And there it was. A surprise he called her. The first time he ever alluded to her and his very eyes gleamed with the excitement of the idea. He looked more alive then he had in months, he was aware of his surroundings. Ready to jump around the room in intoxication.

He looked like me, when I thought about him. It made my insights curl painfully and my heart ache in my chest, like a popped balloon. I decided not to look at him, but my eyes were glued to his back all the same. All of the sudden I felt like crying, but I shook my head and pushed the treacherous tears back down my throat. I also, with some difficulty overcame the impulse to hug Pierrot. It would help, but it seemed strangely and extremely inappropriate somehow. So in the end I just stood off stage with my eyes closed and my hands balled up in fists, until he came.

“Quite a show, wasn’t it?” The huge, sunny smile on his face made me want to through up and cover it with puke. “You were great, Jez!”

“I forgot my last line” I objected.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

It’s because you weren’t watching. I didn’t say it. But I wanted to. I wanted to curse at him. I wanted to scream at his face for being a hypocrite. For giving me up so easily after everything we’ve been through. I wanted to start crying right there, in front of everybody and make him feel at least half as awful as he’d made me feel. But I just smiled back instead- what would he care for my tears? And plus, I couldn’t even cry at all anymore. The sight of him in front of me, looking like he did. The reality of everything had blocked up my throat. I could hardly even say a word.

He looked like he could sing.

“Time to go, sunflower.”

He picked me up and I felt numb in his hands. Still, to the point where I didn’t even try to stop him from putting me back in the terrifying box. Everything was grotesque in my eyes. Everything was blurry. Everything was strange and twisted and out of focus. And nothing else mattered. Nobody else existed. Nothing but my confusion and pain. Nothing but me and the pathetic remains of my irrational dreams. I felt like a madwoman having a mental breakdown, because nothing made sense anymore. And the carton walls around me were my prison, my cell with a sign “No visitors allowed. Dangerous patient” on the door.

The car came slowly to life with a soft purr. I stayed numb for a few more seconds and then I wanted to scream and bang on the walls. And then, I fell asleep, tired from all the feelings combating for domination inside of me. I curled up in a corner, closed my eyes, and tick- tack- tick-…

-

I had a nightmare. Figures, like I could dream of anything nice under these circumstances. But this was different from anything you could think of fitting the description of a nightmare.

The scene was tranquil, serene and silent. There were no birds, no voices, no music, no sound- as if I’d gone deaf, not even the wind was audible. And there were also no people. It was just a normal meadow- green grass, colorful flowers of all types, low bushes and tall trees. I felt comfortable and relaxed and for a while I forgot about everything and everyone else in the world. I was smiling in my sleep. I guess this was my happy place. Until there came the cloud. It started raining and it wasn’t a light summer rain, but a calamitous hale of massive proportions destined to destroy a perfect world. And still, even the storm was mute. The flowers wilted fast and their happy, bright petals turned all black. The trees fell and the bushed were broken. I felt broken.

I battled with the dream for a few minutes begging for it to let me go until it finally did.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that the reality I’d woken up to was worse.

It was still dark around me. The lid wasn’t fully closed and from the rectangular-shaped opening I could recognize the light of the fire, lit in the other corner of the room. We were back in the bungalow already. It was late and all the others were asleep I guessed. No reason for them to stay awake. No reason for them to have nightmares. Tom was still up though, I could tell. Of course he was. He had work to do, right? Magic to perform. Things to create… or otherwise… I shook my head. Self-pity was unlike me, it didn’t become my temper and I let go of it easily.

The warmth of the flames felt familiar and comforting. Had it been any other night I would just huddle up in my box and drift off undisturbed and relaxed by the heat and the sense of coziness. But this night wasn’t relaxed. The air was filled with tension and exited impatience. It was crammed with the feeling of twisted dreams and pretentious mysteries waiting to take proper shape. I wondered what that shape would be. She, because there was already no question about her gender on my part- I was sure he was thinking of the next bride, would doubtlessly be beautiful, I thought. Pretty, innocent- like a true heroine. Delicate like glass and gracious like a fairytale princess. She would have a quiet, soft, musical laughter and a generous smile with which to capture the heart of her onstage prince. I chuckled under my breath. It was the first time the thought occurred to me:

What would Pierrot think about her? Would he be enchanted by her charming, black eyes (somehow I liked to think they’d be black) and the sparkling even teeth in her smile?

The scene of sweet, nice, ordinary Pierre and a perfect beauty was absolutely queer and I could hardly constrain myself from laughing even harder. And she would be beautiful, no doubt about that. It was only now that Tom’s undistinguishable words made sense to me- “perfect… has to be perfect” I remembered him saying with a drunken expression on his face. And I know, probably better than anyone, that if he felt and imagined her as “perfect” she would be nothing short of spectacular. I hoped I’d like her. Actually, I hoped I’d get the chance to like her. I was trying to stay optimistic and think that he wouldn’t just throw me away after she was finished. I tried to convince myself that he wasn’t the type of person to do such a thing. That we had a bond that went beyond a sudden struck of inspiration or the performance of an unsuccessful play. But I couldn’t know. He’d gone totally unpredictable and I couldn’t be sure in anything he would do and so, despite all my willingness to believe the best, I couldn’t bring myself to sleep that night.

Early next morning I heard him break something in the back yard, but before I could try to get out and see what had happened he was already out and in his car.

I spoke to Pierre about it later, but he said it was nothing- some glass apparently, nothing to worry about. He stayed with me all through the morning until Thomas came back. Sometimes, for all Tom’s talk about me being his favorite, I thought that he actually loved Pierre best of us all, because he was the one with all the perks. He could walk around wherever and whenever he wanted and no rule ever seemed to apply to him. Usually, he didn’t abuse his freedom when Tom was working. I suppose he didn’t want to be in his way or disturb him- Pierre liked to be invisible when possible. But for whatever the reason I was glad for this privilege, because he could always come and talk to me… as he often did.

I talked to him about my strange dream and he told me not to worry, cheering me up with jokes. Then he told me what Tom was like, what he did, while he was in. Pierre said the boxes were even more now, but he never opened them. He also said Tom read every day and that surprised me.

“Every day? What, the newspaper? There can’t be anything about us there, we haven’t performed for weeks.”

“Not a newspaper, he’s reading a book.”

“What? Seriously, a real book?”

“Yeah, he’s not a very avid reader I’ll tell you that, but he still reads, a dozen pages a day at least.”

“Wow, that’s a first.”

“I know, but it’s just another one of his whims I’m sure. He’ll throw it away in a few days. He probably just picked it up out of boredom.”

Pfff, I doubted that. He’d never been that bored in his life. But I didn’t argue. Who knew anymore?

“Oh, and Jez.”

“Yeah? What?”

“Um, there’s something else I think you should know…” he hesitated and I regretted not being able to see his expression.

“What?”

He was still quiet.

“Pierre?”

“Well, he um… he is making another rag doll.”

I shook my head impatiently at the concerned tone of his voice.

“I already know that, Pierre, I told you last night. And it’s not really a surprise is it? We all saw it coming. I’m fine, really” I added when he didn’t answer.

“He’s refitting your bridal dress for her.”

He said the words fast, as if worried that they would burn a hole in his tongue if he lingered on them for too long.

I smiled.

“I knew that as well. Remember? Last night? I did tell you, didn’t I?

“No, I know that it’s just… I hear him, Jez. I hear him at night. He, he talks to her. He whispers, he sings. It sounds ridiculous, but I’m sure I heard him humming once. He’s gone all poetic… he talks about love. He… he’s even changing the play for her.”

“What?’

I wanted to laugh, but I only managed to sound hysterical. Did he really talk about love??? Since when? Since when did he sing? Since when did he recite poetry? Since when did he change for a doll? Since when wasn’t I enough for him?

“Jez, are you OK?”

“Is he really changing the play?” I whispered.

“I think so, yes. He says it’s not good enough. And, Jez…?”

I couldn’t speak, so I just nodded forgetting that he couldn’t see me.

“What, Pierre?” I answered finally in a low voice.

“While he’s improving the play, he’s making another role for you. You’ll still be in, you’ll perform with us. But, you’ll be… Well, you’ll be the ugly sister, Jez.”

-

And there it was. That’s how you turn from a bride to a comic villain in a second. That’s how things change dragging you behind them even if you don’t want to follow. That’s how fast you get rejected, how fast you can be destroyed. It comes almost unnoticeably. Quietly and in the dark. No tragic drums in the shadows to mark your fall, no flames, no fire. Like being struck by lightening in the middle of a sunny day.

The ugly sister! I, who was his favorite. I, who he had sang to first. Who he’d whispered to. Who he’d talked to day and night. I, who was the reason he’d even make a play at all- his only inspiration in the world. The only one he could ever love. I… was now his ugly sister. The supporting act in a “not-good-enough’ play. A burden in his world which now revolved around another sun.

Pierre stayed with me all night long. He didn’t talk. He didn’t ask questions or try to find the logic in the situation, hoping it would make me feel better. He was just… there. Sitting on the other side of the box-– his shoulder touching mine through the carton wall.

It was comforting in a way. But it didn’t make much difference to me. It didn’t change anything. He could stay there ‘till the end of the world for all I care and it would still mean nothing at all. He just didn’t understand. He didn’t know.

“At least you’ll still be with us” he’d said.

I didn’t answer. And what could I say anyway. How could I explain it to him? How could I make him see that it wasn’t that simple? That I was made to be a bride and anything less than that just wouldn’t cut it.

It wasn’t a matter of pride. There are simply no middle grounds here. I… we either are or aren’t, period. There is no “playing pretend” with rag dolls; we are made to play the parts we perform. I was hoping, although I knew he would replace me as a lead, that he’ll still keep me anyway. But I couldn’t believe he’d try and force me to be something other than me. I guess I was wrong again.

An ugly sister, huh?

How did he dare call me ugly? How did he dare replace me? Did he not think… ? Did he not think I would feel it? Why would he not know, if he’d made me, why would he not understand that it would stab me as painfully as it did?

I tried to push back a fresh wave of tears pacing through my throat and to my tired eyes.

Did he really mean to hurt me? Or did he simply not care if I was in pain or not.

I was sobbing. And at the same time was repulsed by the tears falling on my cheeks. I felt weak. For the first time I was crying because I doubted my own worth. I didn’t like the feeling. I didn’t like to cry, I’d only done it onstage so far and on demand. And it sucked! It reminded me of the dream I had the other night. Like the tears were the merciless rain, destroying everything good and sunny in its path. Until there was nothing left. Nothing but wilted flowers.

Well, someone had to take the blame for making it hale over my whole world.

And it was all on her! All of it!

Oh, I hated her already. I hated her as night closed it’s sleepless walls around me. I despised her unborn face. Her disgusting smile, her empty eyes. Her piercing laughter. I hated her from head to toe and wished she would burn in the ashes of her own jaded beauty. I hated her for making me hate as much as loved. I clenched my weak fists and muttered angry curses while Tom worked by the fireplace, our whispers twisting into one. A mess of sounds only Pierre could hear- his were loving, mine- mute screams of blind jealousy, enragement and pain. My silent, hissing words were the black poison I wanted to drown her in. They kept pouring out of me until the box filled up to the very edge leaving no place for air. Hate was all I could breath in. And I inhaled it greedily, letting it sink in my heart like ink in cotton. For a moment it was all there was… until something mingled almost unnoticeably with it. It took me a while to realize that the sound didn’t come from my own quiet sobs. It was sharp. Vicious. Steel. It was the sound of scissors, cutting through some kind of cloth.

I listened again. I imagined his fingers, careful and yet slightly trembling. The excitement in his eyes. The warmth of his fingertips. Another tear glided to my lips. I remembered it so well I could see him as if the carton around me was transparent:

His heartbeat increases and he starts breathing faster. There’s a cigarette in the corner of his mouth that he’s forgotten about. When his eyes finally start to smart he gives in and puts it out on the floor, afraid of ash falling on top of the material. I heard the heel of his boot as it hit the floor over the burnt smoke. Then he took the scissors back in his hands. He used to just tear cloth apart at the beginning, he was negligent to details, focused on the image in his head. But now he wanted to be precise. A part of it fell heavily on the ground. I could hear it gliding of the desk. Silk. He was using silk.

I laughed. Of course he was using silk. He’d probably even give her diamonds for eyes. She’d be royalty. Incomparable to any other. A rag doll without the rags. A shiny dream tied up in a candy red ribbon. A short- fused firework exploding with insatiable, miserly desire, that suffocates its victims.

