THE AWAKENING

Na engleski prevela Andrea Baskin

Clack-Clack... Clack... Clack... Clack - Clack... Clack... Clack... Clack - Clack... Clack...

I wake up with my nostrills full of the sharp smell of burnt coal and a metallic taste in my throat. My back aches because of the uncomfortable position. It is dark around me, but in the occasional flashes of light I make out that I am sitting near you on some kind of a three-seater... and we are moving... but where?

I know! We are in a train compartment... but I don’t remember clearly how we got here.

It is night and the train swallows the darkness with its constant cloging. Clack-Clack... Clack... Clack-Clack... I stretch and look around. We are alone in the compartment, and the settlements that we pass I notice only as a series of lights. I look up and see a bag. An old-fashioned, hard bag with buckles. Once I had one like that, or it was at least similar.

You are sleeping. Your breathing is even and your only movement is the elevation of your chest. I do not wake you up, you do not open your eyes ...

Flares from the settlements are moving by the window and I am thinking how in every of them thousands of human beings are getting older. Strange thoughts ...

Very strange thoughts. Without any order in them.

Phiii-uuuu-phi!... – I hear the audible whistle of the locomotive, and I have a feeling that something is wrong. It seems to come from some unspeakable distance, or to be muffled by an infinite mass, something that is a barrier between us and the addition of a clear, yet distant sound.

I get up, look out the window. Make out the dark foliage. Trees seem ancient and monumental. Trees that I've never seen before. There's something even stranger – the geometry of the space I am watching is wrong. Everything is on one level. There is no sky, no ground. All I see is in perfect harmony with the window and no stunts I do while changing position lead to a constant change of the perspective. Finally I stop to worry about unnatural scenes and sit down again. I'm trying to realize where we are?

Where are we traveling?

My thoughts are restless. A memory loss, or whatever it is, prevents me to remember. How did we in God’s name get in this phantom compartment? I can not remember. The prespective irregularity bothers me. I'm trying to open the window ignoring the warning, printed in red, which says not to lean out the window. It is stuck. I need to take a piss so I get out of the train carriage. The corridor is poorly lit and completely deserted. I'm getting to the toilet and release myself.

Clack-Clack... Clack... Clack... Clack-Clack... Clack...

I walk eerily through the deserted hallway, trying to peek in the coupes that are along the way. The curtains are drawn and behind them I can recognize just a glimpse of darkness.

Everyone is asleep… 

Does this machine, for hell’s sake have a conductor?

Futile question. If present, he had to sleep in one of the mysterious coupes. Everything is
empty. I go back to our section and look at you. I am watching that beloved face and suddenly start to shiver. 

Something is not right...

Your face is wrinkled, your body is enormous. Much bigger then I remember it.

I am shaking you, but you don’t wake up. I am shaking you harder and harder. You are moving your lips, but I can’t hear your voice. I start to panic. Why don’t you wake up? Why can’t I hear you? Why don’t you open your eyes?

I lift my hands to touch my face and realize it is wrinkled, just like yours. I am shouting. You don’t hear me...

I am running out into the hallway and try to open one of the other coupes to find a logical answer to these strange things.

Or at least a mirror...

The door is locked, I am knocking, banging, shouting...

Nothing.

No reaction.

Hurrying down the corridor I am trying to get in the next vagon. The door is locked. I give up...

I am going back and touching my face again. I am old. Very old...

Sitting on my seat again I am watching you sleeping. The wrinkles on your face are not wrinkles form smiling, they are wrinkles from worrying. With every kilometer we pass your wrinkles become deeper, and I miss your eyes even more. My thoughts begin to wonder.

As if there are memories of people who were here in this same compartment.

I am overhelmed with the apperance of these memories. Euphorically holding onto that glimpse of hope.

If I remember someone who was here, I have to try a little harder so I will remember our getting on the train, don’t I? I just have to try harder!

A moment later, these other people disappear from my thoughts, and I still don’t remember. Histerically trying to stop that stampedo of thoughts. I fail.

They are gone. Everything is empty. It is over. My thoughts are flying around. You are again in the center of them. I know, the train won’t stop for a long time. I have a lot of time to focus, to fix myself, becuse I won’t leave before the big metal handle is pulled. I will not leave before the desolate landscape is not covered by a cloud of steam discharged from the mechanical belly of the machine.

I fear that I won’t like the place we will end up at all.

I am sitting, staring into the darkness and recalling our plans.

Our big, life changing plans, our fantasies that will seal our destiny.

Feelings that were warming us come into my thoughts. Feelings that inexplicably froze. 

I remember the hugs with which we were comforting each other. Embraces that we have
forgotten. 

When did silence swallowed it all? Why can’t I wake you up? Why is it
dark? 

I stare out the window, I tilt my head, I change the angle of vision ... I fail. 

I am pealing the skin from my fist by constantly hitting the lock, but the window remains securely locked. 

I fail to fulfill the desire that suddenly awakened in me.

To look at the sky!

The starry sky!

To see the stars...

Clack-Clack... Clack... Clack... Clack-Clack... Clack... Clack... Clack-Clack...

I remember! I remember! They were there!

If you would just open your eyes, so I could see for the last time...

Clack-Clack... Clack-Clack... Clack-Clack...

The stars! They were there! In your eyes!

When I saw you the first time...

Clack-Clack... Clack... Clack... Clack-Clack...