What will come?

On my way to reactor blocks 5 and 6. Last day in Chernobyl, It was one kind of ending.

As I write this, a little almost 26 hours have passed since I completed my work for the exhibition. I'm now ready to set it all up. But realizing I had finished, didn't give me a sense of accomplishment; rather was I sad that it had all finally come to an end, and the feeling stays with me, even more than one week prior to the exhibition. This has come to  make me wonder about the purpose of it all. -Was all this work really for the exhibition or was the exhibition just an excuse to perform this work? Both are true, and at the same time neither is true.

The more I've learnt and come to know about Chernobyl and the many branches that spread from there, the more I realize how much more there is to find out. The exhibition was and is a solid goal and at this point I am questioning myself, because I want to see beyond that, and currently it only feels like things have come to an end. 

As any creating, researching person, I'm used to this and I know that it will pass, but at this point I can only think of that I need to get back to the Zone, and that I need to find out more. And I need to find out, if I don't already know, about the impact that Chernobyl has had on me, as I suspect that it may be larger than I ever imagined. I'm not regretting anything, I'm merely curious.

The other day I met a good friend. We had lunch, and amongst all the subjects of our discussions, I briefly aired my loose thoughts of eventually writing a book about Chernobyl. My friend seemed very interested in this, but as he is an author, he needed to ask me why I want to do it, and what reason people have to care about Chernobyl.  I admit to have been confused by this question, because what reason do people have not to be concerned? 

Maybe I became spoilt. Maybe I received too much encouragement and maybe I didn't meet enough people asking me about why I care about the old disaster. 

I started to answer his question. "Because I need to" wasn't an answer good enough, but before I knew it, I had given more reasons than I was even aware of that I had and in the midst of all that, my friend was suddenly pleased, because in his opinion I had mentioned things, reasons,  that are valid enough for people to care outside my biased sphere. "It's the unknown" was one of those answers given and it's true. I many aspects, Chernobyl was, is and will be a mystery, just as it has its past, present and future. It's come to develop a life of its own and many people who have encountered the Zone, regardless of profession, are bound to agree. They may be nuclear physicists, biologists, zoologists, physicians, artists, writers,  journalists or tourists - no matter what profession or title, we can all agree to one thing: It's largely unknown, and to us it's dangerous, because no one knows what will come.

And thus I don't know what will become of this. I only know that the Chernobyl project continues.