Apparitions

I stopped at the flood embankment and got out of the car. It must have been parked there, because there was no road beyond, and the one along the embankment didn't interest me. I wanted to reach the bank, not drive along it. I locked my no-longer-new Subaru with the remote and climbed the three-meter, rather steep embankment. Standing at the top, I looked at the dirt road I'd come from, which cut through the forest like a scar from the wrists of a would-be suicider. I glanced at the embankment separating the forest from the river, and finally at the nearby other bank, about 150 meters away, also overgrown with trees like the one I was on.

It was a really warm May, so I took off my coat, spread it on the grass, and sat down to watch the flowing water and all the pieces of wood floating down from the higher part of the river. I could finally feel like myself. A short, slim—almost petite—pale, freckled girl with long, once red hair, now light brown. My eyes, however, didn't fit the picture: light blue irises with slightly darker pupil rims. People who worked with me briefly sometimes asked about my true eye color and couldn't believe it was actually blue. Probably because a teenager-looking girl in combat boots, dressed in leather and black, was prone to such strange ideas of changing her appearance.

Sitting on the levee, I wondered why I was here, and why now. I came to the conclusion that I enjoyed looking at something constantly flowing and constantly changing, something similar to life, only tangible. I enjoyed watching the rushing current of the river. In several places, I could see eddies, and branches broken off from trees after the night's gale floated on the water's surface. Some were still green with fresh leaves.

I pulled a pack of Davidoffs from my coat and, crumpling it in my hand, wondered if it was appropriate to smoke in the open air. Ultimately, I decided I didn't care about what should or shouldn't be done. I pulled out my gas lighter with a sheriff's star engraved on the side and lit a cigarette. I inhaled deeply and thought I could use some wine and then a driver.

I felt blissful in this environment and confident, which is why a squirrel appeared next to me.

"What are you staring at? Haven't you seen the river?

" "Sometimes I think you ghosts of emotions are as dumb as hammers.

" "And who said that if something is supernatural, it's automatically wise, cunning, intelligent, omniscient, and all that?"

"Sure, you're the only ones. Sometimes you just say something about what we don't want to admit or don't see, which might change something, or if not, maybe soothe it, and so on."

"Say what you want, and I'll tell you anyway that homesickness and loneliness are only easier to bear in places like this," the squirrel said, ignoring the irony in my voice.

"Because I came here specifically to let it out and to relieve myself of this burden, even if only for a moment. Is that more or less your explanation for this trip?

" "Ooh, aware of your own feelings? Are you a psychologist?

" "I'm not, I didn't have the means to study outside my city.

" "Bitter life," the squirrel jumped onto my shoulder. "Economics suits you too, and you have a Subaru.

" "Thanks, I like it too." There was a moment of silence, until after a long moment I spoke. "Say something, comfort me, or better yet, conjure me a man with a brain.

" "I can't do magic, and even if I could, you're asking for the impossible," I snorted with laughter.

"And are brains and men antonyms?

" "Not necessarily, although your gender often thinks so." You wouldn't want to date a squirrel, though.

"Well, yes, such a relationship would be too much for the public.

" "You're out of cigarettes and the filter is plastic." She pointed out, so I threw the cigarette butt away. "Calm down, being single isn't that bad and definitely not worth the stress.

" "But you're not even thirty yet.

" "And you're fifteen.

" "We probably won't get along, you're just lecturing me instead of giving me advice.

" "What? Would you listen to the advice of a squirrel or some other spirit?

" "I might listen to a spirit.

" "Then shoot yourself in the head and then you'll be able to talk to someone.

" "Funny as hell.

" "Okay, I won't be sarcastic anymore." There was a short silence, then the squirrel suddenly spoke up again. "But you, on the other hand, can't be so demanding of yourself. Just because you don't have a boyfriend doesn't mean you're worthless and don't have any 'pheromones'."

"So why am I alone?

" "Because that's how it is for now, and there's nothing you can do about it.

" "I see you won't tell me anything more. Disappear now, because we have nothing to talk about.

" "If you want, we'll see each other again," the apparition said before disappearing from my shoulder.

I sat by the river for a few moments, then got up and returned to the car. I no longer enjoyed sitting on the green grass between the matchstick material and the natural drainage flowing in the riverbed. I got behind the wheel, turned around in the clearing, and headed back to the asphalt and onward to civilization. A few kilometers of bumpy, sandy road lay ahead of me—on which you can't drive faster than a dozen kilometers per hour—to get closer to fulfilling my own dream of a warm, fragrant bath.

