RUSTLE

(short-short stories)

Translated by Tatjana Lozanovska

Confession
Look and fear
To lose oneself
An egg
Post morten

CONFESSION

It is impious, I know, but what could I do about it. We caught a couple of rats and put it in a deep tin drum, with a little water, so that they could swim. I kept them there for a while, without any food, until they started to eat one another. Finally, only one remained which had eaten all the rest. I set that one free. After that, there were no more rats at my place. I suggested the same "cure" to other people, but they would not accept it. What could I do, it could be impious, but it is important that there are no more rats.

LOOK AND FEAR

His look, hard as a butt-end of a rifle, meets me every time, in the middle of my sentence. I cut the sentence shorter, I change my thought, but the look still remains on my forehead, as a hole of a future wound.

Under that stroke, I fall in an abyss, and anguish gushes through my mouth.

TO LOSE ONESELF

They have been listening to the quarrels, coming from the neighboring apartment, for years. They were sitting quiet and relaxed in their armchairs after their afternoon coffee, listening to the unknown couple, quarreling for hours. The subject of the quarrel was a possible wife?s infidelity. After five years, the couple moved. They have been sitting in the twilight half-darkness for a couple of days, waiting for the sounds, coming from the other side of the wall. But the voices could not be heard any more. The woman was crying quietly.

Than he stood up, and went to buy a newspaper. He did not come back. She only heard his voice once, speaking by telephone:

I'm still looking for them...

Nothing more. Never.

AN EGG

He left an egg on the table, sat on the sofa and waited. That is what they had told him when he bought it. They promised a lot, but did not anticipate everything to the end. "Many surprises, mostly very agreeable, are waiting for you from our egg," that is what they had told him.

He dozed off after a certain time, lay down slowly on his flank and fell asleep.

Precisely in that moment, a monster was hatched from the egg and ate him.

POST MORTEM

They have been living together on the verge of divorce, for years. Their marriage was like hell. All their acquaintances could only hear them utter words of hatred towards one another every day. Worse marriage did not exist, nor could it be imagined. She hated, persecuted and cheated him, and he despised her as a vulgar whore.

And than, he died, and she changed. She went into mourning, she was anguished. Now she goes to the cemetery every day, brings fresh flowers, arranges it on the grave, wipes the tombstone, which she erected for him. More humble and more modest widow could not be found. She cares for nobody but her late husband any more.