Trial by Love
Sister, whore, again gorged on peas! I feel this with every damned cell of my being, every fiber of my unfortunate, codependent soul! I’m twisting, but not in my belly, no-o-o-o, this torment is somewhere far-far away, it vibrates through invisible threads that connect us, and hits me right in the solar plexus with a dull, rotten resonance! In her intestines, a storm is brewing, a real storm, and the waves of this flatulence reach all the way here, into my dark, like a dragon’s ass, room, and make me writhe under a thin blanket! Darkness, damn it, you could shoot in the eye! Forgot to buy kerosene again, and now I’m sitting in this stench, dust and my own grandiose sufferings, amplified by the sufferings of her overflowing stomach!!
But no, no-no-no, that’s too simple! It can’t be just peas, it can’t!!! This is a metaphor! I know! Plenna never does anything just like that! This peas, this little green traitor, it’s just a symbol! A symbol of her inner state! Her soul right now — an overflowing, bloated bubble, ready to burst and splatter the whole world with existential nausea and the smell of hydrogen sulfide! She’s trapped! Something is oppressing her! Something, damn it, pressing on her like a ton of bricks, and this undigested bean puree is crying out to me for help!!! It’s not just gases, whore mother, it’s an alarm signal! Cosmic fart, carrying through the ether a message of trouble! My twin, my tender, frivolous, stupid Plenna, who eats peas by the handful, as if tomorrow the end of the world will come, without thinking about the consequences, neither for herself, nor for our shared mental field!! Oh, how reckless she is!! And only I, her sensitive, understanding, incredibly empathetic sister, can decipher this desperate call, hidden behind vulgar bloating! Enough! Enough lying and empathizing with her digestion! Need to get up! Go! Save! But first, bitch, find the damned matches
Matches, matches, where the hell are you!!?? My fingers, like blind worms, grope the rough shelf, overturning some sticky bottle, stacks of parchment, and, seems, a dead mouse… ew, fuck!! Finally! The box! SCRATCH!… Silence… SCRATCH!!… Again nothing… Third, third match is always lucky! SCRAAATCH!!! Got it! The trembling flame for a moment snatches from the darkness my mess: scattered books, overturned chair and a layer of dust, which, seems, remembers the first dragons yet…
But no time for sentiments!! Plenna!!!
I make a sharp step to the door and with full swing smash my shin into that same damned chair! A-A-A-A-AY, BITCH!!! PAIN!!! Sharp, piercing, almost sweet!! Yes! There it is! Physical confirmation of the universal imbalance! It’s not me who hit the chair, it’s the energy of my sister’s pain finding an outlet through my leg! Everything adds up! Limping and cursing through teeth, I grope for the latch — my saving beacon in this sea of chaos! Jerk! The door opens! And, of course, with momentum I smash my forehead into the doorframe. BAM!!! Darkness in eyes! Ringing in ears! That’s it. The last trial. Initiation. Now I’m ready!
I tumble out into the yard. The night air — cold and fresh, it slightly sobers my burning mind. Somewhere at the end of the yard echoes a monotonous, dull sound. THUD!!!… Pause. THUD!!!… Pause… THUD!!!… Of course. Who else could be doing such senseless bullshit at midnight?
Korvalol.
Naked to the waist, despite the chill. Back shines with sweat, muscles walk under the skin, like huge eels. He stands by the log and with some frenzied methodicalness… chops already chopped logs. Just smashes them into splinters. This is his way to meditate, whore. To release energy. A living generator of senseless, destructive force.
I run up to him, limping and gasping. Hair disheveled, a lump swelling on the forehead.
— Korvalor! — I croak.
He slowly swings and with pleasure drives the axe into a small splinter. CRUNCH!
— Plenna!!! Trouble!!! — I screech, grabbing air. — I feel!!! I… I know!
He finally stops. Slowly pulls out the axe, leans on it and turns to me his dull, sweaty mug. On his face — no emotion, except light fatigue from physical work. He looks at me, at the lump, at my sufferer pose and drawls contemptuously:
— A-a-and?.. Did you smash your head into something, or what?
Smashed?! YES!!! I SMASHED!!! I SMASHED INTO THE VERY ESSENCE OF HER PAIN!!! My forehead — it’s just an echo, an echo of her sufferings, you soulless dolt!!! — I roar in his face, and my saliva, seems, hisses on his flushed skin. — My head — it’s just an echo!! It’s her soul knocking on the walls of her prison!! It’s bursting her from inside, Korvalol!!! As if they stuffed her with small, round poison, that doesn’t let her breathe, that ferments her bright thoughts and turns them into… into a stinking fog of despair!!! This inner pressure… this torment… it’s calling us!!!
Korvalol dumbly blinks. The axe in his hand slightly trembles, and for a moment I think he’s going to smash me with it now, to check my theory about the echo. But he just snorts, shifting his gaze from my lump to the emptiness of the night yard.
— Some bullshit…
— Not bullshit at all. — a voice echoes from the darkness, from behind the corner of our shack. A voice quiet, calm, like water in a deep well. And from that even more creepy.
From the shadow steps out Marmelad. Always he, damn it, steps out from the shadow, as if he has a nest there! Thin, pale, in his long mantle, he looks like a hungry stork, come for someone’s soul. He holds in hand a notebook and pencil, of course, whore, he’s noting everything!