So I silently passed hundreds of trees, wondering how to while away the lonely evening, when a beautiful, large doe ran a dozen or so meters in front of me. I watched her disappear between the pine trunks, not noticing a huge man who looked like a true prehistoric man running in front of me. He resembled a typical member of the fairer sex, but wore only a deerskin loincloth that reached mid-thigh. He was much hairier, though not even half as hairy as an animal's. His hair extended to mid-back and a long beard.

When I saw him, I slammed on the brakes, but I still couldn't stop in time. He saved his legs by jumping onto the hood of my car, denting it significantly while roaring at me almost as menacingly and loudly as a full-grown bear. Terrified, I didn't know what to do: get out and run, or barricade myself in the car. Consequently, I did nothing; I broke out in a cold sweat from fear, unable to move. The barbarian fell silent, jumped down from the car, and began sniffing. He approached my door and suddenly looked me in the face with his bright red, concentrated eyes. For a moment, neither of us moved, then he tried to reach out. However, my driver's side window was closed. This didn't deter him, though, and he broke the driver's side window first. Terrified and screaming, I fled to the other side of the car, but he returned to the hood. He kept banging on the window until it simply fell in. This time, he reached me easily, pulled me out of the car like a doll, ignoring my screams. Then, holding me under his arm, he ran into the woods. I watched the Subaru disappear behind the wall of trees, then he seemed to lose interest in my screams and knocked me unconscious with a single, effortless blow to the head.

The

next thing I remember was the dampness hanging in the air and the warmth.

"This isn't how I imagined the place you'd end up after death," I thought, marveling at my own humor. I opened my eyes and, still lying down, rolled onto my back. High above me was a dark, barely visible rocky vault, and next to me was a large fire, and above it, a deer was roasting on a special rack. I sat down in front of the fire to warm myself, and across from me, just beyond the fire, I saw him. He was sitting on a tanned deer hide, next to him lay a piece of rock resembling a lump of salt, several spears, a pile of hides, and a flint knife. When he saw I was awake, he looked at me sharply, then went back to tanning the deer hide.

I looked around the cave again, but saw no direct exit, only a few dark openings. In my mind, I saw that some of them were blind, and the rest were twisted enough to get lost in them for days. The next image, however, was of the Neanderthal sitting before me—as I'd dubbed him—finding me after my escape through these corridors and pulling me back into the cave by my hair. I didn't like it at all, so I decided that escape was simply pointless, and I was surprised by my own indifference to the thought. The air

was getting colder, so I moved slightly closer to the fire again. I don't know if he noticed, preoccupied with his own affairs, but without my prompting, he stood up and covered me with one of the furs lying next to him. Despite his unattractive appearance, he was surprisingly caring and thoughtful. He impressed me for more than just that. He was excellent at preparing meat, tanning hides, hunting, as you could see over the fire, and generally surviving in this rock. I'd always been impressed by people who practiced survival, but he was better than them all; for him, it wasn't a hobby or a job, but his whole life.

"Do you speak my language?" I asked, not expecting an answer. He shook his head, letting me know he didn't speak, but he understood. I couldn't believe it.

"Do you understand me?" This time he nodded, without even looking at me.

"And can you learn to speak like me?" Now, in his turn, he just shrugged.

"If you ever want to learn, let me know, I'd be happy to help." He nodded in understanding and placed another newly tanning hide on the pile. Only now, when silence fell again, did he look at me. This time, his gaze was calmer. They were incredibly impressive in his brown-haired face, especially since this time they were blue and boring into me unceremoniously. I couldn't even move under his gaze, and I couldn't even think of looking away. After a moment, however, he lowered his gaze to the ground, picked up a piece of branch already charred at one end, walked over to the best-lit wall, and wrote: "I may not be able to speak, but I can write, so I can answer questions with more than just 'yes' or 'no'." "He amazes me more and more!"

"Do you have many more surprises like that?" He listened without looking directly at me.

"Quite a few, if you'd like to know them, I can't fit them on this wall." He wrote quite quickly, though not very neatly, sometimes wondering what to write.

"Who are you exactly?

" "It's hard to explain. This 'Neanderthal' is me, but inside I'm more than an ordinary human, and that's me too."

"And what does this 'more' mean?"

"For example, you only see your own apparitions, while I see them all. For example, my apparitions materialize at my will, and if it's a wolf, then it's a real wolf with all its physical attributes, one you can see and touch if it allows you to. The only thing that distinguishes it from wild wolves is that I can communicate with it as if it were my own person, through sound, thought, and facial expressions, and that I control it like an ordinary person controls a trained dog. For example, when I'm angry, I smash stones with my fist, and when calm, I break my fingers on the same stone." And for example, that I can read in..." "

In what?" I asked, and he shrugged, showing that he had run out of wall space.

