Ava n°01Ar20*1

I will tell you a story; but not just any story, a story that had changed the course of my life. After a sleep that had seemed to be more than a century, this is to tell you that I had no longer any notion of the time, nor of what date we were then. I found myself sitting on the edge of this bed which was not mine, I couldn't have explained it to you at that time, besides who could I talk to? it seemed to me to have been alone, no sign of a living soul around me, only the sound of a television screen in the background ... accompanied by a feeling of having suffered something ... intense headache had prevented me from thinking deeply. Flashes had occurred from time to time as if to try to give me clues about my identity. I had observed this reflection which was me, a woman with short blond hair, black eyes lost in this emotionless face with a body dressed in a silky outfit. A silhouette that I had seen through this massive glass window which overlooked into a stormy sea set with waves that washed up on immense vertiginous rocks on which rested this transparent cell. A glass cell where I had been imprisoned. While trying to get up, I noticed that I no longer felt my arm and that my fingers were guided by an external force. Indeed, my arm was an alloy of iron and flesh dressed in microlights, each movement of my fingers had transferred alpha-coded informations to a reading screen grafted to my retina. I had no control over myself, I was nauseous at the thought of what had happened to my own body. I was definitely detained in this glass prison, but for what reason? I was overcome by fear, doubts, endless questions ... But there had been a goal to this chaos. I had become the first humanoid woman after I suffered a terrible car accident. Scientific research had since created other prototypes much more efficient. 

 

Naïad  

Revenge

There was nothing left of the village that I once left behind. Absolutely everything was shattered, a fog mixed with the dust that kept swirling. There were still hot ashes in the air, like hopeless fireflies, flickering desperately. Along this phantom ground littered what remained of the bodies ... dismantled, shredded, a nauseating odour of putrefying viscera. Death had taken hold of all those souls, no more signs of life or perhaps faint moans that died away in the distance. War had raged in Volgograd; our village had been the scene of heavy fighting during the Russian Civil War, initially in the hands of the Bolsheviks. Our village was one of the deadliest battles of Stalingrad in history, during which it was virtually wiped out. On June 13th, 1919, I was just about twenty years old, I was called; лександра Михайловна Коллонтай; Anastasia Poltrovich, supposedly I would have been the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria! I had been taken by mistake as a nurse, for me this had been for certain clemency from the good Lord. The victim at 11 years old of forced marriage, beaten and raped, you will certainly understand this sort of mercy. My almost transparent skin always attracted men, besides I was the crush of all the soldiers, they called me ‘sunshine’ with an accent that sounded like ‘son chat’ in French. Fortunately, my almond-shaped blue eyes couldn't bear witness to what they had seen, you could almost see through them the scarred images of human hinges also the smells still stuck in the depths of my thin nostrils. One thing was certain I took care of my blonde and wavy hair that I braided and hid under a cap with the initials AP, a big frock and white apron hid thankfully my body, we were those white angels who were supposed to take care and comfort the soldiers. Chin high despite my small height, I was gradually given the responsibility of the pharmacy and so I began my own battle, revenge by administering deadly painkillers to wounded Russian soldiers. The physical appearance of Russian women was not the deciding factor when it came to attracting men. Russian women had something more that helped them to win men's hearts not only in Russia! This precious thing was a "mysterious Russian soul" according to загáдочная рýсская душá. So let's just say that I had become the angel of death dressed in white. I had tattooed on my breast just above my heart 'to correct an injustice, requires great efforts'. I was a resistance fighter who had to avenge her own. 

 Naïad

Mrs A.E. Pozeïsky.

