Irina Tall

Untitled

When you stop answering questions

On the white, in the haze of the sky, black dots hid the birds, among the branches, they are silent dead and only in the heart beats a secret, something that can come to life in spring ...

Something lived in the house, gray viscous, at the very bottom in the basement, where they had recently done repairs ... White stripes ran around the house like ants, interrupted, bared and turned as if an invisible hand had passed with scissors, painters painted in their own way, choosing the color , sometimes swearing, not looking in the windows... Slowly, sometimes quickly, the old master came and helped when they didn't know how to do it.

Birds flew over them, came back and forth, brought a couple of bright shiny beads and turned into people themselves, for several hours to eat or ...

- "When he touched you, didn't you understand that he was not a man?" - he stubbornly looked into her face, trying to understand her thoughts, to catch the course of her movements.

- "I didn't want anything... I felt very bad and I wanted to die..." - she wanted to lower her head, but only took a deep breath like a swimmer.

Her inner world shrank and unclenched, hitting her small heart.

- "At the crossroads of the pages I will read .." - a gentle male voice was heard from the street.

He was slightly distracted, took out a lighter and a thin cigarette pale as the world and put it on the bare table.

- "I wanted to lay a tablecloth ...", - she fell silent and also looked out the window, from a hint, slightly so that he would not see.

He tapped the lighter on the table, picked up a cigarette, wanted to light it, but did not, and thrust it into the narrow dark slot of his pocket like a criminal.

- "You didn't see him anymore? Tell me for sure? Maybe he seemed to be watching you and it seemed to you?," he looked out the window again ... felt like..."

- "I heard about so much about things, read a lot in the newspapers, but I don't know anything from what you told me .." - she raised her hand and touched her forehead, it was a little wet ... - "I must have remembered" she thought...

- "Did he address you...? -"

- "I don't remember this... I've never seen anything like this and I thought it was a fantasy or nonsense...",

- her voice trembled and she fell silent.

As if from a basket, he began to pour questions at her, she sat with her lips compressed, pressing herself like a turtle into a white cold chair.

When he got tired of asking, he sat down, put his head in his hands ...

She stood up, with thin hot fingers touched the transparent teapot - "Maybe coffee?"

He looked at her with empty eyes, "Maybe, yes it could be ..?"

Hastily got up and began dreary stuffing some papers from his pocket into his briefcase.

- "Help you?" - She said the words quietly and drawn out.

- "Coffee, make me some coffee ...", - his voice seemed to demand something from someone, but it sounded muffled in space, like a gong that was sunk to the bottom of the lake.

She smiled - "I don't know how to brew coffee, I have coffee ready, I'll just pour water ..." - she looked at him questioningly.

- "Without sugar and milk, I only drink strong," - he seems to have begun to recover, little by little.

- "And our voices will be heard ...", - again a voice from the street was reading something.

Birds flew over the buildings with black dots, settled on the branches in drops, and leapfrog and quarrel began.

A man and a girl were walking downstairs, she had a luminous cap on her head and the girl was constantly bouncing, it seemed that she wanted to become a hare.

In the distance, a bus approached the corner of the building like a yellow orange, and people fell out of it like ants, black dots, impersonal and unnecessary.

“Have you read the book?” he asked, and broke off, realizing the uselessness of his question.

- "What?" - Her voice was alarming.

He took a book out of his briefcase and silently handed it to her, she read the title of Somerset Maugham's "Moon and a penny."

- "I write stories myself a little", - her voice became confidential, - "You can leave the book to me for a while ... I will read it and return it to you .."

- "I can give it to you, I don't need it anymore... I'm leaving... For a long time... Maybe for good... I wanted to find an answer, but probably I'm not given...", - his voice trembled strangely .

Those moments that have been lost will never return, they are like scattered pearls, one will surely roll into a gap where it cannot be found.

“I’ll probably go to another job ... I didn’t succeed here,” and he somehow strangely rearranged the emphasis on the word here, as if there was something secret in this word or something to which he betrayed great importance, who was never seen again.

The kettle boiled, she poured boiling water into a large white mug and the black coffee dissolved, blackening the water.

He looked at the cup carefully and for a long time, sighed and added, "Probably our lives also dissolve in space, our thoughts and feelings..."

She thought his mood was funny...

The birds flew away, leaving the dark branches...

- "Probably flew off to look for another lodging for the night," her thoughts seethed in her, she raised her hand, straightened the fallen thin strand and handed him a mug.

- "Drink otherwise it will get cold... The coffee must be hot," her voice seemed to have become cheerful and frivolous.

- "I always drink cold coffee.. always...It's probably already a habit," he sighed like a fish at the bottom.

"You just stare at it for a long time. You just need to drink warm," she shook her little head.

He sat down at the table and began to draw coffee like a cigarette for a long time and painfully, he was deciding something within himself or decided.

"It looks like it's got some kind of seal on it," she thought.

She recently watched Shakespeare's tragedy "King Lear" and the king at the end of the tragedy had the same face when he lost his youngest daughter.

Maybe she wanted to console him... Maybe...

When he left, there was a sad and dreary trail, faded orange, like wilted flowers.

Gradually it got dark, she threw back the old blanket in the estimate and scarlet stripes and lay down on a sheet gray in the dark, covered herself with a thin golden plaid and wanted to sleep, but she saw something ... It seemed it was a man in the window, a voice, someone called her and she went there...

The bird sat on the ground, it was as if in a pink mist. The body of the bird began to stretch, the wings turned into thin white arms, black paws into long legs, and golden long hair began to grow on its head ...

And when she looked in the mirror, she saw herself ... She was the bird that turned into a man ....

And then nakedly, secretly repeated the question - "Did he address you? .."

And then she answered: - "I saw how I myself addressed, the one you are looking for is Me ... I am the bird that turned into a man ... This is Me ... I ... I ... I ... I..."

And endless repetition arose in her space and remained with her.

She opened her eyes, got up on the bed, leaned on her sharp elbows, it seemed that she was sick, it seemed that something was flying over her, rushing and dying, becoming herself ... She looked at the walls, they were the same gray and old, wallpaper faded a little on the sunny side, she raised her hand to the light, looked at her skin, there were a few grayish feathers on it, they were very tiny breaking through the pink thin skin. Nothing surprised her anymore.... Nothing...