She was the epitome of avarice and the moment she lived, the world was hers.

-

“Hey, look at this! “Alexis Vérèn continues to nourish our dreams and imagination with his latest novel “Magic and secrecy”.””

I didn’t listen.

“Jez?”

“Yeah, what?”

“This guy… Alexis whoever, that’s the book that Tom’s reading now.”

I glanced at the paper in Pierre’s hands uninterested.

‘Oh.”

“He’s quite famous apparently, he lives in Paris and that’s his 9^th book so far- all best sellers. Listen to this… “

I let him read on and continued to ignore what he actually said.

It was raining. Barely, but I could feel it nevertheless- the wind washing my face in the cold, early morning. The air was clean and undisturbed but by butterflies in the nearby bush. The grass seemed to have never been trimmed before, but I could feel it like a cozy, soft blanket beneath me. I was relaxed and sleepy, of course, since I hadn’t actually slept in about a week now.

Tom was already finishing. And surprisingly quickly I might add, but it was undoubtedly so. As the end drew to closer he wouldn’t let himself be distracted by any trifles, but was also in a better mood than before. Him being cheerful an good-humored didn’t do much do better my mood, but at least he let us out every now and then, and the back garden had become the only place where I could repose. I used these hours to sleep usually with Pierre next to me to keep me company though sometimes I wished he would just go away. He deserved so much more in return for what he did, so much than I was, at the moment, in no condition to give. I found myself thinking that in times I almost wanted him to be rude to me. I said so once. I was tired and had just woken up from another nightmare. I was mad and craved for an argument with somebody, not niceties. He just smiled and said “that’s what friends are for”, as if that explained everything. He didn’t understand, sweet, naïve Pierre.

This morning was similar. I was in the mood for cursing. But I kept quiet and let him read.

“Apart from his books, the author manages to hold our attention with his personal life as well. According to Vérèn’s own words, life in Paris suits him just fine and he has recently bought a luxurious yacht to prove to his numerous fans that his extravagant temperament really is perfectly matched to our glamorous capital. The author, who is originally from Penrith, Cumbria, England, explains that his new book is in fact greatly inspired from his childhood, but wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the inspiration of Paris and the city’s famous atmosphere…”

“Oh, who gives a damn about that stupid book, anyway?” I interrupted him finally.

His voice died suddenly in the middle of the sentence. I saw him with the corner of my eye as he lifted his head sharply to face me. He wasn’t used to hear me speak like that. To be honest neither was I, but the sentence just burst out and I felt good saying it. I almost expected, wanted him to say something rude in return. He didn’t. Nice Pierre… maddeningly nice Pierre. I used to like that about him, but now everything, it seems, had changed.

Maybe, I thought, we shouldn’t be friends anymore. Shouldn’t…

Maybe we wouldn’t be able to stay friends anymore.

“Is there something wrong, Jez?”

I threw him an impatient, incredulous look and he rolled his eyeballs:

“Apart from the obvious I mean” he corrected himself.

The laughter tasted bitter and dry in my mouth; sort of ancient, fragile.

“Apart from the obvious… no, not much really. Why? Isn’t it enough for you?”

“I was just asking you know? No need to get all wound up at me for just trying to help.”

“Help? Yeah, such great help you’ve been. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

The sarcasm was intended to hurt and it did, but he was no wimp. I was counting on that.

He frowned seriously and looked at me as if he saw me for the first time.

“You know, you’re really being way too dramatic, Jezarel. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

“You don’t understand…” I tried to be dismissive, but he interrupted.

“Oh, really? I don’t? I don’t know? You’re really not that mysterious, Jez. Or what, do you think we’re all blind? That none of us… that I can’t see how you look at him. The way you smile when he throws you a “by-the-way” compliment.”

“What does that mean?

“It’s like one of those- “oh, and by the way you look sort of nice”. You know, the way you say something when you have more important things to do and you just hope they’ll leave you alone after an insincere compliment. It means he never really liked you, he just had no alternative ‘till now and you’re missing something that never was.”

My hands started to shake.

“You can’t know that” I said.

“I can’t. Really? And you do, because you’re more unprejudiced in the matter, is that it?”

It was a bad moment to find out that his sarcasm was no worse than mine. I clenched my fists so he wouldn’t see them shake.

“I don’t know? No. No I don’t, because you chose not to tell me, but you know what, Jez, it’s not that hard to guess. All this drama and you stumping your foot to the floor, mad at the world… This is not about the part. You hate that stupid dress, you don’t mean it when you say “yes”. You don’t even feel like a bride, you never did. So, you know what, my guess is you’re just bloody jealous. You’re bloody scared that he won’t call you his “sweet sunflower”, his “favorite” anymore. And I get that alright. I understand. Because…” his eyes darkened for a moment and he looked away uncomfortably- like he’d said more than he should have “…because I just do. But all the same, Jez, I think it’s about damn time you stop blaming me for your romantic failures. Why don’t you go be mad at Tom for a change, huh? I’d like to see that.

I exhaled a whisper, afraid that something louder would break apart in the air between us:

“Because… because I like those “by-the-way” compliments. I miss his… insincerities.” ”

The words hurt, like they were too big to get out of my throat and left bloody traces in my mouth. I looked down and wished I wouldn’t cry. He tried to be nicer.

“Jez…”

“Just forget it, alright.”

He didn’t contradict me but I could tell that by now he wished he would take his words back. Strangely enough I didn’t- what good would that do us anyway. At least now everything was out in the open and I knew I was right- everything had changed, like I thought. We wouldn’t be able to stay friends for long, after all.

I fidgeted in my seat tentatively and suddenly felt something sharp beneath my left leg. My hand shot to it instinctively and I felt it in my grasp then- a small shiny piece of broken glass. I remembered the crashing sound I’d heard from the back yard that morning and thought that’s what Tom must have broken. I held the transparent glass in my hand and lifted it slowly to my face. The sun hadn’t yet risen in the sky and there were shadows in the garden. Darkness covered my shaky fingers and the glass in them. My pale features were reflected in the broken piece and I studied them carefully.

I didn’t like what I saw. The lines of my face seemed strangely deformed and my hair was in total disorder. The wavy sunflower petals were tangled in an awfully tangled web. I let out a heavy sigh and decided that a beauty inspection wouldn’t be one of my best ideas for the day. Maybe I was being too hard on myself. It was after all weeks since we’d gone out, since we’d performed. Since I had any motivation whatsoever to put myself in order, so to speak. No, this was nothing that a few hours of sleep and some combing wouldn’t be able to fix. I was fine. As good as I ever was.

I frowned. Well, wasn’t that just the problem, I thought bitterly. Apparently “same as I ever was” was nothing to be especially proud of.

I lifted the glass to my face again as if to check if it wasn’t just plain old paranoia sinking in again.

Nope, no paranoia. Regrettably, I looked just as bad as I’d feared. I brought the improvised mirror closer to my face and stared at it with severe scrutiny. My lips were a bit shapeless I noted and my nose was too small for my face. And I hated that my cheeks were always too red- like I was permanently blushed or something. My eyes were nice, but their wishy-washy blue color wasn’t expressive enough, you had to look at them to see they were pretty and people rarely take the time to do that, don’t they?

My displeasure formed itself into an expressive pout. For a second I looked stupidly childish- like Jules in the car that day, when she didn’t get the answer she was counting on. The association made me laugh out loud and suddenly the expression in my mirror changed. My lips took form and parted to show my white teeth, my eyes gleamed, even my nose wrinkled nicely. The blush didn’t disappear, but hey you can’t have everything, right.

Hm, that was better, I thought and closed my eyes satisfied. Maybe it was paranoia after all.

“Pierre, Jezarel? Are you there?” The voice was painfully soft and sweet and melted in the air like butter over a soft piece of bread.

It was Tom. The fact that he used my full name didn’t bother me as it should have. Instead I jumped enthusiastically from the ground.

“I’ve got something to show you guys.” The words sprang victorious from his mouth. There was also a shrilling, infantile sound vaguely reminding of laughter following his voice, but I didn’t recognize it and, quite frankly, at the time I didn’t care.

“It’s a surprise” he chuckled.

He chuckled!? Since when?

“We’re here by the bushes, Tom” answered Pierre in my place.

And then, too late as usual, but I realized what he’d said.

It’s a surprise.

My heart sank to my feet as a stone in a deep well.

He was finally finished, wasn’t he?

“Oh, here’s where you two lovebirds are hiding.”

He was radiant. Glowing, happy and talkative he looked around.

“It’s not exactly the spot I’d choose, but if it works for you…”

Pierre, though, hadn’t gotten over our fight and wasn’t in the mood for such remarks:

“What is it, Tom?” he interrupted.

“Well, hum,” he coughed to note that the important part was coming “as you know, recently I’ve been working on something new.”

He said it as if we didn’t know. It was irritating.

“Something very special.”

There was that sound again. That irksome, shrilling thing. Was that a bird? I looked around annoyed.

Tom ignored me… of course and continued:

“I want you two to be the first to know, because you’re the leads in the play and I hope you’ll get along with the new addition to our little company…”

Not little enough.

“… well here she is. Come here, love, where are you?” he laughed cheerfully.

And she came, stepping slowly forward from behind the bush. The branches shivered around her delicate body, butterflies nested in her carbon black, silky hair and her feet, which seemed to be barely touching the ground, followed behind her ringing, childish laughter.

I stared. There’s not that much to it really, it was simply the single earthly thing I could do. That first moment I saw her I froze and the ice burned within me stronger than any fire I’d ever felt before. That first second every fiber in my body yearned to never lose her from sight again.

She felt it and tilted her head modestly to the side, locks of hair falling off her shoulder. The movement made my mouth dry. I tried to swallow. And failed.

Oh’ she was… everything and all at once. That’s really the only way to explain. She was everything. To look at her radiant skin, her fragile fingers as they touch her wide, smiling lips, brush her cheeks- it was like to watch the whole universe and all that was in it before you. Her simple existence made you feel tiny and insignificant. Made you feel like you could never exist without her. The look in her eyes could, in the stretch of a second, cage you for all eternity. After the first few minutes my pupils hurt, as if I’d stared at the sun, but it was hard to disenchant myself now that I’d seen her. Now that she’d looked at me with those devilish, piercing eyes of hers I couldn’t really look anywhere else.

Tom was talking again, over-flooding the yard with pride and self-content. I didn’t hear a word. Let him talk. He never made much sense through his words anyway. His hands spoke better. And this time they’d, intentionally or not, created something which thankfully was as good, or better, than the whole world, because if she wasn’t, she’d want to have it. And she’d succeed.

Finally I managed to detach my gaze from her. Everything around seemed to have gone paler. I looked at Tom. He was like a proud dad. I’d never seen him smile so widely. He picked her up, hugged her tightly and then held her in his arms as though afraid to lose contact with her skin.

I shook my head and tried to think rational. Evasion was impossible, but I tried to control the daze stretched over me. I didn’t look this time, I examined.

Black hair, high cheekbones, black eyes (I got that right), wide lips in a mat shade of bright-red mahogany, pointy chin. She was wearing a glossy dark shirt with curls at the end, sharp cleavage and a big, blue flower on her loose collar. Her skirt was wide, short and laced. Her skin was silk as was her hair and there were a few golden wires winding up like veins from her wrists to her neck and around her whole body. Her eyes pierced, because they were embers. Glowing charcoal, burning everyone who laid eyes upon them.

Tom was right- she was perfect after all.

“What do you think?” he asked not able to contain himself.

Pierre barely spoke, hoarse for the first time in his life.

“She… she’s amazing” he babbled without thinking.

The perfect one shrilled a laugh again.

“I mean, you know,” he tried to recollect himself “She’s nice, she looks, hm, well ,nice, you know.”

The image in the piece of broken glass in my hand became distorted from reawaken anger and jealousy. Tom was one thing, but I couldn’t bare to see Pierre that helpless as well. The fact that just minutes ago I’d decided that we wouldn’t be friends anymore was meaningless to me now. Landscape was this- she could, and probably would, have the whole world, but not the things in it that were already mine. Unfortunately those seemed to be the exact things she wanted.

Making one final attempt to redeem himself Pierre asked:

“I’m sorry, Tom, but I didn’t hear her name?”

“Oh, yes of course, introductions, I’m sorry. Love, that’s Pierre and this is Jezarel.

