The Jezinkas

When I was I kid, I would bug my mother to "read me a story." She did, but often times she was too tired after work to do it, so I stopped asking and ultimately didn't have that ultimate, storybook-fairytale experience that most kids are privy to during their first 5. 

It did two things, made me unfamiliar with fables and made my mind race with stories I created on my own. 

But one fairytale that does come to mind is the Bohemian Folk-tale, "Jezinkas" by Albert Henry Wratislaw. Jezinkas, follows the story of a orphaned boy who is looking for a place to live and have a relationship of reciprocal, emotional value. During the story he meets an old man who is unable to care for himself and his heard of goats after he gets blinded by 3 "Jezinkas". The Jenzinkas are beautiful women, sisters who tempt and lure unsuspecting victims with soothing trinkets that eventually put them to sleep. While the victims are sleeping, the Jezinkas steal their eyes out of their sockets. The boy is taken in by the blind old man who sees the boy as a blessing to him. He warns the boy not to venture off too far, for danger maybe awaiting him on the other side. 

There are a few themes that come to mind while reading this story. In today's social climate, we have really forgotten about human nature. We simply don't help the less fortunate, we don't pay it forward, we don't reach back and pull others up and we often forget our own struggles. The orphan boy in the story reminds of these things. The orphan also teaches us that sometimes when we are going through our own struggles, helping someone else is also helping ourselves. In the story it also reminds us that what goes around comes back around. The Jezinkas went around robbing people of their livelihood. They were good at it and did it for such a long time it not only became normal, they became arrogant, felt that they were untouchable and didn't think that someone would ever trick or trap them.

It reminded me of a story that a college friend once told me about his brother, being his keeper.

His Brothers Keeper

            Eric was a 4-year-old boy who never knew why his brother left. All he could remember was the Sade song that played on that rainy day in October of 1986. Kyle was a 17-year-old man doing what he had to do to survive. He knew if he didn’t leave, his brother would never stand a chance. Thirteen years had passed before they looked each other in the eye again.

            Kyle left his fathers house and never looked back, he never stopped thinking about Eric. Kyle never stopped wondering if the agonizing nights had been like his. Kyle remembered. He remembered being 4, 5, 6, 7, the screams of passion, the slams, the screams into the moon and the music that played thereafter, that seemed to make everything right. He remembered the nights, full of dark, sweaty, whiskey-scented musk. Groans of a pleasuring disdain oozing from his body against the dark moonlight. He remembered the day that his mother died, the day his brother was Eric. Eric saved him. He remembered the day that he left his fathers control. It was the day that replayed in his mind more than the other times and days before that one.

            Eric hated Kyle. He often thought how could his brother leave him alone to fend off their father.  How he could abandon him. Eric bore the weight of the world of on his shoulders. He hated the fact that he may spend the rest of his life in that house with his father having to make up for his mother and his brother.

            Thirteen years had past.

            Eric was a 17-year-old man doing what he had to do to survive. Kyle was a 30-year-old man doing what he knew he had to do to survive. As Kyle stood at the doorway, he stuck the key in the lock and it turned. The smell was familiar. Whiskey-scented musk. The sound was familiar groans of a pleasuring disdain oozing from his body.

Kyle made his familiar trek down the hall, into his father’s room. He was faced with his past, now very much his present as his brother and father all made eye contact, he could see his father get visibly shaken. As Kyle lunged towards him with his hands going at his father’s neck, he stopped. He looked in his fathers eyes and they all knew it was over. 

Even though we may not always know it, someone will always be there to help when we need it the most. Someone always understands.