Илай Колесников
Earlyborn
Chapter 8
Dionysius’s plane was approaching to Atlanta. A local airport had his own sparkle of life, and, amazingly, it was dear to Dionysius’s heart, while it was alien to his soul. It is like you always dwell on the outskirts and suddenly move to the downtown. The plane was landing in a dangerous manner: on one wing and with Costa Rica pilots’ mastery. When some people next time will ask me what they do wrong, I will show them these pilots: “Learn from experienced people.” The touchdown was a miracle. A seasonal storm, looking as a hurricane—either Katrina or Alice, but in Russian it would be just “Damn this aircraft! I’m terrified!” These were the words shouted by a Russian passenger, who was on the board of that airliner, looking at a palm tree behind the cabin that reeled from side to side as a person who went astray on the life path. They flew law, and pilots could not understand why they felt like fish out of water: because they could fail to handle with the airplane or could survive and yell like Dmitry Guberniev after the Russia triumph in biathlon. They landed perfectly; people succeed in their professional doings, but at times stress hampers the success.
Fighting with Atlanta weather, Dionysius went towards the town along the short avenue, but today it seemed to him of compelling length and breadth; there were no buses at that time. But he needed to walk, because it was the only rule Dionysius followed—to be always in movement. He did not appreciate any breaks, so he set off far away to find Luisian. “It is not the result which is crucial, but the constant work,” he said. “People who work for the result make a big mistake. Without doubt, these people will attain their desires, maybe even faster than somebody else. Yet the meaning of life is not in the outcome, and a person will not die if he does not fulfill the things he wanted. And there rises a question: “How can a man who turned a winner in a competition and afterwards is depressed live on?” He worked towards the result and got it. Actually you ought to work for work itself. As one man of wisdom with a beard said, «Work is important, but to notice the process of work is more essential». If work is your first priority, you will not lose the interest to work after the achievement of the result,” so thought Dionysius, reciting his poems to wind of the hurricane. The weather worsened, and, perhaps, there was a state of emergency imposed in the town with hope that there would not be a seasonal hurricane that often appears in North America latitudes. Dionysius could only conjecture about it, for example, watching a young palm brunch flying in the distance. He did not imagine his life with no adventures and with now, let’s say, this palm brunch hurt his head and leaving him the long-lasting experience. For this reason Dionysius was full of joy and excitement to see something new when he saw the hurricane approaching to Atlanta. He was dauntless and somewhat crazy—it was his nature. Call to mind the story, when being in the motherland, France, Dionysius was walking one beautiful May day after his university lectures among beautiful avenues, and there was no sign of trouble… A couple of minutes later, a policeman and he were running away with a watermelon stolen from a small shop. Dionysius walked, and the heavy rain changed into a hurricane, as if it was still the rain which took him by surprise in Costa Rica; this rain was like a symbol of his life, it reminded him that the winds of life will never stop blowing, and he will be to live and enjoy the life with them.
Dionysius went and pondered about peculiarities of his life. To be honest, he did not realize how people around him could be clumsy and heavy as aged trees and be much fond of self-analysis. He both did not and did understand how these people might looked like—as Costa Rica and Paris placed close to each other. However, people unlike towns have consciousness… Yet consciousness of towns is built on people’s consciousness. The airport in Atlanta is considered one of the vast and busiest airports in the world. A school-leaver sees the world as a cluster of things depicted as negative and inappropriate at school; the colossal anthill of people, happened during the hurricane in a modern building, proved that anything can come true in this world—the thing is to make right question. It also proved that the majority of people are weak when it is time to do something extraordinary, given that any person is easily able to do that. The road where Dionysius went resembled a new Hollywood film. Everything was unbelievable and a company of zombies seemed to appear right from under flooded asphalt and to settle into that area. Dionysius walked along real American highway with six lanes, and the heavy rain was pouring down, and palm brunches were flying at that time. As someone placed that scenery into a wind tunnel and started filming. There were no cars on the highway and it was better for them, because it was unpredictable whether they would be overflowed with water as last time or not. Dionysius was perplexed, “Why can’t people once desire something, get it? Anything is possible in our world!” Yuri Gagarin was in cosmos, so is now: you should just start sleeping every other day, and you will get more than a hundred of extra working hours after a month. Dionysius always achieved aimed doings, and he soon became bored, overtaking others, although the outcome was far from the impeccable one. Dionysius found himself in today and literally repudiated the past. It gladdens, my friends, when you just try not to remember something for a joke! Dionysius had a pittance in a pocket: it would be enough to stay in a hostel somewhere in the center of the town and to buy a couple of hot dogs with a cup of instant coffee. Is anyone happier than this person who is going to the warm place after a rain storm?
