GO AWAY!

It was a sunny hot day. The azure of the sky was void and immense. Nature turned motionless: no wind, no birds singing - no sound, no movement. As if everything that existed plunged into a deep ecstatic self-contemplation.
Pete was walking along the bank of a broad river – so broad that its opposite bank was hidden in the horizon haze. Pete had to reach the single bridge over the river. He had been walking so long under the scorching sun that his thoughts seemed to melt into a viscid mass that was trickling down to the depths of his consciousness. Pete was aware that he had to get to the opposite bank over the bridge but he didn’t remember, why. Anyway, he kept on going.
It was late afternoon, but the sun didn’t move across the sky. It was standing in the zenith and was still scorching. It should be noticed, that the sun had already been standing motionless for nine days and nights. It means that days and nights hadn’t been alternating; that there had been neither velvet sunsets and satin dawns, nor pale-faced Moon, nor diamond stars.
Finally, the wanderer reached the precious bridge. Alas, it was ruined. But not completely. There was a mess of huge reinforced concrete blocks and metal frames, but one could also notice some wooden constructions which looked like scaffolding. Obviously, they couldn’t have been there before the bridge collapsed. Someone installed them purposely.
Although the river was extremely broad, it wasn’t deep at all. The carcass of the bridge, which was heavy and immeasurably wide, hadn’t drowned in the river and was jutting out of the water. The wooden scaffolding might be used to climb the high blocks. Thus, though the bridge had been destroyed, one could get over it with some efforts.
Peter had no choice because he had to reach the opposite bank whatever it was worth. But neither that bank nor the end of the bridge could be seen beyond the horizon. Obviously, the way promised to be long.
Trying to use a wooden ladder for the first time in order to climb a high block, Pete was close to falling down, since the woodwork turned out to be half-rotten. Steel armature of the blocks also troubled the way – Pete scratched himself badly against them many times along the way. But he had to get over the bridge! He had to!
While going forward along the bridge, Pete began to notice that the heat was falling by and by, for the sun started setting.
Peter had still been completely alone till the moment he met a mysterious stranger standing on one of the low blocks. That was an old woman wearing rags with a woolen moth-eaten kerchief on her head. By her side there was a ramshackle stool with a rusty bucket on it.
Knackered through, Pete didn’t even try to ask himself what that old woman was doing in the middle of the broken bridge and why there was that stool with the bucket. Finally, curiosity made the hero come up to the mysterious old woman and ask her:
– Hey… You… What are you doing here?
The woman didn’t answer. She just took up the bucket, bent towards the river in order to fill it up, and put it on the stool again. Then she drew very near Peter, her stare piercing him through, her eyes full of pity; and suddenly she grabbed his hair with an enormous force, pulled him to the bucket, dipped his head into the water and began drowning him. Pete was trying to tear himself away, but the woman was holding him so tight with another hand that nothing could help. When the old woman was keeping Pete’s head in the water she was speaking slowly in a motherly tender voice:
– Sleeep, Peete... Sleeep…   
The lad was gasping, but all of a sudden something pulled the old woman back so strong, that she gave a shriek. When Peter took his head out of the water, the old woman vanished from his view.
Shocked with this occurrence, Pete was gasping for breath for a long time. After he got quiet, he merely lay down on the concrete and fell asleep. Pete had been sleeping for about four hours, and when he woke up the sun was still in the same position as four hours ago. As one can guess, the sun could move down the horizon only when Peter went forward.
After all, he had to move along. A few hours later the sun set lower and the first rays of sunset appeared. Then it wasn’t hot at all.
Pete started to have some doubts about the success of that journey, since the end of the bridge couldn’t be seen so far. However, another enigmatic figure turned up.  That time it was an old man with long grey hair and a knee-long beard. Even from afar one could notice him shaking his fist to no one knows who, and speaking in an embittered bass while turning round from one side to another. When Pete came closer he could hear his words:
– Go away, scum!
The old man repeated those words in the intervals of about ten seconds, still turning round and shaking his fist.
Still holding in mind the recent events when he could hardly evade death, Pete didn’t have a thought of having a conversation with the mad man. That’s why he decided to pass the old man by.
Nevertheless, when they were on the same line, the old man, fast like a lynx, ran up to Peter, snatched his wrist tightly and repeated again with some special spite in his voice and eyes:
– Go away, scum!
Pete stared his eyes with surprise and fear and couldn’t say or do anything. But ten seconds later the old man released him and immediately got back to his “post” and continued doing the same actions as before.
Then Pete didn’t want to put up with that humiliation and rushed to the old man himself, his arms stretched forward, and pounced on him as hard as he could, pushing him into the water. The old man couldn’t endure the attack and fell down right into the river from the high block he was standing on. Then Peter uttered these very words:
– Go away, scum!
When the old man got into the water, one could see that he didn’t try to rise to the surface to have a breath and save his life; but after a while he turned into another concrete block of the ill-fated bridge which then joined the others.
Pete kept on his way. An hour later the long-awaited dusk set in. The heat fell away, purple and red clouds appeared in the sky, the blissful zephyr began blowing, and nightingale trills were heard from afar. Peter felt that, at last, the bridge would bring him to the desired opposite bank. And it was true.
He stepped down from the bridge when the sun set completely below the horizon and impenetrable dark shrouded all around. Suddenly Pete saw two figures surrounded with golden glowing. They came up to him. Then he could see the two mysterious characters, whom he had come across before, again. Those were the old woman and man. The old woman was holding the bucket in her hands. All of a sudden, she splashed all the water out of the bucket onto Peter. As for the old man, he raised his fist again and repeated the phrase:
– Go away, scum!
This time Peter realized everything.
He turned to the bridge and set off again.
But then the sun was rising, not setting.