"The Confined Blues" By Parizoda Axrorqulova (‘24)

You thought once you were freed from prison the Land of the Free would welcome you with open arms. When your final day arrives, it seems as though the moon has finally met the star. You'll finally see Hera and feel her white-as-snow skin touch yours in a day. You'll be able to drown in her ocean eyes as you're surrounded by green woodlands. The air of freedom will gladly welcome you back, but not the Land. But you don’t let your expectations get the best of you because you know Hera has failed you more than once.

In the city of Universe, you lived with Hera in a place that felt like heaven since angels accompanied you everywhere you traveled. Society quizzed you about Hera; you two had opposing characteristics, so why are you together, they said. Did you fall in love with Hera because she had black hair like a horse's tail? Teeth like lions? Legs resembling those of a giraffe? Hands that look like chicken fingers? Shoulders like monkeys? You don’t know. You lived in a brown box with a mattress on the floor, a coffee table with two golden-colored chairs, and a spacious closet that you shared with her. When Hera entered her cloudy phase, you two often made a little sleeping area within the closet to make her feel like she was in the moon rather than the blue sky. You always took care of her but neglected yourself.

Today you try to escape prison, and you tell yourself that you deserve to leave for good and begin a life with Hera, who has handed her entire existence to you and spends every day, hour, minute, second, and millisecond simply to feel your warmth. But your family is also waiting for you outside in the Land of the Free. 

Your mother, Eve, and father, Adam, work as God's secretaries, and your sister Mary occasionally assists them by babysitting God’s children. Your mother is older than your father. Your mother always dresses in white, and your father has a long white beard like Rapunzel. You are your parents' first child, and you are the one who taught them how to be a parent. Your younger sister, like your parents, suffers from anger problems. During dinner, your mother fires arrows at your father and your father tosses small stones back at her, while your sister rushes for water to extinguish the flames. As a child, you were different from the other children of the secretaries, and you never played catching the Angels with them. Most of the time, and even now in prison, you feel like a foreigner living in Heaven, and you attempt to convince yourself that you deserve a seat in Hell for loving Hera, since your parents would not accept your love for a child whose parents are secretaries of another God. 

Attempting to flee imprisonment is more difficult than it seems since you are always accompanied by Blue guards who remind you that there is no such thing as a Free Land. No one understood you while your heart was aching, not even Hera. But your high school counselor with cheeks that looked like freshly-baked buns would listen to you with open ears. When you were despondent and hurt by Hera, you raced to her office like you were in a marathon, and Mrs. Aphrodite always assured you that your emotions were acceptable and that no one could ever judge you. In her Promise Land office, you always caught her with a cookie or a few small chocolates because she suffered from low blood sugar levels. Mrs. Aphrodite's office had an aura or a sensation of seventh heaven that compelled you to open your heart forth to her and tell her everything about your sunshine. Every time you left her office, you got a bar of chocolate wrapped with a silver foil in your hand, but when you found out that she also offered chocolates to other students, your heart left your soul and there were no tears left to fall from your eyes. You understand once more that you were not significant to Mrs. Aphrodite or Hera, yet you continue to strive.

This is your third attempt to break from this cage, and you have failed once again. When you fail, you think about Hera because she reminds you of your failure. You encountered Hera frequently in the corridors of Paradise Hills High School and had conversations about how it would be ideal if there were just two Eves instead of Adam. You went to libraries with Hera and leaned on her shoulders for hours. When you held hands, the books danced and sang because they saw your joy. You said that I "love" you, and she replied that I "like" you. When the books heard what Hera said, they stopped dancing; the books sensed your agony, but Hera didn't. During your train rides, you just could not tell her what was on your mind, and you were frightened every time she got off at Nirvana St. since you knew you could never have a future with her inside this prison chamber. One day, you concluded, you might be able to gaze into her eyes for a split second without dread.

