Chapter 16
348 Words
13
First, the Prophet Elijah turns to the heavenly hosts. His voice, the rattle of countless tin sheets. Then, it is time for the charge of the star-drawn cavalry. Stallions of fire and stallions of night’s gloom stamp their hooves, thousand fold, on the celestial dome, scattering pale sparks and stirring up dust clouds. The powers of darkness are closing their ranks, heading for battle. And they are vanquished in an instant, on the run, celestial dust on their capes. And the battlefield is once more serenely, celestially blue.
Down below, we notice nothing more than thunder and lightning.
But in the morning, stepping on the smooth sand between the bushes on the riverbank on the way for milk, you would glance in the milky water-mirror, but the path leads us up, through the clearing, skirting the field. And there’s the first roof, and hens are running underfoot. The village called Loss.
A jug of steaming milk, eggs, too, and even a bunch of dill, and a lop-eared lettuce. The old man is blind, it’s the old woman who looks after the cow, her daughter lends a hand even though her baby is almost due. N. pays them—just pennies!—and gets a bouquet of white phlox into the bargain. Well, flowers do brighten things up.
The path shows the way back, skirting the field, through the clearing, to the raised bank, down, and home… He stopped short. My, doesn’t the house look like a ship?! The attics were mezzanines—is that the right name?—kind of stuck on, built on, and the other side, it was like the stern of a caravel. But the deck side lines were straight, like those of a river steamer, not a seagoing vessel. And a tree was sticking up through the veranda. A mast? A misty mirage from a dream…
Where are we sailing to, my little one-mast ship? Well, no point in putting the classical question of the nineteenth century, formulated by Pushkin: “But whither do we sail?” Since we are already underway, albeit against our will. And the destination is unclear. Will we ever know?
- Writer
