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