“Guys, meet Ava. This is Ava Rice.”

My reflection disappeared beneath a thick cover of blood as I clenched the glass violently in my shaking palm.

Raindrops.

Dangling car keys and a bam of the door.

Tic- tock.

I’d like to think it was a clock ticking. I wish I was that lucky.

Tick- tick- tick- tock- tick- tick…

The engine roared again. Tired. I heard a low rumble of protest somewhere in the buzz.

Bloody rain.

We got on the road again. It felt familiar, the same. As always. Maybe it even was, who knows if we hadn’t past by it already.

He was driving. Pebbles cracked beneath the tires as he changed gear. It was 20 minutes since our last stop. But the minutes dragged on for too long and I focused on the seconds instead.

1,2,3,4…

“Apchih!”

Nathaniel moaned desperately in the back. His cold was getting worse. And he didn’t have much hope for improvement in this weather. Nor in these circumstances. Not while he was in a box 24/7 anyway.

He hadn’t let us out for a week. It’s been a whole week and we still couldn’t escape from the ghastly weather. We couldn’t outrun the rain.

Tick- tick- tick…

This had gone way past any article or another. Maybe he was just doing it for the sport, who knows. Whatever the reason, though, we couldn’t stay like that forever. We’d need to stop sooner or later. He needed the money. We could get by on very little and no food at all, but he had to eat sometime, he had to shower, sleep. He had to buy gas for the damn car, right.

…57, 58, 59, 60.

One hour.

I felt like cursing. That was a first- it surprised me. I shook my head, but the feeling remained- glowing with awful self-contempt at its irritating persistence.

“Psst!”

There was a tap on the carton wall of my box.

“Jez?”

Pierre was whispering from the other side.

“So, are you enjoying the rain?”

“Enormously. Aren’t you?”

“Not for long, anyway.”

“Pardon?”

“You didn’t hear? Nathaniel was on about it for hours yesterday.”

“Yeah, I must have… switched off. What is it?”

“It’s stopping. It was on the radio- Tom was listening to the weather forecast. It’s good news, right?”

A weak smile that he couldn’t see appeared on my face.

“You know I don’t really mind the rain so much. I’d just like to get out of the car every now and again.”

“You and everybody else. But I think he’s almost ready now.”

I felt too tired to actually follow the conversation, but asked the question just the same.

“”Ready”?”

“Yeah, well he’s got to be planning something to take us that far.”

I blinked, wondering if I heard right.

“How far exactly?”

“You didn’t see the sign? Paris, Jez. He’s taking us to Paris.”

“Wow.”

“indeed.”

“What do you think is it he’s planning?”

“Hah, I can’t even hear his words now-a-days, let alone his thoughts. I guess we’ll know when we get th-…”

“Hey!”

I jumped in my seat.  ”

“Quiet back there!!!”

Thomas hit the side of the box with his fist.

“Sorry” we both whispered.

So, I frowned, Paris, huh? We’d never gone to a place so highly populated before. He’d only taken us to small towns and villages.

“Something must have changed” Pierre echoed my thoughts.

“Something- yes, he’s still cranky, though.”

The car went through a bump in the road and I jumped at my seat. I’d stopped counting the seconds. The landscape outside was changing rapidly as if marking time for me. I didn’t have to wait long and sure enough, in the late afternoon, the rain stopped and the sky cleared to bright blue. By then we’d past almost five road signs saying “Paris” with big, cocky letters. We were still probably a day away and there was no way of knowing for sure where he was going, but there was something… something in the way he held the wheel. Something in his weary eyes. Some tangled sense of doomed defiance. Like he knew the course he was about to take, but just didn’t like it.

Little before dusk, we arrived at a small town outside of Paris. It was a rather quiet and unnoticeable village. Even as we passed through it, it felt distant somehow, like hiding behind the thick glass of a snow globe. The tires stumbled slowly and carefully over the dusty roads and raindrops fell like tears from the branches of the trees beside the road, sprawling down on the front window of the car. We took our time circling the streets until finally the engine roared to a halt before the entrance of an old building.

A theatre. The car door closed loudly behind Tom and an old, gray man walked out of the building. After a minute of shaking hands and making introductions, they walked inside together.

I felt sleepy, dizzy somehow- my head was pumping uncomfortably and after they disappeared, I reached out and pushed the handle on the door to roll down my window. I was feeling  the need to smell some fresh air. The sun was gradually slipping down from the sky and the clouds were already painted golden with bright pink shadows between them. The air was fresh after the rain and I inhaled it greedily. After staying in the box for so long the light breeze felt reviving. The weird, alien desire to curse disappeared immediately. I inhaled again and it seemed that every single shadow in my thoughts was dispersed by the whiff.

There was a whisper from the back and as I turned around I saw two bright, wide eyes and locks of yellow, sunny hair peeping from the box behind me. ]

“Aunt, Jez, is it true that we’re going to Paris?”

I laughed quietly.

“Maybe.”

The girl pouted with an artistically overdone gesture to show her discontent. Obviously she was hoping for a more specific answer. She was so charming that my smile grew even wider. Pierre chuckled behind his fist next to me.

Stubbornly: “But I want to go!” More pouting.

“Jules! Stop pestering everybody and come back inside!”

The wide, blue eyes flickered at me and Jules gave the desperate sigh of a martyr.

“Aunt, Jez?”

The voice was a bit thinner and was quickly followed by another pair of smart, gray eyes and locks of yellow hair. Jenny appeared next to her sister Jules and they both looked at me expectantly.

“Do you think we’ll like it there?”

“Yeah, do you think it’s nice in Paris?”

“Do you think they’ll like us?”

“Are the people different?”

“Is it a really, really big city?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but was interrupted by the harsh voice of their mother Velma.

“Girls! In! Now!”

They looked at each other with irritated expressions and, casting a momentarily smile towards me, hid their similar heads back in to their mom.

I looked outside again. It was sunset, bright and cheery and I decided not to think about Paris. A whim like that wouldn’t last long anyway. I stretched my hand outside the window and watched as the raindrops dripped from the tree and into my open palm. I watched them splatter over my fingers and let my mind wander in the mean time. The lids closed over my eyes and daydreams took over me in an instant.

Images flickered through my mind, senses mingled inside of me and smells and words all came to form an undistinguishable mess with one single association attached to it. I was remembering, yet again, my birth. Well’ not birth actually, but rather… assembling, or making or whatever you’d like to call it. I wasn’t born by mistake or chance, but made on purpose and my creator had long, gentle fingers and a soft touch. Tom was very careful with all of us I guess, but I only want to remember how he handled me. I still dream, especially lately, of those sleepless nights, when his tired eyes burned through the candle light, right to my very heart, which he had put together from nothing but lonely desire and steel thread.

I smiled- I always became a bit poetic when I thought about that. The memory was as warming as the summer sun and I refused to part with it for another 20 minutes, in which I deliberately lingered on the details. I felt like I was blooming somehow.

“Shut up, already.”

“What, I’m just saying it’s possible.”

I opened my eyes unwillingly. Nathaniel and Velma were arguing behind me in hushed, intense tones.

“Possible. Everything is possible, but this is nonsensical. Why would he do something like that? It’s pointless, Nathaniel.”

“Just think about it, all right. The boxes, the thinking, his distancing himself from the world, the traveling… the fires. What else could it be? Can you explain it?”

“Oh, hush! It could mean millions of things. He could really be going crazy, you know.”

She said it in such a wistful tone it would be comical if it wasn’t so serious.

“Plus, you know what it would mean if it was true, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Do you think I’m not worried? But it’d be best if we were prepared.”

It didn’t take me long to realize what they were talking about. After all it had crossed my own mind more than once.

He was thinking of creating another rag doll. And that in itself was bad enough. It meant weeks without work until he was finished, it meant neglecting us, it meant no air, no sunshine, no rain, no talking.

And for one of us it was damnation.

Tom was never good in writing. Actually, Tom was never good at anything else than making living dolls. He didn’t talk and even if he tried to it came to no avail. He was antisocial and he had absolutely no charisma whatsoever. He was barely literate, couldn’t spell his name right and wrote in capital letters. In reading he found no pleasure and even though he was able to, I never saw him bother with anything longer than an article. Stupid or ignorant wasn’t exactly right, but let’s just say he was far away from being a misunderstood genius. Taking all of this into account I think it goes without saying that writing a play for us was neither easy, nor pleasant for him, and naturally it was a flop. In our performances we were the true work of art and I’ve had the feeling that more than one person that ever saw us felt like it would have been better if there was mute option to us he could take advantage of. It was very unlikely that he would ever go to the trouble of changing the play for the benefit of any of us.

Neither Velma nor Nathaniel had to say it for we all new it already- if Tom invented another doll, one of us would become… hm, what shall we call him- a burden, useless, inutile… disposable maybe.

-

Well, whatever Tom’s plans for any of us were, they’d have to wait, because we were all due to perform that night. And as if to negate all that I’ve thought and all that we’ve said, he was positive, smiling, attentive and playful all evening long. Even Pierrot was back to his old, radiant self and as we went on stage he winked at me with a luminous smile. Nothing could go wrong and I laughed at myself for worrying. The theatre was full and as the curtains fell over our heads, we bowed under a wave of applause that ought to have made up for every disapproving word anyone had ever said about us. When we got backstage Tom hugged me, whispered quietly in my ear: “That’s my girl” and his soft, velvet, hoarse from the cigars voice embraced me as gently as his arms did. Someone brought flowers for me while we were getting ready and we laughed all the way to the car. The night was warm, the air sliding through the open windows- fresh and fragrant with the smell of wild berries and distant, cold streams. That night we all sang along with the radio, blasting in the small car. Then, we fell asleep under the sound of the light, summer rain.

It seemed like not even a single atom was out of its place in the whole universe. Like I said, nothing to worry about.

-

We drove for two days. On the third, at the break of down, we stopped in front of an old lawn full of weeds and untrimmed bushes. He rented an old bungalow just out side of the nearby village and unpacked all of his luggage in the single room of the archaic building. I couldn’t stop fidgeting while he arranged the table. His face had gone frantic since I last saw him and it surprised me find that he had unpacked even his burin and his nippers. I could also see pulled out on the table all five types of scissors and a whole box full of different needles.

It didn’t take long for me to realize I was wrong. This wasn’t going to pass at all. It only got more visible as the week went by. As if whatever was bothering him was sinking its teeth deeper into his skin, spilling venom through his veins and to his heart. He couldn’t sleep anymore. His days turned into a series of silent trances forming one mad, introverted existence. He would spent days just sitting in his improvised workshop staring at the fire or at his tools. Thinking. Smoking non-stop. The room was always full of smoke.  Either from the suffocating heat coming from the mantle-piece or from the end of his burning cigar. At the beginning I tried not to think about it. Yeah, like I could do anything anyway. Like any of us could help. Pierrot tried to talk to him once. Poor, innocent, kind Pierrot. I doubt if Tom even heard him. I doubted he’d ever listen to him or any of us for that matter. So we waited, patient, in our boxes, for his mood to finally change.

Some days he yelled at us for no reason, others- he wouldn’t do so much as mutter a single word with a weak, exhausted voice. And then, there were the days when he went out. He left for hours at a time, always returning with big packages that stood unopened in the corner of the room, as if he was afraid they’d attract too much attention to themselves.

Days stretched and mingled into sleepless nights. What was before a week now seemed like a month and a month to us equaled an eternity. It was as if the sun didn’t want to set in the ground, as if the moon took too long to hide behind the clouds at dawn. Some mornings I wondered if dawn was coming at all. It felt like the night had taken so long that the sun had missed its turn to shine today.

And then, just as we wondered how much longer could he keep on living like this, surviving on cigars, no food, no sleep and the little money we’d made at our last show, while constantly spending more and more on those mysterious boxes and paper-wrapped packages, he muttered between two pulls from his smoke:

“We have a show tomorrow night” and fell silent again as if nothing had happened.

The rag dolls around me started to whisper quietly between themselves. What did this mean? Had he gone back to normal? Would we start traveling again? And most importantly- was he making another rag doll? Some thought not. They were certain it would be useless, that he didn’t need one. They thought whatever troubles we had we could go through them without a new addition. I knew better- he didn’t need reason to be inspired. He didn’t need to have an explanation to go mad.

Early next morning he started getting ready. Our costumes needed to be cleaned, we had to wash our hairs and our faces, clean ourselves from the smell of smoke in the bungalow. Some wanted to practice their lines again. I knew mine by heart already.

