My Medina

TRANSFORMATION

-It shines so brightly, like it wants to get into your skin.

-It got into my skin, and I’ll tell you more. It is bubbling in my head. I am like hearing their slurry sound inside.

Both adventurers were upset about the heat, though the one who began complaining was on the top of the other. The old man with a straw hat and screwed eyes was taking a free ride on Roy’s back.

-It is well worth visiting this village again. I did not consider the villages to change so much.

Roy preferred to save his energy. He had to carry him until he would say ‘enough’. But caring him for last two days, he also knew it would not happen soon. He carried him for four hills and not any word was mentioned about getting down. Roy kept silence. But could his equestrian at least wipe the sweat on his forehead? They were getting into his eyes. He felt the kick. OK, that was no, thought Roy. He knew how the old man could read people’s mind, any spark of idea was read like a lie detector. The man on his back was squinting whether from the sun, or from the idea that it was so good to visit the village.

On the fifth hill the old man moved on the Roy’s back making him alert. So soon?

Roy has forgotten the time- time to have some lunch, at last, unless he tells him to have lunch carrying him on the back. Those old men can have the weirdest ideas. As soon as he thought so, a heavy blow came to his head. Roy had forgotten that he had a long stick. ‘Does he know that slavery had been abolished?!’ thought Roy, and that was it. He did not want another smack.

Anyway, now I am hundred percent sure that he reads my mind.

“And I see what you think, and feel” screeched the old man as an old door.

What a voice! Will I also sound like a rusted wheel in old ages?

“Well it depends how you will be preserved”, thundered the rider.

-Ah, if I am ridden like a donkey another day, not much will be left of me. Actually I will look like preserved sardines.

-And you will be the first who will look so good after a ride with me.

Roy tripped over the stone which somehow popped up right under his feet. As more he tried to walk on plain as harder it was. The stones grew out the soil like mushrooms after rain. He raised his eyes and through fringe he saw how the old man was playing his finger in the air to make those stones move to Roy’s feet like in checkmate.

“Don’t do it. If you do this, we will fall together.”

The old men strained himself. “Sure.”

Roy heard another strong growling voice up there.

What was it? Where does this lion voice come from? Is that screeching, and clanging old man, with webs on his face, and shaky hands like in Horezm dance? Five hills before his pants were waving in the wind as a victory flag on the pole. He was whining to take him home, as he could not make a step further. He was mounted with the help of Roy himself. Yes, he clearly remembers how he squatted so the old man could hang his rakes around his shoulder, and Roy himself lifted him, otherwise the old man could just fall.

With horror Roy felt his old man transmogrify right in front of his eyes, or right on him. He was becoming heavy as ever, pushing Roy down the earth. His legs, Roy was holding felt bigger, stronger, and tougher. Right above himself he heard the bones of the old man grow, muscles stretching to sides and elongating. The knuckles gave cracking sound and he grew, and grew, until the pants gave an embarrassing sound on his back.

“Oops! Come on, son, you understand, ha?”

“What!?”

He slowly moved down giving so much relief to Roy. But as soon as he was freed from his weight, another blows of terror overwhelmed him. By some magic, the old man, the one who was cracking and crocking with pain, turned into unbelievably real man of power. He had grey beard until breast, the same color hair closing his ears, a wide forehead, and deep set yes. Roy diverted his eyes at the shoulders and chest guessing what to expect from newly built shape of once ‘duck man’. What he saw made him shudder, the mouth dropped lower. The man’s shoulders were wide, round with flesh, curving down to arms, which shouted ‘Back off or I will tear you to pieces!’

No trace of rakes, the ones jabbed me all the way up the hill, he blinked and gave two steps back. In further distance he could allow himself a cautious question:

“How come?” Roy slowly whispered in disbelief, his body cast back, muscled tense, ready to run in case he does something. Yes, do something. Not attack, not raise a hand, but run, the slightest gesture of this giant could harm you! Roy was like a mustached cockroach caught in the corner looking at one pair of sleepers raised high above him for all his scavenging in dark kitchen. ‘The evil omen’, he thought. He raised his fists for a moment like a cockroach shaking his long antennas to detect the area. But soon, he realized it was stupid. He clutched hands to his face, at least to protect the potential damage zone. He was watching that giant Gulliver, who came from nowhere to the land of a Lilliput through fists. He was trying to remember who he saw just in the morning; and the same picture was raising in his mind…the man of 80, not less, legs twisted so much, that they were reminding him zero. His limbs were like crockery dropped in a box, clanging on each other the time he walked. He clearly remembered how his ribs poked Roy’s back, and how he spoke… like the man on the death bed, with disgust to the ones who will still live after him. Roy lifted him on his back, because, he did not want him to die in those bushes, or be hurt by somebody. Now Roy saw the man who would hurt anyone you show him, and won’t even blink an eye.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know I am heavy. 105 kg.”, said the old man to the question Roy was just making in his mind.