— Fluctuations in your shared empathic field have indeed been observed for the last… — he squints for a moment, as if counting something in his head, — forty-seven minutes. Amplitude anomalous. I’m inclined to agree with the fundamental premise of Tara, though I find her metaphorical base excessively expressive and insufficiently structured.
I turn to them both, spread my arms, as if wanting to embrace this whole wretched world. My leg throbs with pain, warmth spreads on the forehead, and in my chest burns the sacred fire of mission!!!
— Enough!!! Enough chopping splinters and drawing your useless scribbles!!! Our inaction — it’s nails in the coffin of her freedom!!! Every minute we waste here — it’s another portion of rotten beans in her pure being!!! — I almost cry from the grandeur of the moment. — Time!!! Time for adventures, you, wretched freaks!!! We’re going!!!
Korvalol sticks the axe into the log, from which splinters fly. On his dull face for the first time this evening appears something like animation.
— So we can bash someone? — he asks with hope.
Marmelad with a light, barely audible sigh closes his notebook. This sigh is not of fatigue, but of intellectual superiority over this animal world.
— I anticipated such a development of events, — he says monotonously, hiding the notebook in an invisible pocket of his mantle. — My travel bags have been packed since last Tuesday.
He knew. He always knows everything! BITCH!!! And me?! I — just a detector, an exposed nerve, reacting to irritants!!! Well, nothing!! I’ll prove!!! I’ll lead them!!! I’ll show them the way!!! Even if this way leads right into the ass of hell, but it will be MY way
We leave the village. More precisely, we try to leave. Our sacred procession more resembles an invasion of an enemy horde consisting of one hyperactive individual and two her silent escorts. First obstacle — our own, damn it, door! For Korvalol the doorway, with its latches, hinges and the need to first *pull towards yourself*, not *push away from yourself*, turned out too complicated design solution. After two seconds of fruitless attempts he simply stepped aside and knocked out with his shoulder a piece of wall next to the door, leaving in it a ragged hole and a cloud of dust.
I see this! I understand everything! He’s not a destroyer! He’s — a trailblazer! He’s cramped in the frames set by ordinary people! His will cannot be shackled by architectural conventions!
— Look at that! Paved a shortcut! Genius! — I say, and Marmelad, who silently exited after me through the normal door, just makes some note in his damned notebook. Probably about the load-bearing capacity of walls from adobe and shit.
Further — worse. We walk the central street of our shitty village. And I see. In the goggled sleepy eyes of a few peasants — a mute question. They don’t see our great goal. For them we’re just three nutjobs wandering in the middle of the night. But I know, they just fear our freedom! Our impulse! Especially when this impulse with momentum crashes into old Demyan’s fence. CRAAASH!!! Splinters fly in all directions, like frightened sparrows. Chickens, that were sleeping on perches, scatter with squeals, and somewhere in the depth of the yard wakes up and bursts into furious barking a dog.
— He… he destroys barriers! Knocks down obstacles in our path! — I whisper admiringly, watching Korvalol disentangle from the planks.
Marmelad, easily stepping over the debris of the fence, like over a puddle, delivers his verdict:
— Strange. Using pine for vertical pickets in such humid climate. Rots in three years. Inefficient.
BITCH!!! But he’s totally not about that!!!
Finally we reach the edge of the forest. Here ends our wretched, familiar world, and begins… something else. The forest stands as a black, silent wall. An impenetrable maw, breathing on us damp mustiness and danger. The wind barely audibly rustles in the treetops, and this whisper — it’s the language of ancient forces. I feel this!!! Every leaf, every branch — it’s a sign!!!
Korvalol, seems, doesn’t see signs. He just shifts from foot to foot, impatiently swinging the axe, as if it itches in one place.
— Well what, we’ll meditate here till morning, or already go beat someone’s face?
I proudly stick out my chest, ignoring his primitive urges. I take a deep breath, drawing in the smell of moss, dampness and fate. This is my moment. This is me leading them.
— This is not just a forest, — I proclaim with trembling in voice, which, I hope, sounds prophetic. — This is a threshold. Beyond it… answers. Beyond it — my sister’s pain! Forward!
And I make the first, decisive step into the darkness. Behind my back thumps chaos in the person of Korvalol. Beside silently glides the all-knowing, but absolutely useless intellect of Marmelad. And ahead — the pea hell of my Plenna, disguised as her endless existential sufferings. Whore, this will be legendary
The silence of the forest explodes in my head. Not with sound, no! With sensation! I stop so abruptly, that Korvalol, who thumped behind, almost runs into me. It’s not peas. Oh, damn it, it’s not peas at all!!!
Something… something enters her. Not into the soul, no. Deeper. More specifically. Right into her body. Into her very, damn it, ass! I see this, as if in reality, in my head flashes a bloody-green image! Something long, springy, hard, cold, covered with small bubbles… CUCUMBER!!! WHORE MOTHER, THEY’RE SHOVING A FUCKING CUCUMBER UP HER ASS!!! And doing it… rhythmically. Back and forth. I feel every thrust, every millimeter invasion, as if it’s happening to me!!! And then… quiet, juicy CRUNCH!!!
— AAAA!!! — my scream tears the night silence. I fall to my knees, clutching my stomach, though the phantom pain throbs much, much lower. — Gods, what a horrible, perverted ritual!!!
