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Severus Snape

дата: 08-05-2008 - 14:48 [ i ]

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Lore without will

Tall slender tree trunks, crowned with all shades of green, from lettuce to emerald, lined up along a narrow path that was winding just a minute ago like an enormously long piece of spaghetti in the hands of some Italian cook. Now, however, the track of yellow and grey sand ran straight as an arrow, as far as the eyes could see. And here, on my way, I was – my face was shining with sweat, my shirt was soaked and stuck to my body both at the back and front.

It was a usual morning in a resort town in September, at the time when the tourists decide that is 'rather cool here' and commence the process of migration further down south; the time when the beaches become empty, Mary-go-rounds abruptly halt their jolly dances and both sunglasses and candy floss run {?} out of stock. As every year, the locals know that soon the breath of autumn will be dying their cheeks scarlet and turning their umbrellas inside out. Though the greenery never leaves this town, the storms have always been rather fierce, and in the middle of winter, the tall waves fill those several lonely boats left on the coast up to a half with salty water.

I was back in this town, bearing a strange name Silverbush, and, already feeling the chilly autumn on my face, was running all the way from a small platform among the flat-roofed houses towards my destination – the sea. Three more quick steps, and here I came: the beach stretched for many miles, deserted apart from some white gulls, scattered over the surprisingly blue sky. Green waves were advancing onto tall cliffs, dissolving into thousands of drops as they were thrown back.

I passed several boulders, piled on the side of the beach. Their surface was uneven, with numerous craters and shallow pits, resembling scars that are usually left after very deep and painful wounds.

Sharp teeth the winds have
Leaving the coast with lonely
Stones, sides bitten out...

'I should stop these attempts to master Japanese poëtry,' I said to myself. - It's not about the number of syllables, it's something else.'

A green boat, quite in need of repainting, was snoozing, it seemed, absent-mindedly, on the damp sand. I took a glance at my shoes and a beach below them, and then – – 'it's the same sand!' - I said aloud, as it came to me. The same sand was covering the path, which I had just left. I looked around, astounded: miles and miles of the same hue stretched before my eyes. I sat down on a smooth black tree trunk, brought here by a storm many days ago and began pondering over my sudden discovery. Grains of sand rustled quietly under the soles of my yellow shoes.

'It's not the same everywhere' – I jumped in surprise and looked back. An old lady was standing just behind me, holding a black pot in her hand. She was barefoot, clad in a plain black dress. Her hair was let loose, which surprised me: the ladies of her age whom I knew usually wore it in a tight bun. The expression upon her wrinkled face was one of a teacher, whose pupil had received a result far below the expected one.

'It's not the same, - she repeated strictly and sadly. - What gives you the right to speak so? Have you lived here long enough to walk the entire coast? Have your feet sunk into the softness in April, when the dunes are crowned with green? And in July, when the sun burns these crowns down, and in October, when the rain is washing away all the inscriptions under the sun, ere the circle closes?'

The old lady picked up a fistful of sand and began brushing it against the side of her pot.

'My name is Rebecca, by the way' – she added.

'Eh... Nathan...', - I said, my thoughts all over the place. Who is she? Whence she came? What is she talking about?

'Nothing has endured as much, as sand has, - Rebecca continued. - Believe me, when water washes away the memories, and flames greedily eat the beauty, and our cries dissolve in the still air so that even echo comes not, the sand keeps its secrets hidden. Hooves of deer in the North, paws of wolves and foxes in the West, claws of great lizards in the South, every footprint you leave - the memories are ancient... Humans can forget the past; the mind turns the bad into the blurred, and softens the sharp edges, as the time goes by. Sand never forgets. Every imprint, every memory is haunting it; with every blink of the eye the burden increases, bending the spirit towards the ground'.

I answered with silence, attentive and lost in thought. Then Rebecca said:

'Sand is home for many a soul. - It seemed for a moment that she had a very dry throat. - Wrecked ships find eternal rest in the sand, as do their sailors. The green waves come hither and speak of the secrets. Sand is the chest of Lore... - she sighed and for a minute the brushing of the sand into the side of her pot was the only sound. Then the lady's hand reached beneath the dress on the breast. She pulled out a small leather pouch that hung on a string around her neck, untied it and poured something very carefully on her dry bony palm.

'No-one knows the spirits of sand better than me. I have lived in the desert for five years. The sand is red there, even at night – the spirits of those, who had perished are still lustful for blood, gritting their teeth, brandishing their sabres...'

She stretched her arm out to me. Grains, red as ochre, lay in her cupped hand.

'This sand remembers me. I took it so as not to forget anything -- so as to take every single thread of my memories wherever I may go'.

Rebecca stood up, straightened her back and gave me a thorough look from her grey tired eyes.

'The sand has no will. It takes what is given and suffers. Lore without will is perilous', – she added in a slightly shaking but stern voice.

'It's not the same, - she repeated again. - do not forget about it, if you do not wish that stains spoil your silver'.

After this she turned around and walked away, leaving me to sit there, stroking thoughtfully the polished surface of the trunk and digging my shoes into the sand. I could not make out, what she meant by all this. Yet, her words got stuck in my mind firmly, like a toothed harpoon in the flesh of a whale. I raised my eyes: blue and green waves topped with white foam were rolling on the coast, whispering gently. The sun was halfway to the horizon, and the pale, almost white crescent moon was already visible. I stood up and marched towards the water. The memory of Rebecca's bare feet made me ashamed of my shoes; I took them off and carried them by the laces across my shoulder.

The sand was damp and cool, as I was walking along the coast. Every now and then the waves touched my feet, taking away my evenly spaced footprints, the memory, the imprint of the rhythm of my life...

Suddenly I noticed a dark spot in the sand, some twenty feet ahead. I hurried towards it and bent down to examine it. My fingers felt the uneven surface of rough leather – it was a book. I picked it up: it had no title on the cover and was very neat, looking brand new. 'Someone must have lost it not longer ago than today', - I thought.

My finger slipped under the cover and I opened the first page. The book proved to blank, but a half of the front page was covered in small, slightly untidy handwriting which read:

I am just an empty book. I have no will to decide what I should become - a fairy tale, a detective story, a set of jokes, or a realist novel. It is you who writes in me. i am but a sponge that silently absorbs all that you pour onto me, or in what you dip me. I have no will, but you do. write your own book.

For a while I stood there, staring at the first page: my focus shifted first to every word, then to every letter, then back to the entire page. And suddenly it dawned on me: sand is also an empty book and it is us who writes in it! And not only sand, I thought frantically – not only sand, but I, I am as well. How didn't I understand it before? Despite all the liberty that I had created for myself, I allowed anyone to write in my own book!

…You live your life like sand through spread fingers.

I carefully closed the book, and then pressed it to my chest, embracing my shoulders as tightly as I could, as if fearing that someone might charge at me and tear my find away. The tide was coming, and cold salty water reached my ankles. I stood, gazing at the distant cliffs, where the yellow fire of the lighthouse was flashing, and and I was unaware of what it was, rolling down my unshaved cheeks – tears or just drops of the salty waves of the sea

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