Из коллекции попыток: вторая барракуда

[collection]

Barracuda

Blood, Delirium, and Peters



Peters came up to my apartment at about a quarter to five. He was carrying a barracuda across his shoulder. He was wearing a crumpled, dripping wet Atelier suit. The water streaming down from his hair and clothes was forming a pool around his squelching shoes. Peters looked tired but there was something serene about his exprеssion.



The barracuda on his shoulder seemed lifeless but there was something about its appearance that made me uneasy. The fish was an aspen brown colour, spread equally upon its flexible body. Its presence made my apartment smell salty and damp. Its impenetrable eyes stared at me bitterly.



I stared back at the fish. Then I stared at Peters. He shifted from one leg to the other in discomfort. This discomfort was not caused by his wet suit, but by the necessity of explaining his wet suit. He kept silent. He either did not want to speak at all or wanted me to set the conversation. I did not know where to start so I did not start at all. Our eyes met for a brief moment and he nodded lightly, in appreciation.



Peters groaned and bent to untie his shoelaces. He looked comical, trying to undo his laces with one hand, and holding on to the barracuda with the other. Finally he succeeded in both and put his shoes on the shoe rack. Brushing past me, Peters walked into the living room. Burning with curiosity, I followed

...

.



The room was lit by a single lamp that hid in the corner like an outlaw, trying to conceal itself from the forces of good and evil. The lamp shone dimly, giving out just enough light to prevent unexpected collisions with furniture and other solid objects. The aquarium on the other side of the room, compensated for the lamp; its artificially bluish lights made the room feel mysteriously lucid. Reflections of the moving water sent gentle ripples all over the walls, enhancing the illusion even further.



Peters walked straight to the aquarium, unaffected by its oceanic effect on my walls. He carefully lifted the barracuda from his shoulder and dropped it into the fish tank, causing one third of the water to spill out. My fish quickly scattered to the corners of the aquarium, leaving the intruder to float in the middle of the tank. However, the barracuda took up most of the area, so even shivering in their corners the fish were within the reach of its sharp teeth. With mixed emotions my cat-fish, goldfish, and clown-fish stared at the predator, whole-heartedly expecting it to eat them. The barracuda mockingly stared back at them with its sharp pointy eyes.



Peters nodded in satisfaction, tapped the thick aquarium glass and folded his hands on his chest. He stared at the fish for a moment, diving deep into his own thoughts, shifted his balance from one leg to another, stretched his tired muscles, and then, suddenly walked up to the balcony door. He opened it with ease, even though that door always put up a struggle. Before I could utter a sound, Peters already walked out onto the balcony and into the freezing December cold. I decided that Peters went out for a smoke. In wet clothes. Bare-footed. He was a strange individual. Scared into submission by second-hand smoke ads, I always avoided smokers and so I did not go after Peters.



Oddly enough, his prompt exit did not cause a wave of frost to ruffle through the room. On the contrary, the space suddenly felt much warmer. Frowning at the door, I also noticed a little heap of sand right by the threshold. It was not the kind of sand that one could find in these latitudes. It was soft to the touch, and almost white to the eye. It also had a light scent that seemed inescapably familiar, yet impossible to recognize. Confused, I looked around the room and hobbled up to the shaky sofa. Surprisingly, I managed to sit on it without falling into one of its springless holes or collapsing altogether. My sofa was famous that way, so I thanked it aloud and pulled my feet up onto its worn fabric. Absentmindedly, I looked at the barracuda. It seemed far too absurd to be true, but the fish was looking back at me again. The fish could not possibly be alive because Peters would have had to carry it around for at least half an hour in the downtown traffic. But if the barracuda was dead, why wasn’t it floating stomach-up? I decided to ask Peters as soon as he came back from his smoking break. I sat and waited.



