Uncle Kolja Beastly King
I was always taken to the village during holidays. For the whole three months – from the beginning of June till the end of August. And it had to be a car journey. Of course we didn’t own a car, and every time our granddad managed to obtain some crooked black mastodon with a sheltered body but no seats. My sister and I sat on boxes of cans, clang to the sides and out of pride pretended that we weren’t sick. I managed better, because I only rarely really felt sick, but my sister by the end of the journey was usually very thoughtful and green; she sat, face buried in her knees, and occasionally moaned about why we hadn’t taken the train.
But we couldn’t have taken the train. We had to have a car. In order to take all those bundles and boxes with three months’ worth supply of food with us. Because in those days food wasn’t sold in the villages. There was indeed a shop, but there wasn’t any food in it.
What exactly was sold in that shop, I am not sure now. I remember that there was definitely garlic and vodka. All the walls were covered with bunches of garlic, as if the village was under threat from vampire invasion, and under it, along the walls, stacked one on top of the other were boxes with white bottles inside. And twice a week on the big car bread was bought. Immediately there appeared a queue for bread – every time it was equally long, because only two loafs were given to one person: one was white and one black. We also stood in the queue, because you couldn’t possibly stock up on bread for three months in advance. And we stood for a long time in this boarded space which smelled of garlic and straw, listened to sober old women’s curses and old men’s tobacco toothless laughs, and we anticipated how we would kiss the warm crust. For some reason we always kissed those loafs. Who started this tradition, I don’t remember, but I do remember that to kiss them was as pleasant and tasty as to eat them afterwards.
There were two members of the village the queue always allowed to go first. These were the village fools, they were both called Koljas but at the same time they were entirely different. Generally, there are two types of village fools: blessed and prophets. The first are loved and pitied, the second are feared and respected. Kolja Kylkin was blessed. He wasn’t yet old, always tipsy and always happy. He never took any loafs, and every time asked the seller to cut him the crust and to pour out a glass. With tenderness he looked at the glass, crossed himself in front of the corner with a garlic bunch, smiled warmly and said:
‘Take it, Lord, not as a sin, but as a remedy!’
He continued to treat himself with this remedy his whole life and lived till a very old age, without having been ill once. For some reason I didn’t like him and felt shy around him, although he was the gentlest of beings, who hadn’t done anyone any harm in his whole life. It was the other Kolja that invoked my deep interest, mixed with very explicable fear and a not so explicable admiration. This Kolja wasn’t a blessed; he was a prophet. Or rather, he could have become one, if only he could speak. But he was deaf-mute. Deaf-mute, bearded and scary. He walked around the village with a huge knotted stick, glared at those he met with his fierce prophetic eyes and sometimes sniffed in a nasty menacing way. He was scary and evil, or rather not evil but terrible.
When his neighbour Marinka crawled into the bottle and stopped milking her goats and they suffered, carrying their bloated bellows-like udders around the village, uncle Kolja came and beat Marinka with his stick, till she got up and swearing, went to milk them. Sometimes, when he couldn’t wake her up, he milked them himself and then poured the milk over her head. He fed all the dogs, cats and other creatures which wandered into his yard – so they refused to return to their owners afterwards and settled in his house. They say, he was a shepherd once, and cows obeyed him without whip. I didn’t see anything marvellous in it, because many times I witnessed how he grazed the goats. They followed him around the meadow, as if pioneers after their leader, huge vicious dogs walked on the sides following his every sign, and he himself, bearded, in a shaggy sleeveless jacket which smelled of chaff, as if he was himself a bit of a billy goat. The head goat. The goat leader. I saw it very clearly and for some reason found it very natural. And to myself I called him Uncle Kolja Beastly King. I knew it was more correct to say “the beast”, but I liked “beastly” much more, both in essence and in rhythm.
He was beastly indeed. Awfully scary and awfully fascinating, as if from a fairytale. The bread, which he took in the shop without queuing, he gave to his horde of cats and dogs, sometimes allotting a bit to sparrows and crows, who were also meticulously watching his frontage. Old women, his neighbours, spat but couldn’t bring themselves to fight him. God knows what charms he used to fill the whole village with a respectful, almost mystical fear. I, as well as everyone else, shared that fear, but in spite of it I ,somehow, inexplicably, absolutely unaccountably and devotedly loved this Uncle Kolja Beastly King. Why, what for? – to this day I don’t understand and can’t explain it.
Mother warned me to stay away for him:
‘Firstly, he is a mentally ill old man. And secondly, he is a misanthrope. It is the way his misanthropy shows.’ Mum often talked to me as with an adult, without caring about how well I understood her. ‘Sometimes it happens, that the more people hate other people, the more they like animals. But this is not right, this should not happen. You have to love everyone, otherwise it is some sort of pretence… And don’t even think of teasing him. Or he will smack you on the head and you’ll have a concussion.’
God knows, I had no intention of teasing him! It’s just that I watched him. It was a kind of game. I climbed into the tangle of bur in front of his house and through the hole in the fence I watched what he was doing. How he fed crows and they walked around his shoulders and head as if on a floor. How he for hours silently talked to chickens, holding them on his lap and stroking them tenderly, and they listened, covering their eyes with film, and their faces became serious and not at all silly as they usually were. How quickly, nimbly he made baskets out of ivy rods, and the rods seemed to burst from his hands and splice into plaits and braids. How he carried from one place to another a lame piglet, whose hinder legs, God knows why, were paralysed; and the piglet laughed merrily and looked into his bearded face.
‘Mum,’ I said in the evening at home, ‘uncle Kolja took away aunty Zina’s piglet. She wanted to kill it, but he took it away and left for himself. She swore at first and then gave it away. Because it is ill… this piglet.’
‘Oh God, what piglet?’ Mother sighed. ‘How many times have I told you not to go to this uncle Kolja!’
‘But I don’t go to him… Mum… What is he going to do with it, with the piglet?’
‘Well… What do people do with piglets? Probably he’ll also going to kill it.’
But I knew, that it won’t be so. Never would Uncle Kolja Beastly King kill a piglet. He could probably kill aunty Zina. But not a piglet. It is called mi-san-thro-pe. Very long word. A proper jawbreaker.
Sometimes during my watch under uncle Kolja’s fence, his dogs discovered me and howled and barked terrifically, and then rushed to uncle Kolja. Uncle Kolja Beastly King at once grabbed his stick and limping slightly rushed for the fence with a savage face. Growing cold with joyful terror, I dashed out of the weeds, covered in scratches, burdocks and dandelion fluff, and ran as fast as my legs could carry me across the warm dusty path to my house. He never pursued me, but with my back I felt as if he was, and bolted off, without seeing the road, my heart furiously thumping. This was also part of the game. I wondered if Uncle Kolja Beastly King seemed to consciously take part in it. In any case he never imposed any serious sanctions on me, and, mind you, never blocked up the hole in the fence. I took it as a silent agreement for the continuation of the game and after a day or two returned to my watch.
The house of Uncle Kolja Beastly King was right next to the shop. One day someone spread a rumour that ice cream was brought into the shop. It was unheard of: ice cream in a village. I begged mother for money and rushed there. But the rumour was false: there was nothing on the shelves apart from vodka and garlic. There weren’t even any bread, because it wasn’t a bread day. I remember very vividly how a sharp and hopeless disappointment pierced straight through me. It wasn’t about the ice cream as such. I looked forward to a miracle and a holiday. And neither of it happened. Even worse – it wasn’t even to be expected. I remember how I descended the warmed up by the sun shop steps, with my head hung low. Then I lifted it – and saw Beastly King.
He saw me too and beckoned with his finger. At once I became very afraid, but I came closer. Because it was common not scary fear. Somehow, I don’t know why, I knew that he won’t do me any harm. He showed me with a sign to wait for him near the wicket. And I understood and started to wait. Already fading lilac with dark green, almost black leafs, had fallen over the fence. It smelled of flowers and honey. When uncle Kolja stepped out I realised why it smelled of honey. He brought me honey in a huge enamelled cup. The whole cup filled up to the top. It was transparent, dark brown, with golden veins like mother’s amber ring, through which I liked to look at the lamp in the evenings.
God, what a smell it had, this honey! It was more than words could tell. But there was no spoon for it. Instead, there was a splinter of lime tree branch, without leafs and knots. I guessed immediately what I was supposed to do, took this branch and started to lick it. The honey was so thick, it stuck round the branch like tar and barely dropped onto my dress. And its taste, together with the taste of lime bark, asperous and slightly scratching my tongue, was absolutely indescribable. And I licked this splinter, and dipped it into the cup again, and laughed and behind the fence raged and wheezed uncle Kolja’s dogs, but I wasn’t afraid of them at all. I knew that he wouldn’t allow them to touch me.
After the honey I desperately wanted to drink, and I drank out of a pump, splashing chilling water onto my legs. And above me on a tree sat uncle Kolja’s friend sparrow and said “tee-weet” with a stressed first syllable. It was also my friend sparrow. I recognised him by his accent. During the whole of June he never built his own dwelling and always tried to invite his women into an empty crow’s nest, creepy and crooked. Women flew out of it like corks and didn’t return. Nearly half the summer was gone, and he never married.
Thursday 7 May 2009
Wednesday 25 March 2009
my creative writing coursework
The Story of a Young Dragon
***
If you are a fire breathing dragon, you have to be careful. Even when you are young and haven’t yet grown to your full size. Especially when you are young. Gildaran was both young and careful. He was proud of his carefulness and preferred not to think about his size, which was, maybe, just a little bit smaller than average for his age. He had left his parents’ cave at a relatively early age, and managed to avoid all the trouble and bad habits that other teenage dragons were so prone to. Gildaran was different: he was never fond of burning villages for fun, or snatching royal treasures, or flying over city capitals in the moonlight casting a horrible enormous shadow on the streets below. This was the sort of behaviour which attracted the attention of knights, who, having nothing better to do, would search out a poor dragon’s lair and start besieging it. Instead, Gildaran had built a beautiful home on a mountain, with wonderful views of the king’s land on one side and enchanted forests on the other. He did his best to keep his presence hidden, hunted only at night and never went too close to human villages.
Such were the thoughts of young Gildaran as he was returning from the forest, having collected fresh leaves and flowers for his bedding. As always he was moving carefully, lost in his thoughts about how fortunate his existence was. Gildaran, being a dragon, was quite fond of boasting about his personal achievements. The fact that there were no listeners did not discourage our young hero and he was quietly mumbling to himself as he climbed back to his cave, using wings to cling to rocks while carrying his new bedding in his hands.
And because Gildaran was so busy thinking about how careful he was, it was too late when he finally heard a human voice coming from his cave. He was standing on his sunbathing plateau just outside the entrance and inside was a human female in a very pretty dress arranging flowers and cloths on his bed. His own old bedding was nowhere to be seen. As the dragon stopped, the female turned to face him.
‘Ah, there you finally are. I was wondering when you would show up.’ She said, coming out of the cave and staring at Gildaran in a most embarrassing way. ‘I thought you would be bigger,’ She added.
