In Search of God

Spring. Thursday. Noon. I stopped at a railroad crossing. I got out of the car to stretch my legs, which had gone numb. Sometimes life changes drastically under the pressure of circumstances—more often unfavorable ones. Illness, losing a loved one, poverty, grief, and the like. I used to think I’d lived my life as correctly as possible. In the frame: honest service, a prosperous family, two daughters, a successful military career… But I never reached either happiness or satisfaction. And I myself turned my fate backward, without waiting for it to kick me. I started a new life.

Something glinted in the grass under my feet. Bending down, I picked up a silver flash drive with the label “Zaragosa.” After taking a sip of mineral water from the bottle and tossing the flash drive into the glove compartment, I continued on my way. What a pity I didn’t check then what was on that removable drive.

Autumn. Thursday. Early morning. Off-camera—the birth of a son I hadn’t known about, and the life I had shattered for the first and only woman I loved. Fate managed to strike after all, making me learn about it too late.

— Ksusha, get me a map, please,— I asked when we were heading to the train station, hoping for just one single trip with a strange name.

— And what’s this? — Kseniya held the flash drive on her palm.

— I don’t know. I found it on the road a long time ago. Put it in—maybe there’s music there; the radio doesn’t catch anything anyway.

The next hours passed in coffin-like silence. We listened to the voice of our son—emotion-choked, interrupted—whom we had lost when he wasn’t even six. He told us how he went from a childhood without guardians to becoming the head of a large enterprise in Spain, how he lived all those years without us. When the recording stopped, I continued telling the story. Because I had been next to my son for months, not knowing who he was to me. I really want to erase part of my life and help my guy find the one he was looking for.