I stood up and walked up to the aquarium. I looked down at the barracuda and slowly lowered my finger into the water, reaching for the shining scale on the barracuda’s back. Water caressed my skin with a surprising tenderness. It made my fingers feel numb and empty. I stretched my hand further. The barracuda suddenly twisted and turned, splashing water out of the aquarium with its strong sea-loving tail. It lightly bit my finger. I screamed, and drew my hand away, feeling warm blood trickling from the wounds. The barracuda left deep marks on my middle and index fingers. My finger bones seemed to dissolve in muscles, leaving my hand limp and my touch senseless. I grabbed a towel that lay by the aquarium, wrapped my hand into it and reached for the knob of the balcony door. I had to tell Peters what happened.



I opened the balcony door.



Behind it lay a desert, a completely different world. It was full of white sand and burning white sun. It seemed to have no sky, as it was impossible to differentiate the shades of white without going blind. It had no vegetation; no plant could survive in this sterility. There was no sign of life, but there was wind. It was like a living creature in this land. It zoomed, and roared, and ruffled through the desert, leaping back and forth between heaps of sand. It jumped right through the door, pushing me out of its way and bringing with it an intimidating gust of wild energy that left me breathless. The wind smelled of fire. It was like nothing I had smelt before. It was the pure fire that lives in the mouth of a volcano and in the memories of the early people.



I choked on the dry air and grabbed my throat, trying to ease the pain of the molten oxygen that was burning my trachea and lungs and filling my blood with its scorching molecules. It was an agonizing sensation, much like the one a newborn feels with its first gulp of air. I winced at the stinging in my bleeding fingers, but I could not stop; I breathed the air of the desert.



The desert looked into me, squinting to catch the details of my cotton dress. It then let go a throbbing laugh. Carried by the dried wind, it filled my ears with rumbling whispers. Frightened by the sound, I took a step back into the room, unconsciously closing the balcony door before me. It shut soundlessly.



I took a breath of the cooler apartment air and shivered: it was too cold for me now. My throat shrunk with displeasure. I took a few moments to catch my breath. The desert must have been a delirious vision. Now I needed Peters more than ever; I reached for the door handle again.



This time it was harder to open the door, but when it finally gave way, I found myself gazing into the infinite blue of the Pacific. The whole space behind the wooden frame was filled with water. It did not spill into the room, but stood, as if smashing against an invisible wall. Through the transparent liquid masses, I could see barracudas roaming the waters in search of food. They were swift, swifter than Indonesian divers and dolphins. Chaotically they zipped through the ocean space before me, not leaving my eyes a chance to focus. Suddenly, I noticed that one of the barracudas was swimming directly towards me. It ripped though the water with its narrow head and flew out onto the floor of my apartment. It struggled and hit itself repeatedly on the wooden tiles, jolting its body up and down in breathless agony. I watched it in stupor and then, abruptly, kicked it back into the ocean world. The fish slid on the floor, entered the water tail first and stopped only in a meter from the door. The barracuda turned, and swam towards me again. I shrieked and sharply closed the door, splashing some salt water onto the floor, and hearing the barracuda crash into the white plastic.



I stood back and turned to look at the barracuda that was floating in my aquarium. It was quietly munching on my fish. The desire to throw the predator out of the water overtook me, but faded immediately when I glanced down at the bloody towel in my hand. I had to find Roberts, so I opened the door once more and looked out into a black emptiness. I could not tell if the space was a cave, a closet, or the dark side of the moon. There was no shining red light from an electronic alarm, no gleaming yellow eyes, and no phosphorus stars. The darkness was absolute. It drained me, pulling the radiance and strength from my most precious memories. I stood, wondering and holding on to the door frame. I was tempted to take a step forward, to explore this black hole, but I didn’t. I closed the door and reopened it impatiently. In front of me, it was snowing onto an empty balcony.



I frowned and closed the door. I reopened it. My balcony was covered in the pure, gray, and untouched city snow.



Panicking, I slammed the door hard against its frame and then opened it with one single pull. Behind the door was the same December.



I think it was then that I fainted.

@темы: english, проза