The Uke of Vera

Vera…

Born to a communist father, she had big visions for herself to begin with... but raised by a proletariat mother, she was never allowed to keep them.  As an adorable toddler she came tumbling into this world, and an even more beautiful child she became.

Running like an untamed stallion outside the wooden cabin the family called home…  She would fall on the damp grass, arms wide apart… the smell of cocoa leaves and dandelions… the candied taste of morning mist… her world… the sugar world…

Her own house she had built on trees… she would climb up with verve and in the evenings she’d learn to strum her father’s old ukulele… the father was in the war, the uke needed love… and the little girl had plenty of it…

She would call it… “Serdtse”… Translating to “Heart”…

She would wake up some days to find her father around her… tenderly caressing her neck… kissing her gently on the cheeks… and ominously finding her daughter to have grown beyond his wildest imaginations… she had reached that age when being by her bedside while she sleeps might seem ‘inappropriate’…

Her youth was springing… juvenescence was blooming… and inside that dark cabin an argument was raging… between the parents and turning into a war much more fierce than the real one happening outside the wooden doors. But Vera had a world of her own… apathetic to these wars which were now boiling to a point of eruption…

She would run away with Serdtse, the uke, when the arguments would start to effervesce. She would grab Serdtse, and rush to the abandoned barn up the steep hills… there she would lie, bathing in the unmasked glory of the sun… precariously plucking on the strings of Serdtse…  she would playfully touch herself below the neck, her hands gently careening down her upper body.

Vera would smile with half wickedness and allow it to happen… Swivelling with carelessness her hands would slide further down into that secret place… she was beginning to understand the true meaning of a female body… why her chest was beginning to protrude… why her hip was curving voluptuously… why that secret place wanted more of her attention…

Vera had blossomed into a comely and winsome girl. The war was over… so were the arguments… the parents had found solace… the mother in the congregation of alcohol… while the father in the arms of death… Vera was distraught when the Cossack riding the big horse delivered the news… she had left Serdtse and her mother back home and ran away… disappearing for years…  while the mother cared more for her stash of vodka…

Alone and unprotected, Vera found herself in the company of left-wing soldiers serving them drinks, food and some nights… even herself… her father had told her that the world holds lovely things for her… but what the soldiers did to her wasn’t love… it was something atrocious... and vile…

Seeing how the real world wasn’t even close to the green grass, cocoa leaves and dandelions outside her home… she managed to free herself from the clutches of the left-wing soldiers and return home… only to find a dying mother who couldn’t even remember Vera…

"Daite mne Vodki" she had screamed... "Give me my Vodka"

But she wasn’t back for her mother… she was back something important she had left behind… she was back for her heart… Serdtse…

She left her home… those vicious soldiers… and in the company of Serdtse she eloped towards finding a good life… hoping for the miseries to end… hoping for a fairy tale ending…

But you see… the funny thing about fairy tale endings is that they happen in a fairy tale… and a fairy tale was far from what Vera was living… there were no fairies here, no godmothers, no dwarfs, no prince and Vera was no princess…

Vera started off as a street performer strumming on Serdtse, dancing and making music.  This hadn’t turned out as fruitful as she had conceptualized… horridly people would rush by Vera, pushing her away… the only people who would stand and listen would be the ones with licentious intentions…

One fateful rainy night… Vera lay in the back of some downtrodden alley… she had made no money that day courtesy of the damp weather… an old man approached her… donned in a furry overcoat and said…

“desyat’ rubl”… “Ten Rubles”…

And then pointed towards his Ford 1905… Vera got the hint… every man desired her rather than her music… helplessly she nodded and proceeded to enter the wagon.

An hour later she found herself back in the alley… ten rubles richer and her honour tarnished… what she had experienced with left-wing soldiers was indeed the reality… what the old man did to her was reality…

Alongside the moist grass, the cocoa leaves and the dandelions she didn’t need to prove she existed… she already felt alive… but in this world… the communist daughter had to prove to herself she existed, that she was alive… that she is indeed a living person requiring the warmth of subtle love...

But subtlety wasn't the trait of the world that enveloped her... the only thing that could provide her warmth was... herself... 

Her hand slid down her abdomen… gently… like a stream the hands approached that secret place… she closed her eyes… maybe to embrace this new existence, maybe to barricade the pool of tears aggregating in those beautiful eyes… she kicked Serdtse against a wall… her hands went deeper to explore that secret place… she moved herself about her fists…

In the end a scream ejaculated above the thundering rain… Vera had changed forever… the gentle carefree daughter had died…

While at a distance… The Ukulele lay broken…

Serdtse lay broken…

Her Heart lay broken…

                                             (immensely inspired by Neutral Milk Hotel)