THE SILK NOOSE

Maria P. Georgieva

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The Evening desperately kissed the Stones, washed by the wild river. They tried to run away, but from one side there was a meadow hollowed out by lizards’ tales, and from the other - the smooth water was running dangerously. The dusty water drops covered everything on their way with a silky quilt. The Stones wanted to fly away, but the butterflies had stolen their wings. And the Evening hastened to kiss them before the arrival of the Night. The Stones resisted, made the effort to get out from under the tender Evening, and the more they pulled back, the more the silk ropes suffocated them. The Evening had made the ropes herself from the sand of the Sun: glued them with the saliva of a long abandoned woman, had carefully dried them, and had removed the duckweeds, so as not to infect the ropes with life...

Finally the Night appeared from the other side of the dusty river. She sped up to jump over it. The Stones sighed. Like a well-trained tightrope-walker, who hads walked a million times over the precipice between two pairs of eyes, the Night rubbed into the bristled fleece of the quilt. The Evening was choking - she didn’t have time to kiss all of the predictably smooth Stones. She chose the most dishevelled among them. He wasn’t local. He was resisting. He was different. A Man had brought him here. The man, who abandoned the Woman, whose saliva the Evening took to make the ropes strong. The woman had combed her long hair on this Stone; had held the Man at the foot of the Stone; but later, on the Stone, appeared the footprints of other men, and the Man, when came to the river, threw the Stone onto the bank, so the Stone would be ground into sand.

The Evening threw herself on the dishevellde Stone, just as the Woman had thrown herself at the Man, leaning her head towards his washed away face. The Stone understood everything...

© Maria P. Georgieva
© eRunsmagazine - translated
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© E-magazine LiterNet, 01.08.2003, № 8 (45)