"In the glove compartment of my car, there's a thick notebook and a few pens, do you know what I'm talking about?" He didn't even nod, just jumped up and ran out of the cave.

* * *

- "...Thoughts. Your mind is like an open book to me. As a rule, however, I don't read chapters about you. I only use your knowledge and copy it to myself. That's how I learned to understand you, and when you spoke to me, I was learning to write. Only theoretically, but as you can see, I'm getting better and better in practice. I use my mind-reading ability for hunting. Because all the skins you see here are the skins of those evil representatives of the species. And I know this from their own minds. I know that for some, murder is still murder regardless of what or who the victim was, but if you have to kill, it's better to kill the bad ones than the good ones. Besides, that's precisely what "It's a human weakness. They can't create pure herds. In every herd, there's someone who doesn't fit in, someone who, instead of being eliminated, spoils the herd to a greater or lesser extent. I know such elimination is difficult, but surviving in nature, within its laws, is much more difficult, and animals somehow manage it. In my opinion, instead of resolving disputes, you should eliminate—not necessarily by killing—both sides of the conflict, and there wouldn't be a problem. Nothing brings people together like a common goal," I read on the cards he brought. The more I got to know him, the more intrigued I became, and his negligence seemed less and less to offend me.

"After such an introduction, all I can ask is... And anyway, you know what I want to ask."

"I wrote that I don't read private thoughts, but if you want me to... I'm 95 years old, I don't know where I came from on Earth, I just am, and that's it. I don't have a name because I haven't needed one until now, and although it may seem strange to you, it's possible to navigate someone's mind so precisely as to read only individual sentences without recognizing others. Oh, and by the way, I won't shave specifically for you, so don't think about it." "That

's a shame, I wanted to see what you look like without your mask. "

"And are appearances important to you? For me, they're just an accessory, and if you still want to see my true face, then we have different definitions of it, because I'm not hiding it at all." "

Okay, let's just say this beard is a part of you, like an arm or a leg." There was a moment of mutual silence. However, I couldn't stay that way for long.

"I have a question..." I didn't finish, because he was already handing me the paper with the answer.

"That's how 'Neanderthals' are when they're looking for a 'female'."

"You just haven't outgrown the horseplay." I smiled broadly, and any remnants of fear or embarrassment vanished. I looked bravely into his eyes and saw that they were now green as moss on a stone. I stood up, wrapping myself in the skin he'd given me, and sat down next to him. I leaned against his shoulder, and he wrapped one arm around me, pressing me closer to him for warmth. And once he'd managed to warm me sufficiently, I fell asleep. For the first time in weeks, I had no dreams, neither nightmares nor the daydreams that intensify the emptiness immediately after waking. A pleasant warmth warming my face woke me. I didn't open my eyes immediately, though. I wanted to experience what my other senses were providing me first.

So

, first, I inhaled a fresh breath of air through my nose, which was clean and smelled of vegetation, not damp. I touched the ground with my hand and plucked a blade of grass from the carpet it turned out to be. I rubbed it in my hand, listening to the light breeze rustling the trees, gently stirring the leaves, and to the distant sound of a woodpecker tapping on the trunk of one of those hard forest elements. And when I opened my eyes, my suspicions were confirmed. I was in a small clearing in a rather dense grove, not in a cave. A swarm of small daisies grew around me, and the sky was a beautiful blue, obscured only by a few harmless white clouds and illuminated by a bright yellow sun.

I stood up for a moment to stretch my stagnant frame, then sat down on the deerskin that served as my bedsheet. I unbuttoned my blouse slightly and exposed myself to the sun's rays. I'd left my coat in the car, but I didn't regret it. It was of no use to me now. I'd love to strip naked, lie on the skin, and feel the deerskin fur beneath my back, soaking up the sun. The sun was wonderfully warm, and I'd had enough of my pathetic paleness for the moment. I don't know why, but I wanted to be like a plump peach, so tempting that the only way to control myself was to eat it. I unbuttoned my blouse even further to feel the sun's rays tickling my cleavage, and I lay down, closing my eyes.

I'd been basking in the sun for quite some time when a shadow appeared across my face. I opened one eye first, but when I saw a white puma looming over me, I jumped to my feet.

"Don't be afraid, if I were going to eat you, I would have already." He spoke to me through telepathy, not moving his jaw at all.