There was a ramp on the right side of the highway. Probably Dionysius reached the town center. It took him approximately two hours and a half. Of course, it was not much, but Dionysius pulled himself together since the beginning of his forced and a bit absurd journey, and, as a consequence, did not pay attention to the occasion that he could shorten the way by running. Some people coped with marathons within such time given—he did not. The second Dionysius’s rule was the perception that time passes by quicker, when you do something.
***
And now time passed by too.
Dionysius planned to move on, return the mascot to Luisian and then make his old dream to experience working on construction site in Russia come true. Why this dream? The fact is that his first memory of the childhood was a picture, in which his father and he were going near a huge house, and he saw a man eating noodles on a crane. Dionysius saw with his childish eagle eye that he devoured every piece of the dish with pleasure beyond words and during brakes looked at the moon’s host full of great secrets of the night, who observed the entire town from his height. It dawned on Dionysius that the life never ends, so you should always move forward and tick carried out doings. His dream seemed childish and foolish for others, but it was new for Dionysius in its oddity and simplicity. And he thought that construction site in Russia (this country always attracted him with the creative chaos) would be the most marvelous place. You could learn the craft of life there, then turn it into art and meet powerful and interesting people. Speculating this way, he ate a hot Detroit-style pizza—an iconic dish for that hostel in the town center, since the hostel owner was born in Detroit and treated his guests to it. He looked not young: his condition was as if he was an instrument in a three-day use. You could not imagine that hostel owner with twenty years of given none of these details, as you cannot imagine autumn without yellow trees and rusty cars with no sharp lines and bumpers. He said to Dionysius, “You are a strong and clever fellow. I see no defects in you, but when you start, you may well excel yourself. And there you are menacing for yourself. As menacing as the biggest shark for it is always difficult to be first and constantly ward off enemies with dullness. Be careful, Dionysius, and find the energy to stand up if the wand of peppered life will slay you. At times life forces to cook food in trays. Yet it worth pretending this food at times. This is the last mistake of strong people, who can forgive themselves. It is the mistake of their pride.” Despite it was dark as in the evening, the sun rose. The storm of life was leaving the American town.
Chapter 9
The hurricane occurred these nights first in America, then Mexico, and Brazil, and Argentina with Costa Rica changed dramatically the huts of local fishermen. Some now looked like schooners turned over by Mr Megalodon, others transformed into a pile of abounded log houses, and the last ones metamorphosed into flocks of migrant birds—they were that light. Fortunately, there were some undamaged huts. Seemed, it was the chance from nature to the people to improve their deeds. The Lunight hut was not damaged at all, although the neighbouring houses were totally collapsed. It was a sign for Luisian that he was a mascot himself. Lunight confirmed that. Who else, as Noah, could stop the storm and save them from the inevitable distraction? And Luisian saved. Lunight asked him many times to stay with them, but he refused. Luisian headed for Paris, because someone whispered him that Dionysius was there. A surprise waited for our characters—a slightly scratched by Costa Rica sand yacht was brought by the sea water and furious winds outside the Lunight’s hut; Luisian suggested the hostess to paint and sell the yacht. That was done, and in a week Lunight and her little son moved to the town center, where she helped the baker and earned a half salary, yet which was enough to renovate the new flat and to live happily. Luisian saw Lunight in these high spirits on the day of their last meeting when the ticket to Paris was bought and there were just some hours before the flight. When he went upstairs, he noticed as all his impressions of life ruined and changed with fresher and more sincere ones; he did not fell in love, but grasped something what could become his meaning of life. He saw a beautiful light-green sofa entering a right-hand flat on the twenty fifth floor (the Lunight’s son was a fan of high buildings, and his mother wanted to delight him); the furniture matched the wallpapers in the flat that much, so Luisian was about to exclaim “ah”. He supposed abruptly, “Why can’t I be a wizard who helps people to build golden houses? And not all is gold that glitters, but almost all is gold that is loved. Luisian made his mind up about his future job for he needed to become someone beyond the best Italian Ded Moroz. Lunight brewed tasty Caribbean tea with popcorn and some sweet thing, perhaps, with real passion fruit. There was a harmony in the flat drowned in sunbeams of the setting sun, where the sum of money payed for the design was as much so that it could be said that there was no coin given simply so. Luisian was sitting on a white carved chair, in which there was nothing in particular and dreamed he was drinking the very time seemed rolled up and now leaking away, like the jelly, like the honey from a glass jar, out of the flat into the Mouth ocean. Yeah… There are moments in the life when your body seems to be born again, or perfectly suits the vital rhythm, or still seems to be born again, and you do not think more that life was ever unfair to you. You merely imagine how you drink this fresh milk of space without a stop and realize that you will not once more be sated with it and that it will not be excessive to take a nap after this speedy and too wonderful evening.