‘I am only young.’ Gildaran felt himself blushing as his eyes started to change colour, so he started to blink furiously. ‘I am quite a normal size for my age… just within the approximate parameters…’
The female wasn’t listening. She circled Gildaran staring at him insolently, came back to face him and stated:
‘From today I am going to live with you!’
‘What!?’ Gildaran felt his world shattering all around him and he tried desperately to cling to little pieces of it. ‘You can’t. You are a human. I am a dragon. It’s my home. It’s… I won’t allow it!’ he stated firmly, ruffling up his wings and breathing dark smoke out of his nostrils. Too late he realised that he was still holding a bunch of flowers in his arms which made him look rather ridiculous.
The girl wasn’t impressed in the least.
‘I am the princess of this country, and everybody must do what I say. I can live where I want, and since I said that I will live here, here I will stay!’
‘But…’ The world was shattered. The last pieces of normal safe life were slipping through Gildaran’s fingers and there was nothing he could do. ‘Why?’ he asked finally, not sure whether he was addressing the fate or the princess.
The fate stayed quiet, as she always did. The girl, on the other hand, readily answered the question, making Gildaran feel more and more miserable with every word.
‘Because, I won’t put up with it anymore! All my life I have listened to my beloved father the king, attended all the balls, talked and played with nobles, learned to play the piano, and even studied maths. But from today this all is going to stop. Today my father has pushed me over the limits of my tolerance. He wants me to marry Lawrence, prince of the neighbouring country. Have you seen this Lawrence? He is like half a year younger than me, and he is fat and stupid and has spots on his face!’
Among all the dawning insanity Gildaran suddenly had one encouraging thought: he didn’t have any spots whatsoever.
‘Well, father dearest was shouting his lungs out telling me how it’s my duty to follow his orders and how ungrateful I am and how the nations will benefit from our union, so my head started to hurt from all this noise and politics and I decided to run away.’
‘This is certainly very thoughtless…’ Seeing the look on the girl’s face Gildaran quickly corrected himself:
‘I mean brave. You are a very brave young human. But why here? And how do you know I live here anyway?’
‘You’re kidding? Everybody knows there is a dragon living on this mountain. That’s why they made it a nature reserve. It’s in all our tourist books too. It is very fashionable to have a dragon.’
‘You mean those people down there know I live here? But how?’
‘Oh, come on. It’s not like it’s possible to hide the whereabouts of a dragon. Even though you might not be as big as people say.’
‘I am within my age group size parameters.’ Gildaran was determined to win at least one argument, but it was really hard because the girl never listened to what he said.
‘So I thought: where is the one place my father will never expect me to go? And I figured it’s here. You have to agree it’s really smart of me.’
The girl was genuinely proud of her actions and immune to the voice of reason. So Gildaran sighed, mentally prepared himself for the inevitable siege by the knights, thought that it was actually very brave of him to be so calm about his extreme situation, and followed the girl into the cave.
***
She was unbearable. She turned Gildaran’s cosy home into an infernal battleground and his life into a never ending nightmare. When outside, Gildaran was always terrified of knights charging up the mountain to get him; when inside he was forced to listen to her singing and to endure her innovations to his cave. She removed all spider webs along with the spiders, so Gildaran was left without his only company. She turned his bed into a table and insisted on cloths covering it. She washed all the furs and sprinkled them with her perfume, which made Gildaran sneeze. The amount of clothes she had seemed to increase every day and she demanded that Gildaran creates a special niche in the wall, so that she could keep her dresses there. He threatened to take her back to her father. She reasoned that the dragon wouldn’t be allowed to appear anywhere near the capital. The dragon was fighting a desperate battle to keep his private quarters private, however the only reason the princess hadn’t refurnished it was because he hid the entrance behind a huge boulder.
But the worst was yet to come. After about a week of constant terror Gildaran was finally calming down. Nothing seemed to have changed in the human lands. Life was quiet, trade was busy and no knights or other wannabe heroes were interested in looking for a missing princess. In fact, he finally gathered that no one actually knew the princess had gone missing. For political reasons this information hadn’t been revealed to general population and the king had suggested that the princess would return herself, once she got bored with her new fancy. Gildaran felt like a great weight had come off his shoulders. He started to enjoy the simple pleasures of life again and even the princess’s singing and perfumes didn’t seem to him so terrible after all.
The princess didn’t share Gildaran’s joy. She was fuming. It seemed to Gildaran ironic that she should be a small frail girl and he a fire breathing monster, as she certainly had a much more furious nature. After days of tears, screaming and broken tableware (those wonderful plates and tea set the princess had brought with her) she decided to act. When Gildaran returned from his hunting trip she was waiting for him outside.
‘I know what I’ll do. I will marry you! That will teach my father to ignore his daughter’s wishes!’ Her eyes were finally dry, but her nose was still red after too much crying and shouting. She had that look of iron determination on her face so typical of royalty. Gildaran felt panic rising in him, although he was fairly sure that this plan of the princess wouldn’t work.
‘You can’t marry me.’ He tried hard to think of a polite way of refusing a marriage proposal. ‘This is quite impossible. You see, I am a dragon…’
‘Don’t be a fool! Of course, I can see you are a dragon. But I have found a solution! I am prepared to kiss you!’
‘What!?’ Gildaran felt an almost irresistible urge to spread his wings and fly away and never come back. He shut his eyes tightly to gather all his will and persuade himself that running away from a frail human female would be improper for a respectable dragon.
‘I will kiss you, and then your evil enchantments will be broken and you will turn back into a human. And then we will marry, because I saved your life. I hope you are good looking. Anyway, you can’t be worse than Lawrence. At least you don’t have spots. And then the king will have to give you half of his kingdom and we can move far away from here and you can rule your half of the kingdom and no one will be able to tell me what to do.’ The princess went on and on about life after their marriage, and went as far as telling Gildaran how she would get herself a little white dog and call her Tutsi.
‘Do you like the name?’
Gildaran was patiently waiting for just this kind of break in her monologue.
‘No. I mean the name is fine, that is not what I’m talking about. I mean that we can’t marry. I am only an adolescent dragon, I mean this is irrelevant of course, because I won’t turn into a human. You can’t kiss me. I mean, you could, I suppose, but you shouldn’t because it won’t do anything.’
He looked at the princess desperately. She had a puzzled look on her face but at least she was silent and he had a chance to gather together his thoughts and continue.
‘I am a dragon. I am not under any sort of enchantment spells. I was born a dragon. My mother is a dragon and my father is a dragon. My brothers and sisters are all dragons. You can’t break my enchantments because there aren’t any!’
‘But I read in this book that monsters who can talk human languages are all good looking princes of far off lands who were enchanted by evil witches to look horrible. I don’t mean that you are ugly, the way you are, but you are certainly quite scary, if not as big as one would have thought.’ The princess was holding a book with lots of colourful pictures. On the cover Gildaran saw the word “Fairytales” and some human name beginning with “G”. The “G” was coloured golden and there were leaf vines drawn all around it. He wondered how humans managed to collect tales told by fairies. As far as he knew the little folk were very protective of their knowledge. He had to keep his investigation into the nature of the book short because he saw from the princess’s expression that she was not convinced by his story and while he was leaning forward to take a good look at the book she was preparing her dreadful kiss.
‘Wait!’ Gildaran jerked his head up. ‘I suppose, if you still don’t believe me I will show you my proof of identity. Come.’
He took her to see his most valuable treasure. Carefully he moved the boulder hiding the entrance to his private chamber out of the way and took the princess inside. There, in the furthest corner of the cave, was a curtain made out of thin vines, protecting his most sacred possession. He remembered how he had spent weeks making this curtain: gathering all the materials, soaking the vines in water, arranging it outside his cave to dry. It was a wonderful piece with gems and shining shells weaved into it. Yet, it was nowhere as beautiful as the treasure that lay behind it. The curtain made lovely tinkle noises as the dragon held his breath and drew it open.
‘It’s an eggshell.’ The princess, who had thought she would finally see one of the famous dragon hoards, was disappointed. The eggshell was thick and pimply and had red spots all over it. More than that, some pieces of it were covered in old dried slime. Then she finally realised what it was.
‘Wait, is that your egg? The egg you were born from?’
Gildaran had the widest smile on his face. Looking at his own eggshell always made him feel small again. He remembered the games he played with his siblings and the smell of his father’s scales, and the voices of the trees which grew outside their cave. His eyes narrowed and his tail was twiddling with excitement. He grinned and nodded to the princess.
‘Interesting,’ she said, now looking at the shell more closely. ‘I guess you are a dragon after all. That means I have to think of something else.’
To the great distress of Gildaran, the princess spent the next evenings reading the fairy book.
***
It all came to a sudden end one not so sunny day. Two months had passed since the princess came to live in Gildaran’s cave, summer was inevitably coming to its end, the nights got colder and colder and the princess got more and more uncomfortable. Gildaran spent his days collecting wood for fire, soft leaves and flowers for bedding, making furs for the princess and gathering her fruits, because she got tired of eating meat all the time. She even insisted on Gildaran eating apples for dinner. She talked at length, as she always did, about someone called Vegetarianism who said that it was immoral to kill animals for food. Gildaran didn’t agree with this idea, but didn’t want to upset the princess, so he would have a hearty breakfast in the forest while the princess couldn’t see him and then share an apple pie with her in the evening.
He was returning from one of his gathering trips, holding a big basket full of apples, when he saw his princess tying herself to a nearby tree. Despite the cold she was wearing only a see through nightgown and was barefoot. As always, the princess noticed him before he could react.
‘What are you staring at? Help me!’
‘What are you doing?’ he enquired carefully.
‘Can’t you see? I am putting an end to all this! I am going home!’
‘Are you sure that tying yourself to a tree is the best way of getting home?’
‘Well, I can’t just walk down the mountain, can I? That would mean that my father was right and I had wasted two months living in this dirty hole.’
Gildaran wanted to argue that his cosy cave wasn’t dirty at all, but the very opposite, quite nice and spacious. It even had a sunbathing plateau and wonderful views. But something at the back of his mind buzzed that it wasn’t the right time for arguments.
‘So what is your plan?’ he asked, knowing that whatever it was, he wouldn’t like it.
‘I am going to be saved! Like a proper princess should!’
‘But no one knows you are here.’
‘Oh yes, they do now. I told them!’
Gildaran heard himself asking her more questions about how and why she did it, but he couldn’t clearly hear the answers. The land was going from under his feet, he thought he heard the clanging of armor and he imagined knights charging up the mountains, swords drawn.
‘This morning I went down to the village and I told them that a terrible fire breathing dragon stole me from the palace. And that I only had this one chance to come and tell people where I was, before you came back. Once this news gets around, my father won’t be able to ignore me any longer. And then I found this lad, a weaver and asked for some rope and that’s what he gave me, and now we have to stage everything, so by the time the knights get here, they will see how cruelly you have treated me and they will blame my father for not attempting to rescue me earlier.’
‘But what about me?’ Gildaran finally managed to ask the only question that was on his mind. The princess didn’t seem to hear him.
