Suppose I was remaining in reverie for centuries, for the sun rays in my room obtained golden, gentle evening colour. I desperately had a look at a clean page of my thesis.
Nice work, Shakespeare! One more decade and you’ll be able to write the whole sentence.
It was a lazy summer day, and not to make it more useless I decided to go shopping for some food. My old friend had promised to visit me for a couple of days. She intended to come late in the evening which made my preparations for a guest arrival being postponed till the last minute.
Descending the stairs of the block of flats I lived in, I saw my neighbour Max sitting on a windowsill. He was talking on the phone with a sour and irritated expression on his face. I waved him; in turn he gave me a friendly wink and a tender boyish smirk. We had known each other for almost two years since the moment I moved in when I made up my mind to left my, so to say, ancestral home having started a postgraduate programme.
I opened the street door of the ground floor; a warm, obducing air touched my skin and filled my lungs. I adored summer, let’s be honest, mostly for long, long holidays from work and study. A happy week ago I got rid of some paper work, finished my exam-passing essay and was left in peace until autumn. What could be more delightful for a young research student?
At the very beginning I threw myself enthusiastically into a studying process. I saw myself as a pioneer heading uncharted territory. But later I found myself in a trap of Lecture room full of serious, determined or just tired strangers, young but not remarkably so. Sometimes I felt like an uninvited child in my new company: helpless before ennui desperately wishing mom and dad to come and bring me home. For no explicable reason, I never really felt like I belonged to anybody in that new place or skilled and sophisticated enough to be a good, mature specialist. I was just…fine: not brilliantly smart and motivated to get a grant, not promising to be sent abroad to work on my thesis, too dreamy and mind-wandering to focus on my postgraduate study dutifully. I was not that bad, after all, an amazingly perfect middle, somewhere in between.
I was thinking about quitting and return home like a prodigal daughter, but the idea to start something new all over again was terrifying. I was bold, strong, insolently gorgeous, and independent only in my imaginary world the groundwork of which I laid in my childhood. Being an adult was so frustrating.
Congrats! You won a merry life of a frog in a bog. Good for you! “So no one told you life was gonna be this way…” Clap, clap, clap.
I stood waiting patiently for a green man to appear though the road was empty and hushed. A sudden and unexpectedly loud message clang broke the silence. It was from my friend: she couldn’t come. First, I was a little bit disappointed, for I have not seen her for ages, then I realized that there was no need to buy something “adult” or behave like an adult.
I thought about it with false enthusiasm. Deep inside I felt lonely and forlorn, yet tried to persuade myself that it was just freedom from tiding my apartment; cooking some boring things for late dinner; trying to hunt up the mattress and the guest bed entombed deep below dusty moving boxes with twinkle lights, an artificial tree and other things I never used. It could be a real disaster to go sightseeing. There was literally nowhere to take her, for the town was relatively new lacking historic monuments or any povincial charm.
A dream travel, in one word, almost like visiting Paris: to see it and die…
I decided not to go on foot and catch a bus as the sky was not clear anymore: milky white creating a soft, spreading light. A transparent bus stop shelter was near the river; only a low, wrought iron fence and the beach rose bushes separated me from a river bank. Seagulls were desperately crying and screeching flying low above the river. The air was more humid and did not complement my pixie haircut and bangs that were getting curlier und fluffier. I tried to smooth them somehow watching, lest anybody might see my predicament. But there was no cause for uneasiness: I was alone.
I looked around. Thanks to the bus stop walls transparence, I could see in many different directions: no passers-by, no dog owners, no random cars, no kids yelling from the playground, no domestic noises from open windows, no human sounds at all: just a weak rustling of leaves and birds’ more or less annoying singing.
With a pleased sigh I sat back on the bench and stretched my long legs. How rare it was to sit there in solitude; only a little bird with an orangy marigold bosom was chirping and looking at me from time to time with her piercing little beady eyes.
I closed my eyes for maybe a second. When opened them again, I gave a little start. There were two young people standing with their backs to me.
How come I didn’t hear them coming? Have they just got off the car? Impossible, I would have heard. Sneaked like ninjas through the rose bushes, climbed the fence, and stood in front of me? Sure, beyond all doubt, take your prize for the best guess ever: a bright career of a detective is waiting for you!
