Protinapad
68
My eyes open, but the whole view is blocked by your pitch black head, their red metallic counterparts gazing into them: “Aaaah!!” I roll away from you and jump on my feet. The expression on my face steadies into something slightly angry: “Jesus Christ Almighty, who gave you permission to touch me?!
…
This is the first summer that someone uninvited, something autonomous, you, void angel, is camping in my private space. Do you think there will be another summer with me and you strolling along the lake shore? … Watch out, behind you!!!” You slowly begin to turn your whole shell in the direction my finger is pointing, and the moment I deem you rotated sufficiently, I swiftly move behind your back, after having gestured and pulled out Julija’s blade out of a small pocket portal, and strike the back of your head. I was expecting to hear a clang, but there was no sound; the weapon bounced off and flew out of my hands. I quickly ran to pick it up. “Listen,” I say while holding the sword as if trying to hide it behind my body with one hand, “… please don’t attack me. I was just testing something.” I gesture and the golden tool of destruction is swallowed by a tiny pocket. “No hard feelings? Y-you are an invader after all!” I turn my back to you. “Come, portal, come up! Open up! Swallow me! … … … Come up! … … Come up! … … Gaah!! My manœuvring was off! … A-at any rate, w-would you like to ask me something?”
The void angel turns slowly, as if he were a giant mechanism, and speaks: “When you handle and talk about Julija’s blade, do you worship it?
I put my hands on my ears, and speak in a slightly annoyed manner: “I refuse to answer.”
The void angel asks, “Would you like me to go away for a while?”
I smile slightly awkwardly: “N-no, you can stay!”
The void angel remarks, “I am not the one with a wound. What shall we do?”
My voice rises, as if it was trying to cross into screaming, while my hands remain in the same position: “I don’t know! You tell me! I’m stuck with you here!”
The angel replies, “You are the creator of this world, and so even the wrath was planned.”
I hide my face with both hands, and speak in a muffled voice: “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have struck you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry! … I know – the violence, the violence: it’s here by design. I was unable to decouple it from Lake Redoubt.” I lower my hands, revealing the weary eyes fixated on the ground.
The void angel says that the Redoubt’s purpose has always been to withstand the pressure and stay intact; that the violence is its integral part.
My facial expression suddenly becomes cheerful, and I almost scream at you in a half-mad tone: “Honestly, I wanted to crush you into pieces. You are just a thiiiiiiing!”
The void angel remains steady; he is standing there in unnerving motionlessness, praising his own symmetry. He then asks, “Would you like to hit me again?” adding, “You can always unmake me.”
My face starts to spasm a little, and my mouth is showing the teeth it knew up until now to hide so well: “You know very well I can’t unmake you, you haughty, ‘symmetrical’ jester! Ahh, get out of my head!”
The void angel replies that while it is true he is symmetrical, his purpose is not to entertain: “Hit me again if it would help.”
I am showing my canine teeth now: “If Julija was here, she would bend your neck with her bare hands and strangl…” I quickly pause, and my face becomes gloomy. My eyelids fall. A strange, pulsing silence creates a cloud and wraps us in it.
The void angel observes that Julija is not here with us, saying, “You were longing for her, threatening me in her name, but she did not come.”
“She WILL come!” I shout back. “You’ll see!”