I was there letting the fresh air envelop me, stroking my gorgeous crochet, lace-up death gown, letting it nibble what was left of my cheeks in that icy subway corridor where I could feel absolutely all the human vibes and those of others. This hallway had been mine for centuries. I had seen a lot of people pass by, between those who crossed me and those to whom I played some of my tricks to fill the boredom. That day, I had been challenged by three beings, but something that I still cannot explain to this day had drawn me towards her… A young girl for whom I felt an unexplained closeness… a connection… energy that was familiar to me. What was happening to me? There she was, her face trying to disappear into the collar of that grotesque outfit that I could not name you, layers of odd clothes that showed nothing, her hands sunk into the sides, her blank gaze gripping the floor. While watching her, a voice kept repeating to me. "you know her ... come closer to her ..." Suddenly I found myself dancing around her, I twirled like a merry-go-round without brakes, an uncontrolled excitement, I started buzzing around her... to look at her in the green of her eyes ... eyes that I somehow knew… How come this could happen? As I could cross all the elements and all the materials I allowed myself to read inside her thin engraved medallion:

A.E. Pozeïsky * 15 * 12 * 1872

"In our hearts forever you stay

To my mother 

To you that I love so much. 

Here lies an angel I will never forget you

Love never dies. The earth hides you but my heart still sees you " 

To my amazement, I wondered ... why this young child had a part of me ...

Who was she? I was inconsolable, whispering to her: "who are you, beautiful child?" 

 Naïad

Rippling Sands

Note : this very short story was part of a creative writing assignment and was inspired by a specific piece of music that, sadly, I can't seem to find.
What I can suggest to you instead is to listen to this somewhat resembling piece of music composed by Klaus Badelt and Lisa Gerrard for the Original Sound Track of the movie Gladiator. The track is called Sorrow and can be listened to on the Youtube platform.

Fred

 

    An overflowing crowd started to gravitate around the juniper coloured tent. Inside was a girl, not past the age of candor, whose disharmonious moans were bleeding out of the makeshift shelter. Whilst her body had laid down roots in a squeaking bunk, her hand was held by a wretched mother praying for hopelessness to lose the battle against innocence. Not a single soul had not been feeling the stings of the scorching sun, nor the fiery sand ambushed between the toes, yet, it seemed the only feeling their hearts had room for was despair. The girl would need a miracle.

A rift carved itself in the crowd, leaving a breach for an old man to seep through. Draped by a scarlet silk tunic, ornamented with golden runic scriptures or arabesques and held together with a perfectly braided cord, everyone recognized the maverick they had known as “The Hermit”, although noone had ever really known him. Whilst a beard as white as his bun concealed his chin, one could not miss his cerulean eyes attesting of his resolve and determination, nor the wisdom time had chiseled over his burnished amber skin.
As if it was an extension of his arm, he was hauled by a hardwood walking stick, choked by two slithering ropes whose colours matched the tunic’s so tightly it was as if the man was waving a miniature of himself much like a puppeteer.

When the assembly came to realize he had finally reached the girl, his left palm was already smothering her forehead whilst his lips seemed to crackle words out of this world. Her whole body chose to answer by performing a series of spasms, off-beating the clamours of her mother.
After a while, the song ended. The girl woke up, her complexion gleaming from dreary ash to radiant bronze, and then everything else stopped, as if time itself had not allowed anything nor anyone to even age, if it were not for the hissing winds which had seemingly deemed themselves beyond the laws of nature.
The petrified state of the crowd suggested that they had not only just witnessed something they had never laid eyes upon, but instead that they had unbeknownstly glanced at the gorgon’s mirror of the soul.

Time eventually resumed its course and then, when the last tear had reached the burning ground, the task to douse the sandhills was taken over by the empyrean domain. This place’s thirst had not been quenched for days, as if its will to live had been wiped out, yet it chose this very moment to start and remember how wetness feels.

The girl turned her head over, and everyone could decipher the single word that had washed up on her swirling lips : “Water”.

Fred

The suicide of Margaret

Philip Lorca diCorcia, Untitled

In a few hours, she’d be gone. This painful sentence turned without interruption in her head, without ever taking a concrete form. It meant nothing. They were just random words, and they wanted to destroy her. For the time being, she was there. She felt the weight of her body sinking into the hotel’s cozy bed. They had assigned her room 13. It was a stroke of fate. But she was not superstitious. Margaret had chosen her destiny with lucidity, without fear and without regret. What could she regret about her dreary and empty life, without friends, children, or husband ? Margaret’s husband had died ten years earlier. She was now old ; her short, cut white hair and the frilled dressing gown she was wearing betrayed her age, like the wrinkles that now marked her tired face.