I sat as straight as possible, trying not to look at them but at my laps like a school girl from the past who was afraid of her strict teacher.
I tried to smooth my hair again, for I was unusually embarrassed in their presence and felt ill at ease. I could not explain why, but there was something attractive about them. They were like human magnets I could not help looking at. Unfortunately, only their backs were displayed and sometimes their faces in profile. Both of them were tall and athletically build; I stupidly imagined them waiting for a bus following to the Olympic village.
A boy was almost a head taller than a girl. He was wearing jeans and a grey T-shirt. His hair was wavy and fair which seemed even lighter in an unusual sunlight coming from creamy skies. With his broad shoulders he looked like a professional swimmer ready for a swimathon: the whole body showed resolution and flexibility. A girl was in a rippling floral dress and a loose-fitting blue denim jacket with rolled up sleeves. Looking at her, it was impossible not to admire her glowing olive skin of bare calves and arms. Just ordinary people in simple clothes under the bus stop shelter roof I would never meet again. But why did I feel so strange? I started fidgeting didn’t know where to put my arms and legs. My cheeks were burning and blushing; touching them, I felt my palms and fingers cold as ice.
They didn’t pay any attention to me. Looking at them one last time, I secretly, as I thought, was about to undertake a mousy sleep away, when they swing around in fast animal like manner to confront me.
I stood motionless with my eyes bent on the ground. To break the awkward silence, I lift up my head having decided to say something like: “Guys, I think we won’t see the bus comes; there must be some road works …” But then I saw their faces. I lost my voice; an unexpected shiver ran down my whole body. I stared at them, while they were staring back at me. No doubt, I knew them! It seemed I had known them for ages. Every feature, every line, every shade, everything was dear and familiar. But I had never seen them before in my life, though, if I closed my eyes, I would describe every trace of their image better then even my parents’ ones.
“Kal,” the girl said huskily, ”Kaleb, she can see us! Oh, Mighty Sky Spirits!” with those words she flew at me and grabbed my hands in hers. My heart missed a beat, and it felt like I could not breathe. The guy gasped as if in pain. I cast my glance at him. One moment he was perplexed, but a second later he returned a serene countenance of his handsome face.
“We are merging with this world, and she’s not controlling it,” he said stolidly.
“Everything is fine now,” she was addressing either me or the guy; I could not tell, for her glistening marigold eyes were fixed on me. “Don’t worry, we’ll protect you and help you to get back home. I missed you so much…” saying it, she squished my hands even tighter, biting her plump lower lip of a beautifully shaped mouth.
Those words were the last straw of my anxiety attack endurance. My heart was beating violently; I had goose bumps all over my skin and a pain in my chest, though, I had never had any problems with my heart. I was trying to breath but couldn’t inhale deep enough to satisfy my lungs. It sort of felt like my body was screaming, “Run, run, run!” and I listened to it eagerly.
I wrest my arms from hers and without looking back run away at all my speed.
“No, don’t go! Please, no!” cried the girl hopelessly.
“The beast is near, we can’t protect you if…” the boy’s desperate voice vanished. All sounds vanished. I heard only my hasty footsteps on the asphalt road and a crazy heart beating in my head.
I was exhausted quite quickly; almost stumbled and stopped panting and bracing against my laps. I turned back nervously peering into the distance to see nobody. The shelter was far away and, as I could barely see, empty. The odd couple disappeared as fast and unnoticeably as they had sprung before.
Just across the road was an old five-storey building with ciphers, fretworks, and a big archway in the middle. Through it a garden with some cherry trees and low bushes was seen.
Pitter-patter, pitter-patter. My footsteps reverberated sullenly while I was crossing the road and running under a gloomy archway towards the square back yard and the garden. I remembered using that way once.
That’s the shortest way back home and a high chance not to meet THEM again.
I lied; I did want to see them, but was foolishly scared those feelings to admit my mistake. And was alone. Again.
A gelid gust of wind made me quiver; it stirred the leaves of cherry trees and fluffy shrubs, but they produced no sound. I couldn’t bare standing outside. Looking around, I noticed several front doors, leading to private apartments. Most of them had entryphones. Fortunately, the first door I tried to open was not locked.
