Time to Gather Stones, Prologue

Translation of Time to Gather Stones by Lidia Gladyshevskaya, Prologue   


       A massive red sphere was coming from somewhere above, it was beating and breaking his mind.

       The man saw the “intruder” so clearly, as if he could look inside of his skull. Somewhere beneath, in the core of cells, tormented with pain, there was a small green spot. It was growing with every moment, and soon turned into another sphere - of bright emerald color. The green giant moved towards the blood-coloured original sphere.

       They got into a fight exactly in the middle - between the two semi-spheres, and fell apart in agony, creating a multitude of small red and green balls.

     At the same time the yellow square appeared from nowhere. It attacked the green army and sent it running. The red ones ran there and back, but retreated, as they were being pushed by the yellow balls.

      The armada of blue triangles that appeared so quickly filled the empty space.

      The multi-coloured geometric figures lined up, like the ‘Parade of Planets”, moved in a spiral-speed manner and ran towards the center, creating a weird mosaic.

        The unknown forces forced them to clash together, and broke them apart, mixing colors furiously, creating more and more forms and shapes.

       There were so many multicoloured spares and weird crystals that they united into one gray mass that kept on getting darker, until it became completely black.

He did not see anything else. Fury and desperation engulfed all parts of his brain.

        Suddenly the bright colors transpired in the dark, and started swirling in a crazy circular dance. The carousel spun around with incredible speed, losing the juicy colors, until the white foam blinded his eyes.
      
     There was only this one small purple fire that pulsated in his murky mind. In this mind of his he stretched his hands towards this coveted spark, and the flame exploded with a thousand bright multicoloured sparks, sending impulses towards his heart. It started beating faster and faster. His fingers started moving.

    He opened his eyes and looked around in surprise. Alive, alive. Still alive. Red, green, yellow, blue… There was a rainbow above the white sun of the desert.
Looking at it, the tormented man now knew almost for sure what choice he was to make…



      
            Translation from Russian by Gregory Novikov