Militarizacija Dežele Ravnin
120
There she is – standing on the wall in her black-tinted armour, defying the world trying to erase us, the mathematical error. They will bring the heavy cannons, but the cannoballs will merely make a dent; they will have to scale the walls. They are shooting at her as if she were a target practice, something otherworldly. The bullets bend her head, but they bounce off the armour. She stands there, tall and all, just to defy them.
121
“Now that everything is clear, I was thinking of employing a number of my golem-like servitors as arquebusiers, so as to cover every side of the Redoubt, however … no one is attacking me right now, and Julija is gone, so here I am, wandering about the flatness surrounding the lake. I’m so bored! Boredom will be my undoing.” I snap my fingers, and a meter tall golem-like spear carrier appears between me and you. “Please escort this tall, shadowy gentleman back to his camp. He is one of the invaders.” I roll my eyes and say, “Yes, I know: I was dragged to you by a ghost girl.” The servitor quickly points its spear at your head, and gestures you should move. Suddenly, from an almost unnoticeable hole in the ground a rodent minion emerges, and charges at my golem. The thin, long weapon is elegantly thrust into its neck, and blood is violently sprinkling all over the spear carrier’s grey exterior. I make a surprised face, looking in your eyes: “So, the void angel’s creatures are still here.” I smile lightly while anticipating your reaction. The golem steps on its head and pulls back its spear with such brutality, it almost cuts the rodent’s head off. It swiftly moves back to you, pointing the blood-soaked tip at your head again. The ground shakes: from every hole and crack the void angel’s footmen are fleeing towards the camp.
The shadowy figure observes that every insignificant act of pestering is met with overwhelming force in this land, adding he knows that I am curious as to how close can I approach the horizon without getting pulled beyond it.
122
“You understand certain corners of my mind well.” I gesture with my right hand, and the golem lowers its spear, its grey, stony eyes remaining fixated on the shadowy figure’s form. Suddenly, another rodent minion jumps from a hole, and throws my servant on the ground. The spear carrier, facing the grass, quickly rolls over and rises to its feet with such otherworldly speed, the rodent gasps in amazement while the golem plunges its dagger in its mouth, pushing its hand up so violently, it splits open the rodent’s face and skull. I’m shrieking: “Gaaah! Who will clean this mess?! I walk here!!!” I’m processing the scene that has just transpired in disbelief.
The shadowy figure: “Perhap-”
Me: “Shut up!” Making a tormented face, I hold my heart with both hands. “It doesn’t matter. I think my end is drawing near. I sense something wrong in the air. Death by a thousand cuts? Maybe there’s no need for one big event at all – just enough amount of everyday annoyance. I’ll just … go. I’ll grow wings and fly away!
The shadowy figure observes that the void angel’s minions did not leave the stage with him, apparently waiting to strike at the most favourable moment, and asks if he should summon him.
Me: “What happened to the void angel, though? Did you have him dismissed?”
The shadowy figure says that the angel was recalled when it became obvious he was unable to gain access to the Redoubt.
Me: “Summon him.”
He summons him.
After having gestured with both hands, I clap five times and five falchion-wielding golem-like servitors appear in front of me, forming a line of loose dots. I cover my mouth with my right hand, as if trying to hide what my lips are saying, and the formation starts marching towards the void angel with unnatural haste. He is surrounded. The silver blades start hacking away at his limbs – and after making him collapse on the ground, slowly turning his extremities into tiny pitch black fragments, I walk up to his torso, sword in hand, and say, “I know it’s sad, but … you’re just a thiiiiiiiiiiiiing!” plunging the gold in his trunk’s centremost point, shattering it, spilling crystal-like bits, some of which land on my dress. “I can’t predict anything right! I’m not touching that.”
The shadowy figure lifts the angel’s remains above the ground, constructs a cage out of them, and lets it hang in the air.
I point my right forefinger at you, the shadowy figure, and say in a somewhat loud voice, “Tell me what this is, right now!”
…
123
It was calm here last summer. Now strange things are scurrying and lying about the meadows. No matter; the area is vast. I’ll just carve myself a new, unspoiled path! Now that I’ve become bored of feeling sorry for myself, and now that Julija’s afterglow is gone, I’ll be wandering here in silence, knowing she’s not coming back any time soon; she was completely absent during the last winter, and I’ll be wondering when will the next hurricane appear on the horizon, and whether it will be evadable. I sit down on a bench, after having it brought to me on a small white cloud, and relax my legs, looking bored.
