In a small world, among four walls with a single door and a faded window on which a pale, deathly curtain with orange flowers always hung like a rag, the old world was born, looked with slightly pale eyes and gave up the ghost, like a large rat, which walked its paws around the kitchen and also decided more there is no living, it’s dreary and bitter here, there is nothing... Only grayness and nothingness and a snow slab with two black burners of blue gas..... only wrinkled nothing lived, hobbled wrapped in something indefinite towards the bathtub, and then to the sofa with large scarlet flowers on a golden background... Exceptional bright deer on the green lawn looked at her, thought about her and were always there, on the right, near the wall, and their muzzles were soft and silky, and there was no need to wash them...
She always sighed, groaned and drank hot raspberry tea, which glowed orange in the dark...
“You couldn’t do anything,” she told herself at night and fell asleep on a holey blue towel, never covering herself with a blanket...
The store tried to open its eyes in the dark, taking in the living in bright scarlet and releasing the almost dead...
"My city is Minsk!" A child was beaming with a smile on a blue-green shield above the half-empty highway, and behind him, like a blur, was a flag, bright and fluffy, a great friend of the scarlet store...
And all the time the little bird tried to get here to change the world, make it better, transform it, take steps...
But the old woman got in the way, took her to the wrong place, and she, wandering along the tangled paths, came out to her again, without asking, but demanding to be taken.
“The next station is Warsaw,” the driver announced, but they always went to Minsk, to the city where old people and children lived and dreams died...
Scene two
And those others went out through the gray doors, each time touching the silver handle, deceitful and silver... The scarlet flag waved above, sharply and cheerfully, and somehow reluctantly spoke to the lonely wind... Two children in blue and green rode on scooters. Running away from her parents, and a woman in black ran after them, catching up... Two men entered the door, one in a blue jacket, the other in black, and as if crows pounced on someone inside, gnawed and swallowed, and everything did not germinate with the wind.. .
What are you doing here? ... ", - a long sharp claw touched the little girl. But the world did not continue to move, it stopped and expected something... wanted to turn to someone, cry and whisper something, quietly in her ear... How like small...
Came out a man as bright as a harrier
and a small, narrow, sliver-like woman in black, with a long pinkish tail dangling like a broom sweeping the floor...
She quietly said in his direction: “And you...”
- "Well, what's wrong with that..."
- "I'm hooked..."
The tomato slipped out of the dark bag, rolled over small gray pebbles and froze right next to the door...
I didn’t want to be crushed by someone’s flat dark sole, I found small dark legs with long heels, ran a few steps, and released a stream of wide bird wings...
He flew towards two pigeons sitting on the parapet, landed crookedly, stepping almost past a thin rod, but still... Several grayish crumbs fell on him leaving dark traces, the man on top was smoking, releasing rings of bluish smoke, sometimes he threw crumbs down to the pigeons, but those They didn’t pay attention to him, and the white bread was picked up from the asphalt by sparrows, who sometimes fought over the crumbs..
You are always alone... Always...”, - the raven clicked his beak and hung from the branch, - “Why? We crows fly in flocks..."
- "But you are also alone..."
- “I’m already old and... It’s hard for me to fly with young people... I want to think more, contemplate... and you’re still young!”
- “I... No, I’m old... I’ve already lived several lives...” - her azure eyes narrowed and it seemed to him that she began to look like a Chinese woman, the kind who was painted on a large fresco in the city where he was he flew in his youth, but now he didn’t want to fly, he constantly sat on the thin branches of a spreading tree and croaked... Young crows rarely flew here, there was almost no food here...
- "And there is a river... what is it called?"
- "Svisloch..."
Her eyes narrowed even more...
- “A long time ago there were elk here and wild boars, big and strong... Now there is nothing, only people... Stupid people, smart people have left here...”
- "Why didn't you fly away..."
- “I have nowhere to fly, I’m old”
- "But earlier you said that you flew.... You told..."
- "You better become a bird now... They're coming here..."
She glowed blue and her human face stretched out and took on the image of a crow's head with a large beak...
Raven looked at her and sighed...
- “Just not a black sheep... Then they will definitely pay attention to you.”
- “I forgot..”
And her feathers turned dark, she shook herself, several light feathers fell down...
- “Well, you’re always like that...” - he became even more gloomy and wanted to plunge into thoughts, but someone threw a stick at him, and almost hit him...
The raven croaked dissatisfied several times, cried, wanted to howl, but flew to a higher branch...
And when the people left, she regained her appearance...
-"You have to be very careful! They almost killed me today!"
- “It’s just that you’re lazy, so they threw a stone at you...”
She swayed a little on the branch, hung down, pecked a few dry leaves, crushed them, floated in the wind, spread her wings and disappeared into the transparent air...
And they walked along the pale asphalt, unthinking, forgetting about themselves... Without thoughts and driven by themselves...
And the cold store with the scarlet eye lived, devouring time and lives, people and their very distinctive features, releasing a primitive secondary product with basic functions...
Don’t think anything... And Serena flashed like a ghost in the dark sky, smashed the forgotten world on a grand scale, leaving only the eternal old raven on a branch...
Retreat
In the shop
There is only one scarlet eye in the world with the only fulfilled expiration date for expired products, which the average consumer always has..
The two of them walked with large blue bags filled with long carrots and black bread... and something broke like a dream in front of them, locked in front of their feet like a damaged key flying into blue sneakers with cold soles... The other two entered the door, and she came out slowly in a gray shiny coat, with a large yellow bag of strawberries and an almost unnoticeable small leaf.. a man in purple opened the door with a flourish, his fingers dissolved and he disappeared into this world, another tall man with short gray hair and a small bag rushed past and it seemed to someone that there were two small horns on his head, and behind him he was leaving a bluish luminous trail...
--
by Irina Tall
Irina Tall (Novikova) is an artist, graphic artist, illustrator. She graduated from the State Academy of Slavic Cultures with a degree in art, and also has a bachelor's degree in design.
The first personal exhibition "My soul is like a wild hawk" (2002) was held in the museum of Maxim Bagdanovich. In her works, she raises themes of ecology, in 2005 she devoted a series of works to the Chernobyl disaster, draws on anti-war topics. The first big series she drew was The Red Book, dedicated to rare and endangered species of animals and birds. Writes fairy tales and poems, illustrates short stories. She draws various fantastic creatures: unicorny the Exhibition is Irina s, animals with human faces, she especially likes the image of a man - a bird - Siren. In 2020, she took part in Poznań Art Week. Her work has been published in magazines: Gupsophila, Harpy Hybrid Review, Little Literary Living Room and others. In 2022, her short story was included in the collection "The 50 Best Short Stories", and her poem was published in the collection of poetry "The wonders of winter".