‘This lad, Jack, the one who gave me the ropes, he is a really nice guy. Pity he is just a farmer. He has got a nice smile. We had a lovely chat and he seemed really upset about my tragic fate. Said that if he was a knight, he would have saved me, even if there were ten fire breathing dragons trying to stop him. You know, I believe him. He is not like others. Honest. And he cares about what I have to say.’
‘What about me?’ Gildaran repeated more loudly.
‘Oh, don’t worry. I have thought of everything! In fact you are playing a vital role in my plan. When the knights start to charge you wait for my signal. I will choose the one who is most handsome and then you burn everyone else and the handsome one cuts your head off, and then the king has to marry me off to him, because he saved my life and killed a monster.’
This plan was so flawed Gildaran didn’t know where to start.
‘I am glad you will have your happy marriage, but did I hear it right, part of the plan involves cutting my head off?’
‘Well, yes, the handsome knight cuts your head off, and then you pretend to be dead, and then I marry the knight because he killed the monster and saved me.’
‘There is one problem,’ Gildaran started. ‘Well, actually, there is more than one, but this one is a really big problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If my head gets cut off,’ Gildaran tried desperately not to imagine the sight. ‘I won’t need to pretend anything. I will be quite dead.’
‘Won’t your head grow back?’
‘No, I am fairly sure, it won’t.’
‘But in this book I read that if you cut off the head of a giant serpent monster it re-grows.’
Gildaran feared the fairy book had become the source of princess’s inspiration.
‘You are talking about hydras,’ he realised. ‘Hydras have many heads, and they re-grow them should one be cut off. Dragons have one head, and if it gets cut off, they die.’
‘Are you sure?’ The princess seemed disappointed there was a flaw in her carefully mastered plan.
‘Yes. Yes, I am. And anyway, I don’t wish to test the theory.’ Maybe the princess was just getting cold but Gildaran thought he noticed traces of doubt on her face, so he pressed the issue.
‘Besides, I do not want to burn any knights! This is not the sort of behaviour one expects from a respectable dragon. Don’t you think that it’s not right to kill people? Doesn’t your Vegetarianism have something to say about it?’
The princess looked genuinely upset. Clearly there were gaps in her master plan she hadn’t worked on. Unfortunately, her iron determination, the sign of royal blood, didn’t allow her to back down.
‘It’s too late now. I was in the village in the morning. They should be on their way to the mountain now.’
There was nothing that could be done. Gildaran took the apples back to the cave and tried to prepare himself for the inevitable conflict.
Time passed. The princess got cold and demanded Gildaran bring her a fur coat and shoes. She couldn’t put the shoes on because she had tied her legs to the tree and couldn’t move them. Gildaran had to cover her in furs and curl around her to warm her up. The princess got hungry and Gildaran had to get her food from the cave. She couldn’t eat because she had tied her arms to the tree and Gildaran had to feed her with a spoon, which was quite tricky, because the spoon was too small and kept falling out of his claws. Gildaran suggested untying the ropes, but the princess said they wouldn’t have time to tie them back, when the knights came. Time passed. The princess suggested untying the ropes because her body was getting numb. Gildaran discovered the knots were too small for him to untie and the rope was too tight for him to get his claws under it without damaging the princess. The princess tried to untie the ropes herself but she had done a good job tying them in the first place and couldn’t move an inch. When the sun started to set the princess was demonstratively sneezing and trying hard to hold back her tears. Even Gildaran was starting to get uncomfortable and wished the knights would appear so it could all be over.
‘They won’t come.’ The princess broke the long silence. ‘They won’t come and I will die here of cold and hunger and no one will know.’
Gildaran tried to calm her down.
‘You have to give them more time. It’s a long way from the capital to here. May be they got into some sort of accident on their way. I am sure they are all eager to rescue you.’
Then, just as the princess were about to open her mouth and start another long monologue about her loneliness, they heard footsteps and a moment later a young lad, dressed in farmer’s clothes appeared.
‘Jack!’ As if by some magic, the princess suddenly came back to life. ‘Jack, you have to help me! You have to untie these ropes! Never mind Gildaran, he won’t do anything to you!’
‘You see,’ Gildaran saw terror on the lad’s face, so he decided he needed to explain himself. ‘She… We tied those ropes, and they got too tight and now we can’t undo them, and since it’s nearly night I don’t think the knights will come today, so we would quite like to go back home to sleep, but we can’t, because we can’t undo the ropes.’
It took the princess and Gildaran some time to explain that Jack has nothing to fear, and the dragon wasn’t as evil as the princess had described earlier and wasn’t going to swallow him, or breathe fire on him, and that he was generally quite friendly to humans.
Jack reminded that the princess had promised that the ropes would be returned to him by the sunset, and since they weren’t, he went himself to get them back, as they were of the finest quality. The princess started to explain herself, but Jack didn’t seem to be angry at her, as he understood she couldn’t move and therefore couldn’t have possibly returned the ropes in time. He was happy to untie the princess, though it took them a while to do it. Jack didn’t want to cut the ropes, as they were of the finest quality and worth at least five coppers at the market. After lots of advice from the princess and the dragon, who was quite proud of his weaving skills, Jack managed to untie the knots and they could all go back to the cave. As the saviour of the princess Jack was invited to share their dinner. When Jack saw the princess cooking her special diet apple pie he suggested she had a rest and cooked the dinner himself. It was the best pie Gildaran ever tried, and even the princess was quite happy in spite of the fact that her special diet apple pie was stuffed with meat and didn’t have a single apple slice in it.
In the middle of the dinner they heard a human voice calling from beneath the sunbathing plateau:
‘A little help here!’
Gildaran saw a human desperately climbing up to the cave. He turned out to be the father of the princess and the king of the country. The princess started to shout about how unloving her father was and what tortures she had endured, but she was too tired and the meat pie was too tasty so she went back to eating.
‘Sorry, it took me so long,’ the king addressed Gildaran. ‘Had to leave my horse, the creature wouldn’t go anywhere near a dragon’s lair. Well, I see you are doing fine in here. I have expected worse.’ The king looked around the cave, his stare clinging to the shared meal. Gildaran politely asked him inside and Jack served him a plate of modified princess’s special pie.
After everybody was fed, warm and sleepy, and Gildaran made sure that there were no knights around, he risked asking the king.
‘How come you came here alone?’
‘Do you think knights are fools? Nobody wants to be toasted in his armor. If the princess had said she was stolen by an evil wizard, they would have no problem risking their lives to save her. But a fire breathing dragon is a totally different issue. Plain suicide.’
‘And they know they would have to marry her should they succeed,’ the king added after making sure the princess was busy chatting to Jack and wasn’t paying attention to anything else. ‘I mean, you have lived with her, you understand what I mean. And that is before she starts to sing.’
‘But you weren’t afraid?’ Gildaran thought that although the princess had her moments her father was unfair about her, so he decided to change the conversation.
‘I knew your dad, boy. Wonderful dragon! Never harmed a single human being. Never stole a single sheep from the farmers.’
So the night went on, Gildaran was happy to talk to the king about his father and the good old days, the princess was telling Jack about her intolerable life in the palace, and he seemed happy to listen to her.
***
The next morning Jack took his good quality ropes and went back to the village, and the reunited royal family went back to the palace. Gildaran generously agreed to help to carry princess’s things down the mountain. Even with his help by the time last of the things were safely transported it was already midday. Gildaran came back to his cave which suddenly became so much tidier and strangely alien. Something was not right: somehow the cave seemed much bigger than before. At first Gildaran thought that he got too used to the princess’ singing. Then he noticed a forgotten vase with flowers on the table. It took him a while to realise that originally it was his bed, and that the cave seemed so empty because there weren’t any spider webs in it. Gildaran spent the next days attracting spiders back into his cave. He thought long what to do with the table, for which he had no use, but finally decided to leave it as it was. By the end of the week his home looked like his own again and the princess’s singing stopped echoing down its chambers. Gildaran finally returned to normal life.
Soon after that the king announced that since the princess and Jack got along so well, the two should marry. He mentioned that prince Lawrence had married a common girl the week before and that according to national surveys this event increased the popularity of his father’s government by 47%. The princess wasn’t interested in numbers and politics but for once agreed with her father as Jack had no spots and blond hair and the most beautiful smile. Nobody asked whether Jack the weaver agreed to the idea, but it soon became known that he enjoyed princess’s singing and that had to count for more than simple words.
Gildaran was invited to the wedding, and after people realised that he liked Jack’s special pies much more than raw humans, the guests became more relaxed and some even went as far as confessing to Gildaran that they had thought dragons were bigger.
***
If you are a fire breathing dragon, you have to be careful. Even when you are young and haven’t yet grown to your full size. Especially when you are young. Gildaran was both young and careful. He was proud of his carefulness and preferred not to think about his size, which was, maybe, just a little bit smaller than average for his age. He had left his parents’ cave at a relatively early age, and managed to avoid all the trouble and bad habits that other teenage dragons were so prone to. Gildaran was different: he was never fond of burning villages for fun, or snatching royal treasures, or flying over city capitals in the moonlight casting a horrible enormous shadow on the streets below. This was the sort of behaviour which attracted the attention of knights, who, having nothing better to do, would search out a poor dragon’s lair and start besieging it. Instead, Gildaran had built a beautiful home on a mountain, with wonderful views of the king’s land on one side and enchanted forests on the other. He did his best to keep his presence hidden, hunted only at night and never went too close to human villages.
Such were the thoughts of young Gildaran as he was returning from the forest, having collected fresh leaves and flowers for his bedding. As always he was moving carefully, lost in his thoughts about how fortunate his existence was. Gildaran, being a dragon, was quite fond of boasting about his personal achievements. The fact that there were no listeners did not discourage our young hero and he was quietly mumbling to himself as he climbed back to his cave, using wings to cling to rocks while carrying his new bedding in his hands.
And because Gildaran was so busy thinking about how careful he was, it was too late when he finally heard a human voice coming from his cave. He was standing on his sunbathing plateau just outside the entrance and inside was a human female in a very pretty dress arranging flowers and cloths on his bed. His own old bedding was nowhere to be seen. As the dragon stopped, the female turned to face him.
‘Ah, there you finally are. I was wondering when you would show up.’ She said, coming out of the cave and staring at Gildaran in a most embarrassing way. ‘I thought you would be bigger,’ She added.
‘I am only young.’ Gildaran felt himself blushing as his eyes started to change colour, so he started to blink furiously. ‘I am quite a normal size for my age… just within the approximate parameters…’
The female wasn’t listening. She circled Gildaran staring at him insolently, came back to face him and stated:
‘From today I am going to live with you!’
‘What!?’ Gildaran felt his world shattering all around him and he tried desperately to cling to little pieces of it. ‘You can’t. You are a human. I am a dragon. It’s my home. It’s… I won’t allow it!’ he stated firmly, ruffling up his wings and breathing dark smoke out of his nostrils. Too late he realised that he was still holding a bunch of flowers in his arms which made him look rather ridiculous.