Her two sons wanted to convince her to go into a nursing home. To end her life like that, she who had traveled the world without release, in search of a meaning, or a treasure that she discovered at each port. How could she have endured the slow and monotonous rhythm of an old people’s home : playing cards, eating daily meals, never raising her voice, always remaining polite, obeying... She had never obeyed anyone, Margaret ; she had always chosen in her existence, and did not believe in fate. Her end would therefore be in her image : free and original. Of a chilling originality.

She watched the calm sea and waited patiently for her hour. She felt no fear. She had faced lions and tigers, famine and epidemics, cold, drought and thirst, storms and frozen desert nights. The sea could never have frightened her. It had been her ally for 40 long years. It always promised extraordinary discoveries. Behind the waves and whirlpools, something unknown awaited her. And this prospect aroused her far more than the dull faces of the old people waiting for death to come and take them without warning. Margaret had decided to call death, to summon her to her bedside ; and death, in a short time, would come to the appointment. Because no one had ever disobeyed Margaret.

In the soberly furnished hotel room, the television looped the images of the hurricane that was devastating the state of New York and approached dangerously close to Manhattan. Margaret had studied the path of the tornado and had booked a room in the most exposed hotel in the city. The institution was now empty. The receptionist himself had deserted the premises. He tried to convince Margaret to follow him, but she refused. She must be crazy, he said to himself.

Margaret’s farewell was not a lament, a complaint or a reproach to the world. It was not a spectacle for men, as were most suicides. No one would know that she had chosen to kill herself. Her children will think of an accident, and will never feel guilty about her disappearance. The sea, the sweet and dreadful sea, would bury her body in secret. Between the two, the union would finally be complete, hidden from the shameless gaze of the world.

Mitia

Escape Game, part 4

The inside one

 

So much noise. It smells fear. It smells like the rabbit I hunted before. Little human seems not to be happy. I can hear it breathing loudly. I can hear .. Mom said that sometimes, I could hear humans. Some dogs of our family can. It comes from our ancestors, the wolves. She used to call it old instinct. It never happened to me so far. I'm still a puppy. 

Still a puppy, yes, but it's not the first time that I could see little humans in this car. The smell is everywhere. I'm so small, hidden under a seat, they never saw me the way I can see them. Tall man is bad, he hit me when I tried to be nice to the first one I saw. He scares me. I don't know the other one. She completely ignored me. I am nothing. 

I am hungry. I am cold. Night is coming, I can feel it, even in the darkness of the car. It's even colder where we are going, in this place where there is nothing but sand and rocks. Nights are so cold, I need tall man for the warming fire, and for the food he gives me sometimes, or I could die. Mom told me to stay with him, to do whatever he asks me to do, if I want to stay alive.

So I stayed. So many times I heard little humans screaming and crying, while I was hidden under the car. The smell of their fear, of their tears, of their blood, almost drove me crazy. When the sun rises, tall man takes them away, somewhere, carrying them on his shoulders. They seem so tiny, so fragile, compared to him. He comes back alone. No friend for the puppy. 

 Crédit image La Vallée de l'ombre de la mort, Roger Fenton

I followed tall man, once. I'm so small, he didn't see me. I followed his smell, and the smell of little human. I saw him digging and putting little human in a big hole. He put rocks on it. I could see many amounts of rocks around us. So many I couldn't count them. I'm just a puppy.

This little human is strange. I don't hear the voice outside, I hear it in my head. Help, it says. I can see images of other humans, big ones and little ones. Little human talks to me, but doesn't look at me. Look at me, little human. Look at me. I'm not that small. Mom told me, when you hear a human, you're a grown up. You are connected with this human, and it's the only one you have to listen to. And it will listen to you too. 