After three months of wanting to flee the confinement cell, you begin to lose hope, and you begin to forget Hera’s features and aroma. Hera feels like she's living on Jupiter right now, but when you're on Earth, you know you'll never go there. You wonder if she's a dolphin because she's constantly drawn to the sea. On a bright spring day, you are both silent and looking at the heavenly-sounding ocean waves. You question her about Eutopia, and she responds in a language you do not comprehend. It's difficult to tell if she's content right now if this is all she needs currently. To make her happy, you give her the gift you purchased at God's store while visiting his land. She is thrilled when she sees the souvenir, but you understand that it is not enough to keep her at this moment. Suddenly, the trees begin to dance around, the leaves fly, the birds sing loudly, and you notice the weather is dark, which you know is due to her entering her cloudy stage. Tomorrow will be a new day. You persuade your heart, but tomorrow never arrives because the violent winds destroy Hera during the storm, leaving you alone in the sea. Hera is now a dolphin, as she desired, and you see her occasionally when she is dancing in the sea, but she does not remember you, since animals do not remember humans.

Three years later, you're still in captivity, but you're accustomed to it, and this cell makes you feel at home; here is where you belong. It is adorned with stars and lacks doors since, in prison, you never have solitude because someone is always monitoring you. You begin to observe that your parents' employment as God's secretaries is becoming increasingly difficult as time passes because working for God entails meeting a plethora of requests. They are suffering as a result of my misdeeds, you tell yourself, and perhaps it is your responsibility that God did not allow them to have another child, a boy, as they had wanted. But, as is customary, their boss, God, gives them the reason for why they are constantly miserable and must purchase happiness every time they run out of it. God takes you and your parents to dinner one day and tells you, while drinking red wine, that you are a wonderful family struggling to live in heaven and that the reason your parents are unable to have another child is that they work too hard and all they want is money. At least money buys happiness around the corner store you whisper to your sister, Mary. Leaving the house of God, you hope that he never finds out about your sins because they are so beautiful that it might kill him from jealousy. 

In the last attempt, you are freed from the prison cell, and the Blue guards begin to let you out every day if you behave. You suffer from melancholy and spend all of your time criticizing yourself, just as your parents do at their jobs, where they decide who lives in Heaven St. and Hell St. according to God. You educate yourself and become more conscious about the Universe City. You make friends with the cockroaches that come to see you anytime you spill food on the floor. The hummingbirds outside your window used to be your greatest friends, but worry has engulfed your heart like an iceberg as your companions fade away. The notion of forgetting how the birds sing and dance from tree to tree is drowning you. You want to reach out to the birds and feed them bread crumbs since they appear hungry like lions, but you hesitate because you want the birds to come to your window and sing near your window, not in the trees. The birds used to be closest to you while you were at Paradise Hills High School, but now you're at Torture College, majoring in Suffering and aiming to receive your bachelor's degree.

You have been freed from prison after serving your eighteen-year sentence, and you will spend the remainder of your life in the Land of the Free. You're a stranger in the land you live in, a stranger in the land you left, a stranger to your family and yourself, and as a result, you're lost and have no place to call home. You find the prospect of abandoning everything and purchasing a ticket to Hell St. appealing. You continually try to send yourself to Hell St. but always fail because your enemies, God's children, remind you that it is a sin to do so while you are still young. When you fail, you recall Mrs. Aphrodite, who was like a mother of love and beauty for you. When you seek guidance on how to diminish your self-esteem, you resort to your parents since they are far better at making judgments than you are. You recall the sea, which provides you with existence after she has left your life. You gradually forget her, but forgetting her terrifies you. Visiting the sea just to see Hera does not help. Your heart is weakening, and you can't help but miss her. This is your final voyage to the sea, and the wind pulls you into the water, making it feel like a prison once more. You cannot discover her in the sea. Hera is nowhere to be found. But at the very least, you ended up back in the cage. That is where you belong. The cage.