Hide-and-seek

Soft­ened soil, sparkling  and gold.
Phos­pho­res­cent green leaves and grass.
Scent of the plants  seduces  geom­e­try of  the inner organs,
not allow­ing it to estab­lish its  dictatorship.
  
Mes­merised vil­lagers  would sigh:  Oh what a love­ly  spring!
She was think­ing too: What a joy!

And just a month ago the roof  was crunch­ing under the weight
Of snow and lone­ly, very dark nights.

Snow glit­tered by moonlight
hills blink­ing with  sil­ver shine.
Warmth of the house silent­ly fac­ing the fact that
Behind these walls, there is nothing
Just wilderness.
And wilder­ness is some­thing that does not belong to humans.

Like all men do, her hus­band as well, went to a town to work.
Women are wait­ing and look­ing after children.

Some­times an ani­mal or a bird would let a voice or make a noise. 
Move­ments of shad­ows mul­ti­plied by the mis­lead­ing  and con­vinc­ing force
of the moon.

Once just before the dawn, her child whis­pered to her: Mum­my, mum­my look!
In the cor­ner of the room, two mice were danc­ing hold­ing eachother by the paws, mak­ing small steps to the left and to the right and then round and round and the left and back and forward.

She shud­dered think­ing about sit­u­a­tions and events which are not caused by deci­sion or even mis­take and looked through the win­dow: the snow­ing start­ed again, quick and tick snow.

The next day some­body knocked at the big, heavy wood­en door and from the snow cur­tain emerged a face of a man.

The child asked: Who is this man?

Your father, my child
   
Now he is gone again.

But now the nice weath­er is mak­ing things easier.

Enjoy­ing in the sun, 
she can rec­og­nize each indi­vid­ual plant and
insects’ paths are very clear.

Deep­er lay­ers of solitude.

The new war hasn’t arrived yet, the old war hasn’t dis­s­apiered yet, to these lad­scapes too far away and padded up in high mountains.

Bathed in pleas­ant heat and evap­o­ra­tion of the veg­e­ta­tion, eyes half open,
It could have been felt that some­thing was com­ing, but at this moment
There is still enough time before the events that
Will divide life of the peo­ple in before and after.

(hills under the snow and dark trees, one week not shaved beard-that is how the land­scape looks like. he didn’t shave his beard nor cut his hear for for­thy days*)

This day is going to be too long
She felt that from the dawn,
and decid­ed to vis­it her par­ents who lived
on the oth­er side of the mountain.

The path pass­es through the big wood.
The young do not care about old women’s blood­cur­dling stories
About the wood demons, talk­ing ani­mals and enchant­ed humans who there, lost their san­i­ty and the soul
About dark needs and crea­tures that lurk deep in the shadows
About those poor souls lost in the dark­ness of the wood, who saw naked self-hap­pen­ing of the world
that changed their God giv­en destiny.

She was young and strong.
So she went
Through juicy grass hold­ing her child.

Sky was so blue, so big, so close and full of insects and birds.

(we think that he killed the cat. he is say­ing that the cat knew all. that the cat had a pre­mo­ni­tion. he is pre­tend­ing that he doesn’t know any­thing about it. like the cat escaped because she was eat­ing so much that she become ungrate­ful and went to find some­thing bet­ter. and he is allur­ing the cat all the time and he is talk­ing about it all the time. He knows that he is annoy­ing, he is wait­ing for the motive. we are silent and we can hard­ly wait for him to go out.)

The wood is becom­ing older.
Light sprout bushes
start­ed to be replaced with
old big trees
and grass
with bronze dead leaves:
crum­bling under the feet.

Instead of cheer­ful birds some strange birds
were singing in dif­fer­ent voices.

The sky is yel­low and low.
Tufts of fog wind­ing among the trees.

Drops of mois­ture caught in spi­ders’ webs
Like dia­mond jew­els thrown away across the wood.

(he is out­side shout­ing at goats and throw­ing snow at chick­ens. he is old and slow. some­thing is drop­ping on our heads. Meet hung on hooks is dry­ing and fat is droop­ing down on the floor or on the hair. we think we hate him. feet are con­stant­ly cold in the rub­ber boots. in the after­noon  I was going for a bru­tal walk because I ate more bread than I should have.)