I'm listening. Help, little human said. I must help. But I can't speak. Tall man could hear. Please, little human, hear me. I will help, I promise. You won't join the others in the sand and the rocks. 

Hear me, little human. I am no puppy anymore. 

Sasha

A Goblin in the Library

Once upon a time, Elisabeth was in the library with her mother. Her mother was sitting in a couch, reading, while Elisabeth was wandering randomly along the shelves. Suddenly, she heard a book fall. She raised her head from her book and saw a goblin arranging the books on the shelves. She ran toward her mother and shook her.

- Mom, mom, I just saw a goblin arranging the books !

- I am reading ! Goblins are magical creatures, they don't exist. Do not disturb me with such stupid thing !

Elisabeth went back to the goblin place. He was still arranging the books. She gave him the one she was glancing through. He took it, read the title and put it back on the shelf it came from.

Elisabeth ran again to her mother.

- Mom, mom, the goblin put my book back on its shelf !

- Goblins don't exist ! You went mad, and I'll have you locked up in a madhouse.

Elisabeth went sadly back to the goblin's place, but he wasn't here anymore. She picked up the book she gave him sooner, and started to read it.

During this time, her mother was calling a psychiatrist.

- You have to come here quickly, my daughter has gone crazy, she saw a goblin in the library. Come with the police.

The police arrived with the doctor, and she explained them what happened. Elisabeth, who had finished her book, was coming back to her mother. The doctor asked her :

- Elisabeth, did you see a goblin ?

- A goblin ? Of course not, goblins don’t really exist, you know, she answered seriously.

The psychiatrist asked the policemen to attach the mother with a camisole, and to take her in the ambulance. She was screaming and struggling, suddenly understanding that her daughter trapped her.



Moral :

As long as your child’s room is tidy, don’t worry about who’s doing it.

Sasha

Escape Game, part 3

Right under our nose

    James Tissot. Judas Leaves the Cenacle,
1886-1894. Brooklyn Museum

Oh my. Oh dear. Did that really happen? I think I've just witnessed some sort of abduction... Could it be though? I mean I did see a man violently push a girl into his black van, but how can I be sure of what I saw?

No I mean, let's think about it. I could have hallucinated, couldn't I? Sure I'm not a drug addict, I haven't taken any shrooms or anything, but I did have a few glasses of wine at noon. Alcohol can cause hallucinatory effects, right? Or it could be poisoning, ha! Maybe something I've eaten, or maybe something I've breathed. That's it, I've breathed a noxious gas. Some nitrous oxide or whatever. And it has given me visions of things that have never happened.

... Okay. Right. Maybe there's like little probability for it to happen, but how often does an abduction happen? I don't know, but I know it is not a lot. Probably less than domestic poisoning. See? I'm not being unreasonable here. What? No, I'm not trying to hide behind reasoning. I'm not! There's a lot of ways to be mistaken about what we think we saw. Our eyes are weak, our ears are weak. We keep being deceived by our brains, and our limited senses and the mishappens of life being thrust unto our imperfect lives only to be filtered through the flawed judgement full of biases inherent in our human condition. It could have been an optical illusion, maybe the light from those street lamps over there gave me the illusion that some guy abducted some girl, but really they were just dancing, or maybe it wasn't a girl but a bag of something, or a dummy. And the scream could have been screeching wheels. We are in a city, screeching wheels are a thing.

Did you know you could not even trust your own memories? I've heard of this experiment where they could implant false memories into some people's heads. Sometimes people could believe they had done something even though they did not. Well, not believe, but remember. That's some scary shit if you ask me, but it does happen! And it could have very well happened to me. I mean I think I saw something, but what I see has already happened in the past, because of light speed or something like that, so technically, it would already be a memory, right? And since memories can be flawed, well then... One plus one equals two. Noone can argue with that.