I looked at Tom as he walked around all day, working though his mind was obviously still somewhere else. His footsteps were light on the floor, barely audible by then. His face was a pale shade of grey and there were big circles around his eyes. There was no spark left in him, it seemed like he was slowly disappearing into a cloud of despair I couldn’t understand.

Time came that we should get ready to leave.

I looked at my dress with a deep frown on my face as something sharp pinned itself at my heart like the sting of a merciless bee.

A bridal dress. And yet I didn’t feel like a bride. I felt neither happy, nor pretty. He looked at me judgingly from head to toe until finally he focused on my face and forced a tired, unconvincing smile.

“You’re beautiful” he told me. But his eyes were not impressed. The callous bee stung deeper into my heart.

“You’re my favorite” he said. But as much as I wanted to believe him I couldn’t. The more I craved for the relief to flow over my body, the stronger I shivered, the harder it was to blink with the tears in my eyes. The tighter I pressed my lips so that I wouldn’t scream out the panic that built up in my throat.

His touch was cold as he picked me up and took me to the car. I curled in a ball in his hands to fell some warmth, but he was too cool, like lying in a bed of ice-cubes. I tried to remember if he’d been like that before. I tried to think back to when he had last touched me to convince my self that I wasn’t just imagining his softness. I tried to convince myself that there had been indeed some sunny glow in him that was now gone, that I wasn’t mourning an imaginary loss. But remembering only made the contrast stronger, so I just closed my eyes and started reciting my lines as a diversion. It worked and soon enough I was in the box again, the lid- carefully closed over my head, the sound of the engine buzzing in my ears.

The night was dark and silent. We stopped at a narrow street with no public lighting; the loudest sound came from the low vibrating of the wings of a cricket in the distance. Tom took us in one by one. I could hear the door slap behind him every time, the rumbling gravel beneath the heels of his shoes. When my turn came I peeped curiously from under the lid. The street was empty- I hoped that meant that all the people were inside already. On the brick wall, on the right from the entrance gate there was a single, faded poster of all of us, sitting on a dusty stage with mysterious grins stretched over our faces. It was a poor resemblance, but it was all we could afford after Tom had bought the costumes. The copy was old and faded- we only had a few of them and we’d already given our best to the bigger theaters at Nice. Not that that had made any difference there. We never managed to impress the pretentious crowds that always seemed to be a step ahead of us no matter what we did.

I wondered where we were now and weather the audience here would like us.

Just as it looked from the outside, the theatre hall was very small. The stage had obviously seen too little performances in its time… or way too many, depending on the way you would look at it. It was old and half- broken. The walls were lit by about two dozens of candles. I tried to remember the last time we’d been to a theatre where they still used candles. It must have been a decade now. I amused myself for a while by guessing weather they were old- fashioned or just old. Or maybe both. The thought brought a hopeful smile on my face- old people were nicer, less arrogant- they wouldn’t boo or throw bad fruit at us. Maybe this wouldn’t be so catastrophic after all.

Wrong again.

As I shot a quick glance through the curtains I saw that the dark saloon was full. Apparently they really were all of them gathered here. In any other town this would be incredibly good news, but here it just meant they’ d be a lot more critical since we were obviously the only amusement available in a radius of… well, more miles than I could count I’m sure.

I looked at Pierrot. He tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth barely twitched. Beside him sat Nathaniel and fidgeting behind me were the twins Jenny and Jules. They played the ugly sisters, a part I considered extremely unsuitable for them. It’s just that every time I looked at them all I could see was the mischievous spark in their eyes and their childish giggles. I rolled my eyes impatiently as they poked at their ribs and shrieked fascinated by their improvised game behind my back. Their mother, Velma, threw them a stern look and they quieted down with merry smirks on their pale, similar faces.

I turned around. Tom had just appeared from an office room across from me and sat on chair from where he could watch the play, hidden behind the curtains. He gave a short nod to an old man with weary eyes who pulled a rope to unveil us to the audience.

The candlelight was weak- it hardly reached my skin, but it made me feel better somehow, safer. I kept glancing back at Tom every few minutes. He had lit a cigarette despite the warnings of the proprietor and he lifted it to his lips every half a minute or so, as if he didn’t even realize the movement. His gaze was fixed in the ground a few feet away from him. I thought he looked like someone searching for a lost miracle. His somewhat tensed posture hardly changed all through the evening. Towards the end he lifted his eyes and started moving them slowly from face to face around the audience.

Something seemed very wrong and it made me nervous.

I was sweating. Unnatural for me, but it happened. And I forgot my line. I forgot the words- either that or a part of me just didn’t want to say them anymore.
“Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

Do I?

The audience was eager for a confirmation. I could almost see their lips whispering:” ”Say it!”  A confirmation at the price of anything. They didn’t care if I meant it as long as I kept to the script and gave them their happy ending.

I turned to Tom again to see if he was looking at me. I needed to know whether making the sacrifice of saying a fake vow for the hundredth time was worth while. That he appreciated it.

He was still glaring at the people. His eyes were moving quickly as if searching for an old friend. Dissecting the audience with an unblinking gaze. All the sudden it felt like all the air sprung out of my lungs and tightened around my throat… He used to look at me like that. As if we had a secret, no one else knew. As if I was a mystery he was trying to uncover. Now, he was looking away. Searching for an inspiration; boredom soaked in his tensed movements and pouring out of his heavy eyelids. The smoke from his cigar choked me from across the room.

It was magic that he hoped to find somewhere in the dark saloon. A new mystery was waiting to be found in one of those unfamiliar faces. I swallowed with difficulty. He was searching for adventure, passion, new secrets to share. Another rag doll.

”Jez.””

A better rag doll.

”Jez.””

A better bride.

”Jez!?””

A new me.

”Jezerel!””

I turned around to Pierrot and closed my eyes so he wouldn’t see the tears. The people were still waiting for their confirmation.

”Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?””

Pierre’s eyes were concerned; his sweet, innocent face- curled up in confusion. A rag doll in a black costume. It was nice of him to care and I forced a smile.

”I do.””

I didn’t mean it, but what did it matter, anyway?

The curtain fell over a wave of applause that crushed me to the ground. I tried to brush my eyes, but my hand was still in his and he wouldn’t let go.

”What happened?””

I looked at him- he reminded me of warm milk and honey with eyes, sparkling like merry Christmas lights. My hesitation lasted only a second.

”He’s going to replace me.””

It took him a second to realize what I meant. Then he just frowned with disbelief and a certain amount of shock. I suppose he wanted to look enraged, but it didn’t look natural on his sweet face and when I focused harder on his features I spotted the well conceived marks of pretending. He had expected this all along, but still clenched his fists, popped his eyeball as far as he could and flared his nostrils in a funny way, all for my benefit.

“”No. Jez!”

My name was barely a whisper from his lips, but in the silence that’d blocked my ears it was all I could hear.

Behind us the proprietor was bombarding Tom with compliments hoping to drag an answer out of him. It wasn’t going to happen any time soon, obviously.

“Great show, Tom. Same thing next week, huh?”

I turned around and saw Tom award him with a lazy nod without even looking up from the ground.

“Tom, are you OK?”

He lifted his gaze slowly and disorientated as if just waking up from a dream. A smile lit his face and he responded with anxiety I’d never before heard in his voice.

“Sure thing, mate. I’ll even have a surprise for you.”

 I woke up under the persistent buzz of a cricket. It felt so close that for a moment I thought the bug was in my ear. Everything else was quiet- thoughts asleep and mouths- shut. I enjoyed the silence. The grass whistling beneath me and the smell of the flowers- almost audible. I stretched slowly, avoiding rash movements, twisting my tiny fists with closed eyes. The wind whispered in the branches above me, stirring the stiff, summer air.

 It was late June. A bad month for us. Full of disappointment, nausea and bad acting. Full of paranoia and negative reviews. I tried not to think about it for now. The day was way too good and I didn’t want to ruin it just yet. There’d be enough time for that later.

 I tasted the air, inhaling deeply and patiently, like a wine-lover, drinking from a five-star, blood-red bouquet from the finest fruit. It smelt of scorching heat, as if the piercing rays were strangling the weak breeze which hardly managed to brush my cheeks. It was going to hale later tonight. But there was still time. I tilted my head after the call of a bee zigzagging somewhere beside me. The sound from its wings was interrupted at short, even intervals.

 I could feel the fresh smell of chamomile near by. Hyacinth and linden, and something that smelt like burnt daisies. I frowned. A deep crease settled itself comfortably between my eyebrows and I inhaled again. There was fire climbing lazily over a pile of dry wood sticks not far away from where I was lying. My frown deepened. So much for the perfect day. I lifted myself with stiff movements on one elbow and looked around. Sure enough there it was- away from the bushes at the far end, right in the middle of the sun-lit meadow. It looked almost tired, with its flames twisting unwillingly around the sticks, hiding beneath the wood searching for cooler shadows. In the bottom I could see the remains of something which, in its previous life, must have been a newspaper. A small curled piece of the brownish paper was blown away from the flames and fell within few feet away from me. I managed, with some difficulty, to make out the word “weekly” from the burnt page.   

 Thomas.

 I shot a second glance at the ashen grass and, with a sigh, looked up at the branches laying a soft shadow over me. It was a big tree with a massive trunk. Leaning next to its core, there was a rag doll with a smile so sweet that it looked like the thin, crispy chocolate frosting of a birthday cake. He was sitting with his eyes closed, head tilted slightly towards the direction of the wind. He didn’t seem to notice me for a while, carried away in his mind. I watched his body relax as he took a few deep breaths, smiled and then finally turned to look at me.  

 “Was it that bad then?” I asked.  

 Next to us the fire had almost gone out, but the smell remained. Pierrot looked at the pile of ashes and his eyebrows crossed uncomfortably. He hesitated.

 “Worse than we’d expected. He took it really bad.”

 “Should I worry?” I pursed my lips.

 He smiled dryly at me.

 “Nah, you missed the whole thing anyway.” He looked carefully at his hands for a minute. “It’s just… “

 “Just what?”

 “It was weird… he started shaking, cursed a lot and then he just tore the paper apart and burnt it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him go that mad over an article before.”

 “Well I guess we should have expected it. We really blew it last time” I tried to sound more positive. “But we’ll nail them tonight, right?”

 His lips stretched slowly.     

 “Sure you will, Jez!”

 “We will, Pierrot.”

 He laughed quietly.

 “Oh we’ll all be there all right. But you should know, Jez… everybody looks at the bride.”

 “I’m not really a bride” I bent my head, blushing uncomfortably.

 “You wear the dress, though. That ought to count for something.”

 He looked like he wanted to say something more, but avoided me with a swift movement.

 “Yeah, it should.”

 Nice, sweet Pierrot. His eyes were deep brown and his hair had the same chocolate shade, only with yellowish highlights while in the sun. He was my best friend. My closest being on the planet, a constant ray of sparkling sunlight through my days and nights. And as I traced the familiar lines of his face I saw worry tucked in deep beneath his lids. I didn’t like it when Pierrot was worried- it meant there really must be something wrong and it made me nervous.

 The wind blew stronger. The hale was closer already.

 “Pierre,” I tried to sound casual” do you know where Tom is? Maybe we should get going.”

 “I’m not sure actually, he said he had some work to do. He just told me to look after you until he comes back, ‘cause he didn’t know how long he was going to be.””

 I frowned: “He didn’t? How long have we been here?”

 “Couple of hours at the most.” He smiled. “You’re a sound sleeper, you know. He knew you’d doze off as soon as you smelt the fresh air. He knows his creations.”

 I rubbed my eyes, trying to brush the drowsiness of of them with a laugh.

 “Yeah, he really does doesn’t he? Where’s everybody else then?”

 “Oh, they preferred to stay in the car. Nathaniel especially…”

 “Ahh, right. I forgot he’s hypersensitive” to…. whatever.”

 Pierre laughed again.

 “Yeah, it’s something new this time.”

 “Christ, he changed it again?”

 “Yep, it’s a sixteen-letter word so don’t ask me to pronounce it and it apparently causes things such as- allergic rhinitis, asthma, atopic eczema, anaphylaxis and something that was in Chinese, I think.”

 Our voices rang out together for a few minutes.

 “Damn, I’m sorry I missed that.”

 “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll bet you anything that you’ll be treated to the whole speech at least twice before the sun sets.”

