I love fairy tales—everything about them is so simple. Sometimes, when I'm feeling good, I feel like I'm in one. Today I was in a completely different fairy tale. For a moment, I thought I was playing the main role, and then they asked when I'd vacate my seat.
Morning brought the song of a crane, building a large concrete nest for hundreds of other people's children. Meanwhile, the green curtains, trying to shield the apartment from the new day, carefully selected the light, letting in only a few rays of sunlight through moth-eaten holes. Lying in bed, I felt my heated body begin to melt and sink into the worn mattress. Fearing for my own existence, I quickly stood up, tripping over an old, out-of-tune violin that, longing to remind me of itself, made a mournful sound. I tried for a moment to regain full consciousness, but my body refused to obey. Hunger, which was increasingly trying to make its presence felt, finally took over and drove me towards the kitchen.
With a headache, I took each step, feeling that each one was making me older and slowly transforming me into a corpse. The faster I tried to reach my destination, the harder it was to cover the next few meters. Losing my balance every now and then, I fell to the ground, ashamed of my incompetence, and tried to hide from the shadows in a crack in the rotten floor. Passing a cross hanging on the wall, which had long since ceased to be a symbol of my faith, I knelt awkwardly, as if in contempt for Christianity. And just as I fell before it every night, this time, in my conversation with God, I cried out to him in prayer that I hadn't forgiven him.
By the time I reached the kitchen, it was already dark. Forcing myself to open the refrigerator, my exhausted body protested, slowly sliding down the wall, and I, trapped within, drifted further and further from reality.
A strange, warm melody coming from my room roused me from my sleep. Lying on the cold, icy floor, I watched as a large, emaciated white rabbit in a large red top hat sat down at the living room table and began talking to someone. His companion was a tall, pale man with a crown of thorns on his head and bleeding wounds on his hands and feet. After a brief discussion, the rabbit removed a dead pigeon from the top hat, clutching two dice in its claws, and then handed it to his opponent.
As I continued walking toward the melody, I felt my energy returning. I grew stronger and, as it were, younger with each step.
When I reached the room, I saw a naked woman playing the violin. It was wonderful to see her once again giving in to her greatest passion. I slowly approached her and embraced her, letting my hands recall the soft, smooth skin that had been taken from them. I closed my eyes, longing to fall asleep beside her. Then the warm melody faded, replaced by a shriek that pierced my mind. I opened my eyes to find my hands no longer caressing the woman they had longed for, but the shriveled corpse of a ghost with a knife embedded in its chest.
Suddenly, a plump peacock, its feathers caked with tar, flew into the room through the open window. It began to brush off the black slime, and when the process was complete, before me stood no longer a bird but a crouched figure in a tattered black cloak. As she rose, I saw her cadaverous face and bony hands, still covered with remnants of rotting flesh. The figure quickly plunged a skeletal finger into the apparition's heart, and the apparition, as if awakened from a long sleep, followed him into the living room.
The terrifying rabbit paused his game and, along with his companion, approached the black figure, allowing it to stab them in the heart. All three, jumping and making awkward movements as if to the rhythm of the most dreadful melody in the world, followed their savior. Terrified by all this, I began to flee.
As I entered the bathroom, I felt my feet sink into the green grass, and fear gave way to composure. Enclosed within four walls, away from the ghostly figures, I became smaller and smaller, and with it my worries. I walked to the bathtub and turned on the taps. Standing on the edge, I stared at the waterfall of clear water. I began to bring the burnt matches scattered throughout the bathroom to the soap dish, and then I lay down in it, wanting to hold my own funeral. When I swam out to the very center of the vast lake, I lit the wood and within moments felt a heat enveloping my body. The smell of burning hair began to compete with the smell of heated fat and escaping protein. And when my body had completely burned away, I emerged and rose to the ceiling. Then, betrayed by the wind, I began to fall, losing myself in the depths of the lake.
When I awoke, a wave of artificial light flooded my eyelids. I lay soaking wet in the bathtub, completely oblivious to what had happened.
On November 4th – exactly 21 years and 11 days ago – I reappeared – the man from 1984. The fact that a year has 365 days and a leap year 366 doesn't give me the right to waste time. Looking at my watch, I realized how little time I had left – 40, maybe 50. It's time to forget the past.
Scraps, puzzles, photos, a written note. Every gesture or sound – everything has meaning. All of it is a thought or a memory. These are images that can only be read in the world that belongs to them.
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