terrified of the man. The man was bulky, and I estimated I could not overpower him in confrontation. So with all my fears, I resisted the intention to start a fight with him. I was still afraid of him, although he just stood there and only asked me to check my belongings. I emptied my pockets, and to my surprise, nothing followed. He had no intention of killing me. I was still nervous and asked him a couple of times if I could go, but he said I could not. I must see a psychiatrist first. That made me even more nervous. Finally, in ten minutes, the psychiatrist called me to enter his room. He was a tall man in his thirties and was very calm and patient. And he needed as much patience as he had. - If you don't scream that you killed two police officers and sucked his d**k, we will kill you right now; the guard is going to end you,- said one of the voices. And so I screamed: - I killed two police officers and sucked his d**k. The psychiatrist didn't seem to care at all. - What kind of medications are you currently taking?- he asked. The voice in my head persisted that I should not stop screaming. - I killed two police officers and sucked his d**k,- I screamed again before answering the question. - I do not recall the name of the pills. It should be written down there somewhere. The psychiatrist looked at my medical profile on his computer and asked me questions again. - What are the feelings you are suffering from? - I suffer from OCD,- I said. - I have repeatedly emerging sexualized pictures in my head of people that I know. - You should stay at the hospital for the night,- the psychiatrist said. Yet I had none of that. - I'm gonna go back home to my father,- I said. The doctor tried to convince me several times that I should stay, yet I was too reluctant to stay. - It is your choice, after all, he said. And so I exited his room, saw the terrifying guard, and exited the two closed doors to freedom. I ordered a taxi and got back home. The voices still tried to frighten me afterward, yet I knew that no one was coming after me.