Luisian opened his eyes sitting in a plane. He could not remember a thing at first. Than he collected his thoughts, and the memory told he visited somebody; he started to elaborate, but then gathered his wits and the need for the further movement was remarked on. Something new and a bit incomprehensible was craved by Luisian’s heart. Something what is usually chosen by undetermined people—“yes”: between “yes” and “no” they agreed to opt for “yes” all the time.
***
Let’s make happiness, my friends! Earlyborn got up, brewed some Indian tea for her brother and her and went to wash the dishes in the mood as if she knew that the very moment she would go to the shop and win in a free lottery arranged by some entrepreneurs. The atmosphere behind the window was probably like the one which happens in Sochi mountains at the New Year midnight: it was cold, scaring, dreadfully dark, but incredibly lovely, given that you was aware of existence of a festive mountain hamlet behind a huge town spruce which was soon removed. Yet it was irresistibly cold at home. At that time real severe Russian Epiphany3 frosts came to Paris, but Earlyborn did not bother about it, since her under-floor heating managed to do his job for one hundred percent. Despite the brother (as it generally happens in a family formed from a sister and a brother) was an intelligent head in the house and was in charge of his reckless sibling, he was habitually sleeping: whenever the morning started, he got up ten-fifteen minutes later than Earlyborn. How can we solve this riddle? There is nothing to do – when Zhenka went to bed stoutly (for he regularly dozed off and woke up quickly. As the saying is: to love means to love with the very heart!), Earlyborn crept to his bed humming something, softly turned him on another side, so that his body did not look at the wall and a pillow, and then a bit bent and stretched herself to see an alarm clock. She timed the position of hands and went in the bathroom to have a shower, cleaned her teeth with a cutting age of medicine—an electric toothbrush—and set off the alarm clock at the time so that she would get up earlier to give her brother a cup of coffee with her half-cunning and half-sympathetic smile. So do we, my dear friends, when we want to achieve something, say, to learn drawing, we take this graceless, but right step. Firstly, we just come into a class, yet, maybe not in a class as a room, but as one of the groups of people in society and try to obtain the trust of other people. We meet a class teacher and look with respect at students who were taught there before and some of them—it appears—know a lot beyond the course of study. You may get it glancing at the teacher’s eyes: they emanate joy and exhilaration. We cheer ostentatiously when we succeed in something or, conversely, explicitly get upset; after that we pirouette as Earlyborn did: we dig up remember what an A student does to be first and go away showy. There is no need in school as a life giving thing and the most delicious part of life moisture. As there is no need in a water filter if a person discovered a spring or an artesian well. The truth is that you always can find this spring, since it does not hide. When we comprehended efforts put by the A student into learning, we find a nook at our house at night, in the early morning, or after lunch when everyone is asleep in hope to excel him in it, so that we can do twice (or even more) as much as he does, and enjoy the life. As if it was slalom, where you was somewhere in the middle of the piste, yet approaching to the first participants rather than to those who were behind him, and you craved to win and eventually found the way out. Left ski-track for an unknown reason becomes faster than the right one, but no one, except you, payed any attention to that, and you ski with high speed, deriving pleasure from the nature with your nose membranes during brakes between taking breaths. When you reach the finish, you will long for the forest which was taken aback, but soon realize that breaks you made between breaths saved the spirit of the forest, and it will forever with you. Earlyborn was staring with her shifty eyes at her brother’s awaken ones, jerking in tune with the alarm clock. Earlyborn was that type of women, who can live without make-up, since she was charming, yet sometimes she let herself put on some lipstick with two careless strokes, making long lips, like a swan, or put the eyelashes. When Zhenka finally got up, she ended drawing the last strokes in her creativity. It looked as the moon moved to its dressing room to compete in beauty with our heroine, and the stars were cast with clouds of fume or steam, which rose from the cups with fresh Indian tea brought at the balcony.
It is so nice to come out at the balcony of an old house with a cup of tea in the middle of January when the weather in Paris tells that it is already Moscow and see that modernly dressed women and curious tourists together with the Eiffel Tower still wave at you and do not go away. Then you stand, rocking with worry, and ask it, “Are you standing?” And the worry answers, starring at you as at an inanimate string of light which suddenly became alive, “If now we have a look whether there is a green one at the warehouse, and if there is, you can pay for the car and take it.”
