CRACK IN THE SKY
1. Dannie and the City forest
Dannie stood silently on the
doorstep between two worlds – the well-known and that one lying there right
after the turn, deep inside the forsaken forest. He closed his eyes and
memories emerged – tremendously beautiful memories. Alex, when they slept in
the wheat fields, when his head was lying in her lap watching the dark sky and dreaming
with his eyes open, Alex, when they were sitting there, in the parking lot,
early in the morning long before the sun rise, willing to start off with no
direction, Alex, hardly carrying her traveling bag while leaving, Alex and the nurse with dark skin and light green uniform. Why did he
recall on Alex at this precise moment Dannie did not know. Not just yet.
And his legs started moving as on
their own will, like well greased robot. Dannie heeled in order to pass under a
tree without touching it. He had this feeling that the surrounding was filled
with germs, rising spores of illnesses, waiting to sink into his flesh, to
start growing inside him until they become alive. Along the narrow and odd path
(there is no fucking path! I cannot see
it! This is not a path at all!) garbage was spread – colorful ripped bags
with lost meaning, rusty kids’ toys with sinister eyes, shabby papers with
erased content, transparent plastics, curved as the midriff of an old TV. The path
was getting narrower and shrank as the forest became thicker and larger – the
forgotten forest in the city was about to consume Dannie. But he was expecting
this, he was warned, and as he thought - prepared. After all, the mystery was
an irreplaceable ingredient of the magic he came to look for. On his left the
cars were still roaring as Dannie was gradually climbing down beneath the
safety fence of the road. He was in fact sinking.
The thought of the contagion dancing round him, filling the air with their
invisible menace, made him shiver. The roaring of the cars gradually
disappeared hidden in a glass balloon – the real life, now Dannie was
completely absorbed by the alternative reality. His footsteps were now echoing,
striking like thunders in the dead silence of the City forest. The spirits that
surrounded him were ill-boding.
That forest was small, atavism of
the time when She reigned over the City. Now She turned out to be another
infected and terminally ill child of the City. The bear calves of Dannie
touched the grass and this made his stomach turn as if a crooked finger was
scratching his throat from inside. Through his nostrils straight to his brain
some fetid smell was coming that made the air hard to breathe. His eyes filled
with tears and he stopped, slightly bent so he would not touch the strange
dirty leaves of the tree over his head. He searched the sky with eyes – the
good old sky he knew since forever - but could not see it. It appeared that at
that moment the sky was gone – it has ripped, in the same time was shrinking,
and eventually it ended covered in a tangle of deformed branches and dusty grey
leaves.
Dannie’s heart was beating either
too fast or too slow. He should not stop walking. For a second he felt thousand
beings, fingers crawling all over his skin. He started rubbing his skin; he
really wanted these things away. He cursed himself for not putting any long leg
trousers. The truth is that he was completely unprepared for what was lying
ahead of him – no water in his bag, no pocket knife, no flashlight, no rope, no
matches, no tin opener, no warm cloth, no Bible or something. He only got some
change, wrist watch, tablet, ID card, driving license, large string of keys,
receipt for current account balance and two rooster legs, rolled in a white
table napkin with blue butterflies, covered in dried blood stains.
At the very moment when early in the
morning right before heading off to work, Dannie opened the refrigerator and
took the two, not quite well packed rooster legs, at that moment he realized he
was going to actually do it. In the beginning naturally he was extremely
skeptical about the news that the woman living under the bridge was able to
cure his cancer. For his entire lifetime he was taunted with those sick people
beyond remedy who were targets of all kind of crackpots and paranormal geeks
trying to offer them the ultimate cure. Dannie used to be completely capable of
taking care of himself. And yet, yesterday, only three days after he was told
about the woman under the bridge, he left work at four o’clock, went to the
animal market (the only one he knew) and bought big colorful rooster that kept
looking straight at Dannie during the whole time with its never blinking
yellow-red eye. The fucking bird was looking daggers. Right after paying to the
short man with wrinkled sad face, Dannie grabbed the rooster and headed quickly
towards his car. He felt his fingers sweating and the bird was flapping strong
and mindless, scratching his skin and his white long sleeve shirt with its sharp
claws. . When Dannie reached the car he opened the back door and tied with one
hand the peek of the rooster with white plastic roller (it was not his best
decision but at least it was some preparation in advance) and his legs with
thin rope. Just for a second he felt like a doctor. Or some kinky version of
Norman Bates. People have snapped for less. Slight smile stretched his mouth.
The rooster started jumping and waving with his wings all over the back seat of
his recently washed car. Dannie swore at the cock and stuck his wings with the
sticking plaster he kept in a compartment in the car, in case Terra hurt
herself. He then threw the immobilized bird in the back and sat heavily on the
driver’s seat. At this moment he subconsciously knew that he had believed; he
was going to pay a visit at this woman living under the bridge deep in the City
forest; and above all he was going to do what she told him to, anything, just
to continue living. He pressed the wheel with his hands, rested his forehead
against it and started crying with no tears, realizing that his fear of death and
pain had finally turned him into a looney, a man who had lost his precious
dignity, a coward.
Photo by Google, Images
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bates
above mendtioned
Photo by Google, Images http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bates
above mendtioned
