The Bone

                The Bone

                Aleksandr Piatkov


A little girl carelessly gnawed on a bone and tossed it to a dog waiting in tense
 
anticipation, which gave it far greater attention. Meanwhile, the little girl

went back to watching the strangers and the reindeer they were loading up.


The people were preparing for a journey, but the girl was staying behind. She
 
had been sent to her relatives at the nomad camp to adapt to the rugged

life of a traditional tent and to learn the language of nature. Not every child

is granted such freedom.


Usually, parents unceremoniously construct their children’s future lives,

striving with all their might to fit them into their own fantasized reality.
 
Inexperienced and often immature, the offspring try to play some role in this

performance, while parents never cease to wonder at the detached apathy

inherent in every action of their ungrateful heirs.


It is widely believed that good parents must provide a child with housing—

naturally, wherever it is most convenient for the parents—and a job, of course,
 
where they can bring the greatest benefit to the family. As for selecting a

spouse, they approach it almost as if it were a dynastic marriage.

Consequently, all this patriarchal architecture ends in monumental

embarrassments, divorces, and asset divisions.


In viticulture, there is a practice of removing surface roots. Perhaps a human

being requires something similar: one must ruthlessly sever superficial

connections and cultivate deep ones. Bonds like that do not form on a

crowded commute to the blare of cheap radio stations, nor in an office

over a quick cup of coffee.


Yet, a person must also have their own space for growth, rather than being

crowded in the thick of someone else’s roots, even if those roots belong to

relatives. And a person must choose their own path, relying on their own

experience, which will allow them to select what is necessary and discard

what is useless—like a gnawed bone.



Publication Details:

© Copyright: Aleksandr Piatkov, 2013

Publication Certificate No. 213050601920