“If now we have a look whether there is a green one at the warehouse, and if there is, you can pay for the car and take it.” Zhenia and Earlyborn were found standing in a car showroom after two hours of agreeing a deal on the car purchase. Nothing went wrong, and the car was chosen; the problem was that siblings deemed the purchase as an adventure, as though it was a rehearsal of their journey to Antarctic. They were roaming around the car showroom for a long time, sat into the biggest and into the smallest cars in turn and tried to play hide-and-seek: one hid on the front seat, another counted on the back seat and next started searching, and an odd thing is that he did not find at once. Then they decided on the model and wandered around it, questioning the assistants which colours they have. Earlyborn was particularly interested in this issue, for she was a true aesthete with her dull-red lipstick. They agreed with a lead manager about the test drive, who estimated their choice, got in a traffic jam at first and soon were supposed to drive at the far end of the town: they ran out of petrol. They drove enough and got an ocean of pleasure. Earlyborn made a circle in front of the car showroom, imagining how she would make the same circle around the Tower after extorting from her brother, where the keys to the car were, getting up fifteen minutes earlier than him… Then they were completing the documents and choosing the wheel rims: Earlyborn wanted to have some big ones, and Zhenka—some practical ones. They reached a compromise, and when the evening twilight appeared, the world saw Zhenka’s new dark-orange—of the fireplace colour—car. Zhenka literally jumped out of the car, turning right—he glanced at his beautiful sister and the Earth through the side window. Siblings again started playing hide-and-seek. Earlyborn hid in the boot, although they concluded not to hide there, and Zhenka left her and went for a stroll alone to teach her a lesson.
Chapter 10
***
He sat and looked at the fire without noticing the sunset dancing on the other seashore. There was a bit rusty bunch of keys next to him, made from hard metal that it seemed they were from cast iron. In truth, they were from tin. Gulls were screeching. On one window, if to be more accurate, not far from the one of them, was a magnet from Montenegro. The sunset was warmer and huger, which was not typical for the area, as the yolk on a frying pan that was a bit overcooked; it was thought to have a light with a mystery inside within a probability of ten-fifteen percent. Perhaps, there were aliens inside, or the meaning of life itself. Such light was widely used on the rolls of film in the past to hold back the evidence and arguments in court. Ages passed by, ears of rye were ready to reap, do not try to hide this sandy colour of life, as you will never hide it all. Moreover, winners can’t be judged, so the beach is not court, yet the area where the main action takes place. What action? The adventures of our characters. There was a windmill somewhere on the left, and it seemed that you moved in Holland; the mill turned its sails like an exhausted for the day bee, which is, perhaps, about to die after hard work, but still is alive and kicking.
Did it take Zhenka much to drift away from Paris, playing hide-and-seek with Earlyborn? How did he find himself here, at the Holland seashore? Yet maybe he was not alone and managed to hide in a different nook in Paris, have a nap, start the car, pick up his sister in the new car and get here at night, ignoring the Highway code. It isn’t Holland, is it? Such questions rise when a person is doubtful. Then “yes” means “no” and “no” stands for “yes”, and there are no natural powers to make him change his mind. Zhenka and Earlyborn (I do not know why you supposed they were in Netherlands) were at the seashore in France, where occasionally windmills may be found, as free horses, crossed the foreign frontier, where it would be nice to drive to the snow-white beach by new car with big wheel rims and wait for a ferry, sitting by the fire, as they did now. Zhenka and Earlyborn needed to go to Bermuda to reach Antarctic and they thought, “Why not to go there?” Zhenka chose Bermuda, since he had a reach fantasy. And the whole journey was their own adventurous enigma.
***
The guitar was heard. Waves touched the beach as often as the slightly slowed film goes. Back and forth. Back and forth. Each time the waves’ flames came closer to steps, which lay idle relaxing in silence. The sand was fabulously white and scarcely bigger than you if once you diminished in size a hundred as much as you were before and fell down into high-grade flour. The fire with ugly, but hard and long-burning logs was splendid in concord with the background of the darkened to a degree which is only possible in warm countries of January sunset. People usually see the sea from a different angle. Firstly, they imagine the summer. Russians can’t accustom themselves to the fact that somewhere far from here, in those sunny countries of January, which warm better than the polar bear’s fur, there are warm seas even in winter. Secondly, whatever people talk about the beauty of snow-white beaches, only the yellow sand can form the true atmosphere of the beach. At times piles of rubbish, or something sharp and disgusting, say, tin cans can happen in it, however, in this case it would stay attractive and home with the majority of people on the Earth. The further you go the more interesting things you meet. When there are people with healthy faces in the room that means the air there, in the space around should be fresh; only some of the people after meticulous considerations would dare to name this beach with clouds and cold roaring winds the one for the fine swimming. Others would rather willingly call it a place to train your skills for survival in this area. A beach must be warm. Furthermore, it must be warmer than any beach in winter in countries of January.
The beach was desolate. There were only footprints of somebody massive and strong, perhaps they were left by seagulls or wheel trucks, and there was also that smell of the human kind, or two people, who just surmised something genius and now lived with their conjectures, as kid lives when he is told that the grandfather with a beard is the main magician. Seems, a tiny idea came to Earlyborn and Zhenka during their frugal picnic. Well, let us call dog handlers, wait for some time, and probably the dogs will show us the path of verity.