But what if I am wrong, you ask? That's what trying to tell you. Oh, you mean what if I am wrong about being wrong? Shouldn't I take the chance, the risk, of doing something about what I think I saw, even though it might not have happened, because the cost of it is much smaller than the cost of not doing anything in case something really did happen? Well, I mean sure, some people could deem an acceptable moral stance to pay the lesser cost with the greatest benefit, that is maybe save a life, but how can I be sure how much does it cost?

Let's pretend for a minute that I did see something real. How can I know that what I saw is what it seemed? That's one thing to witness something, but then you and only yourself make up the meaning of it. You don't really know what happened. Okay, because we pretend we did see something, let's go and examine this hypothesis. So, a guy abducting a girl would be considered a fact.
Well sure, but why would I stick my nose into someone else's business? I mean I don't know who this guy is, why is he doing it. I'm not trying to rationalize this man's behaviour, I'm not the kind of guy who thinks she "deserved it" or something, this is not where I'm going. What I mean is, this guy good be from a gang, or the mafia or whatever. And thus the cost of saying something would be way higher. I'm pretty sure they don't like snitches, well that's what I've learned from movies anyway. I don't want to be shived in a dark alley, or be the next one onto the "To Abduct" list. Maybe he's like the FBI or something and she is a terrorist. How would I know?
Also it's assuming that the cost of not saying something could be high. But it doesn't have to be. Maybe this is nothing but some weird sexual fantasy. I know people have those, some Fifty Shades of Gray amateurs who have taken the roleplaying a tiny bit far. How would I know this wasn't consensual? People do have weird fantasies, I'm not making that up, so who am I to judge, right? Maybe they are even filming. This could be a movie, I know they have some weird movies out there in Serbia, so this might very well be one of those.

So yeah, my decision has been taken. It's too late now anyway, I was lost in my thoughts and didn't have time to catch the number plate.

...But what if someone saw me see this? I mean, could I have troubles for not saying anything? Can someone be the witness on the case of my own refusal to say anything while witnessing someone potentially in danger? Will I be required to testify anyway, at the risk of being condemned? Shouldn't I just avoid this risk alltogether by giving my own testimony, getting ahead of anything that could be used against me? Or should I just let it flow, and if I'm caught, just pretend I was confused, and panicking or something, and afraid. Which I might be, to be honest, I mean, panicking. Is this me panicking? Oh my god. It is, isn't it? I don't know, is it? Oh dear, I think I'm panicking.

Fred

Escape Game, part 1

The last day light

    Jewels was coming out of a grocery store when she was pulled into a van. A specialised Serial Killer detective Neils Wung noticed a similarity to an old case, May 1972.

A throbbing stinging sensation sunk into my arm, my face crushed by a thick army boot on the floor of that old van. I could barely guess some faces as I repeated to myself like a prayer "Jay remember, white man with a broken heart tattooed on the back of his neck who speaks a probably Russian language, black bomber jackets with a patch of a patriotic eagle..." I continued this recitation to remember those morbid shows that I used to love watching on the tv channel. Then suddenly the man with the tattoo turned around as if he had heard this silent voice in my head reciting... to tell this hooded woman to blindfold me. She took the opportunity to afflict me with a kick in the nose... I felt nothing so much the adrenaline had frozen my whole body.

Two hours before, I decided what I was going to wear for tomorrow because the girls had invited me to a Jazz evening, the ritual of our Thursdays evenings. I couldn't grasp this reality that had torn me away from a simple daily pleasure. Was it a nightmare? ... Then the more I felt the tremors of the van, the more the reality was unbearable to me. A nauseating smell hit me between the taste of blood which clotted, hardly flowing from my nose to my lips, I was drowned in a smell of putrefaction, of old blood, strange to find myself saying that as if I knew that smell!

I could feel that we had left the road to drive into a stony field after hours of driving where I found myself between passages where I rocked between drowsiness and reality, the noises and the faces became more and more blurred. The smell of fresh earth had penetrated the van where the daylight could appear on this floor which kept the secret of horrible things that had happened before I was captured...

Naïad