The Island of Charon. Playing Another Reality. Antoine de Saint-Exupery Award. Alexandra Kryuchkova
Читать онлайн книгу.The Island of Charon. Playing Another Reality. Antoine de Saint-Exupery Award - Alexandra Kryuchkova
Yanis, you’re kidding! Although on the Island of black magic, there is probably no way to exist without black humor… Well, but what about sightseeing here? Tell me, you do know Camotes better than me.”
“It depends on what you want to see.”
“Does everyone see one’s own?” I laughed.
“Why not! However, like everywhere else. What does your tender soul prefer for dinner today? Shrimps, mussels or…?”
“No, no… Only coffee with milk, please!”
Yanis left and was back a couple of minutes later with a cup of cappuccino and a glass of water, and I decided to continue our sweet talk.
“How long have you been here, Yanis?”
“Time is a relative concept,” he answered evasively. “It depends on the way you measure it.”
“So, what would you recommend me to see?”
“Everything!” Yanis smiled.
Suddenly, someone pulled my arm. I turned around and saw… the yesterday’s Boy! The one who looked like a beggar. He dived into my soul with a plaintive look, held out his hand and said the cherished word… “LANTERN!”
I looked at Yanis. He said something in an unknown language to the Boy, and the Boy went away.
“But why ‘lantern’?! ” I exclaimed, because such a strange request had sent my mind into a stupor.
“You shouldn’t be surprised at anything here, on Camotes,” Yanis winked me. “This Island is not like ordinary ones!”
I finished my coffee, thanked Yanis, left a tip and decided to take a walk.
2.2. A Scary Market
That evening, instead of going back to the hotel, I went far along the path that started immediately after Yanis’ cafe and, apparently, led to the village of local residents.
The lights of candles and torches flickered in the darkness, children were rushing back and forth, people in the houses were talking loudly and even singing something. I noticed that many of the natives I met along the path were walking with baskets full of all sorts of things, as if they were returning home from the market. And indeed, behind the village, some market rows were placed…
I was glad to have change in my pocket and decided to treat myself buying something delicious.
However, in the first shop, to which the queue lined up, I found only water.
“Do you want to try?” the seller asked me kindly.
“Is it from your Island? Mineral? Sparkling water?”
“From our Lake!” the salesman clarified with pride. “But it’s neither mineral nor sparkling. It is just dead! Pure dead water without gaz!”
“Dead water?!” I recoiled with a thought in my mind, “One more joker?”
“Have a try!” insisted the seller and handed me a glass.
“Oh, no, thank you! Next time!” I smiled for the sake of decency and proceeded further.
Having passed bats, snakes, cockroaches, spiders, and other creatures cooked in different ways, I stood in line for a man, who was selling coconut cocktails and fresh pomegranate juice. Almost reaching the counter, I suddenly heard exclamations from the crowd.
“Deceiver! The seller is a liar! Don’t trust him!!! It expired yesterday!!!”
An enraged, half-naked woman flew up to the seller with a bottle in her hand and doused the unfortunate man from head to toe with a burgundy-colored liquid.
“It’s not fresh! It’s yesterday’s!!!” she shouted.
The people in the line roared indignantly and instantly evaporated, leaving me tet-a-tet with the seller. As if hypnotized by my own lack of understanding of what was happening there, I approached the counter even closer.
The seller, after wiping his face, gave me an appraising look and…
“It is fresh!” he said, as if nothing had happened. “Fresh blood! The freshest one! I swear by my mom! Smell it! How many liters do you need? With milk or without?”
I recoiled in disbelief, and stars twinkled in my eyes. I began to lose consciousness, but, fortunately, someone caught my arm in time. I opened my eyes.
“Yanis…”
“Drink it!”
He handed me a wooden mug. I took a sip and immediately came to my senses.
“Dead water?” I joked.
Yanis leaned in to my ear.
“There is no other water here…” he whispered.
2.3. A Giant Ship
I couldn’t fall asleep at night. I left my hut to enjoy the Ocean view from the cliff, directly from the point where the stairs, connecting the hotel with the beach, began.
I stopped at the very edge.
Black starry Sky, in every sense the Pacific Ocean and me…
However, literally in a couple of seconds, I felt a strange, already forgotten there, on the Island, breathing of… the Wind! Yes! Who could imagine, the Wind…
And the Sky instantly changed! The clouds started running across it and so quickly, as if someone had pressed the fast-forward button of a movie. I heard a powerful thunderclap, and the Sky was cut by lightning blades.
I was about to run back to the hut when I suddenly noticed… a Giant Ship! It looked absolutely surreal! It seemed to be brought there by the Wind and quite by accident, from some other era, or even from… another world!
It was raining, but I couldn’t move, gazing at the Ship… It was really gigantic! And so strange, old, with shabby sails, but without any flag or identification marks…
Finally, the Ship entered the bay…
…Oh, no! It was impossible! Passengers began to descend from the Ship straight into the Ocean! How many people were there on board? A hundred? A thousand? But all of them seemed to be ghostly transparent. They were walking on the water surface to the shore and, as soon as they reached it, immediately disappearing!
I hardly forced myself to ran back “home”. I locked the door. Oh, I was sure, if my phone had not been dead for the lack of electricity, and the Internet had been available, the Giant Ship would have made a splash on the network! I wondered if ghostly people would have shown up in the pictures. However, nobody would have believed my words.
“I’ll be back home in a week, and I’ll have to report to the ‘community’ about my journey. Not to forget anything, one needs to start writing everything down in time!”
I lit a candle, since there were plenty of them in the table drawer, took out my notebook and began like this…
“…Water, water, all around is water, and a panic horror seizes me. I try to float up to the surface, but for some reason I can’t, and… I am suffocating…”
Chapter 3. The CAPTAIN of the SHIP
3.1. The Captain
Michael was the captain of a ship. At first. And then he became an important person in political circles. When I got a literary prize at the Central House of Writers, the President awarded him a state one. But Michael was also a creator like me, and, unlike me, he was a genius.