Short story by Ivan Zoric
Healing Magic
Here’s how you die.
You walk twenty miles a day, with nothing in your stomach but water and undissolved sleeping pills and you come back to an empty condo, carrying a tired dog in your arms as even he can't keep up with your pace of unmaking yourself. You crash on the floor, exhausted but still feeling like you have not put enough distance between sleep and the pain.
In the morning, you drink the two-day old coffee and look at yourself in the mirror. A hundred and fifty pounds of malnourished defeat staring at you like a guru, ascetic and ready to sell you a shitpile of new age philosophy. Except, you got nothing to sell. You ain't shit. Say it. Repeat it. Believe it. She certainly did.
There is no one to blame, really. A lack of communication is a two way street, each leading into a dead end. Sometimes we figure it out right away, sometimes we don’t. It’s hard to walk away. It’s how you leave that matters. Do not leave any ghosts behind.
It was sterile as it could be. A clean cut all the way through, relationship severed and bandaged before we even had a chance to bleed. And I wanted to bleed so bad. I needed to bleed to heal. It was my grandpa’s way. It was Healing Magic.
*
The first time I heard those words I was seven. I used to be a daredevil as a kid and knew how to climb every tree, every fence in the neighborhood. In time, those became too familiar, too predictable so I developed another obsession. Climbing roofs. Something changes in you when you realize pathways can be vertical, too. Not every dusty road leads straight, and I was an eager vagabond.
I stuck that landing a hundred times before. It was a simple five-foot drop of the side of grandma’s kitchen roof, with a carpet of grass at the bottom. Jump, land, roll. Only, that time, I messed up the second step and ankle rolled to the side. The pain was unlike anything I experienced before. I cried. A lot.
The only thing my grandma said was: "Good. You’ll be jumping less now." No empathy, no comfort in those words. Hers was the old world, one without time for foolishness and feelings. It took me years to reconcile that, in her own way, she still meant well.
My grandpa belonged to a different realm. Maybe it’s because World War II taught him about the world and cruelty. Maybe he was this way all along, even before the trenches. I don’t know, he never talked much about childhood. All I know is that he was there after grandma, holding my hand and talking in soft voice.
"It looks bad, but it’s not broken. It’s just a sprain. Does it hurt?" he asked. I nodded through tears.
"That is fine," he said. "It needs to hurt first, so it can heal. You know why? Because it’s kind of a magic. A Healing Magic. The more we hurt, the more we bleed, the better we heal."
He carried me inside then and made me white coffee and iced my ankle. It hurt, and I pretended it hurt even more because I wanted to heal extra fast for him. I believed his words.
*
Here’s how you live.
Do not become numb. It’s the soul killer. It freezes you in cryogenic capsule of indifference, without a way out. Whatever the hurt, whatever pain you are experiencing, do not let yourself get to the point you stop caring. Own your misery as it is your dusty path towards the light. You have to hurt to heal. It’s our magic.
So, how do you heal, then, when your heart is broken so fast you can’t even feel the pain?
How was I to ever to be whole again, if I did not feel broken in a first place?
It came to me, then. There were so many painful moments in my life, so many landings I never stuck, all I had to do is look back. Like a snowflake to start the avalanche, just sit on the floor in the middle of an empty condo and remember. Let myself break.
And I did. Quiet at first, a hairline fracture here and there, picking up on those small tragedies that left me feeling defeated. Stronger then, jackhammering through numbness with all of the memories of grief, of broken heart.
I broke, as the wind howled outside, bringing another flashflood to Vegas. I broke and found myself again.
*
Four years have passed since then. I am myself again, whole and in love.
I am not afraid anymore, I don’t think I’ll ever be. I have my grandpa’s wisdom with me.
It’s my charm against numbness. As long as there’s blood in me to be spilled I am fine.
It’s the Healing Magic.
Here’s how you die.
