Mortal Coil

Mortal Coil




A growing-up razor declares:

“I don’t want mission impossible,

Whatever is there to stick to, accepted and approved,

I will head toward it.

Don’t let me go astray,

Don’t push me out of rack,

I am a conformist to banal, vulgar, stupid, silly, desired, dreamed of,

Spoiled, stupid.”



The teenage blade collides with the tradition,

Screams the terrible confessions of misunderstood,

And rebels against everything adult and conservative.

“Traditionalists, masochists, housewives, clerks and jerks,

Don’t stand on my way,

Move on or I will step on you,

You little ants and miserable bugs,

There’s so much more to life than your sorrowful surviving.

Wake up and live!

Or just let me be,

However and wherever I want.

I will not tolerate your pitiful looks, ridiculous scorns,

And ignorant teaching.

Learn to seize the day before you throw the shackles in front of me.”



The adult noose stays calm waiting the misery to do its job.

Helpless and wretched,

It is tired, exhausted and sad.

No strength or vigor for moving on,

No pull of life, no boost for running.

It is dragging lifelessly, or just hangs there carried back and forth by the wind.

But even the hurricane can’t pull out its roots.

They go so deep into the soil of hardship, anguish and distress

That it seems they were cemented to the eternal agony.

“Let me die. Let me fade. Let me disappear.

It has been enough of this for me.

This is a wretch of life,

This is a sad case of evolution,

I don’t want to be a part of it anymore.”



The elderly walking stick moves terribly.

It gags, retches, spits and crawls.

Unable to advance properly, fading into the wrinkled mass of nonsense,

It begs for an easy end.

No plant life,

No tubes, aids, hospitals.

“Give me a good night sleep,

And let me breathe in slowly,

Without choking, coughing and fighting for air.

Let me close my eyes,

Without dark veils of anguish.

I don’t want my lungs clogged with bile,

My heart obstructed by pain,

My muscles twitching with hopelessness,

I need my last minutes of earthly glory,

Or at least lack of misery.

So give me that!

That is all I ask for!”



And then what?

The evolution will not stop.

The movement, turmoil, chaos and uproar will continue.

Somewhere, some new whining will begin,

With tiny legs, sweet small fingers and cooing smile,

And it will again start the terrible process of maturity, adulthood, aging, declining, fading, waning,

shrinking,

And eventually shuffling off this mortal coil.




Ana Vidosavljevic




Ana Vidosavljevic from Serbia currently living in Indonesia. She is a teacher, international relations specialist, writer, translator, interpreter, journalist, surfer and mother. Her collection of short stories Mermaids will be published by Adelaide Books in September 2019, and a memoir Flower Thieves will be published by the same publishing house in April 2020.