The girl wasn’t impressed in the least.
‘I am the princess of this country, and everybody must do what I say. I can live where I want, and since I said that I will live here, here I will stay!’
‘But…’ The world was shattered. The last pieces of normal safe life were slipping through Gildaran’s fingers and there was nothing he could do. ‘Why?’ he asked finally, not sure whether he was addressing the fate or the princess.
The fate stayed quiet, as she always did. The girl, on the other hand, readily answered the question, making Gildaran feel more and more miserable with every word.
‘Because, I won’t put up with it anymore! All my life I have listened to my beloved father the king, attended all the balls, talked and played with nobles, learned to play the piano, and even studied maths. But from today this all is going to stop. Today my father has pushed me over the limits of my tolerance. He wants me to marry Lawrence, prince of the neighbouring country. Have you seen this Lawrence? He is like half a year younger than me, and he is fat and stupid and has spots on his face!’
Among all the dawning insanity Gildaran suddenly had one encouraging thought: he didn’t have any spots whatsoever.
‘Well, father dearest was shouting his lungs out telling me how it’s my duty to follow his orders and how ungrateful I am and how the nations will benefit from our union, so my head started to hurt from all this noise and politics and I decided to run away.’
‘This is certainly very thoughtless…’ Seeing the look on the girl’s face Gildaran quickly corrected himself:
‘I mean brave. You are a very brave young human. But why here? And how do you know I live here anyway?’
‘You’re kidding? Everybody knows there is a dragon living on this mountain. That’s why they made it a nature reserve. It’s in all our tourist books too. It is very fashionable to have a dragon.’
‘You mean those people down there know I live here? But how?’
‘Oh, come on. It’s not like it’s possible to hide the whereabouts of a dragon. Even though you might not be as big as people say.’
‘I am within my age group size parameters.’ Gildaran was determined to win at least one argument, but it was really hard because the girl never listened to what he said.
‘So I thought: where is the one place my father will never expect me to go? And I figured it’s here. You have to agree it’s really smart of me.’
The girl was genuinely proud of her actions and immune to the voice of reason. So Gildaran sighed, mentally prepared himself for the inevitable siege by the knights, thought that it was actually very brave of him to be so calm about his extreme situation, and followed the girl into the cave.
***
She was unbearable. She turned Gildaran’s cosy home into an infernal battleground and his life into a never ending nightmare. When outside, Gildaran was always terrified of knights charging up the mountain to get him; when inside he was forced to listen to her singing and to endure her innovations to his cave. She removed all spider webs along with the spiders, so Gildaran was left without his only company. She turned his bed into a table and insisted on cloths covering it. She washed all the furs and sprinkled them with her perfume, which made Gildaran sneeze. The amount of clothes she had seemed to increase every day and she demanded that Gildaran creates a special niche in the wall, so that she could keep her dresses there. He threatened to take her back to her father. She reasoned that the dragon wouldn’t be allowed to appear anywhere near the capital. The dragon was fighting a desperate battle to keep his private quarters private, however the only reason the princess hadn’t refurnished it was because he hid the entrance behind a huge boulder.
But the worst was yet to come. After about a week of constant terror Gildaran was finally calming down. Nothing seemed to have changed in the human lands. Life was quiet, trade was busy and no knights or other wannabe heroes were interested in looking for a missing princess. In fact, he finally gathered that no one actually knew the princess had gone missing. For political reasons this information hadn’t been revealed to general population and the king had suggested that the princess would return herself, once she got bored with her new fancy. Gildaran felt like a great weight had come off his shoulders. He started to enjoy the simple pleasures of life again and even the princess’s singing and perfumes didn’t seem to him so terrible after all.
The princess didn’t share Gildaran’s joy. She was fuming. It seemed to Gildaran ironic that she should be a small frail girl and he a fire breathing monster, as she certainly had a much more furious nature. After days of tears, screaming and broken tableware (those wonderful plates and tea set the princess had brought with her) she decided to act. When Gildaran returned from his hunting trip she was waiting for him outside.
‘I know what I’ll do. I will marry you! That will teach my father to ignore his daughter’s wishes!’ Her eyes were finally dry, but her nose was still red after too much crying and shouting. She had that look of iron determination on her face so typical of royalty. Gildaran felt panic rising in him, although he was fairly sure that this plan of the princess wouldn’t work.
‘You can’t marry me.’ He tried hard to think of a polite way of refusing a marriage proposal. ‘This is quite impossible. You see, I am a dragon…’
‘Don’t be a fool! Of course, I can see you are a dragon. But I have found a solution! I am prepared to kiss you!’
‘What!?’ Gildaran felt an almost irresistible urge to spread his wings and fly away and never come back. He shut his eyes tightly to gather all his will and persuade himself that running away from a frail human female would be improper for a respectable dragon.
‘I will kiss you, and then your evil enchantments will be broken and you will turn back into a human. And then we will marry, because I saved your life. I hope you are good looking. Anyway, you can’t be worse than Lawrence. At least you don’t have spots. And then the king will have to give you half of his kingdom and we can move far away from here and you can rule your half of the kingdom and no one will be able to tell me what to do.’ The princess went on and on about life after their marriage, and went as far as telling Gildaran how she would get herself a little white dog and call her Tutsi.
‘Do you like the name?’
Gildaran was patiently waiting for just this kind of break in her monologue.
‘No. I mean the name is fine, that is not what I’m talking about. I mean that we can’t marry. I am only an adolescent dragon, I mean this is irrelevant of course, because I won’t turn into a human. You can’t kiss me. I mean, you could, I suppose, but you shouldn’t because it won’t do anything.’
He looked at the princess desperately. She had a puzzled look on her face but at least she was silent and he had a chance to gather together his thoughts and continue.
‘I am a dragon. I am not under any sort of enchantment spells. I was born a dragon. My mother is a dragon and my father is a dragon. My brothers and sisters are all dragons. You can’t break my enchantments because there aren’t any!’
‘But I read in this book that monsters who can talk human languages are all good looking princes of far off lands who were enchanted by evil witches to look horrible. I don’t mean that you are ugly, the way you are, but you are certainly quite scary, if not as big as one would have thought.’ The princess was holding a book with lots of colourful pictures. On the cover Gildaran saw the word “Fairytales” and some human name beginning with “G”. The “G” was coloured golden and there were leaf vines drawn all around it. He wondered how humans managed to collect tales told by fairies. As far as he knew the little folk were very protective of their knowledge. He had to keep his investigation into the nature of the book short because he saw from the princess’s expression that she was not convinced by his story and while he was leaning forward to take a good look at the book she was preparing her dreadful kiss.
‘Wait!’ Gildaran jerked his head up. ‘I suppose, if you still don’t believe me I will show you my proof of identity. Come.’
He took her to see his most valuable treasure. Carefully he moved the boulder hiding the entrance to his private chamber out of the way and took the princess inside. There, in the furthest corner of the cave, was a curtain made out of thin vines, protecting his most sacred possession. He remembered how he had spent weeks making this curtain: gathering all the materials, soaking the vines in water, arranging it outside his cave to dry. It was a wonderful piece with gems and shining shells weaved into it. Yet, it was nowhere as beautiful as the treasure that lay behind it. The curtain made lovely tinkle noises as the dragon held his breath and drew it open.
‘It’s an eggshell.’ The princess, who had thought she would finally see one of the famous dragon hoards, was disappointed. The eggshell was thick and pimply and had red spots all over it. More than that, some pieces of it were covered in old dried slime. Then she finally realised what it was.
‘Wait, is that your egg? The egg you were born from?’
Gildaran had the widest smile on his face. Looking at his own eggshell always made him feel small again. He remembered the games he played with his siblings and the smell of his father’s scales, and the voices of the trees which grew outside their cave. His eyes narrowed and his tail was twiddling with excitement. He grinned and nodded to the princess.
‘Interesting,’ she said, now looking at the shell more closely. ‘I guess you are a dragon after all. That means I have to think of something else.’
To the great distress of Gildaran, the princess spent the next evenings reading the fairy book.
***
It all came to a sudden end one not so sunny day. Two months had passed since the princess came to live in Gildaran’s cave, summer was inevitably coming to its end, the nights got colder and colder and the princess got more and more uncomfortable. Gildaran spent his days collecting wood for fire, soft leaves and flowers for bedding, making furs for the princess and gathering her fruits, because she got tired of eating meat all the time. She even insisted on Gildaran eating apples for dinner. She talked at length, as she always did, about someone called Vegetarianism who said that it was immoral to kill animals for food. Gildaran didn’t agree with this idea, but didn’t want to upset the princess, so he would have a hearty breakfast in the forest while the princess couldn’t see him and then share an apple pie with her in the evening.
He was returning from one of his gathering trips, holding a big basket full of apples, when he saw his princess tying herself to a nearby tree. Despite the cold she was wearing only a see through nightgown and was barefoot. As always, the princess noticed him before he could react.
‘What are you staring at? Help me!’
‘What are you doing?’ he enquired carefully.
‘Can’t you see? I am putting an end to all this! I am going home!’
‘Are you sure that tying yourself to a tree is the best way of getting home?’
‘Well, I can’t just walk down the mountain, can I? That would mean that my father was right and I had wasted two months living in this dirty hole.’
Gildaran wanted to argue that his cosy cave wasn’t dirty at all, but the very opposite, quite nice and spacious. It even had a sunbathing plateau and wonderful views. But something at the back of his mind buzzed that it wasn’t the right time for arguments.
‘So what is your plan?’ he asked, knowing that whatever it was, he wouldn’t like it.
‘I am going to be saved! Like a proper princess should!’
‘But no one knows you are here.’
‘Oh yes, they do now. I told them!’
Gildaran heard himself asking her more questions about how and why she did it, but he couldn’t clearly hear the answers. The land was going from under his feet, he thought he heard the clanging of armor and he imagined knights charging up the mountains, swords drawn.
‘This morning I went down to the village and I told them that a terrible fire breathing dragon stole me from the palace. And that I only had this one chance to come and tell people where I was, before you came back. Once this news gets around, my father won’t be able to ignore me any longer. And then I found this lad, a weaver and asked for some rope and that’s what he gave me, and now we have to stage everything, so by the time the knights get here, they will see how cruelly you have treated me and they will blame my father for not attempting to rescue me earlier.’
‘But what about me?’ Gildaran finally managed to ask the only question that was on his mind. The princess didn’t seem to hear him.
‘This lad, Jack, the one who gave me the ropes, he is a really nice guy. Pity he is just a farmer. He has got a nice smile. We had a lovely chat and he seemed really upset about my tragic fate. Said that if he was a knight, he would have saved me, even if there were ten fire breathing dragons trying to stop him. You know, I believe him. He is not like others. Honest. And he cares about what I have to say.’
‘What about me?’ Gildaran repeated more loudly.
‘Oh, don’t worry. I have thought of everything! In fact you are playing a vital role in my plan. When the knights start to charge you wait for my signal. I will choose the one who is most handsome and then you burn everyone else and the handsome one cuts your head off, and then the king has to marry me off to him, because he saved my life and killed a monster.’