You walk twenty miles a day, with nothing in your stomach but water and undissolved sleeping pills and you come back to an empty condo, carrying a tired dog in your arms as even he can't keep up with your pace of unmaking yourself. You crash on the floor, exhausted but still feeling like you have not put enough distance between sleep and the pain.
In the morning, you drink the two-day old coffee and look at yourself in the mirror. A hundred and fifty pounds of malnourished defeat staring at you like a guru, ascetic and ready to sell you a shitpile of new age philosophy. Except, you got nothing to sell. You ain't shit. Say it. Repeat it. Believe it. She certainly did.
There is no one to blame, really. A lack of communication is a two way street, each leading into a dead end. Sometimes we figure it out right away, sometimes we don’t. It’s hard to walk away. It’s how you leave that matters. Do not leave any ghosts behind.
It was sterile as it could be. A clean cut all the way through, relationship severed and bandaged before we even had a chance to bleed. And I wanted to bleed so bad. I needed to bleed to heal. It was my grandpa’s way. It was Healing Magic.
*
The first time I heard those words I was seven. I used to be a daredevil as a kid and knew how to climb every tree, every fence in the neighborhood. In time, those became too familiar, too predictable so I developed another obsession. Climbing roofs. Something changes in you when you realize pathways can be vertical, too. Not every dusty road leads straight, and I was an eager vagabond.
I stuck that landing a hundred times before. It was a simple five-foot drop of the side of grandma’s kitchen roof, with a carpet of grass at the bottom. Jump, land, roll. Only, that time, I messed up the second step and ankle rolled to the side. The pain was unlike anything I experienced before. I cried. A lot.
The only thing my grandma said was: "Good. You’ll be jumping less now." No empathy, no comfort in those words. Hers was the old world, one without time for foolishness and feelings. It took me years to reconcile that, in her own way, she still meant well.
My grandpa belonged to a different realm. Maybe it’s because World War II taught him about the world and cruelty. Maybe he was this way all along, even before the trenches. I don’t know, he never talked much about childhood. All I know is that he was there after grandma, holding my hand and talking in soft voice.
"It looks bad, but it’s not broken. It’s just a sprain. Does it hurt?" he asked. I nodded through tears.
"That is fine," he said. "It needs to hurt first, so it can heal. You know why? Because it’s kind of a magic. A Healing Magic. The more we hurt, the more we bleed, the better we heal."
He carried me inside then and made me white coffee and iced my ankle. It hurt, and I pretended it hurt even more because I wanted to heal extra fast for him. I believed his words.
*
Here’s how you live.
Do not become numb. It’s the soul killer. It freezes you in cryogenic capsule of indifference, without a way out. Whatever the hurt, whatever pain you are experiencing, do not let yourself get to the point you stop caring. Own your misery as it is your dusty path towards the light. You have to hurt to heal. It’s our magic.
So, how do you heal, then, when your heart is broken so fast you can’t even feel the pain?
How was I to ever to be whole again, if I did not feel broken in a first place?
It came to me, then. There were so many painful moments in my life, so many landings I never stuck, all I had to do is look back. Like a snowflake to start the avalanche, just sit on the floor in the middle of an empty condo and remember. Let myself break.
And I did. Quiet at first, a hairline fracture here and there, picking up on those small tragedies that left me feeling defeated. Stronger then, jackhammering through numbness with all of the memories of grief, of broken heart.
I broke, as the wind howled outside, bringing another flashflood to Vegas. I broke and found myself again.
*
Four years have passed since then. I am myself again, whole and in love.
I am not afraid anymore, I don’t think I’ll ever be. I have my grandpa’s wisdom with me.
It’s my charm against numbness. As long as there’s blood in me to be spilled I am fine.
It’s the Healing Magic.
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Ivan Zoric lives in Portland, Oregon, after successfully navigating through the treacherous waters of childhood in Serbia. He spends his days dreaming about owls, Corner Worlds and immortality.
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