Guardian Angel. 2. 1. Chimera

"A GUARDIAN ANGEL"
a mistical novel
by Alexandra Kryuchkova

PART II. A DREAMS TRAP

2.1. CHIMERA

— Light the candles! —
alone in the Tower, with
barred windows, always
with yesterday’s month,
in which not with a whip,
but with words out loud,
I was bent in an arc,
like the Moon, — outcast! —
and my shadow howls,
in danger as well!
I’m not drawn to my home —
too tight! From the cage
some sparse notes were running
along all the walls,
scribbled not with a pen,
but in red ink on white,
«Didn’t you write in your books
with the pitchforks, like witch?!»
— There are two of them! —
winged, the most secular lions.
St. Mark’s Square is laughing,
— You don’t look like
any lioness! — Feel it,
so soon we’ll return
to the capital back,
and the world will wake up,
in a dance of the leaves
it will shudder and spin,
and explode with a «Miss»!
our train, being sleepy,
is rushing, it’s rushing again
to the center of chapter,
brand new, — straight to Hell…
Is my Leo unhappy?
That happens, since here
many girls are so foolish! —
for some it’s a crane,
for others a titmouse,
for me as before —
it’s the Priestess, she’ll come
in my dream at the dawn,
while in Heaven, they count
to usual three:
breath in — out — hi God…
He just plays with the living,
plays pricking the hearts
with the most crooked angles.
He’s weaving the threads
out of… human fates…
— Straighten shoulders,
mine ones! — I shouted up,
flying toward those candles
and suffering, since
He’s thirsty, still wondering,
«When will the soul,
gray like elders and monks,
leave the body for me?»


***
September 1987, Moscow


«Mom, please enter the flat first and turn on the light… I’m scared… There’s… someone inside… I know… I feel that way… There are… ghosts in this flat!»

«Alice, the best way to drive away fear is to step towards it and make sure that it’s just a figment of your imagination. You must be the first to cross the threshold of the flat to defeat your fear, otherwise one day it will defeat you. Ghosts don’t exist, Alice!»

I closed my eyes and…

…stepped…

...towards it.

***

Leave losses for my Venice!
In memory we are —
through space and time — together —
on holidays, in wars…

Let Venice separate us,
but like a ghost at dawn,
still smiling, my hello
will silently flash up…

A sleepy pier witnessed:
with farewell in hand,
my Venice, keeping silent,
hates to believe. Forgive…


***
February 2010, Milan


It was an early-early morning. The Sun had just risen. The city was asleep. Crowds of tourists hadn’t flooded the cathedral square yet. It was very quiet. Only barely audible bursts of waves at the pier were heard. We came to the water. There were many boats there and only one boatman, with whom he had agreed the day before. The boatman silently greeted us with a nod of his head. They stepped into the boat, and it slowly sailed away from the shore. The sea was light green-blue. I loved seas. And that City-on-the-Water was my favorite city in the world. In the distance, I saw the outlines of an island with a bell tower and a cathedral in the misty haze. I had never been to that island. What was there? What was its name? Why were they taking me there first? I knew that afterwards they would sail to the left, to the final destination. The boat was sailing further and further.

The silent gloomy boatman and he, in black clothes, with gray, almost white hair. Like a rock, he stood with his back to me at the backside of the boat, looking into the distance, at that island… I felt an extraordinary lightness of liberation, although almost nothing had changed. Except for the fact that I hadn’t known to walk on water like that before. And yet, for some reason, I couldn’t understand how I had ended up there. What date was that? Month? Year?

I remembered well who I was and everything that had happened to me once. But I couldn’t remember my «yesterday», «the day before yesterday». What had happened? Why was there no one else? And there was nothing else — neither wreaths, nor flowers, just me and them. Perhaps, I was scared to remember all that. San Marco was already left far away…

I followed the boat with them and my own body. I wondered whether they would throw it into the water, scatter it in the wind, or take it to the cemetery. Was my body in a bag, or in a coffin, or were there my ashes in an urn? I didn’t care, of course, but I was just a bit curious. I tried to look inside the boat, in vain. Perhaps I was afraid to look at myself from the outside. So I looked at him, that Man in Black, with gray, almost white hair. I wanted so much to hug him in an earthly way, with my hands… And I shouted with all my might, «Turn around! Please! I’m here!!! I’m alive!!!»

But he didn’t hear me… He didn’t hear… He didn’t…

We were approaching the island unknown to me, when my phone rang. I was still sleeping and started swearing at the one who dared to distract me at such a very interesting moment! I tried with all my might to hold on there, in Venice, in that dream. But the phone in Milan, in the hotel, was ringing so insistently and for a long time that I shouted mentally, «Stop waking me up! Let me see it to the end! I want to know what happened to me! To see the face of the gray-haired Man in Black! To find out where they are taking my body!»

But the phone was stronger. I came off the waves, opened my eyes, picked up the phone.

«Alice, we’ll wait for you in the car in half an hour! Let’s go to the exhibition together!»

I said, «Okay!», hung up the phone and, saddened by the fact that I hadn’t seen the dream till the end, headed for the bathroom.

San Marco was as silent as bookshelf,
that vision was the coolest — cold and cloddy:
a man, the pier, bridges and myself
inside a boat, outside my body.

That Man and me, no others, — I’ll bequeath
the poor ghosts from books I’ve written only.
The sparks of God, all poets sent beneath
to flash on Earth are tragical and lonely.

Morpheus, sleeping on the waves with breeze,
is just awakened by the oars splashing.
I have been dreaming of a lot of seas,
but how many springs have I got cashing?

San Marco’s moving right into the fog,
the bridges and the roofs are getting smaller,
«The earthly realm is a deceptive vogue!»
In vain! — he doesn’t hear what I holler.

The pain of the reality revealed
is comforted by truth of Homer’s era:
thus, no Spirit can be ever sealed
by Death, that is a pitiful chimera!

«I am alive! Please, hear me!» — destroyed,
my voice is nothing, damn it, no choices —
I’m drawn to be the music of the Void,
Eternity has no need of voices.

The ivy’ll hide the urn with ashing stack,
but I would like to meet him on the road, —
that Man, whose hooded cloak’s long and black,
whose tears will touch my body in the boat.