This plan was so flawed Gildaran didn’t know where to start.
‘I am glad you will have your happy marriage, but did I hear it right, part of the plan involves cutting my head off?’
‘Well, yes, the handsome knight cuts your head off, and then you pretend to be dead, and then I marry the knight because he killed the monster and saved me.’
‘There is one problem,’ Gildaran started. ‘Well, actually, there is more than one, but this one is a really big problem.’
‘What’s that?’
‘If my head gets cut off,’ Gildaran tried desperately not to imagine the sight. ‘I won’t need to pretend anything. I will be quite dead.’
‘Won’t your head grow back?’
‘No, I am fairly sure, it won’t.’
‘But in this book I read that if you cut off the head of a giant serpent monster it re-grows.’
Gildaran feared the fairy book had become the source of princess’s inspiration.
‘You are talking about hydras,’ he realised. ‘Hydras have many heads, and they re-grow them should one be cut off. Dragons have one head, and if it gets cut off, they die.’
‘Are you sure?’ The princess seemed disappointed there was a flaw in her carefully mastered plan.
‘Yes. Yes, I am. And anyway, I don’t wish to test the theory.’ Maybe the princess was just getting cold but Gildaran thought he noticed traces of doubt on her face, so he pressed the issue.
‘Besides, I do not want to burn any knights! This is not the sort of behaviour one expects from a respectable dragon. Don’t you think that it’s not right to kill people? Doesn’t your Vegetarianism have something to say about it?’
The princess looked genuinely upset. Clearly there were gaps in her master plan she hadn’t worked on. Unfortunately, her iron determination, the sign of royal blood, didn’t allow her to back down.
‘It’s too late now. I was in the village in the morning. They should be on their way to the mountain now.’
There was nothing that could be done. Gildaran took the apples back to the cave and tried to prepare himself for the inevitable conflict.
Time passed. The princess got cold and demanded Gildaran bring her a fur coat and shoes. She couldn’t put the shoes on because she had tied her legs to the tree and couldn’t move them. Gildaran had to cover her in furs and curl around her to warm her up. The princess got hungry and Gildaran had to get her food from the cave. She couldn’t eat because she had tied her arms to the tree and Gildaran had to feed her with a spoon, which was quite tricky, because the spoon was too small and kept falling out of his claws. Gildaran suggested untying the ropes, but the princess said they wouldn’t have time to tie them back, when the knights came. Time passed. The princess suggested untying the ropes because her body was getting numb. Gildaran discovered the knots were too small for him to untie and the rope was too tight for him to get his claws under it without damaging the princess. The princess tried to untie the ropes herself but she had done a good job tying them in the first place and couldn’t move an inch. When the sun started to set the princess was demonstratively sneezing and trying hard to hold back her tears. Even Gildaran was starting to get uncomfortable and wished the knights would appear so it could all be over.
‘They won’t come.’ The princess broke the long silence. ‘They won’t come and I will die here of cold and hunger and no one will know.’
Gildaran tried to calm her down.
‘You have to give them more time. It’s a long way from the capital to here. May be they got into some sort of accident on their way. I am sure they are all eager to rescue you.’
Then, just as the princess were about to open her mouth and start another long monologue about her loneliness, they heard footsteps and a moment later a young lad, dressed in farmer’s clothes appeared.
‘Jack!’ As if by some magic, the princess suddenly came back to life. ‘Jack, you have to help me! You have to untie these ropes! Never mind Gildaran, he won’t do anything to you!’
‘You see,’ Gildaran saw terror on the lad’s face, so he decided he needed to explain himself. ‘She… We tied those ropes, and they got too tight and now we can’t undo them, and since it’s nearly night I don’t think the knights will come today, so we would quite like to go back home to sleep, but we can’t, because we can’t undo the ropes.’
It took the princess and Gildaran some time to explain that Jack has nothing to fear, and the dragon wasn’t as evil as the princess had described earlier and wasn’t going to swallow him, or breathe fire on him, and that he was generally quite friendly to humans.
Jack reminded that the princess had promised that the ropes would be returned to him by the sunset, and since they weren’t, he went himself to get them back, as they were of the finest quality. The princess started to explain herself, but Jack didn’t seem to be angry at her, as he understood she couldn’t move and therefore couldn’t have possibly returned the ropes in time. He was happy to untie the princess, though it took them a while to do it. Jack didn’t want to cut the ropes, as they were of the finest quality and worth at least five coppers at the market. After lots of advice from the princess and the dragon, who was quite proud of his weaving skills, Jack managed to untie the knots and they could all go back to the cave. As the saviour of the princess Jack was invited to share their dinner. When Jack saw the princess cooking her special diet apple pie he suggested she had a rest and cooked the dinner himself. It was the best pie Gildaran ever tried, and even the princess was quite happy in spite of the fact that her special diet apple pie was stuffed with meat and didn’t have a single apple slice in it.
In the middle of the dinner they heard a human voice calling from beneath the sunbathing plateau:
‘A little help here!’
Gildaran saw a human desperately climbing up to the cave. He turned out to be the father of the princess and the king of the country. The princess started to shout about how unloving her father was and what tortures she had endured, but she was too tired and the meat pie was too tasty so she went back to eating.
‘Sorry, it took me so long,’ the king addressed Gildaran. ‘Had to leave my horse, the creature wouldn’t go anywhere near a dragon’s lair. Well, I see you are doing fine in here. I have expected worse.’ The king looked around the cave, his stare clinging to the shared meal. Gildaran politely asked him inside and Jack served him a plate of modified princess’s special pie.
After everybody was fed, warm and sleepy, and Gildaran made sure that there were no knights around, he risked asking the king.
‘How come you came here alone?’
‘Do you think knights are fools? Nobody wants to be toasted in his armor. If the princess had said she was stolen by an evil wizard, they would have no problem risking their lives to save her. But a fire breathing dragon is a totally different issue. Plain suicide.’
‘And they know they would have to marry her should they succeed,’ the king added after making sure the princess was busy chatting to Jack and wasn’t paying attention to anything else. ‘I mean, you have lived with her, you understand what I mean. And that is before she starts to sing.’
‘But you weren’t afraid?’ Gildaran thought that although the princess had her moments her father was unfair about her, so he decided to change the conversation.
‘I knew your dad, boy. Wonderful dragon! Never harmed a single human being. Never stole a single sheep from the farmers.’
So the night went on, Gildaran was happy to talk to the king about his father and the good old days, the princess was telling Jack about her intolerable life in the palace, and he seemed happy to listen to her.
***
The next morning Jack took his good quality ropes and went back to the village, and the reunited royal family went back to the palace. Gildaran generously agreed to help to carry princess’s things down the mountain. Even with his help by the time last of the things were safely transported it was already midday. Gildaran came back to his cave which suddenly became so much tidier and strangely alien. Something was not right: somehow the cave seemed much bigger than before. At first Gildaran thought that he got too used to the princess’ singing. Then he noticed a forgotten vase with flowers on the table. It took him a while to realise that originally it was his bed, and that the cave seemed so empty because there weren’t any spider webs in it. Gildaran spent the next days attracting spiders back into his cave. He thought long what to do with the table, for which he had no use, but finally decided to leave it as it was. By the end of the week his home looked like his own again and the princess’s singing stopped echoing down its chambers. Gildaran finally returned to normal life.
Soon after that the king announced that since the princess and Jack got along so well, the two should marry. He mentioned that prince Lawrence had married a common girl the week before and that according to national surveys this event increased the popularity of his father’s government by 47%. The princess wasn’t interested in numbers and politics but for once agreed with her father as Jack had no spots and blond hair and the most beautiful smile. Nobody asked whether Jack the weaver agreed to the idea, but it soon became known that he enjoyed princess’s singing and that had to count for more than simple words.
Gildaran was invited to the wedding, and after people realised that he liked Jack’s special pies much more than raw humans, the guests became more relaxed and some even went as far as confessing to Gildaran that they had thought dragons were bigger.
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Project: Genesis
(from the Archives of the Head Office)
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Marketing Department Gabriel
Our research into Genesis Project showed that the most promising systems on the current market are following:
Planet: 1
Radius: 3000 km
Gravity: 0.5 g
Water to dry land ratio: 1:1
Temperature: + 24 C
Atmosphere: oxygen
Sees: fresh water
Rivers: milk and honey
Fauna: herbivorous
Periphery: 2 celestial bodies (day and night), speed – 1 turn per fortnight
“Resolution:
Send to the Department of Strategic Planning for requirements specification.”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Strategic Planning Michael
In order to decrease the cost price of the system I suggest supplying both celestial bodies from the same power source and substituting oxygen for nitrogen.
“We should leave at least 50% of oxygen, otherwise the user will suffocate”
- Head of Department of Testing and Technical Support, Rafael
“25% will be enough”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
During operations on the Genesis Project (stage: Let There Be Light) the following difficulties were discovered:We do not have a compact source of regular fluorescence which could supply two celestial bodies. I suggest using standard source of Red Dwarf type and using a mirror as a night celestial body.
“Yellow Dwarf is better. The cost price is not that higher but it looks much more impressive”
- Head of Marketing Department, Gabriel
“But Yellow Dwarf is a server source. What does a single planet user need it for?”
- Lucifer
“The Department of Advertising will explain the user what he needs and what he doesn’t need”
- Gabriel
“Lucifer, please concern yourself with questions of your profile. I sanction the Yellow Dwarf”
- Jehovah
“By the way, the brightness of the Yellow Dwarf will allow us to use a simple planetoid instead of a mirror”
- Michael
“Agreed”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
After the initial changes in requirements specification the following difficulties occurred: the mass of the source of regular fluorescence is much larger than the mass of the planet, hence the source refuses to rotate around the planet. Instead we‘ve got the planet rotating around the source. In addition, due to the power of the source the temperature on the planet is considerably higher than originally planned. If we increase the distance to the source the size of the whole system will increase.
“The bigger it is – the better. However, rotation of the planet around the peripheral device can cause inferiority complex in the user. May be we could change the gravitation constant?”
- Gabriel
“If we change the gravitation constant we’ll have problems with compatibility”
- Michael
“Why should the user mind what rotates around what? Let the Department of Advertising think of some theory of relativity”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
After increasing the size of the orbit all attempts to speed up the planet in accordance to the original design fail (the planet flies in the outer space).By the way, same happens with the night celestial body.
“It doesn’t matter what happens in the system, what matters is what the user sees. Why can’t we make the planet revolve on its axis? Then the user would think that the sun and the moon rotate around the planet with the speed set in requirements specification.”
- Gabriel
“Do you think the user won’t notice?”
- Jehovah
“By the time he will notice we would have long submitted the project”
- Gabriel
“Agreed”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Testing and Technical Support, Rafael
The initial testing of the system revealed the following defects:
1 - Persistent overheating.
2 - The revolving axis deviated 33 degrees from the vertical, causing cyclical temperature anomalies.
3 - Throughput of rivers doesn’t correspond to the projected.
4 - Herbivorous fauna is lacking.