 “I might have to take you up on that one, what with Tom acting completely mental and all I might not even see him today. Or until the end of the week for that matter.”

 I looked around, suddenly remembering another logical question I’d forgotten:

 “Where are we actually?”

 “Damned if I know. We drove for hours after the play last night. I think he just wanted to get away, he wasn’t really headed anywhere.”

 I nodded.

 “So it was about the article then? Last night, I mean.’

 “You saw it yourself, Jez. The theatre was empty, there were like 10 people there at the most. I don’t think it’s ever been that bad before.”

 “It hasn’t been. But he has a plan, I know it. We’ll pull through.”  
 “I hope so. For his sake, ‘cause otherwise he’ll go crazy, you know.”

 Crazy. The word made me flinch. It seemed to bear some ungraspable meaning. Unnoticeable like the sharp whiff indicating the upcoming hale in the hot, summer day.

 “Was he really going crazy”, I asked myself and lied back on the soft grass, closing my eyes.

 I considered it for a moment. “And what if he actually was… how would I know?” He was thoughtful, yes, but did that necessarily mean nuts? He didn’t talk much, but then again, he never was much of a talker anyways. His silence had just gotten a bit more pronounced, that’s all.

 And then there was the fire to consider. Fire wasn’t exactly a new thing for him… okay that was an understatement- he lived and breathed fire, but over the last few weeks he just seemed to be absorbed in it somehow. Like there was a secret riddle hiding in there, deep within the flames. Whenever he lit a fire lately he just sat still with a cigar, burning forgotten between his fingers and stared at it. As if expecting it to answer something back at him. The focus, the despair, the… lunacy was so distinct in his eyes that sometimes it scared me.

 I know, I know what you’re thinking- “He’s an artist, right? He’s supposed to be all weird and mystical. It’s in his nature” and stuff, but this just wasn’t normal somehow. Not even for him and his perception of normal is really waaaay too broad. I tried to remember if I’d ever seen a crazy person before in my life so I could make a comparison. I could think of no one. A rag doll only sees her maker and an actress- her audience. Not much relationship in either of those. Not enough diversity that I could benefit from, in any case. Eventually I gave up with a sigh.

 I lied on the ground with my eyes closed, trying to pretend that everything was OK. That the wind wasn’t blowing so persistently and that it wasn’t so dry and heavy. I focused on the July sun, up in the sky. On the thick, comforting shadow of the tree next to me. A single ray of orange sunlight had pierced the thick web of branches and fallen directly on my face. My lips opened slightly, embracing the warmth. I let my toes curl in contentment as it gushed over, warming my whole body and I took my time, opening my eyes again. I let the thoughts back into my head one by one, let them slowly flow in one after the other in a neat column, so that I could actually make sense of any of them.  

 Thomas Colt and his artistic temperament. Thomas Colt and his creations. Tom and his fires, his cigarettes, his constant silence, his thoughts. Tom. My… Tom with his gentle fingers and his cotton-soft voice. His fragile whispers. I missed him. Missed the times when he looked at me with a twisted smile, winking playfully. I missed it when he used to care. When he was considerate, when he would repeat that I’m “perfect, his favorite, the best one”- silently, under his breath, and no one else but me would hear. He didn’t do that anymore. Not for a while now. I wondered again, for the hundredth time, what had changed? It could’ve been anything that had finally gotten to him – the weather, the article, me, Pierrot, Nathaniel, the play, the city, the traveling, the solitary life… Madness even- the possibilities were endless and they almost drove me insane just considering them.     

 Pierre’s voice rang in my ears again: “Crazy.”

 And if not crazy, what better word was there to describe what he had turned into. His masochistic insomnia, absentminded driving and one-word responses to everything. Actually “wrapped- up in a cocoon” seemed the most appropriate way to put it to words. Distant. Absorbed, and I was starting to think fire wasn’t the only thing that absorbed him. Taken in by something with green eyes, five legs and a hairy back, most likely.

 I exhaled loudly again angry at myself for wasting the afternoon with pointless inner monologues. As I rolled to the side I heard the low rumble of car tires over gravel on a road somewhere far behind the wall of bushes encircling the meadow.

 Tom was finally back. He turned the engine off and the sound died down gradually until I could hear the birds sing again. There was a pause between that and the opening of the door. I could picture him very clearly in my head- fidgeting with the key with distracted movements. I started humming to myself in a low voice. I didn’t want to leave yet. It was warm there, bright, spacious. The air was fresh and breathing seemed easier somehow. My heart beat freely and my mind was relaxed, floating with the clouds. My lips twisted slowly around the melody of a song I’d heard long ago, playing from an ill-tuned radio at a summer carnival we’d been to. I liked the strange edge my voice got when I sang it- the way it changed and whirled, sprinting from my parted lips. My fingers swayed to the rhythm lazily and I ignored his call although his voice made my heart spin like a flipped coin in my chest.

 “Jez!”

 Pause.

 “Pierre?”

 “Yeah, Tom, we’re here” he answered.

 I heard it as his boots stepped over the soft grass and glanced at him under my half closed eyelids. He looked magical crossing the meadow when hundreds of small crickets, bugs and butterflies jumped out of their hideouts under the grass and encircled his ankles as he walked, marking his way forward. I’d almost forgotten to breathe until his voice called to me again bringing me back to reality:

 “Hey, sweet sunflower” and glided his fingers over my bright yellow hair. I shivered unnoticeably and turned to face him.

 “So you’re finally up, huh? Did you sleep well?”

 “Mhm.”

 He shot a glance at the remains of the fire and frowned.

 “I- I’m sorry I took so long. You didn’t have any trouble, did you?”

 Pierrot smiled at him:

 “No, she just woke.”

 “Are we ready to go then?” I asked.

 “Yeah, sure. We’re ready, sunflower.”

 He picked me up and turned to the car. Pierre preferred to walk.

 My box was white with small, red flowers on it. He put me in carefully and left the lid off muttering:

 “It’s going to be a long trip anyway.”

 “Where are we going?” Pierre sat next to me.

 “I…” he dropped the keys and bent down to look for them. When he lifted his head again he was already panting: “…I, um, I don’t know yet. I mean, I’m not sure, we’ll see.

 Slowly the sentence turned into low mumble and I could hardly make out any words from the whole: “somewhere… don’t know… time… perfect… has to be… perfect…”

 Okay, well one thing was evident- he was gradually losing his ability to talk, period. I tuned to Pierrot as he whispered in my ear with a frown: “Weird.”

 “Very.”

 The sound of his chuckle drowned in a deeper voice coming from the back.

 “Oh, I do hope we’re going somewhere warm finally. My immune system is in an extremely delicate state and I simply can not afford another infection this summer. It would be a horrible waste of talent if I had to sneeze through yet another performance. Positively criminal, I tell you. And what would the people think of my- my… apchih… See, sneezing again. A most unfortunate turn of events. Oh, what shall I do? You- you don’t happen to have any tea in you, huh?”

 I bit my lips and answered before the laughter sprang out of me:

 “No, Nathaniel, sorry.”

 “Oh, I knew it. I should buy some napkins too.”

 I heard Pierre laugh and put my hand over my mouth to smother the sound bursting from my own lips.

 “I told you” he winked.

 The engine started and in front of me I saw Thomas moving his lips slowly. It looked like the shadow of the word: “Perfect”.

 “Crazy?” I wondered again. “Or obsessed?”

 Obsessed sounded about right to me, I decided.

  A thunder split the sky as soon as we got on the road.

 Just as I thought.

 The hale was rising.

Загубих се в дъжда,

някак си забравих пътя към дома,

някак си вървях напред,

оставях мислена следа по сухия лед.

Загубих се в нищото, но там беше и ти.

Стояхме забравени в нищото, сърце до сърце,

очите ни свят ги дели.

Протегнах ръка, вървейки в дъжда,

Кажи ми къде си, къде е дома.

Сърцето ти чувах, как бие с моето в такт,

затварях очи и виждах твоите в мрак.

И чувах гласът ти вътре в мен да шепти:

“Загубих се в теб” – ми казваше ти.

И отговарях ти аз: “Само с теб имам дом”

и отчаяно молех на глас

и на ум въздишах с писък и стон.

Видях те накрая,

там под дъжда. 

Редно ли беше не зная,

но тръгнах след теб към дома.

 Имало едно време едно момиче, което живеело в залеза. Косите й били златните лъчи на умиращото слънце. Гласът й се топял в приспивните песни на птиците. Очите й проблясвали в отражениятя на прозорците. Устните й били разтеглени в усмивката на хоризонта. Дворецът й бил безкрайното небе. Животът й бил като невероятна приказка, но и също толкова кратък- свършвал винаги преди полунощ. С край покрит в мрак, в който тя не можела да намери принца си. Обречена винаги да чака утрешния ден и да се надява: “ Утре ще бъде различно”- повтаряла си тя. Утре… отново и отново, преживявайки еддночасовата си приказка.

                                                                             ***

  Валеше- нежен, летен дъжд, който се топеше върху кожата ми и се носеше по реката до мен. Време, подходящо за приказки. Беше време, в което можеш да повярваш, че всичко е възможно. Дори само за миг- понякога е достатъчно. Понякога е нужно просто да отпуснеш въображението си и лебедите в далечината се превръщат в красиви принцеси. Трябва просто да присвиеш клепачи и банката от другата страна на улицата изглежда като страховит замък. За момент ми се зави свят. Затворих очи и си поех дълбоко дъх. Във въздуха се носеше сладък аромат на пролетни цветя, подгонен от вятъра. Бих могла да сънувам. Но не беше така. Не и тогава. Тази вечер, за първи път залеза щеше да ми донесе нещо истинско. Щях да получа своя край. Или поне нещо подобно.

 След като прекосих моста тръгнах към пейките, които бяха най-близко до фонтана. Всички бяха празни. Беше късно и може би хората просто искаха да се приберат вкъщи. Никой не поглеждаше към златното небе. Седнах и се огледах наоколо. Не бях нервна. Мислех, че ще бъда, но ръцете ми не трепереха и можех да усетя пулса си във вените ми- равен и спокоен. Не след дълго млада двойка седна на пейката до мен. Отново се огледах. Нямаше го. Въздъхнах с раздразнение. Че зашо да идва? Защо ми беше на мен да идвам?

 Изведнъж ме заля студена вълна паника, подтикваща ме да се прибера вкъщи и да забравя всичко веднъж- завинаги, но лесно я преодолях. Не ми се случваше за първи път.

 И все още чаках.

 Един мъж спря до перилата с гръб към водата и погледна към минувачите с необяснима настойчивост. За миг ми се стори, че видях някаква влудяваща надежда в погледа му, но после той се обърна и моментът отмина. Би могло да бъде всичко, казах си. “Абсолютно всичко” – повторих упорито, усещайки как малките колелца в главата ми се завъртат отново и започват да изграждат основата на нова история. Фантастична приказка за слава и богатства, сигурна съм. Невероятно приключение с красиви царски дъщери, митични същества, и смели, чаровни мъже… Не, стига толкова приказки със тъжен край. Омръзна ми да преследвам сънища като този, който ме доведе тук. Беше просто детска игра, но пък детските игри най-често излизат извън контрол. Просто ми се щеше да го знаех по- рано. Историята… тя си е все същата. Историята за момичето, което си мислело, че е принцеса. Въпреки че нямала замък, не била невероятно красива или невероят… така де въобще не била невероятна. Майка й не била зла, баща й не бил крал, а принцът й винаги се губел по пътя към високата й кула /не за друго, а просто защото въпросната кула била въображаема/. И въпреки това била убедена, че заслужава повече. Повече приключения, повече късмет, повече любов, повече от живот- заслужавала приказка. И понеже подходящата приказка още не била написана, тя взела картичката която леля й й изпратила от Женева и написала върху нея собствената си история.

 “Имало едно време, едно момиче”-написала тя и спряла за да помисли какво било момичето. Изведнъж засенчила очите си. Било късно и светлината на залеза почти я заслепявяла. А от другата страна на прозореца всичко било покрито със златни отблясъци. Харесвало й да мисли, че това било времето, когато друг свят се спускал от небето и колко хубаво би било да бъдеш част от него… “Момиче, което живеело в залеза”- написала и си помислила, какво по- подходящо време може да има за история от залеза.

