Let s Play

When Natalie returned home, fresh and with the smell of rain, the whole day was still ahead.

She went up to her fourth floor, but instead of returning into the room, began to study books... and here, on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, she came across two metal boxes filled to the brim with tiny toys - heroes of various fairy tales and cartoons.

Like all girls, Natalie loved toys. She climbed onto the sofa, shook them out onto the glass surface of the coffee table and... "Come on, let's play!" - a thin voice was heard... and the world around lost its relevance for a while - the game began.

A woman named Natalie disappeared, and in her place appeared funny gnomes and shy, but almost omnipotent fairies in light dresses; beautiful, but always a little stupid princesses (and where can they get smart while sitting in a palace?); also terrible monsters were here... this is how another fall out of reality happened - while Natalie was playing with the 'kids', time slowed down, then sighed and dissolved.

A coffee table, a sofa with cushions, the nearest shelves and other surfaces now, with the help of magic imagination and small manipulations with objects, have created the relief of a fabulous country: mountains, deep hollows, impassable roads to mysterious castles... Natalie's eyes saw something quite different from what you and I would see if we looked into the attic at this moment...

...The silence of Sunday was almost palpable. The rain had long wept and stopped, and from behind the clouds the long slanting rays of the autumn sun poured down on the ground.

The day was beautiful... and if we could look at this scene in the attic from the side, we would see a cozy room with a low ceiling, solid oak furniture, bathed in the sun. From the abundance of books with golden spines, it seemed filled with a magical golden light, and the masquerade costumes hanging on the wall and the scarecrow of death standing by the stairs, like a sentry, gave the room a certain phantasmagoric look.

On the floor, in front of the coffee table, saying something, now frowning, now smiling, a little girl-woman-storyteller, was creating magic, with her hands easily flicker here and there, moving figures, telling a fairy tale, , deciding the fate of queens and kings, states and peoples...

Time "in reality" approached dinner, when Natalie roused herself, rolled up the fairy tale and again plunged all the toys into iron boxes, with the exception of some tiny heroes that she especially loved - she took them to her room and put them here and there on the shelves between the creams, perfume and other women's trinkets...
 
An open book lay on the bed. Natalie lay down on her belly and read a little...

She loved Sundays so much! This day always brought with it a feeling of happiness and peace, and Natalie wanted Sunday to last and last, so that it would be enough for everything!..
 
Imperceptibly twilight crept into the house, the time for dreams and fairy tales has come. In her cozy room Natalie was now not alone - the joyful eyes of her old friends in the game were looking at her from the shelves.

"Goodnight!" - she whispered to them, going to sleep in her spacious soft bed under the starry sky. - Be quiet!

"Okay, okay, - thin voices were heard from the darkness. - Are we going to play once again?"

Natalie laughed affectionately and soon fell asleep sweetly without answering them.

"Natalie: the Art of Leaving"