The wind is full of swallows

 

"One, two, three – kry – you're eating!"

cried Marta, a short woman of almost fifteen.

"Marta, what kind of stupid games are these? You were supposed to do your homework. "

The girl's mother stood in the doorway, slightly irritated by the sight of her daughter playing with dolls.

"When will you finally grow up?"

Marta put on her rebellious face, left, and slammed the door. She was furious with her mother. She didn't like being interrupted in her solitary wanderings through an unreal world.

"I've had enough of this. She sits in her room all day, playing like a little child. What's wrong with her?" her mother wrung her hands. With each such incident, Marta would leave for hours, returning late at night.

"She's completely screwed up in that stupid little head of hers!" the girl's father replied. "We'll have to sort her out."

The mother pondered, then shifted restlessly in the old armchair upholstered in crumbling leather. She lowered her gaze.

It seemed as if Marta had a perpetual wind in her hair. That dark wind full of swallows. She smelled of wind all over. She ran barefoot along the sidewalk. She sang some catchy song she'd heard on the radio that morning. Her singing grew louder and louder. There wasn't a soul in the streets, though the afternoon sun bathed the tenements in heat and brightness.

"Marta! Marta!"

Jacek tried to rouse the unconscious girl.

"Get the fuck out of here, Jacek! Get the fuck away from me!

" "Stop it, get up, it's midnight. Get up and go home... People are looking at us strangely. Apparently you were running like a fool through the city..." Jacek hesitated. "Get up, girl! You're not going to lie here all night."

Marta just realized she'd made a fool of herself again. But what did she care? The most important thing now was to get home unnoticed. If her parents realized what time she'd arrived, it would be a nightmare again. Besides, my brother…

"I want him dead!

" "Who?" Jacek asked, surprised and worried.

"My brother…" Marta's voice trembled.

"He's having those crazy times again," flashed through the boy's mind. And his cloudy eyes darkened.

"You don't have a brother," he hugged her warmly.

"What time are you coming home, you little bitch!?"

Her father grabbed her arm and squeezed her so hard that a dark bruise stained her pale skin. Her mother stood in the kitchen doorway, just watching the events unfold sadly. She already knew what was about to happen.

The small two-by-two basement was too dark to see anything. Marta had learned to move by feel. Besides, she didn't even need to move. Sometimes it happens that there's nowhere to go.

"What a crazy person!"

She could still hear her father's screams, which slowly faded away. She wasn't crying anymore; she was a big girl, after all, 15. Her mother told her to grow up. Her father told her to listen and not to say anything.

"I'm here," she said uncertainly in a low voice, touching the cold wall, which was slowly changing consistency, and the cold began to evaporate with her breath.

"I was there again. Every day. Because of you... Damn it! Because of you again!

" "You hate me.

" "I hate you."

She preferred to close her eyes now, though the darkness was indistinguishable.

In the morning, her mother found her exhausted on the cold floor, her fingers bloody.

"She had to scratch at the door."

Marta knew that in such moments, you didn't feel pain, or you felt a stronger one, stemming from your lower abdomen.

"I've told you so many times. Daddy and I love you."

Marta didn't listen. She preferred to feed others lies rather than feed on them herself.

"Daddy and I make love (he always rapes me when he locks you in the basement)."

A few streets behind the old tenement house, there was a small forest. As you went deeper, the trees began to grow thicker, as if guarding some secret that should never be revealed. There, among the trees, lived Marta. She liked to sit on a rotten tree stump. Looking up, for there was infinity and its blue ceiling with its magnificent ornate chandelier, which had to be hidden at night from jealous people and thieves. This place was all hers. She liked the branches; she could touch them and no one punished her, no one forbade her. She swung on them, wanting to smell the leaves. She liked the scent of the wind.

It was her little cage, among those trees. She liked sitting there; it felt like home, only less dark, and no one shouted up there.

Marta had purple lips. Maybe they even smelled of violets. But who knows? Fifteen-year-old girls aren't allowed to give up their lips. But Marta gave herself completely, though perhaps it would be better to say she was being taken from her.

"Wake up! Marta! Get up, damn it!"

Jacek didn't really like her at all. He thought of her as "fucking little one." Besides, the girl liked not being there for anyone. She'd probably met him at school. He'd come over once and said he'd show her.

"Look, honey.

" "Honey." Everyone spoke so beautifully. Mom, Jacek. Everyone. She wondered why. She liked her dolls because they didn't speak. They just stood there, watching, seeing nothing. They were as if they weren't there. Marta wanted the same. She tapped her foot like a spoiled child, as if someone would listen to her because of it.

Little monsters are flying, flying,

they have magic bags in their hands

, in bags they hold thousands of ants

, ants are eating headless dolls...

" "One, two, three..."

Marta ran barefoot, singing.

"One, two, three..."

Marta tripped over a stone.

- One, two, three...

Marta cracked her head on the pavement.

- One, two, three...

Marta laughed.

They were the same: she and her brother. She called that breath (from behind) the wall (from the wall?) her brother. It was he who poisoned her innocent thought, touched her neck roughly, bloodied her tiny hands. But it was dark, no one could see.

It wasn't the forest, the trees, or the branches, it wasn't the wind. It was just the cold radiating from the walls, the peeling plaster, the smell of mold, a rusty pipe...

and some rope. A rope found under a pile of old, long-unworn clothes.

Her mother entered the room.

"You're still gone."

To this day, she can't comprehend that she'll be gone, and she talks to her own shadow.