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
1 - What else did you hope for with such water to land ratio? For optimal cooling we need the ratio to be 1:3 to 1:4.
2 – We are working on the axis.
3 – The rivers don’t work because milk turns sour and honey becomes sugared.
4 - Herbivorous fauna needs grass, and the latter wouldn’t grow in such a heat and without water.
I suggest using water for rivers. It will also help with solving the 3rd problem.We will add another planet on the outer orbit as a gravitational counterbalance.
“We cannot decrease the size of dry land, so we need to increase the seas. That means increases in overall size and gravity force. Plus the extra planet…”
- Michael
“That’s quite all right. The user will agree to it. We’ll present the extra planet as a bonus feature. However, we have already announced milk and honey. We have to leave it in at least the major rivers”
- Gabriel
“Just to remind you, the deadlines are getting closer and you haven’t got anything yet. The designers haven’t even started on the herbivorous fauna, instead they keep messing about with dinosaurs. Who needs dinosaurs anyway?”
- Jehovah
“Actually, the user likes dinosaurs.”
- Gabriel
“Ok then, but there has to be herbivorous fauna too.”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Testing and Technical Support, Rafael
In addition to the unresolved problems with the axis, the planet now has a tendency of flying away in the outer space. Herbivorous fauna is still lacking.
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
We will make another counterbalance, this time on the inner orbit.We had herbivorous fauna. It bred, consumed all the grass and died out.
“How many counterbalances in total do you need?”
- Michael
“Well, after calibrating works we could stabilise the system on nine.”
- Lucifer
“Do I get it right? Instead of one planet the user will get nine?!”
- Jehovah
“So what? Eight out of them are unsuitable for living anyway.”
- Lucifer
“What about the size of the system?”
- Jehovah
“The user doesn’t need to know the size of the system. Half of those planets are impossible to detect without a telescope. I suggest adding an 11th commandment: “Though shall not invent a telescope”
- Gabriel
“Don’t, then they will definitely invent it.”
- Jehovah
“By the way, after we increased the radius of the orbit the brightness of night celestial body dropped below projected minimum. I suggest installing the mirror instead.
- Rafael
“Where were you before? We have just balanced out the system! Do you want us to reinstall it all again?!"
- Lucifer
“This is out of the question! We have six days till the project deadline. Lucifer, either you make this whole thing work, or I will demote you!”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
It is not my fault I didn’t receive proper requirements specification! Anyway, we will have to leave the axis incline as it is. At least we will have +24 C in the Eden Garden, and if the user wants to wander off somewhere else it is his problem. It didn’t work with milk and honey, so we filled rivers with water, only now it carries salt into the seas. We have no time to finish dinosaurs but we do have herbivorous fauna. In order for it not to eat all the resources we created a patch: Predators, however we don’t have time to write for them a program of distinguishing the user from prey. All in all, it will work.
“Good.”
- Jehovah
***
It's my translation of an old old Internet joke
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Marketing Department Gabriel
Our research into Genesis Project showed that the most promising systems on the current market are following:
Planet: 1
Radius: 3000 km
Gravity: 0.5 g
Water to dry land ratio: 1:1
Temperature: + 24 C
Atmosphere: oxygen
Sees: fresh water
Rivers: milk and honey
Fauna: herbivorous
Periphery: 2 celestial bodies (day and night), speed – 1 turn per fortnight
“Resolution:
Send to the Department of Strategic Planning for requirements specification.”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Strategic Planning Michael
In order to decrease the cost price of the system I suggest supplying both celestial bodies from the same power source and substituting oxygen for nitrogen.
“We should leave at least 50% of oxygen, otherwise the user will suffocate”
- Head of Department of Testing and Technical Support, Rafael
“25% will be enough”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
During operations on the Genesis Project (stage: Let There Be Light) the following difficulties were discovered:We do not have a compact source of regular fluorescence which could supply two celestial bodies. I suggest using standard source of Red Dwarf type and using a mirror as a night celestial body.
“Yellow Dwarf is better. The cost price is not that higher but it looks much more impressive”
- Head of Marketing Department, Gabriel
“But Yellow Dwarf is a server source. What does a single planet user need it for?”
- Lucifer
“The Department of Advertising will explain the user what he needs and what he doesn’t need”
- Gabriel
“Lucifer, please concern yourself with questions of your profile. I sanction the Yellow Dwarf”
- Jehovah
“By the way, the brightness of the Yellow Dwarf will allow us to use a simple planetoid instead of a mirror”
- Michael
“Agreed”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
After the initial changes in requirements specification the following difficulties occurred: the mass of the source of regular fluorescence is much larger than the mass of the planet, hence the source refuses to rotate around the planet. Instead we‘ve got the planet rotating around the source. In addition, due to the power of the source the temperature on the planet is considerably higher than originally planned. If we increase the distance to the source the size of the whole system will increase.
“The bigger it is – the better. However, rotation of the planet around the peripheral device can cause inferiority complex in the user. May be we could change the gravitation constant?”
- Gabriel
“If we change the gravitation constant we’ll have problems with compatibility”
- Michael
“Why should the user mind what rotates around what? Let the Department of Advertising think of some theory of relativity”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
After increasing the size of the orbit all attempts to speed up the planet in accordance to the original design fail (the planet flies in the outer space).By the way, same happens with the night celestial body.
“It doesn’t matter what happens in the system, what matters is what the user sees. Why can’t we make the planet revolve on its axis? Then the user would think that the sun and the moon rotate around the planet with the speed set in requirements specification.”
- Gabriel
“Do you think the user won’t notice?”
- Jehovah
“By the time he will notice we would have long submitted the project”
- Gabriel
“Agreed”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Testing and Technical Support, Rafael
The initial testing of the system revealed the following defects:
1 - Persistent overheating.
2 - The revolving axis deviated 33 degrees from the vertical, causing cyclical temperature anomalies.
3 - Throughput of rivers doesn’t correspond to the projected.
4 - Herbivorous fauna is lacking.
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
1 - What else did you hope for with such water to land ratio? For optimal cooling we need the ratio to be 1:3 to 1:4.
2 – We are working on the axis.
3 – The rivers don’t work because milk turns sour and honey becomes sugared.
4 - Herbivorous fauna needs grass, and the latter wouldn’t grow in such a heat and without water.
I suggest using water for rivers. It will also help with solving the 3rd problem.We will add another planet on the outer orbit as a gravitational counterbalance.
“We cannot decrease the size of dry land, so we need to increase the seas. That means increases in overall size and gravity force. Plus the extra planet…”
- Michael
“That’s quite all right. The user will agree to it. We’ll present the extra planet as a bonus feature. However, we have already announced milk and honey. We have to leave it in at least the major rivers”
- Gabriel
“Just to remind you, the deadlines are getting closer and you haven’t got anything yet. The designers haven’t even started on the herbivorous fauna, instead they keep messing about with dinosaurs. Who needs dinosaurs anyway?”
- Jehovah
“Actually, the user likes dinosaurs.”
- Gabriel
“Ok then, but there has to be herbivorous fauna too.”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Testing and Technical Support, Rafael
In addition to the unresolved problems with the axis, the planet now has a tendency of flying away in the outer space. Herbivorous fauna is still lacking.
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
We will make another counterbalance, this time on the inner orbit.We had herbivorous fauna. It bred, consumed all the grass and died out.
“How many counterbalances in total do you need?”
- Michael
“Well, after calibrating works we could stabilise the system on nine.”
- Lucifer
“Do I get it right? Instead of one planet the user will get nine?!”
- Jehovah
“So what? Eight out of them are unsuitable for living anyway.”
- Lucifer
“What about the size of the system?”
- Jehovah
“The user doesn’t need to know the size of the system. Half of those planets are impossible to detect without a telescope. I suggest adding an 11th commandment: “Though shall not invent a telescope”
- Gabriel
“Don’t, then they will definitely invent it.”
- Jehovah
“By the way, after we increased the radius of the orbit the brightness of night celestial body dropped below projected minimum. I suggest installing the mirror instead.
- Rafael
“Where were you before? We have just balanced out the system! Do you want us to reinstall it all again?!"
- Lucifer
“This is out of the question! We have six days till the project deadline. Lucifer, either you make this whole thing work, or I will demote you!”
- Jehovah
To: Chief Executive Jehovah
From: Head of Department of Systems Engineering Lucifer
It is not my fault I didn’t receive proper requirements specification! Anyway, we will have to leave the axis incline as it is. At least we will have +24 C in the Eden Garden, and if the user wants to wander off somewhere else it is his problem. It didn’t work with milk and honey, so we filled rivers with water, only now it carries salt into the seas. We have no time to finish dinosaurs but we do have herbivorous fauna. In order for it not to eat all the resources we created a patch: Predators, however we don’t have time to write for them a program of distinguishing the user from prey. All in all, it will work.
“Good.”
- Jehovah
***
It's my translation of an old old Internet joke
Thursday 26 February 2009
those weird men
They have warm hands, while we have cold fingers.
They are strong and can lift us.
One day they will understand (if only for a second) that we are the best thing they’ll ever have.
They have their principles.
They are taller than us and can get a book from the top shelf.
When they say “I love you”, we feel alive.
They can install Windows.
They know and can explain that when one is alone he is an individual.
They forgive us our feminism although we never forgive them anything.
They kiss our forehead when they cannot stay.
They are sure there are things we can never understand and that is one reason why we understand everything.
They put their hands on our shoulders.
They keep insisting on paying for our coffee, although they themselves have long forgotten why.
They remember about us all the things we ourselves forget.
They pretend that they aren’t sick of Valentine’s Day.
They can change our lives.
They don’t always think about love.
They love their mothers in a much more beautiful way than we our fathers.
They can openly admit that their purpose in life is to sleep with us.
They drag us away from guests to spend some time together.
They always give us their coats if we are cold.
They love our voices.
They don’t care what we talk about.
They always see us off to the airport, but don’t always meet.
They are sure that our bags are heavy only when they are around.
They don’t want to act like us, while we want to act like them.
They look when we say “Look”.
They keep silent when we shout.
They don’t want to change us, while we want to change them.
When we think about past we think about them.
We can count them.
They give their surnames to our kids.
They do things that make us proud.
They are so strange.
They are strong and can lift us.
One day they will understand (if only for a second) that we are the best thing they’ll ever have.
They have their principles.
They are taller than us and can get a book from the top shelf.
When they say “I love you”, we feel alive.
They can install Windows.
They know and can explain that when one is alone he is an individual.
They forgive us our feminism although we never forgive them anything.
They kiss our forehead when they cannot stay.
They are sure there are things we can never understand and that is one reason why we understand everything.
They put their hands on our shoulders.
They keep insisting on paying for our coffee, although they themselves have long forgotten why.
They remember about us all the things we ourselves forget.
They pretend that they aren’t sick of Valentine’s Day.
They can change our lives.
They don’t always think about love.
They love their mothers in a much more beautiful way than we our fathers.
They can openly admit that their purpose in life is to sleep with us.
They drag us away from guests to spend some time together.