                                                                               ***

 Писала до полунощ. Най-накрая, когато вдъхновението изчезнало и мастилото- засъхнало, тя го препрочитала отново и отново. Било все едно да гледаш в огледало, всяка дума- силует на различна мечта, отражение на душата й. Образ запечатан върху картичката в ръцете й. Част от нея живеела в думите й и можела да отиде навсякъде. Затова я изпратила. Написала набързо произволен адрес и тя изчезнала в пощенската кутия на края на улицата. Това било началото на историята, а краят я чакал 9 години по-късно на една пейка край Женевското езеро по залез-слънце.

 Времето върви бързо, нали? Дори не те чака да мигнеш. 9 години минаха преди да успея да си поема дъх. Тази вечер също го усещах, как ме преследваше безпощадно и въпреки това не се помръднах. Въображаемата земя, върху която стоях беше толкова крехка, че се притеснявах, че самото биене на сърцето ми, може да я разруши Затова просто стоях и чаках Нещо трябваше да се случи, нали? Господ знае, че бях направила достатъчно за тази история за да може от тук нататък тя да продължи сама. И въпреки това нищо не стана, докато минутите се трупаха върху слънцето, притискайки го надолу към центъра на света. Далечна капка от фонтана достигна лицето ми през вятъра. Отказвах да повярвам, че е сълза. Изтрих я и оставих лъчите на слънцето да ме погалят за последно. И след това изчезнаха, просто така. За миг небето отново беше сиво. Инстинктивно отрекох края. Като дете, което не иска да си признае, че е загубило играта прекарах няколко болезнени минути, гледайки хората наоколо. Всеки със своя собствена приказка, която да изживее. Нито един от тях нямаше нужда от мен. Двойката до мен беше все така влюбена както и преди и не би забелязяла никой за нищо на света. Стиснах чантата си с внезапно желание да докажа на себе си, че все още имам контрол над нещо.

 И го видях. Просто мигнах и то беше там, пред мен, изкушаващо ме да се приближа и да погледна от близо. Все едно не знаех точно какво е. Мъжът до перилата се беше обърнал отново. Главата му беше наведена. Някъде през последния полувин час раменете му се бяха отпуснали. Ръцете му бяха потънали дълбоко в джобовете му… и той ме държеше в треперещите си пръсти. Палтото му беше старо и изстаняло от носене и очертанията на юмруците му си личаха дори и на тази светлина. И там бях аз- сгушена на сигурно до лявата му ръка. Ъгълчето на стара, черно-бяла картичка, която не вярвах, че някога ще видя отново. Част от мен, която мислех, че съм загубила, когато бях на 9 в онази пощенска кутия. Сън заключен в залеза.

 За миг бях готова да го последвам, когато осъзнах че мястото му беше там- в златната линия на хоризонта, в края, който така и не получих. Сега той имаше собствен живот, който да следва. Беше ми трудно да изоставя част от себе си просто така, но го направих, трябваше. Трябваше да спра да тичам и да се оставя съдбата ми най-накрая да ме настигне.

 Забравен глас се наддигна някъде вътре в мен за да завърши историята едно момиче, което живеело в златен сън:

 “И така та намерила края си, но той бил само началото. А какво по-подходящо време може да има за едно начало от изгрева.”

 Петък вечер е вечер на театъра. Както всяка петък вечер. Звукът на барабани и тромпети изпълваше въздуха с излишно напрежение и тълпата потреперваше при мисълта за тазвечершното шоу. Трепереха и се чудеха- кой ли ще видят тази вечер? Нека да се чудят, казвам аз. Нека бъде изненада. Нека вярват че е истина, понякога ми се иска и аз да можех да го повярвам.

 Опитах се да си проправя път до вратата, но някой хвана палтото ми и ме избута назад.

 -Нареди се на опашката!

 Докато падах на земятя чувах как хората около мен се смеят весело.

 Има нещо в тази вечер. Небето беше тъмно, а звездите- необичайно тихи, някак далечни. Трептящите им светлинки бяха изчезнали и изведнъж ме връхлетя самота сякаш предизвикана от загубата на приятел. Вместо да се изправя, седнах на земята и загледах как хората минават през вратите. Жени, сгушили се нежно в съпрузите си, деца- молещи родителите си за балон:

 -Само един, мамо, моля те! Моля те, купи ми червения! Искам червения, мамо мооооля тееееее!

 Група приятели стояха до вратата. Две момчета и три момичета. Едно от тях се обърна и за миг сърцето ми подскочи, щом сякаш разпознах очите, но лицето бе друго. Примигнах и поклатих глава. Било е грешка разбира се, но мога да се закълна че ги видях, дори за секунда. Очите, погледа и онази усмивка, която накара ъгълчетата на устата ми да заиграят нервно. Те влизат, треперещите им ръце държат смачкани билети, и опашката се предвижва напред. Едно по едно лицата изчезваха, гласовете отшумяваха, докато на площада не останах само аз. Аз и маската. Голямото, метално лице върху плакатите около мен.

 “Човекът без лице, гласът на целия свят!”

 Това е просто реклама която никой не чете, но все пак звучи добре, нали. Човекът без лице. Че какво толкова важно може да има в едно лице, така или иначе? Очите лъжат, мигли пърхат с валшива скромност, зачервените страни издават чувства, който въобще не сте искали да кажете. Веждите се издигат във въпроси, чийто отговор не искате да знаете. Усмевки, блестящи по-силно от слънцето заслепяват, подиграват се, подвеждат, засрамват, радват се когато сърцето плаче и окуражават онова което то би отхвърлило.  Лицата лъжат постоянно, просто това им е работата. А да лъжеш с изражение означава самият ти да си лъжа. Затова аз нося маска. По- добре съм без лице. Не устните разказват историята, а гласовете. Въображението се провокира с думи, не с усмивки и сълзи. Предполагам до този момент моите думи просто се оказаха по-силни от смеха и плача на други.

 Бавно се изправих и изтръсках палтото си. Вече бе почти девет. Публиката сигурно беше нервна. Но аз не бързах. И без това не мисля, че щеше им хареса това което имах да им кажа тази вечер.

 Възрастната дама зад гишето ме погледна подозрително докато й подадох билета си. Изглеждаше изстанял и смачкан и тя очевидно се чудеше дали не е откраднат.

-Ще закъснееш. Зпочва всеки момент.

-Не и без мен.

 Погледна ме снизходително и ме пусна да вляза. Вътре хората бяха шумни и никой не ми обърна внимание докато се промъкнах в сянката на задния ред.  Изчаках търпеливо докато предишното представление свърши за да извадя маската от джоба си. Металът бе студен между пръстите ми, тъмен като дълбок трап в който трябва да скоча, поглъщащ ме със заслепявяща красота.

 Акктьорите напуснаха сцената под нетърпеливи аплодисменти. Светлините изгаснаха. В театъра настъпи тишина в която дори повторното включване на прожекторите прозвуча като изстрел. Но човекът, който всички бяха дошли да видят не беше на сцената. Произволни ръкопляскания се смесиха с груби псувни. Изведнъж тънък силоет се появи от завесите, някой се опита да хвъли нещо по него, но той бе прекалено малка мишена и те пропуснаха. Най-накрая той се обърна към публиката и сивия блясък на лицето му надвика всички.

 Почти можех да видя мислите им- изненадани, объркани. Учудени.

 Хвърлих старото си палто и липсата на сценичен костюм отдолу почти ги шокира. По изражението на лицата им познах, че най-накрая бяха започнали да разбират- тази нощ щеше да им донесе нещо различно. Нещо много по-познато. Някой толкова обикновен, че би могъл да е всеки- пакостлив син, красива дъщеря, любяща майка, отгворен баща. Можех да съм брата, който винаги сте искали да имате или веселата леля, която ви е давала сладки като малки. Можеше да съм дори и ти- самия. Човекът без лице.

 Тази вечер изобщо не чувствах увереност, но по-добре да започна да говоря докато все още мълчат.

 -Чудили ли сте се някога защо идвате тук?- попитах ги и веднага разбрах че не са- Аз се чудя. Питам се това всяка петък вечер, когато ви видя. Историите са си истории и са повечето дори са хубави, но какво е спициалното в този час който прекарвате тук? Театъра ли? Слабото, романтично осветление? Чувството да си в зала пълна с хора споделящи едни с същи емоции? Или може би съм аз? Гласът ми, маската ми? Не, това е мистерията на непознатото. Аз говоря за прелестни богини, рядки скъпоценности, душата на природата, неограничената свобода на птиците и тъжни приказки. Говоря за мечти които никой не е виждал или чувствал. Неща които не се случват вече. Аз съм непознатото и ви привличам с красотата на недостижимото. Идвате за да свалите маската ми и да видите истинското ми лице.

 Поех си дъх и чух вик от дъното на залата:

 -Свали я!

 Усмихнах се:

 -Ще го направя… донякъде. Това което трябва да разберете, е че тази вечер е посветена на нещо много по-обичайно и просто. Тайните.

 Да, тайните. И нека е пределно ясно, че нямам предвид лъжи. Не говоря за неща които просто сте забравили да кажете на майка си на вечеря или срамни истини които никой не иска да чуе. Имам предвид свещенни моменти на греховно удоволствие и божествено страдание, които държим близо до сърцето си. Които са самото сърце. Моменти които са ви променили. Един кратък отрязък от време, минути, понякога дори само секунди, достатъчни за да може душата ви да изгори в рламъците на страх, страст или щастие и да се прероди отново. Говоря за силни емоции които преминават през тялото ви толкова бързо, че ви се завива свят. И колкото повече се стараеш да ги задържиш, толкова по-бързо си отиват и единственото нещо нещо което остава запазиш е споменът. И вие, всики един от вас го пази,… но го пази в тайна, защото знае че никой не би разбрал нещо предназначено само за него самия.

 Сега те слушаха, защото вече говорех за тях. Лицата им бяха само очи, търсещи моите и уши отворени не за думи, а мисли които не можеха да чуят. И аз заговорих, защото сега моите тайни щяха да станат техни.

 -Тази сряда се влюбих от пръв поглед.

 Погледнах към тълпата и тя ме погледна обратно. Очакващо. Учудено.

 Премигнах с неудобство. Някъде в тъмнината, някой бе впил безмилостно поглед в мен. Потреперих, но никой не го видя. Едно лице се наведе напред и аз отстъпих инстинктивно на сцената. Усетих как краката ми се подкосиха и се притесних че ще падна. Очите бяха любопитни, хвърлящи невидими стрели за да преследват крехкия ми дъх. Беше лице което вече познавах, но не смеех да сънувам. Една единствена, колеблива усмивка беше достатъчна за да изкара думи от устата ми. Отново се обърнах към публиката.

 -Влюбих се и това е началото, средата и края на тазвечершното магическо пътешествие в света на фантазията. Това е цялата история и не искам да я развалям като говоря по-вече от колкото трябва. Ни искам да я прикривам с думи докато докато вече не можете да си спомните истинската същност и сърцевина на най-хубавата тайна, която имам да споделя. Ако бях Шекспир, може би щях да съчиня трагедия, но няма нищо трагично в това да разбереш, че смисълът на целия ти живот се крие в усмивката на едно непознато лице. Кой сюжет би бил по-значим от онзи единствен миг в който очите ви се срещат и се чувствате като Адам и Ева в рая- сами, голи, незаинтересовани от нищо друго освен собственото си присъствие. Може да сте на километри един от друг и все пак кожата ви потреперва при допира на вятъра сякаш са пръстите на нежен любовник. Какъв по-щастлив край може да има от този да видиш устни, разтеглени в устмивка която знаеш че няма да подарят на никой друг. Усмивка специално за теб- самия. Усмивка която ти казва, че не само твоето сърце е изгубило пътя си през последните няколко минути и е спряло да попита за посоките. Един писател би поискал герои. От какви герои би имала нужда една любовна история, когато вече има двойка. Адам и Ева. Пръсти сключени все едно в плътна прегръдка. Тя и аз и устните ни нямат нужда от диалог за да се движат.

 Наклоних глава- през цялата вечер не успях да събера куража да погледна лицето, усмихващо се в тъмното. Прекалено много се притеснявах, че очите, чийто поглед все още усещах върху себе си, ще се разпознаят в думите ми.

 -Срещнах едно момиче. –Усмихнах се. –Тя би могла да бъде всяка, но не беше. Би била невидима ако не беше себе си. Косата й щеше да е кестенява ако не беше с цвета на разтопен шоколад. Очите й бяха като нажежени въглени или сега нямаше да говоря за тях. А устните й… устните й бяха като отпечатък на целувка. Приличаха на пърхащите крила на славей, бягащи от съня в който се опитвах да ги заключа.

