That was probably the look the Gorgon used on her victims the first and the last time – clear, cold, stony. There is a type of fear that makes you run away, but the fear we felt at that moment was totally different. We were all petrified, not only in our bones but also in our minds. Afterwards, I kept coming back to that moment, trying to understand why no one had taken a step forward but it was obvious why. We were scared out of our wits. We were weak. We were selfish.
An ominous, almost tangible silence reigned in the hall. Adoter spoke in a whisper, but everybody could hear her quite distinctly:
“Doesn’t anyone want to support Alexander? Are all you others happy? Doesn’t anyone want to complain about anything?”
Sasha was sitting in his wheelchair with his head down, paying no attention to her words.
“Do you see, Alexander, what I see,” Adoter said and haughtily raised her exquisitely shaped eyebrows. “You are all alone, just an upstart who is impossible to please. For your actions you deserve to be publicly shamed and reproved. From now on you are to be ostracized; anyone who starts talking to you will be punished. I will personally supervise any punishment that needs to be administered. Did everyone hear that?”
All the kids nodded in unison; their eyes bent on the ground and hands by their sides.
“Excellent. Now you can all bear witness to how opposition to rules and the established order leads to destruction and personal mishap,” she said somewhat loftily, beginning her dreadful conclusion. “Ten days in the isolation cell. And this punishment awaits anyone who dares talk to him,” she concluded raising her voice somewhat. “All dismissed!”
In the isolation cell Sasha spent only seven days of his “term”. He fell severely ill and was urgently transferred to the hospital room. I was eager to see him again and we paid him a visit as soon as possible. He lay absolutely still, with his face turned towards the wall, and examined spots on its white surface, but once we greeted him, he jumped off his bed like a spring, using his hands only. He was extremely surprised to see us.
“You must not talk to me. Go away; I don’t want you to be punished.”
We didn’t expect to be reproved.
“We’ve brought you your favorite books,” I mumbled for no good reason and put the books on his bedside table. “I am sorry for not supporting you before the principal. And now we don’t care if they punish us. You did the right thing and we were being cowards.”
“I was extremely foolish. It is too late to change anything; all that is left is regret. I am a fool; I was so high-minded, thinking I could change things with desire and will. Whoever believes those silly books with their ideals, all that lofty nonsense, they’re idiots. They believe a total lie. It doesn’t happen in real life.”
He grabbed a book at random and started tearing pages out of it, scattering them around the room. We impulsively dashed to him and hugged him, but he pushed us away, and shouted:
“Leave me alone, get out, go away!”
It was evident that he had suffered and was suffering immensely. Terrified, we moved back and then broke into a run without looking back. Our hearts were beating madly, we were out of breath, running into our room, and our strength gave out. Should I mention the anguish that crushed me? I sobbed at the top of my voice till I was blue in the face, and you, next to me, seemed to be drowning in depression. I can still see the scene: we are rushing along the corridor and behind us Sasha is tearing the rest of his books. Since then I have realized that he and I could never be together, but why does that dreadful end live on in my memory to be repeated in painful drabness?
A week later, his hands started trembling severely, his face turned pale, his eyes faded, and the top of his left eye twitched. He looked much older; he was withering away.
“He seems to have been poisoned. They must have given him some pills or shots that make him weak-minded,” I sobbed, sharing my guess with you. “If they keep doing that, he will soon turn into an idiot.”
You nodded in agreement:
“I think we need to talk to him before it’s too late.”
We found him sitting by the window. This time he was absentmindedly examining the frosty patterns on the windowpane.
“Sasha,” I started as calmly as I could, hardly quietening my shiver, “just look at yourself; they are really trying to poison you; you could end up in a bad way!”
“I don’t care,” he said droopingly, without taking his eyes off the window and weirdly wringing his hands. “They do what they have to do; the system destroys everyone who tries to overturn it. It is a general rule.”
“No,” I cried, “humiliation and low acts must not become the norm. You ought to fight.”
“They will kill you,” you interrupted.
“It’s OK,” he answered and smiled ironically. “I must be grateful to the killing knife for being so sharp.”
“But you can’t give up just like this,” I nearly cried. “You have to live.”
“For the sake of what and for whom?” he asked with a kind of furious hopelessness. “Perhaps for the sake of my mother who left me to the mercy of fate? I have written her dozens of letters and still get no answer.”
“They open all the letters before sending them and, maybe, they did not send yours at all.” I tried to help him, grasping at any chance, wanting to motivate him. “They always act this way: push those who are falling. And in the end I need you.”
Why did I add this? Was it because it was the truth I could not conceal, the truth that always looks for a way out? Or was there something more behind it? Maybe someone’s unreason can only be remedied with new unreason? But Sasha wasn’t listening…
“Certainly, in my letters I was only saying what a great time I was having here and how good everything was. Could I possibly tell her the truth about what was actually going on here?” he responded with irritation. “Why any opposition, why any change, when nobody cares, just like my own mother who doesn’t care about me?”
We spent a little more time with him, but he didn’t say anything else, just waited for us to go away.
Why didn’t I fight for him? Can my apathy be called treachery? What would Sasha have done if he was me? Would he have neglected his own personal safety? Would he have turned away or fought? I think I know the answer. It’s obvious. But, for now, I realized Sasha was flying so high above us that when he did fall, he fell below everybody else. Seemingly a paradox, but true. To be precise, he was merely knocked down. And we, none of us, did anything to protect or support him. With everybody’s silent acquiescence, the best were eliminated in order to let the worst carry on. We were responsible for our own decay. We were the worst. That is how I saw it.
You usually lose your dearest people long before their deaths. For three more long weeks he stirred the minds of in the residents of the foster home because everybody noticed the changes in his personality, but at the beginning of March, Sasha got transferred to a mental home. As a strange coincidence, from that day the radio station stopped broadcasting the national anthem which accompanied the awakening of a great nation every morning. But almost no one noticed it, and the foster home continued living its usual, meaningless life. Sasha’s mother had never come once to visit him.
Is there an alarm clock to wake one’s conscience? And who knows the exact time when it is going to go off? Sometimes a person planning to commit a crime gets caught up in the passion of the deed, but afterwards, he or she can’t bear the pangs of conscience. Death follows.