They always give us their coats if we are cold.
They love our voices.
They don’t care what we talk about.
They always see us off to the airport, but don’t always meet.
They are sure that our bags are heavy only when they are around.
They don’t want to act like us, while we want to act like them.
They look when we say “Look”.
They keep silent when we shout.
They don’t want to change us, while we want to change them.
When we think about past we think about them.
We can count them.
They give their surnames to our kids.
They do things that make us proud.
They are so strange.
Monday 12 January 2009
a poem
almost written by myself... though obviously i still borrowed the inspiration from a russian song by Zemfira.
Again the firecrackers shine.
I hid the stress in a pillow,
I saw a pussy-willow
In the home that’s not mine.
I was always a bad romantic,
I am scared of high roofs
And those games with blind folds
Have finally made me sarcastic.
Today I am home again.
As usually running in circles
Away from the terrible illness
Waiting for the next plane.
And I will reach my destination,
I know someday I’ll get it right,
Someday I will get my flight
And abandon the planes and stations.
Meanwhile under shaded lamps
We were warming our hands,
We were biting our lips,
We were turning into vamps.
At night I still felt breathless,
Listened to somebody crying,
Saw the pussy-willow dying.
I think it was probably useless.
It was all in all quite amusing:
Never get tired of flying.
But the hair was slowly greying,
And the clothes needed cleaning.
Again the firecrackers shine.
I hid the stress in a pillow,
I saw a pussy-willow
In the home that’s not mine.
I was always a bad romantic,
I am scared of high roofs
And those games with blind folds
Have finally made me sarcastic.
Today I am home again.
As usually running in circles
Away from the terrible illness
Waiting for the next plane.
And I will reach my destination,
I know someday I’ll get it right,
Someday I will get my flight
And abandon the planes and stations.
Meanwhile under shaded lamps
We were warming our hands,
We were biting our lips,
We were turning into vamps.
At night I still felt breathless,
Listened to somebody crying,
Saw the pussy-willow dying.
I think it was probably useless.
It was all in all quite amusing:
Never get tired of flying.
But the hair was slowly greying,
And the clothes needed cleaning.
Monday 3 November 2008
Lullaby
I wish I could whisper your name, but the pain in my ribs is too great. I just don’t want to sleep, if there is nothing to wait of the coming day.
It is still snowing here, still blizzard dances, still passers-by run. I don’t have to read books to imagine you, my beloved son.
My friends don’t believe me: “how?” they write, “yours? Can’t be! Really?”. For now he is safe in my arms, lying there so godly.
He is Artjom for grown-ups and strangers. At home he will be Tim. What’s his surname? Later. Don’t want to decide it for him.
The shadow of eyelashes on his cheeks. He cuddles up to my breast. He lies in my arms. Soon he’ll start to walk, he’ll pass his first great test.The surname – rubbish, that’s not the point. He’s jet got time to decide. I am so scared for him and then let him on with his own life.
Ten years weighted on scales. Rain is running down my hair. My son is too tall, and he thinks hitting first is unfair.Don’t be ashamed of crying, only dead scum doesn’t cry. And if you get hit – don’t believe it, January is really toothless and shy.
At first he goes for a walk, and then he leaves for LA. I sigh: “what’ve you got yourself into?”, and then call him: “is everything ok?”
And one night a ring will charge through my timeless backbone. My son is too tall. And he is so desperately alone.
Look, my Tim, how dark it is, listen, Tim, the time is fast and near, Tim, when a dream escapes, I don’t know how to comfort you, dear.
Listen, Tim, enduring the silence, I burn out the heart’s pus. It is so great that you didn’t happen to me in the past.
Anguish is weaving a web, my bed smells with loneliness. See, I jet fail not to kill even myself in the process.
I know one day winter’s sails will transform into mountains of everyday life. I will then apply the rye “we” in exchange for my own dead “I”.
But for now I have my January, the wind is tearing grass in the rusty mist. I plead to you, be you not. Be happy – do not exist.
(c) izubr http://izubr.livejournal.com/profile
It is still snowing here, still blizzard dances, still passers-by run. I don’t have to read books to imagine you, my beloved son.
My friends don’t believe me: “how?” they write, “yours? Can’t be! Really?”. For now he is safe in my arms, lying there so godly.
He is Artjom for grown-ups and strangers. At home he will be Tim. What’s his surname? Later. Don’t want to decide it for him.
The shadow of eyelashes on his cheeks. He cuddles up to my breast. He lies in my arms. Soon he’ll start to walk, he’ll pass his first great test.The surname – rubbish, that’s not the point. He’s jet got time to decide. I am so scared for him and then let him on with his own life.
Ten years weighted on scales. Rain is running down my hair. My son is too tall, and he thinks hitting first is unfair.Don’t be ashamed of crying, only dead scum doesn’t cry. And if you get hit – don’t believe it, January is really toothless and shy.
At first he goes for a walk, and then he leaves for LA. I sigh: “what’ve you got yourself into?”, and then call him: “is everything ok?”
And one night a ring will charge through my timeless backbone. My son is too tall. And he is so desperately alone.
Look, my Tim, how dark it is, listen, Tim, the time is fast and near, Tim, when a dream escapes, I don’t know how to comfort you, dear.
Listen, Tim, enduring the silence, I burn out the heart’s pus. It is so great that you didn’t happen to me in the past.
Anguish is weaving a web, my bed smells with loneliness. See, I jet fail not to kill even myself in the process.
I know one day winter’s sails will transform into mountains of everyday life. I will then apply the rye “we” in exchange for my own dead “I”.
But for now I have my January, the wind is tearing grass in the rusty mist. I plead to you, be you not. Be happy – do not exist.
(c) izubr http://izubr.livejournal.com/profile
Saturday 27 September 2008
bit of data all women tried to acquire since the beggining of time
Nothing personal. Nothing at all... :P
***
I acquired myself a man.
First time in my life. All my friends already have had them, but I somehow managed to escape. Well, obviously I knew men before, but they always existed outside my flat, and appeared in it only periodically.
But once…
In the morning I came to the toilet and discovered that the toilet seat was up. Thus a new era in my life began. A man settled in my house. I thought he wouldn’t last long: they are capricious… First thing he declared that since we were living together it was inhumane to use condoms. However he didn’t clarify who it was inhumane to. I had three ideas. My beloved seemed to be bothered by only one. It didn’t suit me. I accused him of being egoistic and unconcerned. He advised me to buy myself a dildo. I reminded we lived in an age of HIV. He said he was not like this. I made it clear that I though he was crazy. He packed his ties. I grinned. He slammed the door. I dyed my hair. He opened the door with his own key. ‘Just got in time before the pharmacy closed. Here,’ he was holding a shiny pack of condoms. ‘Was your hair red before?’ Thus we started living together.
I stopped freaking out when I came back home and saw lights in my windows. I didn’t tell people that they’ve got the wrong number when they asked for him. My pillow smelled of his perfume. My beloved snored at night, pulled the blanket towards himself – the blanket ended up on the floor. He read crap books in the toilet, and then shouted to me to bring him toilet paper. I advised to use pages from whatever book he was reading at that time. When we went to see my friends he quoted Kant. And every day he stepped on the cat’s tail, and every day he assured that it was an accident. He taught me how to navigate by stars, scared away my girl friends. He gave me a rubber boat as a present, and he was scared of my mum. At night he woke me up with kisses, and he sniffed when he washed his face. He splashed the bathroom mirror with toothpaste, and bought me strawberries in winter. In short, he was irresistible. There appeared a sound system and dumbbells in my house. The music was on morning till night. The dumbbells were inactive. When I was cleaning the carpet I always had to move them around. My guests were stumbling upon them. My neighbour Kate told me that these pieces of iron ruin the aesthetic beauty of my living room. When I had enough of it I proposed to put them away in the closet. My beloved was fuming with righteous rage. He reminded me that a healthy spirit can develop only in a healthy body. And that he actually saw a suitable weight in a sports shop.
‘Have to work on my biceps.’ He informed me confidently.
On the other hand, I always had shaving foam in my house. And I could participate in my girl friends’ talks about what our beloved ones did yesterday:
a) played computer games till morning,
b) spent whole day under his car,
c) ate week’s supply of sausages,
d) broke a cup and changed a burned bulb,
e) said that TV kills brain cells,
f) spent his evening watching boxing,
g) hid my telephone book,
h) … is a bastard and parasite
In short, while living with a man I made quite a few discoveries. Some are nice and some are not.
First discovery: he exists.
Second discovery: he was always hungry! He wasn’t satisfied with a cup of coffee and a mandarin for breakfast. There appeared new unknown to me products: butter, fat, sugar, vodka, pasta. The rating of mayonnaise consumption was unbelievable. I started to notice recipes in women’s magazines. I was tormented by the question of what to cook for dinner. I wend mad. I consistently roasted, boiled, grated and tasted something. I gained three kilos. My beloved was fit, happy and always ready to eat. When he said ‘Do we have anything tasty?’ and shoved his head into the fridge five minutes after the dinner, I wanted to kick him from behind and close the fridge. I was dreaming that shops invented products that said ‘Male food. 10 kg’. You buy one of those and you don’t have to worry for the rest of the day…
Third discovery: he was hiding his socks. I hope he wasn’t hiding them from me, because I definitely knew he was wearing them. I never saw him walking barefoot. No, I was sure he used the textile benefits of civilization, but… as soon as he came from work he started to look for secluded places and there, as chipmunk hides his food, he buried his socks rolling them up in the shape of compact curlies. And no way on earth could I persuade him to leave those?... snails?... at least in the bathroom. With the maniac determination my man was parking his socks under the sofa, under the armchair, under the bed, and it seemed like he was ready to rip off plinths, just in order to bury his treasures there.
Fourth discovery: he made a last will every time he had a tooth ache or a blocked nose. He moaned and signed as a wounded bison. He choked every time he heard the word ‘hospital’ and appealed to my mercy. He demanded to finish him off in order to release him from inhuman sufferings. He was holding my hand and advised to paint his old Opel before selling it. As a real man, lying on his death bed he suppressed his cries and bid farewell to what was most dear to his heart: music discs, mobile phone and sports magazine.
Fifth discovery: he knew how to be silent. He could spend all day sitting in front of the TV and saying nothing. He, who knew two languages and had a degree, could communicate with me with three phrases: ‘Good morning, darling’, ‘What are we having for diner, love?’ and ‘Come to me…’ But in all fairness, his communication with his mum or phone conversations with his friends weren’t much more expressive either. His relationship with his best friend was based on joint watching of football matches and pronouncing capacious comments:
‘Pass! I said, pass!.. What a moron!.. More beer?..’
Sixth discovery: being silent, he hated silence. I could never solve this paradox. Not only did he touch his sound system more often than me, he barely got away from TV, and he switched the channels with the speed of light. The only things he watched till the end were the news and sport programmes. The rest of the time he constantly clicked the control. The images flicked as in a sinister kaleidoscope. I felt dizzy. And the worst thing to do was to stand between him and the TV. As soon as I happened to be there he made a diplomatic demarche: ‘Disappear from the screen!’