 Ако пазейки това в тайна щях да получа нещо- щастие, удовлетворение, никога нямаше да го узнаете. Но истината е, че ако никой не знае сякаш не се е случило. Истината е, че тайнете не струват нищо освен ако не ги споделиш с някой, който няма нужда от думи за да те разбере.

 Осмелих се да погледна към очите, разсъбличащи ме през цялата вечер. Изчервих се и мисля че те го видяха.

 -Ако се чудите защо споделих това с вас, то е защото тази вечер, тук в тази зала има един човек, когото не мога да спра да сънувам и се надявам, че тази вечер и той ще ме сънува.

 Объркан шепот се наддигна от публиката и любопитни глави започнаха да се въртят наоколо. Никой не ме видя да изчезвам зад завесата. Чувах как нечий ръце ръкопляскаха, но не се обърнах.

 Скрих се в един килер както след всяко шоу. Имаше слаба крушка и едно малко огледало. Облякох палтото си и свалих маската.

 Огледалото видя момиче. Имаше тъмни очи и кестенява коса. Устните й бяха бледи, плътни и широки. Имаше маска в джоба си и тайна, която изгаряше страните й в ярко червено. Тази сряда тя се влюби от пръв поглед. Той беше с руса, къдрава коса, устни които искаше да бележи със своите и сини очи толкова дълбоки, че тази вечер тя почти се удави в тях. Никога нямаше да разбере какво мисли той за нея, но преди броени минути успя да убеди всички, че мъжът на мечтите й, мечтаеше за нея.

 Успя да убеди всички, но не и себе си.

 Понякога ме се иска да можеше стане обратното.   

 Имаше нещо в тази вечер. Звездите бяха изчезнали от небето, хората бяха нервни. Въздухът-  наситен с напрежение. Ако беше някоя друга вечер щях просто да се прибера у дома. Но онази нощ просто не би позволила да бъде предсказуема. Един сън проговори с мъжки глас някъде зад гърба ми:

 -Не потреперих, знаеш ли?

 Обърнах се. Той се усмихваше и умът ми беше прекалено зает да запази спомена за да разбере думите му.

 -Моля?

 Той се засмя и се приближи към мен.

 -Позна всичко останало, но не потреперих. Не знам защо го каза.

 Гласът ми беше странно дрезгав, но въпреки това проговорих.:

 -Защото аз потреперих.

 -О. –Кимна. –Е, щом знаеш всичко, можеш ли да ми кажеш какво ще направя сега?

 Усмихнах се:

 -Предпочитам да е изненада.

 Беше петък и тълпата пред театъра търсеше шоу. На площада имаше млада двойка- той беше рус, а тя- брюнетка и странно позната от някъде. Той я целуна и тя му отвърна. Някои спряха за да ги погледнат и да се опитат да отгатнат какво ли ще бъде представлението следващата седмица. Гледаха и се чудеха. Нервни. Въодушевени.

 Нека се чудят.

 Погледна ме и прокървих. Усетих го просто- кръвта ми така забушува, че не можеше да си намери вече място в тялото ми. Прелях като чаша с шампанско- прекипели емоции като игрива пяна си проправяха път през всяка една пора от крехкото ми тяло.

 След като най-накрая отделих очи от хипнотизиращия й поглед, видях че се усмихваше. Прекрасна беше- порцеланова кожа; големи, сини очи; буйни масури руса коса, обгръщащи най-деликатното лице на света… и нежни, бледи устни, които бих сънувал и наяве.

 Така стана, за секунда се влюбих. Може би не беше редно, но реших, че на всяка цена трябва да я имам. Там. На момента.

 Обърнах се към жената до себе си, побутнах я леко и, сочейки към витрината за детски играчки, й казах с все още тънкото си, слабо гласче:

 -Мамо, искам онази кукла!

 Прочети ме. Разгърни ме.

 Аз съм отрова. Дума с душа, изречение с тяло. Върху прашните ми корици блестят съблазнително червени букви: “Внимание! Опасност!”

 Шепна с шумолящи листи. Разгърни ме. Прочети ме. Докосни ме с поглед. Целуни ме с мисъл и ще оживея- с кожа, бяла като слонова кост и мастилено черни очи.

 Тук съм. Погледни ме и ще открадна сърцето ти през жадните ти очи. Обичам те, усмихни се- на сигурно си тук, заровен между редовете, разкъсван от мечти сред пожълтели страници.

 Сигурно сега, след като те оковах в хартиения си затвор, ще ме намразиш. Но вече сме заедно. Усмихни се, виж как завистливо ни гледат всички. Възползвай се и ги омай! Говори им! Точно така- тихо, шепнешком:

 “Тук съм…  чуй ме…   обичай ме…   прочети ме…“

 Fire.

 Even as a thought, it feels like the word is burning a hole inside of me. Like the end of a cigar, lit by trembling fingers.

 Fire.

 It sounds like a whisper. Carelessly pronounced and cast by the wind. Cracking with childish laughter at a joke nobody else gets. Twisting slowly around the vine of a blooming daisy. The flames carefully caressing the petals. Gently, lovingly. You’d think they’re making love.

 Fire.

 Vicious flames and joyous sparkles. Party fireworks and candlesticks soaked with the fuggy smell of church wax. Bengal and matchstick light gleaming in perfect unison, their low fuss barely audible. Their secrets melted down to a soothing crackle. It sounds like a fairytale. Like a soft voice murmuring unintelligible words in the dark, luring you to sleep, tempting you to dream. It sounds like the wicked purr of a hungry Siamese cat just before it starts chewing on your favorite pair of shoes. Like the hiss of butter in the cooking pan at breakfast. It’s suffocating, splitting the air in small pieces you can not inhale.

 Oh, I remember it. The fireplace. The bricks above my head turned red from the heat coming from the burning coal beneath me. 81 bricks at the wall behind me, 54 above my head and 49 forming the arc through witch I heard his voice whisper.

 (“Sunflower, roses, daisies, jasmine… roses, roses, roses……”)

 I counted them all. I knew the exact place of every spider web that’d managed to survive through the smoke in that chimney. As it appears, when you’re burning, you suddenly find yourself with too much time on your hands. When you’re in pain hours are an unlimited resource. I’d count the stars for you if I could see them. Mind you, I didn’t even know when it was day or night. The whispering voice beside the fireplace never slept. Its sound was low and constant, like the ticking of an old clock, gathering dust at the mantelpiece. It talked to me as I crash and burned in the fire.

 I guess that’s what Lex wanted to know. The pain. A detailed description of the whole excruciating experience. A personal tour through my worst nightmare. His voice was excited, ringing with anxiety. 

 “What makes you tick?”

 It was an easy enough question.

 Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire……      

 Easy enough to answer, but standing in the darkness of the cellar the word somehow managed to escape me. I should have remembered the pain, the coal, the smell, the soothing voice, but they got lost in the shadows somehow. Frightened by his wicked smile in front of me, the memory shivered from the teasing gleam in his eyes.

 “You know, don’t you. You know… how it works.”

 The inciting gleam intensified. He touched me gently, his fingers stroking my face with impatient affection.

 “Tell me!”

 His fingers tightened around my face, as if trying to extract the answer straight from my mind. I wanted to close my eyes, but his gaze was too persistent. Gone wild with curiosity and obsession. His breath was soaked with the wine from his glass and I felt dizzy. He stroked my face again and I wanted to tell him everything.

 Maybe I should have. Who knows if it would have made any difference anyway.

 Fire, fire, fire.

 It’s only a word after all. Sending shivers up your spine. Feasting on the secrets it extracts from you, feasting on the flesh. Glowing with a wicked sparkle. Whirling in a wild dance around your body. I think of that moment in the cellar when his fingers traced the lines of my face. How they lingered on the curve of my neck. How they pressed closely to my heart. From the side the gesture looks loving, gentle. Flames and daisies and they reel around each other, flirting uncontrollably. You’d say they’re making love.

 If only daisies could scream… maybe then you’d think different.

 I smelt fire.

 Burning paper.

 Flames and daises.

 I woke up abruptly as the bitter scent of ashes reached my nose. My hand shot up to my eyes when I suddenly realized they were wet.

 I looked around. Someone had lit a fire just a few feet away from me. The burnt paper and fast-wilting petals of the flowers around it were already melting into the same dirty brown color.
 I frowned. Tom had always had a thing for fire, but I still couldn’t bring myself to tolerate his unexpected outbursts of insanity and impatience with the outside world. They usually led to open fires. I tried to ignore it and looked away decisively.

 There was a light breeze in the air and I stretched with a lazy smile on my face as the July air moved almost unwillingly, playing with my hair and the grass beneath my body.

 I could tell it was past midday already, by the way the shadow of the tree above had stretched over me. A single ray of orange sunlight had pierced the thick web of branches and fallen directly on my face. My lips opened slightly, embracing the warmth. I let my toes curl in contentment as it gushed over, warming my whole body and I took my time, opening my eyes.

 Leaning against the trunk of the tree there was a rag doll, sitting with its eyes closed, head tilted slightly towards the direction of the wind. He didn’t seem to notice me for a while. I watched his body relax as he took a few deep breaths, smiled and then finally turned to look at me.

 “Was it that bad then?” I asked.   

 Next to us the fire had almost gone out, but the smell remained. Pierrot looked at the pile of ashes and his eyebrows crossed uncomfortably. He hesitated.

 “It could have been worse, I guess. He took it really bad, though.” He considered something and then went on. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen him go that mad over an article. I think there’s something going on with him lately.”

 “Well, I can’t say I really blame him, you know. We really blew it last time.” I tried to sound more positive. “But we’ll nail them tonight, right?”

 I winked at him encouragingly. He laughed and shrugged without enthusiasm:

 “Maybe.”

 I lied down on the soft grass again enjoying the sun while it lasted. I knew we had to be on our way soon enough if we were going to keep up to our schedule. But I didn’t want to leave yet. It was warm here, bright, spacious. The air was fresh and the birds were singing. Breathing seemed easier. My heart beat freely and my mind was relaxed, floating with the clouds. My lips twisted slowly around the melody of a song I’d heard long ago, playing from an ill-tuned radio at a summer carnival we’d been to. I liked the strange edge my voice got when I sang it, the way it changed and whirled, sprinting from my parted lips. My fingers swayed to the rhythm and I dreamt again, of that summer, when things were simpler.

                           —

 “John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt, that’s my name too. Whenever we go out, the people always shout: There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt.”

 That was Pierrot’s and my favorite song when we were on the road. It made us laugh and forget about the prison boxes we were always kept in. But today Thomas wasn’t in the mood to hear us sing, so he hit the lid with his fist as he drove the car.

 “Shut up for a second, will you.”

 He sounded impatient, irritated again. I looked at Pierrot with an uncomfortable smile on my face.

 “Oooops.”

 He laughed. He always found my weak jokes funny and said it was my expression that did it for him. He said I was a good actress. I still didn’t know if I should trust him on that one.

 “You’re right, there really is something going on with him lately. Do you think it’s only because of the article? Because we’re not doing too good?”

 “I don’t know. Maybe, but then again we’ve done badly before, right. He used to take it better; it didn’t bother him as much. I don’t think it’s that or he would have said something.”

 I nodded, lost in my mind for a minute, trying to figure out how best to put it.

 “You know, I was thinking… have you noticed how lately he… umm well, spends a lot of time alone and lights up fires all the time and looks at his tools more often and… “

 “… is always thoughtful and looks like he’s concentrating hard on something invisible trying to make it appear out of thin air?” Pierrot finished my sentence.

 I nodded.

 “Yeah, exactly.”

 There was a short, nervous silence.

 “I wouldn’t worry about it, Jez” he said with a half smile on his strained face.

 He looked worried and I imagine that my own expression wasn’t much more composed.

 “I… Well, I just thought that he usually looks like that when… you know, when he’s working on something new.”

 “I doubt it” he said curtly and then added with a softer voice “Like I said, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

 His half smile appeared again and again failed to convince me.

 I wondered if Thomas really intended to make a new rag doll. He surely didn’t need one. The play we performed already had enough characters as it was.

 Would he change it?

 I doubted that. He wasn’t all that creative when it came to words and writing.

 And there was of course that other possibility, but I didn’t want to think about that right now.       

