Splinters of Reality

[Rikochet]

Ιστορία μου για την 7η (νομίζω) άσκηση του εργαστηρίου, επίσης μεταφρασμένη στα αγγλικά.

 

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Splinters of Reality

 

 

Were it not for the opium smokes blurring the air in the room, the shadows dancing on the walls would not have been so restless. Maybe the man sitting at the desk covered with untidy papers, would not see them calling him to their side.

 

Maybe it was not just the opium. Since his childhood he was peculiar. He sensed things others felt only in their dream quests. It was as if walking between two worlds: The human, in its dull and grey sterility, and another one, darker but more unpredictable: Everything there seemed to have its own will. Many-a times had he felt being called in this second world, but most of the times something held him pinned into reality.

 

As he trusted his soul’s strength, he allowed himself short visits (however, time there did not seem to work right – if the meaning of time did exist, after all) to the “other side”. He had seen queer things, which would make a normal, ordinary man to disentangle from the net of reality, and plunge into the ocean of… madness.

But he himself was neither normal, nor ordinary.

 

He had made a deal with the inhabitants of the other side: They were to let him satiate on splinters of their world’s wholeness, and, being a poet, he would borrow some of their “magic” and convey it in his writings. This way, his readers, though subconsciously, would bear witness to the Different.

 

His soul had just returned from such a journey; passed through the opium fumes making them whirl uncomfortably, and returned to its body.

 

The man jolted abruptly, and, holding his chest-bone, sat on his chair again. Sending his soul somewhere beyond the material plane was a painful procedure, and drained him from his mental as well as physical strength.

 

A croak made him jerk once again. He looked behind him, eyes half-closed, so he could discern through the fumes.

 

A pitch-black bird was standing in the corner of the room, staring at him with amber eyes.

 

A raven.

 

Before he could observe more details, it flew towards him.

 

A veil of fear fell over him, as the raven approached, dashing through the air. He let out a terrified scream and recoiled, the fumes dissolving in front of him. He fell on the wooden floor with his back, and for a few moments everything was dark.

 

Defenceless and coiled, he lay there for a while. Tears, he once might hold back, for the sake of dignity (besides, how was it possible that an adult would ever confront a situation in such a shameful way?), now ran freely.

 

When he recovered a little, he got up. The raven was nowhere to be seen, except for a black feather, lying beside the inkpot. Sighting it, the fear vanished immediately. On the contrary, he was filled with some kind of energy that longed to be released.

 

I won’t deny it the favour, he thought, and tried to smile.

 

He could not.

 

He sat at his desk, drew an empty sheet of paper and dipped his pen in the inkpot, with slow, almost ritualistic gestures. He let a few ink drops fall on the upper left corner of the paper. The movement was sort of a habit, as well as part of the “ritual”. He felt as if this way the ink was “purified” and contributed to the writing.

 

He felt the energy impatient in his fingertips, ready to be released. He plunged his hand in his mind’s dark lake, searched for a while in its black waters, and took it out, holding feathers in his fist… Black feathers.

 

Like a dance-partner, his hand embraced its dame, the pen, and together they started dancing on the paper, leaving their marks wherever they stepped.

 

On a tree, not so far, a raven croaked to the pale moon’s face.

 

*

 

He did not rest once, until he completed his work. With all his being he was devoted to that piece of paper, to the calligraphic writing, to the scattered drops of ink. His soul itself was strolling among the dark paths formed by the pen, and it seems the writing decided to keep some of it.

 

He laid his head on the desk, almost unconscious.

But his work was not complete yet.

 

This poem was not only words. His soul’s essence was trapped in it, as well as some of the magic of the other side. It consisted of such elements that would make the readers shiver; let their gaze wander, lost among verses and rhymes; that for a few moments, it would steal their thoughts.

It was not complete yet.

 

Something was missing…

 

Something is missing.

 

With great effort, he reached for the raven’s feather. The candle flames danced, giving life to the shadows. Among them he traced some he knew; he had met in his journeys. He nodded to them exhausted.

 

They turned and stared at him, not with detached interest, like before, but with real curiosity. They wondered how a mortal saw them on the wall, and recognized them. They smiled at him, a little nervously, then slipped away.

 

He let the feather float in the air over the paper for a while, then closed his eyes, his soul following the shadows.

 

And that was the end of that.

 

*

 

The raven returned to that room, more curious than ever. It had lost one of its feathers, and meant to find it.

 

It saw the feather float above the table. The bird flied as fast as it could to catch it, but failed.

 

The feather fell on a piece of paper, and before touching the surface, that something was written (a poem, surely), it fell in a random verse, and then disappeared.

 

“Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven thou," I said, "art sure no craven,

Ghastly, grim, and ancient raven, wandering from the nightly shore.

Tell me what the lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."

Quoth the raven, "Nevermore”

 

The raven smiled bitterly, and then flew away.

 

Only later would it wonder how a mortal managed to make it cry. And it would know not that its tears, after all those years, would not dry, but stay like pearls in the paper, contributing in the poem with their magic.

[Nihilio]

Αρκετά καλή ιστορία, αν και η μετάφραση σε σημεία ακούγεται "ξύλινη", παρά το πλούσιο λεξιλόγιό της. Ίσως ένα rewrite είναι προτιμότερο της μετάφρασης.

 

Ένα σημείο πάνατως που δε μου χτύπησε ωραία ήταν το

As he trusted his soul’s strength

που θα μπορούσε να γίνει

As he had faith in