a Muse (Prologue)

Another masterpiece by Anton Semenov. Do you like? No?! Damn him… go away!

– Write!

Cold water flows down my face and I open my eyes. Damn him! Again… My nose inhales fusty air and I understand that this nightmare isn’t just a delirium. It’s real… I take up the wet pen. I write ‘fuck you’ carefully in the moist writing-book. Letters are dancing and I close my eyes, but I can’t close my ears.

– She will write. She can. She’s trying to rebel but I can force her.

…give me the strength to speak and to be silent
give me the strength to be a lamb and a tyrant…

Some might suppose that this is my paradise. I would agree if it were not for one zesty detail… What would you name the paradise that you can’t leave? I call it ‘a gaol’. Do you want to debate this? No? I thought not…

…give me the strength to inflict the death-blow
give me the strength to endure the last throe…

Sometimes I try to hide myself. I squeeze my puny body into the corner behind the door and close my eyes. This trick doesn’t work. She finds me, finds me every time. I still don’t know how she does this. I’m always on the alert yet I’m always taken unawares. She moves like a weasel. She has small sharp teeth and eyes like gimlets…

…give me the strength to hold the king’s crown
give me the force to stay the court clown…

– What are you mumbling? Stop it! You can’t fool me! I know you from the ground up! Write! Stop talking! Write! Write!

…give me the strength to lift up the baton
give me the strength to stop the marathon…

She bends over me. Muses are the most cruel and pitiless creatures.
I curse the first fucking day when I wrote my first poem. I curse the first fucking day when I saw her small sharp teeth and her eyes like gimlets.
I curse the first fucking day when I smiled at her. She…

My Afflation. My Curse. My Muse… I lose my consciousness. Finally… (to be continued)

by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2014

Little Red Riding Hood

The awesome illustration by Gloom82… it was love at first sight. Thank you very much for your works, Anton!

– Oh, grandmother, what big pears you have!
– Stop! What is this? What the bullshit did you say?

(The wolf stares at me… Damn! I always fail with accurate quoting!)

– You should say: ‘Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!’

(I nod. My red cap slides down to my nose. But I don’t surrender.)

– Oh, grandmother, what big wands you have!
– Are you jeering at me? Hands! What big hands you have!

(I keep silence and wait. The wolf is looking at my resume.)

– I cannot understand how you coped with your role in ‘The Green Hornet’! Who is your custodian? I should devastate him! I gauge your dramatic talent like the dramatic talent of a fruticose lichen!

– I didn’t have a big role. I was a lame ship’s boy on the ark ‘Young liches’… and a corpse on the skiff in the next scene…

– And what are you doing here?! Why do you think you can cope with this role?

– I believe in myself… My grandmother always said…

(The wolf is almost growling. The wolf is almost ready. The wolf is almost near me…)

– Stop! Stop wasting my time! Get out!

(The wolf is bending over me… and I’m wresting his Adam’s apple.)

– My grandmother always said: ‘For be it my mask, or be it your blood, red will be the last color that you’ll ever see…’

(OMG! I’m a hero! I didn’t make a mistake in this quote!!)

…I come out to the yard. This morning I see gnomes around the adjacent pavilion. ‘Snow White’. I throw away my red cap and put on a white apron.