Roy still was looking at the old man with horror.

-What have you done to him?’ mumbled Roy, eyes open bigger that his mouth. Some clash of music was playing in his head; the guitar strumming in no tune with the trumpet, the crazy piano drumming on wrong notes, the violin chiseling on strings on the highest pitches, another string instrument sawed into his brain, drum bombing as elephant thumps…. And in all this mess another drone flew across:

“Stop gaping like that. Or else I will smack you again with that sweet stick.”

That made an instant effect. The music instruments so crazily haranguing in his mind dropped in one stroke. Roy stopped gaping but his mind was totally blank like a new page of the dairy. He looked around, another method to insure that you are safe. First, measure your opponent, second see around, detect the area where you could flee. Of course, the man could kill him thrice before his second maneuver, or even the first. This idea made him ease his tension. He could kill him when he was on his back. He felt the wind; mild, brushing his face. There, on the horizon was the sun, the only witness of all crazy things here. He felt the tickling in his stomach for something to throw inside. He knew that biological beast will roar in five seconds and scratch with fierce claws if he ignores it. That was the second day he and the miracle man were fasting.

“Do you have something to offer to an old man? I am starving.”

Unbelievable. He made me carry him for five hills, saying that he had hurt his leg, and now he jumps like a rabbit in spring. He knew that I have nothing, as he had all over me, with his legs, and now, asks me to feed him. Roy stood in disbelief at the man who now did not seem so old and weak. He could trick and take over anyone he met.

“I am glad that you think so”, said the man. “My name is Narol. The magnificent Narol, not that moaning and whining, ok? It was just a little trick.” Roy looked askance to the man.

W-what? Just a trick? A man grows into a big giant right in front of your eyes and before that he was like a toddler… A trick? He was looking stupefied at the man who was hoping on his own muscle wrapped legs, twisting his body to sides, as if an Easter bunny.

-Oh, come on. Enough of these geometrical figures in your eyes. You know what, I noticed that you have quadrate eyes when you are tired, triangle when you don’t understand, rectangular when you are nervous and now you have rhombus.

-Which means? Roy drooled as a man under hypnosis.

-Which means you are tired.

Don’t you know what a figure I have when I want to kill somebody? Thought Roy.

Roy shook his head to get rid of some geometrical figure theme and to find out what that man was up to. He needed concentration as ever before. He bit his lips and made some dry swallows, still eyes pierced at the Mr. Strange Man of the world.

“Oh man, I am afraid if you stare like that another minute, your sockets will just pop out and then I will have to carry you down the hill. Don’t forget there is the way down yet.”

This was another virtual smack on him. He came to himself quick. Way down? No, you must be kidding. That Narol could carry up and down dozens like Roy for many times and not a breath, not a pulse, will be faster. Look at him he is like a frog in evenings.

“Thank you again. But no more animal comparison. You know you should close your mouth, because what you will see now will make your mouth open again. And I don’t want your jaw drop on the ground. Pull yourself together.”

Narol’s eyes emitted kindness and understanding now. He patted Roy with his giant hands and slowly took off his coat.

What is this transformation of eyes about? Roy was even tenser from the man’s smile and friendly gestures. Narol was manifesting his coat first showing the one side, then another. It was tightly woven from half centimeter twisted thread, long sleeves, little drab on edges. Inside was from plain red linen with stiches on sides. ‘I see, I see your stiches, Harry Houdini, or Harry Potter, Harry who else. I know that you hide there something’ said Roy to himself. On the back, a big, two floor house was embroidered with the thicker, different color threads. The house had six windows with big door in the center.

Now what? ‘A dove will fly from the sleeves’ or he will get some flowers out…or no, he was talking about lunch. So he was hiding something in them. He concentrated, all attention on the coat. Maybe I am wrong, ’The magic happens not on the scene, somewhere you don’t expect it to happen’. He looked at Narol, his figure. Einstein was wrong saying “Two things are infinite; stupidity and universe. But I am not sure about the universe” There should be “Three things are infinite: the universe, human stupidity and insolvency, and I am not sure about the universe”.