It is much dark­er now. 

Half opened mush­rooms whit­ing on the ground.

There were no insects.
The dif­fer­ent birds were announc­ing their presence
shriek­ing in half-human voices.

The riv­er was laud­er as she was approach­ing it.

In spite all the scary sto­ries she felt close to this wood and this river.
Every time she would pass­ing through
She would wet her hands and face and drink some of the water.
Then she would close her eyes and think about things
That she was wish­ing for, and for each wish
She would throw one peb­ble over her head back into the water.

(then we were sun­bathing leaned on a rock not cov­ered by the snow. eyes are closed-geo­met­ri­cal shapes and colours of the sun and the snow and that could last for­ev­er. at that moment we were fond of him and we felt sor­ry for him. moth­er said: on the oth­er hand I do under­stand him, since she is gone, there is nobody there to serve him, his world is ter­ri­fy­ing­ly different.)

She closed her eyes, made a wish,
and throw a peb­ble over her head into the water.
She smiled opened her eyes and

It appeared to her that she saw some­body a lit­tle bit fur­ther down in the wood.

No it is nobody.
Here, now there is nothing
just a patch­work made from light and shadows.

She closed her eyes again,
changed her wish hold­ing tight­ly her child
and throw the peb­ble, opened her eyes….

Yes! Def­i­nite­ly some­body is hid­ing behind that tree.

The only vis­i­tors around here are bit lost peas­ants or hunters
and they are not dress­es up like this.
And they don’t hide!
They would say good after­noon and keep on with their business.

A man in a suit and a hat  in this wilderness,
was more scary than all the old women’s sto­ries she have ever heard.

The bor­der is close.

She knew well the pat­tern of all hor­rif­ic sto­ries, she knew that when some­body desert the usu­al path or is per­sis­tent to expose some­thing that is hidden
That indi­vid­ual becomes involved in hor­ri­fy­ing course of events.
That some­body is being pushed direct­ly on the front line where forces
which are form­ing our universe
are weight­ing up their strength.

There a per­son is just a mouse danc­ing silent dance, on the music that some­body else hears.

She will pre­tend that she didn’t see him.

Slopes  under the fresh green moss
Musky smell of the wood

Don’t wor­ry he wouldn’t harm us, she was whis­per­ing to the child cheer­ing up her­self as they were get­ting clos­er and closer.

The for­est path was lead­ing to the tree, if she leaves the path, he would know that she saw him.

The stranger in the hat was mov­ing slow­ly around the tree as she was approach­ing through the path semi turn­ing around the tree.

One her step ahead

One his step behind

One her step ahead

One his step behind
 
She was pre­tend­ing that she wasn’t watch­ing but she could see by the cor­ner of her eye his move­ments around the tree.

He knew that he was seen.

And she knew that he knows, he wasn’t com­plete­ly hidden.

They were just fol­low­ing the rules of this weird game:

You are like hid­den, I am like not see­ing you.

I am like hid­den, you like not see­ing me.

I will not hurt you as long as you are clear­ly show­ing that you are not inter­est­ed in what am I doing here.

They were there for­ev­er, the time was frozen.

Yel­low changed sky, with­out insects and birds.

Steady sound of the river.

She could see clear­ly turquoise lichen on the rocks and tiny frac­tures in the bark of the trees and fast ants going up and down.

Rustling of the dry leaves was unpleas­ant and too loud. 

I   a m   l i k e   n o t   s e e i n g   y o u ,   y o u     a r e   l i k e   h i d d e n
I   a m   l i k e   h i d d e n ,   y o u   a r e   l i k e   n o t   s e e i n g   m e

Don’t wor­ry we are almost out of the wood just a minute or two
She was shis­per­ing to the child.

Drops of mois­ture were unhur­ried­ly slid­ing down the plants

And drops of her sweat down her face.

The child was asleep in her arms.

(maybe he didn’t kill the cat, after all, look there in the snow, those are cat’s footsteps.)

*a cus­tom not to shave beard or cut hair for 40 days when a mem­ber of a fam­i­ly dies.