For you, I’m always offline, jackass.
by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2018
Category Archives: TATI’S PROSE
Six Word Stories #31
THE ABCs OF A PECULIAR LIFE // D is for Dugongs & Decidophobia
Little Dugong was very talented. He actually was, and not only because his Mommy Dugong thought so. (Every mom thinks their baby is the best. I once even heard a holbrookia boasting that her daughter had an exquisite ear for music, but I preferred to break no squares with another quixotic mommy.) Anyway, let’s return to our muttons… or, rather, dugongs.
Yes, Little Dugong was very talented. He painted with watercolors in the Biedermeier style. He painted an ocean, ships, topless sea-maids and sunken treasures. His forelimb was free and easy, his eye was sharp, and his imagination went above and beyond. Little Dugong would have a great future as an artist.
This year Mommy Dugong decided to prepare something really special for Little Dugong’s birthday. She woke up very early, quickly supped up morning kissel, put on her best tilt-bonnet, gave a peck on Little Dugong’s nose, and went to the city. In a few hours she was back with a big package; it was gift wrapped with starfish and chamomiles. Little Dugong was bursting with curiosity as to what this could be, but he knew he would have to wait until the festive dinner.
Finally, that long-awaited moment was upon him. Little Dugong impatiently droned, “Many happy returns!” then snuffed out the candles and with bated breath unfolded his precious gift. Holy mackerel! It was a drawing book!
It was covered with smooth emerald-green leather and had acid-free cold-pressed pages with a pleasant ivory hue. There was even a wide elastic band to keep the book securely closed to the nosy beaks of curious gulls and the beady eyes of elephant fish! It was the best drawing book in the whole world!
Happy Little Dugong fussed over the drawing book for the entire evening. He was opening and closing it, caressing its flawless sheets, sniffing its sweet-smelling leather. He even licked it once or twice while Mommy Dugong was busy with the dirty dishes. When Little Dugong got between the blankets later that night, the drawing book rested cozily beneath his pillow.
As soon as the next day broke, Little Dugong hurried to the shoals, climbed onto a big stone, and opened his treasure. He imagined all the beautiful things that he would paint, and this sent his heart fluttering with delight and joy. Little Dugong decided to start with a charming mermaid that he had met a day or two ago near some random rock.
However, once he raised his limb to a pristine sheet, a wormling of doubt started to gnaw inside his mind. After all, the mermaid wasn’t so youthful; her breasts were a bit faded and the pearls in her hair were kind of wishy washy. No! She wasn’t worthy to be in these pages! Little Dugong decided to paint something else.
An ocean! He would paint the illimitable ocean. It was deep, green, and full of mysteries and lost ships. Then Little Dugong dropped his eyes and saw a white plastic bag swaying on the waves. Yuck! No, he couldn’t spoil his flawless drawing book with such an imperfect thing as an ocean! He simply had to pick something else, something ultimate and picture-perfect.
The time ticked by… Little Dugong was still sitting on his stone with his untouched drawing book. He didn’t hear his Mommy Dugong calling him for midday meal, he ignored his friends who ran off to play hurlbat, and even disregarded a youthful sea cow who gave him a playful wink. Of course, he hadn’t even noticed a sea gull who sat not too far away and was looking at Little Dugong with malevolent curiosity.
The sea gull got off the ground and made a slow circle. Then another one… and another one… then it hovered right above Little Dugong… and shat all over the drawing book with much relish.
What happened next? Of course, Little Dugong howled like a jackal and ran to his Mommy Dugong. He was just a child after all (though he weighed more than a metric centner). The spoiled drawing book stayed on the stone and its smooth emerald-green leather gently shimmered in the late afternoon sunlight.
by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2017
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Six Word Stories #29
Privilegee (based on a true story)
I jumped into a marshrutka and climbed onto my favorite corner seat in the back row. It’s a bit higher than the other seats and you feel like you’re sitting on the upper circle at the theater. You can see and hear everything without attracting a lot of attention. Today, though, I wasn’t about to watch passengers.
I untangled the headphones that always managed to tie themselves into mysterious reef knots. It never mattered how carefully you packed them before. Then I found the next MP3 file on my phone and delved into an audio book in English. It required a hell of a lot of effort to recognize formerly familiar words now disguised in quirky pronunciations. I don’t know who invented the rules of English but this person definitely must have had an upset stomach. I had no another logical explanation as to why they mocked the human race so cruelly.
While still in a state of shock over how the word ‘cautiously’ sounded in actual fact, I hadn’t noticed that the marshrutka had not moved in a while. And I eventually realized that the leaflet advertising lessons promising guitar playing virtuosity in record time had been hovering near my nose for a suspiciously long time. I turned my head from the window that the leaflet was stuck to and looked towards the passenger compartment. Something was happening near the driver and it wasn’t a pleasant scene, that’s for sure.
An old man was standing there, waving a pensioner’s card in front of the driver’s nose. He was insisting on a free ride but the driver would not comply. There were only two priority seats, and unfortunately both were occupied. The driver suggested that the old man get off the bus and wait for the next one. This suggestion obviously wasn’t to the old man’s taste.
The old man looked highly strung, while in contrast the driver was the very image of calm. The old man threatened to write complaints to all known authorities, from the boss of the driver to the president of Ukraine. The driver, wordless, offered him a pen.
And the bus still didn’t move. Passions were rising.
The passengers quickly divided themselves into sides. The first side eagerly supported the old man, cursing the driver and government for being so heartless and humiliating poor, defenseless pensioners. The other side wisely reasoned that the bus wasn’t made of rubber and that the driver was duty bound to fulfill the daily revenue target. There was no place on Earth where a retired person could be late on a Saturday morning.
I sat on my VIP loge in the back row of this bus theater. I was not enjoying this stage play at all. The perfect voice with posh English pronunciation was still whispering something in my ear but I was no longer listening to it. The ugly La Comédie humaine had grabbed all of my attention.
The crowd started to demand that the bus continue on its route. Someone yelled at the driver while someone else threatened to help the old man to leave the bus if he couldn’t do this on his own… and suddenly I felt unbearable shame for everything that was happening here. No. I refused to be a part of this crappy play!
I left my seat and approached the driver, holding forth a five-hryvnia note. He took it without a word, tossed it into the money box, and shut the door. The bus moved ahead.
I was back at my seat. No one said a word. The other passengers went back to their private affairs. Someone poked a nose into their phone. Someone looked out the window. Someone else continued their conversation. I tried to concentrate on my audio book again.
“Stop here!”
The bus stopped at literally two hundred meters. The old man disembarked. Only he. No one else. And when he was passing me, our eyes met. I was ready to see any emotion in his stare… gratitude, embarrassment, surprise. But hatred? What the fuck?!
A bit later, I understood the reason. At the time, however, I was dumbfounded at the unpredictability of human nature and just went back to the book. Moominmamma had called everyone to the dinner and I didn’t want to be late.
by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2017
unbolt me 