Seventh discovery: he jealously protected his territory. His domain consisted of: his place at a dinner table and his favourite armchair. Even our guests were not allowed to sit on his stool in the kitchen. Poor cat rushed away from the cosy armchair as soon as it heard the familiar heavy footsteps. I never crossed his borders. My female intuition told me that it was better not to encroach upon his male throne, his sacred mug and his majestic slippers. On the other hand, it is absolutely safe to hide the hateful dumbbells. Or even better, give it away for recycling – my precious weightlifter is unlikely to notice the loss.
Eight discovery: supervision and surveillance.
‘Who were you talking on the phone with?.. Who is this guy on the picture?.. Where have you been between four and five in the evening?.. Where did you get those earrings from?..’
‘With my girlfriend. My brother. At the hairdresser’s. You gave them to me…’
Ninth discovery: no more could I spend hours in my fragrant bath. All ninety kilos of my beloved bunny constantly attempted to force their way in. He was in desperate need of a toothbrush. Or he had an urgent desire to repair the bath tube which was leaking for two months. Or he was interested whether he could fit in the bath with me, and how much water our bodies would expel according to Archimedes’ law. Or he was simply lonely and he whined at the closed door calling out for my conscience:
‘I suffer from the lack of communication!’
But as soon as I exited the bathroom, my sufferer returned to his armchair satisfied.
‘What about Archimedes’ law?’ asked I.
‘I’ll have a shower later’ informed me my beloved and turned his face back to the newspaper.
Tenth discovery: he had a bristle. Well, obviously he had it even before our cohabitation. But he used to shave before our dates, and now I observed him nearly twenty-four-hour a day… The skin on my face started to flake.
Eleventh discovery: he couldn’t remember our important dates!!! At all. Amnesia. Selective memory loss. He remembered the Bastille day, the day he had a car check up, the day he went into the army, but the date of my birthday could never fix itself in either of his cerebral hemispheres. He could miss even Christmas Day, if it wasn’t for all the buying craze.
‘They started to sell the fir trees. It’s time to stock on alcohol.’ He made his thoughtful conclusions.
Twelfth discovery: he was absolutely unpractical. He could not plan our budget. When he went out to buy meal he got back with five bottles of beer, a pack of crisps and an ice cream. He was too shy to ask for change. He couldn’t bargain. He bought everything the shrewd sellers offered him. And once he went to buy potatoes and came back with roses. I signed.
‘I love you’ He said, holding out the flowers.
Twelfth and a half discovery: he loves me…
In short, living with a man is like a game of chess. Continuous match with incomprehensible rules.
‘A night doesn’t move like that’
‘Silly you… How then, do you think, a night moves?
‘Like that…’
‘Let our neighbour move it like that, I will move it like this…’
‘When exactly did we develop these new rules?’‘Last minute… I said so. It’s your turn, darling…’
***
As always translated from some sources too ambigous to mention....
***
I acquired myself a man.
First time in my life. All my friends already have had them, but I somehow managed to escape. Well, obviously I knew men before, but they always existed outside my flat, and appeared in it only periodically.
But once…
In the morning I came to the toilet and discovered that the toilet seat was up. Thus a new era in my life began. A man settled in my house. I thought he wouldn’t last long: they are capricious… First thing he declared that since we were living together it was inhumane to use condoms. However he didn’t clarify who it was inhumane to. I had three ideas. My beloved seemed to be bothered by only one. It didn’t suit me. I accused him of being egoistic and unconcerned. He advised me to buy myself a dildo. I reminded we lived in an age of HIV. He said he was not like this. I made it clear that I though he was crazy. He packed his ties. I grinned. He slammed the door. I dyed my hair. He opened the door with his own key. ‘Just got in time before the pharmacy closed. Here,’ he was holding a shiny pack of condoms. ‘Was your hair red before?’ Thus we started living together.
I stopped freaking out when I came back home and saw lights in my windows. I didn’t tell people that they’ve got the wrong number when they asked for him. My pillow smelled of his perfume. My beloved snored at night, pulled the blanket towards himself – the blanket ended up on the floor. He read crap books in the toilet, and then shouted to me to bring him toilet paper. I advised to use pages from whatever book he was reading at that time. When we went to see my friends he quoted Kant. And every day he stepped on the cat’s tail, and every day he assured that it was an accident. He taught me how to navigate by stars, scared away my girl friends. He gave me a rubber boat as a present, and he was scared of my mum. At night he woke me up with kisses, and he sniffed when he washed his face. He splashed the bathroom mirror with toothpaste, and bought me strawberries in winter. In short, he was irresistible. There appeared a sound system and dumbbells in my house. The music was on morning till night. The dumbbells were inactive. When I was cleaning the carpet I always had to move them around. My guests were stumbling upon them. My neighbour Kate told me that these pieces of iron ruin the aesthetic beauty of my living room. When I had enough of it I proposed to put them away in the closet. My beloved was fuming with righteous rage. He reminded me that a healthy spirit can develop only in a healthy body. And that he actually saw a suitable weight in a sports shop.
‘Have to work on my biceps.’ He informed me confidently.
On the other hand, I always had shaving foam in my house. And I could participate in my girl friends’ talks about what our beloved ones did yesterday:
a) played computer games till morning,
b) spent whole day under his car,
c) ate week’s supply of sausages,
d) broke a cup and changed a burned bulb,
e) said that TV kills brain cells,
f) spent his evening watching boxing,
g) hid my telephone book,
h) … is a bastard and parasite
In short, while living with a man I made quite a few discoveries. Some are nice and some are not.
First discovery: he exists.
Second discovery: he was always hungry! He wasn’t satisfied with a cup of coffee and a mandarin for breakfast. There appeared new unknown to me products: butter, fat, sugar, vodka, pasta. The rating of mayonnaise consumption was unbelievable. I started to notice recipes in women’s magazines. I was tormented by the question of what to cook for dinner. I wend mad. I consistently roasted, boiled, grated and tasted something. I gained three kilos. My beloved was fit, happy and always ready to eat. When he said ‘Do we have anything tasty?’ and shoved his head into the fridge five minutes after the dinner, I wanted to kick him from behind and close the fridge. I was dreaming that shops invented products that said ‘Male food. 10 kg’. You buy one of those and you don’t have to worry for the rest of the day…
Third discovery: he was hiding his socks. I hope he wasn’t hiding them from me, because I definitely knew he was wearing them. I never saw him walking barefoot. No, I was sure he used the textile benefits of civilization, but… as soon as he came from work he started to look for secluded places and there, as chipmunk hides his food, he buried his socks rolling them up in the shape of compact curlies. And no way on earth could I persuade him to leave those?... snails?... at least in the bathroom. With the maniac determination my man was parking his socks under the sofa, under the armchair, under the bed, and it seemed like he was ready to rip off plinths, just in order to bury his treasures there.
Fourth discovery: he made a last will every time he had a tooth ache or a blocked nose. He moaned and signed as a wounded bison. He choked every time he heard the word ‘hospital’ and appealed to my mercy. He demanded to finish him off in order to release him from inhuman sufferings. He was holding my hand and advised to paint his old Opel before selling it. As a real man, lying on his death bed he suppressed his cries and bid farewell to what was most dear to his heart: music discs, mobile phone and sports magazine.
Fifth discovery: he knew how to be silent. He could spend all day sitting in front of the TV and saying nothing. He, who knew two languages and had a degree, could communicate with me with three phrases: ‘Good morning, darling’, ‘What are we having for diner, love?’ and ‘Come to me…’ But in all fairness, his communication with his mum or phone conversations with his friends weren’t much more expressive either. His relationship with his best friend was based on joint watching of football matches and pronouncing capacious comments:
‘Pass! I said, pass!.. What a moron!.. More beer?..’
Sixth discovery: being silent, he hated silence. I could never solve this paradox. Not only did he touch his sound system more often than me, he barely got away from TV, and he switched the channels with the speed of light. The only things he watched till the end were the news and sport programmes. The rest of the time he constantly clicked the control. The images flicked as in a sinister kaleidoscope. I felt dizzy. And the worst thing to do was to stand between him and the TV. As soon as I happened to be there he made a diplomatic demarche: ‘Disappear from the screen!’
Seventh discovery: he jealously protected his territory. His domain consisted of: his place at a dinner table and his favourite armchair. Even our guests were not allowed to sit on his stool in the kitchen. Poor cat rushed away from the cosy armchair as soon as it heard the familiar heavy footsteps. I never crossed his borders. My female intuition told me that it was better not to encroach upon his male throne, his sacred mug and his majestic slippers. On the other hand, it is absolutely safe to hide the hateful dumbbells. Or even better, give it away for recycling – my precious weightlifter is unlikely to notice the loss.
Eight discovery: supervision and surveillance.
‘Who were you talking on the phone with?.. Who is this guy on the picture?.. Where have you been between four and five in the evening?.. Where did you get those earrings from?..’
‘With my girlfriend. My brother. At the hairdresser’s. You gave them to me…’
Ninth discovery: no more could I spend hours in my fragrant bath. All ninety kilos of my beloved bunny constantly attempted to force their way in. He was in desperate need of a toothbrush. Or he had an urgent desire to repair the bath tube which was leaking for two months. Or he was interested whether he could fit in the bath with me, and how much water our bodies would expel according to Archimedes’ law. Or he was simply lonely and he whined at the closed door calling out for my conscience:
‘I suffer from the lack of communication!’
But as soon as I exited the bathroom, my sufferer returned to his armchair satisfied.
‘What about Archimedes’ law?’ asked I.
‘I’ll have a shower later’ informed me my beloved and turned his face back to the newspaper.
Tenth discovery: he had a bristle. Well, obviously he had it even before our cohabitation. But he used to shave before our dates, and now I observed him nearly twenty-four-hour a day… The skin on my face started to flake.
Eleventh discovery: he couldn’t remember our important dates!!! At all. Amnesia. Selective memory loss. He remembered the Bastille day, the day he had a car check up, the day he went into the army, but the date of my birthday could never fix itself in either of his cerebral hemispheres. He could miss even Christmas Day, if it wasn’t for all the buying craze.
‘They started to sell the fir trees. It’s time to stock on alcohol.’ He made his thoughtful conclusions.
Twelfth discovery: he was absolutely unpractical. He could not plan our budget. When he went out to buy meal he got back with five bottles of beer, a pack of crisps and an ice cream. He was too shy to ask for change. He couldn’t bargain. He bought everything the shrewd sellers offered him. And once he went to buy potatoes and came back with roses. I signed.
‘I love you’ He said, holding out the flowers.
Twelfth and a half discovery: he loves me…
In short, living with a man is like a game of chess. Continuous match with incomprehensible rules.
‘A night doesn’t move like that’
‘Silly you… How then, do you think, a night moves?
‘Like that…’
‘Let our neighbour move it like that, I will move it like this…’
‘When exactly did we develop these new rules?’‘Last minute… I said so. It’s your turn, darling…’
***
As always translated from some sources too ambigous to mention....
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