"Forgive me, but I have a primal fear of cats larger than a lynx." He smiled with almost human-like black eyes. I sat back down on my skin and listened to what the apparition of my Neanderthal had to say.

"I have no doubt. The mind reader sent me to bring you to the cave when you want to return. I'll be your guide until you learn the paths in this forest.

" "Is he so worried about me? Something simply prevents him from coming here in person, eh?

" "I'm not in the business of guessing his thoughts or judging his actions.

" "Well, you only work for him." I offered the puma a slight irony.

"It's an honor to do him favors. He's the last righteous man in our world.

" "I know you're just a ghost, but I assume you have some contact with ordinary animals. Who is he to them? Who is he to this forest in general? Tell me about him.

" "I don't know the words to describe who he is to us. The closest thing to truth would be to call him father, shepherd, judge, and executioner. He's simply the last righteous man, as all the animals here call him.

" "So, is he more of a god to you than an ordinary man?"

"We know he's not a god, but he commands a respect close to that of a god. Can I ask you something?

" "Well, if you want, ask.

" "Do all people have ghosts? What's it like with them anyway? You're the first person I can ask. So far, I've only encountered one human.

" "Ghosts aren't generally associated with humans, or anything related to humans." They're simply beings who seem to care for us by choice and simply because they enjoy it. Honestly, I don't know anything more about them, and what I do know isn't certain at all. They simply are, and that's it, and people have become accustomed to them and live in symbiosis with them.

"Supposedly, one couldn't live without the other.

" "Perhaps so, but no one knows.

" * * *

"Come with me, I'll show you something." He took my hand and, without saying anything else, began walking through the grove in an unknown direction.

He practically slipped between the trees, and I just bumped into them, slowing him down more than he could bear.

"Are you coming? Are we supposed to get there by evening?"

"I haven't been running around the forest for hours like you have for ninety years. I can't rush between trees growing less than a meter apart, dragged like a dog on a too-short leash." He didn't even comment on my remark, just slung me over his shoulder and started running. His simplicity in solving problems defused me like a bomb disposal unit with the simplest bomb.

After fifteen minutes of brisk, yet uncomfortable, running, we reached the edge of a narrow, grassy path, where he set me down. I could have driven my car here if I'd known something like this existed. We stopped a dozen or so meters from the road, next to a low but rather extensive mound of leaves, branches, and other such debris.

"What do you want to show me?

" "This," he pointed to the mound. "I hid your car under it. I secured it well, so nothing will happen to it, and whatever you had in it is in the trunk." "And how can you not smile in front of such a simple-minded person? It's impossible, so with a slight smile I said,

"Thank you, that's nice, but I doubt I'll ever need a car again."

"It might seem that way to you now, but in a few days, weeks at most, you'll miss your world so much that you'll decide to return to it, and how are you going to do that without a car?

" "And will you let me come back? I'm your mating trophy.

" "I never thought of you that way. I simply wanted to learn about the outside world, other people, and generally about things I didn't know.

" "In that case, I could go home now, because you've learned everything I know, even talking," I said, not particularly hiding the fact that he was offended by his self-interest. "I'm

not kicking you out, if that's what you mean, but your departure is only a matter of time.

" "Okay, let's not argue, because we don't have anything to talk about, right? Let's go back to the clearing. I want to look at the sky from there during the day today and then see that enormous moon at night." "I decided I wouldn't talk to him about it; it would just upset him unnecessarily. He didn't care at all why I wanted to be here, or what I would think of him if he treated me like some kind of fork."

"Jump in, then," he said, offering his back. This time the journey was much more comfortable, though longer and ending in a completely different place than planned. We found ourselves in a much larger clearing than the one where I'd previously soaked up the sun. It was surrounded by a dense fence of spruce, pine, and fir trees. On one side, there was a tall, narrow waterfall ending in a small lake. The water poured with a roar, and the sunlight falling on the reservoir, passing through the falling liters of clear liquid, split into a beautiful rainbow. The view was simply incredible, and although the water in such places was usually very cold, this place was the most charming I'd ever been.

"Do you know many more interesting places like this?" Because I don't know if I should prepare myself for more landscape surprises.

"I know a few more, but this is my favorite.

" "That's why," he said, standing up, turning his back to me and facing the lake, removing his loincloth, and jumping into the water.

"Your provocation is way beyond the pale.

" "And which side of that line would you rather be on?