 I turned back to Pierrot. His face was so bright that I could easily make out all of his features even in the darkness of the box we were in. It was like something radiated from him, like he was both the sun and the moon at the same time. I liked it when, at long trips, Thomas decided to put us under the same lid, so that we could keep each other company. I was never as lonely in the box, with him inside it. Never as sad.

 We stood like that for a while, smiling at each other in the darkness and then he picked up the old tune quietly, so that Tom wouldn’t hear from behind the wheel.

 “John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt, that’s my name too, whenever we go out the people always shout…”

 “… there goes John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt” I finished and both our voices melted into the: “La la la la la la la…” with a jolly laughter.

 We traveled for a long time. I don’t know exactly how long since I have no watch, but when we finally got there my limbs were stiff from sitting in the same attitude for so long and it was dark outside. I suppose Tom thought that the longer the drive the bigger was possibility we’d finally arrive at a place where people hadn’t read that ominous article at the newspaper today:

 “Thomas Colt’s recently turned famous rag dolls playing “Cinder bride” proved to be a real disappointment. Not even the fascinating rag dolls could make up for the weak dialogue and uninspired performance” – Pierrot had quoted for me. I supposed that would be enough to put Tom in a bad mood, but he seemed to have collected himself as we prepared for the show tonight. He bit his lips and squinted as I looked at him as if the stars suddenly blinded him and he had to look away. It was weird of him acting this way. Unnatural. I decided not to pay attention to it and forced a smile.

 “That’s my girl” he encouraged and my heart skipped a beat as his soft, velvet, hoarse from the cigars voice embraced me. My smile widened and I felt I could fly. It was stupid to worry. What would he need another rag doll for? No, it was all well, I assured myself, laughing at my unreasonable fears. Maybe this really was all about the stupid column. It would pass soon enough, I thought and walked up on the stage more sparkling than ever. When the time came for the curtains to be drawn, we bowed under a wave of applause that ought to have made up for every disapproving word anyone had ever said about us. As we were getting ready to leave someone brought me flowers and congratulated me on my performance. Tom winked at me behind his shoulder and hugged me tightly on the way to the car. The night was warm, the air sliding through the open windows- fresh and fragrant with the smell of wild berries and distant, cold streams. That night we all sang along with the radio, blasting in the small car. Then, we fell asleep under the sound of the light, summer rain.

 It seemed like not even a single atom was out of its place in the whole universe. Like I said, nothing to worry about.

                              —

 Next morning, at the break of down, we stopped in front of an old lawn full of weeds and untrimmed bushes. He rented an old bungalow just out side of the nearby town and unpacked all of his luggage in the single room of the archaic building. I couldn’t stop fidgeting while he arranged the table. His face was frantic as he looked at his burin and his nippers. He had pulled out all five types of scissors and a whole box full of different needles. 

 It didn’t take long for me to realize I was wrong. It wasn’t going to pass at all. It only got stronger and more visible as the weeks went by. As if whatever was bothering him was sinking its teeth deeper into his skin, spilling venom through his veins and to his heart. He started acting weird. His days turned into a series of silent trances forming one mad, introverted existence. He would spent days just sitting in his improvised workshop staring at the fire or at his tools. Thinking. Smoking non-stop. The room was always full of smoke lately. Either from the suffocating heat coming from the mantle-piece or from the end of his burning cigar. At the beginning I tried not to think about it. Yeah, like I could do anything anyway. Like any of us could help. Pierrot tried to talk to him once. Poor, innocent, kind Pierrot. I doubt if Tom even heard him. I doubted he’d ever listen to him or any of us at all. So we waited, patient in our boxes, for his mood to finally change.

 Some days he yelled at us for no reason, others- he wouldn’t do so much as mutter a single word every now and then. And then, there were the days when he went out. He left for hours at e time, always returning with big packages that stood unopened in the corner of the room, as if he was afraid they’d attract too much attention to themselves.

 Days stretched and mingled into sleepless nights. What was before a week now seemed like a month and a month to us equaled an eternity. It was as if the sun didn’t want to set in the ground, as if the moon took too long to hide behind the clouds at dawn. Some mornings I wondered if dawn was coming at all. It felt like the night had taken so long that the sun had missed its turn to shine today.

 And then, just as we wondered how much longer could he keep on living like this, surviving on cigars, no food, no sleep and the little money we’d made at our last show, while constantly spending more and more on those mysterious boxes and paper-wrapped packages, he muttered between two pulls from his smoke:

 “We have a show tomorrow night” and fell silent again as if nothing had happened.

 The rag dolls around me started to whisper quietly between themselves. What did this mean? Had he gone back to normal? Would we start traveling again? And most importantly- was he making another rag doll? The others thought not. They were certain it would be useless, that he didn’t need one. That whatever troubles we had we could go through them without a new addition. I knew better.

 Early next morning he started getting ready. Our costumes needed to be cleaned, we had to wash our hairs and our faces, clean ourselves from the smell of smoke in the bungalow. Some wanted to practice their lines again. I knew mine by heart already.

 I looked at Tom as he walked around all day, working though his mind was obviously still somewhere else. His footsteps were light on the floor, already barely audible. His face was a pale shade of grey and there were big circles around his eyes. There was no spark left in him, it seemed like he was slowly disappearing into a cloud of despair I couldn’t understand.

 Time came that we should get ready to leave.

 I looked at my dress with a deep frown on my face as something sharp pinned itself at my heart like the sting of a merciless bee.

 A bridal dress. And yet I didn’t feel like a bride. I felt neither happy, nor pretty. He looked at me judgingly from head to toe until finally he focused on my face and forced a tired, unconvincing smile.

 “You’re beautiful” he told me. But his eyes were not impressed. The callous bee stung deeper into my heart.

 “You’re my favorite” he said. But as much as I wanted to believe him I couldn’t. The more I craved for the relief to flow over my body, the stronger I shivered, the harder it was to blink with the tears in my eyes. The tighter I pressed my lips so that I wouldn’t scream out the panic that built up in my throat.

 His touch was cold as he picked me up gently and took me to the car. I curled in a ball in his hands to fell some warmth, but he was too cool, like lying in a bed of ice-cubes. I tried to remember if he’d been like that before. I tried to think back to when he had last touched me to convince my self that I wasn’t just imagining his softness. I tried to convince myself that there had been indeed some sunny glow in him that was now gone, that I wasn’t mourning an imaginary loss. But remembering only made the contrast stronger, so I just closed my eyes and started reciting my lines as a diversion. It worked and soon enough I was in the box again, the lid- carefully closed over my head, the sound of the engine buzzing in my ears.

 The night was dark and silent. We stopped at a narrow street with no public lighting; the loudest sound came from the low vibrating of the wings of a cricket in the distance. Tom took us in one by one. I could hear the door slap behind him every time, the rumbling gravel beneath the heels of his shoes. When my turn came I peeped curiously from under the lid. The street was empty- I hoped that meant that all the people were inside already. On the brick wall, on the right from the entrance gate there was a single, faded poster of all of us, sitting on a dusty stage with mysterious grins stretched over our faces. It was a poor resemblance, but it was all we could afford after Tom had bought the costumes. The copy was old and faded- we only had a few of them and we’d already given our best to the bigger theaters at Nice. Not that that had made any difference there. We never managed to impress the pretentious crowds that always seemed to be a step ahead of us no matter what we did.

 I wondered where we were now and whether the audience here would like us.

 Just as it looked from the outside, the theatre hall was very small. The stage had obviously seen too little performances in its time… or way too many, depending on the way you would look at it. It was old and half- broken. The walls were lit by about two dozens of candles. I tried to remember the last time we’d been to a theatre where they still used candles. It must have been a decade now. I amused myself for a while by guessing weather they were old- fashioned or just old. Or maybe both. The thought brought a hopeful smile on my face- old people were nicer, less arrogant- they wouldn’t boo or throw bad fruit at us. Maybe this wouldn’t be so catastrophic after all.

 Wrong again.

 As I shot a quick glance through the curtains I saw that the dark saloon was full. Apparently they really were all of them gathered here. In any other town this would be incredibly good news, but here it just meant they’ d be a lot more critical since we were obviously the only amusement available in a radius of… well, more miles than I could count I’m sure.

 I looked at Pierrot. He tried to smile, but the corners of his mouth barely twitched. Beside him sat Nathaniel- our grumpy priest… still grumpy as usual and fidgeting behind me were the twins Jenny and Jules- the jujus. They played the ugly sisters, a part I considered extremely unsuitable for them. I mean, it’s not like they were actually pretty or anything, but every time I looked at them all I saw was the mischievous spark in their eyes and their childish giggles. I rolled my eyes impatiently as they poked at their ribs and shrieked fascinated by their improvised game behind my back. Their mother Velma threw them a stern look and they quieted down with merry smirks on their pale, similar faces.

 I turned around. Tom had just appeared from an office room across from me and sat on chair from where he could watch the play, hidden behind the curtains. He gave a short nod to an old man with weary eyes who pulled a rope to unveil us to the audience.

 The candlelight was weak- it hardly reached my skin, but it made me feel better somehow, safer. I kept glancing back at Tom every few minutes. He had lit a cigarette despite the warnings of the proprietor and he lifted it to his lips every half a minute or so, as if he didn’t even realize the movement. His gaze was fixed in the ground a few feet away from him. I thought he looked like someone searching for something. His somewhat tensed posture hardly changed all through the evening. Towards the end he lifted his eyes and started moving them slowly from face to face around the audience. Something was very wrong and it made me nervous.

 I was sweating. Unnatural for me, but it happened. And I forgot my line. I forgot the words- either that or a part of me just didn’t want to say them anymore.
 “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

 Do I?

 The audience was eager for a confirmation. I could almost see their lips whispering:” ”Say it!”  A confirmation at the price of anything. They didn’t care if I meant it as long as I kept to the script and gave them their happy ending.

 I turned to Tom again to see if he was looking at me. I needed to know whether making the sacrifice of saying a fake vow for the hundredth was worth while. That he appreciated it.

 He was still glaring at the people. His eyes were moving quickly as if searching for an old friend. Dissecting the audience with an unblinking gaze. All the sudden it felt like all the air sprung out of my lungs and tightened around my throat… He used to look at me like that. As if we had a secret, no one else knew. As if I was a mystery he was trying to uncover. Now, he was looking away. Searching for an inspiration; boredom soaked in his tensed movements and pouring out of his heavy eyelids. The smoke from his cigar choked me from across the room.

 It was magic that he hoped to find somewhere in the dark saloon. A new mystery was waiting to be found in one of those unfamiliar faces. I swallowed with difficulty. He was searching for adventure, passion, new secrets to share. Another rag doll.

 ”Jez.””

 A better rag doll.

 ”Jez.””

 A bride.

 ”Jez!?””

 A new me.

 ”Jezerel!””

 I turned around to Pierrot and closed my eyes so he wouldn’t see the tears. The people were still waiting for their confirmation.

 ”Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?””

 Pierre’s eyes were concerned; his sweet, innocent face- curled up in confusion. A rag doll in a black costume. It was nice of him to care and I forced a smile.

 ”I do.””

 I didn’t mean it, but what did it matter, anyway?

 The curtain fell over a wave of applause that crushed me to the ground. I tried to brush my eyes, but my hand was still in his and he wouldn’t let go.

 ”What happened?””

 I looked at him- he reminded me of warm milk and honey with eyes, sparkling like merry Christmas lights. My hesitation lasted only a second.

 ”He’s going to replace me.””

 It took him a second to realize what I meant. Then he just frowned with disbelief and a certain amount of shock. I suppose he wanted to look enraged, but it didn’t look natural on his sweet face. When I focused harder on his features I spotted the well conceived marks of pretending. He was a good actor, but not so much that I wouldn’t see- he had expected this all along, but still he clenched his fists, popped his eyeball as far as he could and flared his nostrils in a funny way, all for my benefit.   

 “”No. Jez!”

 My name was barely a whisper from his lips, but in the silence that’d blocked my ears it was all I could hear.

 Behind us the proprietor was bombarding Tom with compliments hoping to drag an answer out of him. It wasn’t going to happen any time soon, obviously.

 “Great show, Tom. Same thing next week, huh?”

 I turned around and saw Tom award him with a lazy nod without even looking up from the ground.

 “Tom, are you OK?”

 He lifted his gaze slowly and disorientated as if just waking up from a dream. A smile lit his face and he responded with anxiety I’d never before heard in his voice.

 “Sure thing, mate. I’ll even have a surprise for you.”

                     To be continued…