Inside was sulky, chilly, and deafeningly silent. I climbed the stairs, stood at the big window, and tried to comfort myself before taking a short journey home. The view from the window showed me the road I had just left and a forsaken riverbank. Everything looked unreal: a bleached sky; sharp, black shadows like on the moon; the leaden grey river which stood motionless. A real nature morte. Above all, there was no signal on my phone.
There must be a logical explanation, coincidence of circumstances. When I tell this story to Tania, she’ll die of laughing and would probably mock at me and recall it on occasion till we both old and grey.
My eyes were watching in a random manner, searching for any living soul in the street.
What a…
On the pavement I saw a huge car size something. My first thought was it’s an optical illusion. I blinked. It didn’t disappear and kept moving disgustingly monotonous. I saw a dark mass, but gazing steadily at it I could distinguish its limbs. I gulped nervously, feeling the lump in my throat. Its legs were spidery: ten, maybe more. They were of different length so that some of them were almost hanging on its body, stirring by inertia. On its back there was a big “face” as if having been made of whitewashed stone or bone with hollow eye pits, pointed nose, and an exaggerated grimace, resembling a tragedy mask.
I stood like a roe deer: motionless, watching it moving. Creeping slowly but steadily, it covered my route. The beast stopped on the very spot I was not long ago. I was not sure whether it could track me or not, anyways, I was too afraid to move and disclose my presence.
Please, just be my sick fantasy and go away!
In vain, it was approaching the archway even faster than before. That was the time when a real panic began. That mask buddy didn’t look like a magic sprite who was going to fly me to a starry vault.
Can it get a sniff of me? Is it flexible enough to get into the building?
The questions were left in my head. I rushed upstairs and didn’t even think of knocking on the doors and asking for help.
If the attic door is open, I could get on the roof, come over to another part of the building, find the fire escape, or at least, tried to block the door and win some time.
My heart was beating in my temples; I could hear it but not my footsteps anymore, while I was rocketing up the stairs. The fifth floor, two doors, a rusty iron ladder leading to the roof or maybe attic, and a big, heavy, old padlock hanging. I reached a dead end or it would have been better to say “the deadlock”.
I must have stayed with THEM. THEY told they would protect me! That could have been the once in a lifetime adventure. Happy now?
The air was colder than ever, for my breath was smoking and the light from the window was whiter dead than before. With a sob, I pulled and pushed the door handle.
Fat chance! Locked!
Thinking it was locked too, I trusted it so hard that almost flew into the apartment hall and landed on my knees. Silence was as deadening as it had been before. But out of sudden like a waterfall with all it strength and power milliard sounds of this world precipitated upon me. The feeling was painful. I cried out and covered my ears as the mixture of different noises created was awful. But little by little, everything tuned up.
I was still on my knees gingerly watching a pair of slippers, hairy legs, and flower-dotted boxers. A hedgehog stubbled face was staring at me with his mouth open. A little girl with lanky hair and blue eyes was hiding behind his big legs: one hand was holding a cheap fluffy toy; another was grabbing dad’s fluffy leg. I gave him no chance to say anything or react, for I darted off like a cartoon character, moving legs in blurred circles. I run down barely holding the banisters and stopped abruptly on the second floor.
Luckily, a teenage girl was ascending; I could clearly hear the beats from her huge headphones. I rushed to her, making her startle as my movements and face showed nothing but craziness.
“Have you seen anything suspicious outside? Huge and dark? ” I asked hotly.
“Uh?” the girl cocked her pierced eyebrow at me, judging my mental condition. Her neutral I-do-not-care-I-am-a-teenager expression showed no signs of danger.
“Never mind,” I muttered.
The street once empty was crowded, but I was too tired to reflect upon that drastic and quick change. I got home in a zombie way dragging myself automatically. The only thing I noticed obscurely, climbing the stairs of my block, was Max’s face lurking through the door cranny. I kept moving having laid the blame on my mental exhaustion and obviously sick imagination.
I should see a doctor or undergo an MRI.
In a bathroom I shrugged off my clothes, and without taking a shower I went straight to the kitchen, opened a fridge to find only some cheese, an apple, and a frozen chicken.
Well, shopping is not an easy task, after all!
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