" "It doesn't matter, as long as it feels good," I replied, smiling. "Now turn around, because we haven't known each other long enough for me to be undressing in front of you." Without a word, he turned away, and I quickly stripped off my clothes and jumped into the water, which turned out to be exceptionally warm.

"And how do you like it now?" he asked when I touched his arm, signaling that he could turn around, but also letting him know that now he could only look me in the face.

"More and more with each passing moment."

We swam in that romantic, natural, unowned pool for long fifteen minutes, playing with the joy of children and without the embarrassment that had seemed so obvious to me in such moments until now. Every now and then, one of us would swim under the waterfall, letting you feel that pleasant touch of water flowing over you, familiar from the shower.

Standing under the cascading water, I lifted my face to it, feeling him float past me, stand right in front of me, embrace me, and begin to kiss me. He took me without a single word of encouragement, warning, or announcement. Most interestingly, though, was that even though my entire mind was rebelling, I didn't protest, not even with a single small gesture. I submitted to his decisive and forceful caresses, offering him my body and offering it to him like an amateur chef who, delighted to have pleased others with his new dish, offers them seconds. I felt joy in being able to please him with my presence. It was like the joy of being Santa Claus, bringing the gifts you'd always dreamed of.

We did it there—under that waterfall—knowing that this was a slice of our lives that we would remember from a third-person perspective, not as participants in that shower. I was a gift to him from myself, and his joy, happiness, and tenderness were a gift from him to me. Neither of us asked for any gift from the other, and that was beautiful, too.

After our act, we swam closer to the shore and silently embraced each other, still in the pond. We both listened only to the roar of the waterfall and the warm wind through the trees, until he finally spoke to me in his calm, gravelly voice.

"How are you feeling?

" "See for yourself. I have nothing to hide anymore." I whispered my last wish directly into his ear.

"Are you sure?

" "Yes, I want to be with you, and I want to expose myself completely to you.

" "Why? Is it so important to you?

" "Yes, damned important. Just as everyone who writes a diary wants to be read someday, I want you to read my mind, if you can call it that."

"Okay, then." "He said, then his eyes became like those of a blind man, covered with cataracts, and after a moment, his white pupils enlarged to cover his entire eyeballs and took on a rainbow pattern. They became vertically painted with rainbow colors, one next to the other, remained like that for a moment, then returned to their normal human appearance, taking on a golden hue.

"Are you willing to make so many sacrifices? And all for me?

" "Are you starting to irritate me, is it so hard to understand?

" "I don't know why you're doing this?"

"Because I love you, you idiot! You better learn that mind-reading thing." He smiled.

"For what?

" "For a joke.

" "I think a joke?

" "Don't flatter yourself like that, or you'll grow wings." He fell silent for a long moment, then disentangled himself from my embrace, stood up, walked a few meters to the shore, and said,

"For the wings, I have to show you something, and then you can decide if you really want to keep all your promises." I was surprised, not understanding what he was trying to tell me and unable to guess the message. He began to transform into various animals, one by one, from a squirrel, through a lynx, a wolf, a white puma, a bear, a huge old African elephant, and a huge white dragon. He was several meters long, excluding his powerful tail, which ended in a bone club. He had a slender head, ending in two flaming horns at the back, and a mouth that, if he opened it, I could stand upright. His dragon wings, however, had a span of several dozen meters and covered almost the entire lake.

"Don't be afraid of me in any form. I am still myself, I just look different," he spoke through telepathy. "This is my truest self."

"Are you a ghost?"

"I'm a small percentage of the ghosts in the world, including yours. There are a dozen or so of us now, but we don't communicate. Many of us died long ago, but we still care for people." I didn't know what to say. My mind was a complete mess, a vast jumble of emotions, from fear, through anger, to regret.

He lay down, and I moved closer to his burning horns to dry myself off. And when I was dry, I dressed and, without a word, set off into the forest, not even knowing if I'd find my way back to my Subaru. He didn't even ask where I was going. He transformed into a bear and walked beside me.

We walked like that for a while until I finally gave in to his silent plea and mounted him. He carried me straight to the spot where he'd buried my vehicle, and when I dismounted, he dug it out quickly and skillfully, pushed it onto relatively level ground, and stood as a human in the shade of the trees.

"I have to start my life over again because of you." Perhaps we'll meet again, but don't visit me in any way. You understand me, right? He didn't reply, and his eyes were as black as coal. So I got in the car and drove slowly away without looking back.

That was the end of my forced break from human social life. I had no idea how to continue my life. I only knew that it would return to what it had been like a dozen or so days ago, but it would be different than before.

What kind?

I'd like to know.