124
I’m whispering something now; a strange melody is leaving my mouth, and after five seconds I abruptly stop. A ninety centimeters tall, ridiculously stocky creature that could only be described as a court jester appears three meters in front of me, starting to bow in my direction frantically. I make slow, dismissive movements with my right hand, half-lying on that cushioned wood:
“Mister Flaps.”
The creature stops its movement, and says, “Yorra gras. Youya beezt vis[-à-vis] samanna mi? Diesa beezt vis uteromosta honoras. Pales, leta mi vis mina goratituda shovs.”
The creature starts moving slowly towards my legs, making me lift one of them, so as to demonstrate he should stop where he is. I stand up, point with my finger, and speak: “Take the command of my golems, and execute the following orders: eradicate that camp, kill everything you can kill.”
Mr. Flaps: “Diesa beezt vis comfirmada.”
The language he speaks is spectacularly broken English. It’s as if he is mocking it deliberately, wanting to desecrate it. And we all understand him: diesa = this, pales = please, and so on. (‘Yorra gras. Youya beezt vis[-à-vis] samanna mi?’ = ‘Your grace. You have summoned me?’)
The shadowy figure opines that mister Flaps is making fun of me, remarking that his defacement of words is not entirely consistent.
Me: “No, he is not mocking me. He knows I like the way he speaks. And there is no need for consistency.
Mister Flaps!”
He: “Di languagos be natta vis logisticiens.”
Me: “See? No language is logical.”
Flaps is funny because when he talks like that, his serious, smart facial expression is always the same.
125
Me: “Burn everything; bring me no trophies.”
Mister Flaps nods and begins to inspect his troops.
Mr. Flaps: “Diesa sperrs beezt natta vis perfectemond alignada.” The golem does not flinch. His spear, after all, rests on its shoulder as it should. “DIESA SPERRS BEEZT NATTA VIS PERFECTEMOND ALIGNADA!” Mister Flaps touches its spear with both hands as if trying to correct its position himself, however it refuses to move even a single millimetre. “Goods.” The rodents are no match for them; their resistance is not worthy to be recorded. Mr. Flaps, waving his rapier, screams at his arquebusiers, “Fersto ligna, beezt vis fayora nows! Secundo ligna, beezt vis fayora nows! Sperrs and falshonas! Attacks!!”
Me: “That thing floating in the air … – it’s getting on my nerves. Let me wrap it into a blanket of white clouds. There we are! Only you remain, shadowy figure, you who cannot be pierced.”
…
It goes like this: I give the order, Flaps receives my troops under his command, inspects them, gives the order to attack the camp, directing the fire. The camp is gone, the rodents are finished, that annoying rib thing you forced into my world is now wrapped in a cloud blanket; everything went back to normal, save for you and the militarization.
The shadowy figure notes that the Flatlands now have a battle-tested army.
I know that, in reality, similar warfare had always been messy and mostly imprecise; people got their ears, noses cut off and suffered broken bones. It was slow and painful. But in the Flatlands, everything is sterile; the combatants move mechanically, almost as if they were cogs in a machine. Even Julija’s fully enclosed armour gives her ability to move the way the golem-like servitors move. One swing, one thrust, and it’s over – at least in most cases.
126
I’m still half-lying on the bench, still looking bored, watching the fire in the distance, with Mister Flaps rapidly approaching my person. He stops seven meters in front of the bench, looks me in the eyes, and presses his rapier-holding hand against his heart. I nod: “You are dismissed.” I feel the murmur of melancholy pressing against my head yet again. Tell me something, shadowy figure.
…
Aren’t you going to make fun of Mister Flaps?
127
Someday, perhaps, a knight in shining armour will appear, and he will say, “I’ve come to set you free.”
Me: “Mister Flaps!”
The knight looks around and sees that we are surrounded by the golems: “I get it. Those are you captors. En garde!” Mister Flaps politely requests he make himself scarce. The knight replies, “Huh? Is that Italian?” but after realizing I’m their friend, and after me asking him, “You think you are better than Flaps?” he screams, “Monster! You are a witch!” and lunge at me. The golems simply and swiftly chop him into pieces, even though he is still wearing his armour.
The shadowy figure observes that Julija’s violence is present even when she herself is not.
128
There are two sides to Julija: one is the admiration of violence and its sacredness, the acknowledgment of its necessity, and the other is the screeching in the face of everyday horror: the I-hide-and-scream-at-the-world’s-violent-ways side. I prefer the latter.