574
Horror story
& Quot; ... I lived in a village woman - her name was Barbara - that everyone thought a fool blessed. Unsociable and ugly it was, and no one even knew how old she was - her skin was smooth, but the sight of such, as if everything in the world has long been weary of it. However, Barbara rarely focus it on someone's face - she was too closed to communicate even eyes. The strangest thing was that no one could remember how it appeared in the village.
After the war, the confusion was gone, many, aliens, by contrast, came, some were good. Probably, it was one of these pilgrims in search of a better fate. She took the most extreme of unoccupied houses in the forest, very old and small, and for ten or twenty years drove him to a state of total desolation. Sometimes compassionate neighbor repaired her roof, and then mumbled in stained mustaches: no, well, thanks, she rainwater loudly dripping in the substituted pelvis, I did, it was dry, and the Barbarian is not enough that "thank you" is not said, so not even looked in the face. No one knew what she lives, what he eats. She always went to the same dress deryuzhki which hem heavy with dried mud. In the same - but the smell of it is not thick musk of human excreta, which are not washed from the skin, and underground and mold.
Then one day, in the early sixties, one of the local guys, having touched vodka, he broke into her home - whether it podnachil who, whether abstract femininity desire was so strong that the object did not matter. It was a night in May, quiet, clear, full moon, with dense aromas of blossoming herbs and crickets awakened - and before the whole village celebrated the victory, played the accordion, smelt pies, drank, ate, walked. Man named Fedor, and it was the twenty-fifth year. [next]
He broke into the house of Varvara, and already once, in the hall, such as the uneasy he felt. The house was a strange smell - of emptiness and decay. Even the village drunkard uncle Sergei in the house smelled quite differently, though propyl soul back in those days, when the baby was Fedor. Uncle Sergei smelled warm oven, then tough, dirty feet, sour milk, rotting doormat - it was disgusting, and yet in the cacophony of malodorous scents felt let almost degenerated into existence, but still has life. And Barbara smelled as if the house it did not come for decades - wet basement, dusty curtains and mold. Fyodor suddenly wanted to turn around and took to their heels, but somehow he persuaded himself that it was not "manly." He moved forward - touch because the house was dark - curtained windows the moonlight in some rags.
Jabbed exposed arms forward in a door - she succumbed to a quiet and creaked open. Fyodor cautiously stepped inside, slightly hitting his head on the bar - Barbara was the increase is small, and the door to the house - it matched. The room in which he found himself, was as dark Fedor quickly lost orientation in space, but suddenly someone gently stirred in the corner, and animal terror, which leads to most of the people darkness combined with the unfamiliar place, suddenly awakened in him a warrior and barbarian. With a short cry of Fyodor he rushed forward.
- Go, - a voice Barbara, quiet and dull, and Fedor could have sworn he heard him the first time. Many were convinced at all that the eccentric of the last house numb even during the war years, but never regained consciousness.
She held out her hand somewhere, pulled back the curtain, and Fedor finally saw her - in the bluish light of the moon it seemed to calm the ugly face of the dead.
- Here's another! - He tried to sound cheerful, but because of the excitement of what is called "gave the rooster," and at himself for that angry, he shed the gloom at Varvara, jabbing his fist in her lifeless face, - Come on, come on ... I'm fast.
She did not resist, and it gave him strength of mind. "Perhaps she dreams about it, glad to death and did not believe their happiness, - he thought - a man something, I suppose, for twenty years she had, if not more.
Barbara was all wrapped in some rags, like a shroud. He's, like, the top unbuttoned jacket, wool, but it turned out to be a kind of mantle, and even deeper - something that looks like nylon, slippery and cool to the touch. In the end, angry, he pulled a rag, and those cracked and almost fell apart in his hands. Varvara as well as all lay in silence, stretching his arms at his sides, as the deceased, who is ready for bathing. Her eyes were open, and the corner of his mind, Fyodor suddenly said that they do not shine. Matt's eyes, like a doll.
But his blood is already boiling lava wishing to pour out, freeing him from the fire, and he was nearly still, who will unlock the mouth - whether the woman warm, poslyunyavlenny fist or whether this gray doll.
Chest Barbara was like a blank canvas sacks, in which the mother of Fyodor kept nuts, gathered them in the woods. It was neither the completeness nor breast softness, and her nipples were like wood mushrooms, rough and dark, touch them did not want. The moment seemed to mind Theodore bifurcated - one often do not understand how can you ask for it faded wax body is terrible, disgusting same and the other - as if bewitched, was just a blind will, impulse and passion as it is. Knees, he spread her thighs - the same cool and greyish like wax and a wrench into her - and the part of Theodore, which was terrible and disgusting, it seemed that his flesh includes not a woman, but in pitcher with cold fermented baked. Inside Barbara it was loose, cool and humid. And now, the spout in her seed, Fedor left, on the road entangled in the pants. He felt as if he was plowing all day on deforestation, but wrote off this weakness and dizziness vodka. Trudged home without undressing, lay down to sleep.
All night he had nightmares. He dreamed he was walking along the village cemetery, between graves, and on all sides to him stretch his hands stained the ground. Try to grasp the pant leg, and fingers have icy and hard. His ears stood hum - devoid of juice life voice pleaded: "And to me ... and to me ... please ... and me ...»
Here on the track in front of him there was a girl - she was standing with his back, fragile, low, long wheat hair scattered over her shoulders. She was wearing a wedding dress. Fyodor rushed to her as a savior-goddess, but she slowly turned around, and it became clear - also dead. Pale face greenish spots went once plump upper lip half otgnila, teeth bared, his eyes were not shine.
- To me ... - she repeated dully - Come ... I purposely buried in the wedding ... I waited for you ...
Fyodor woke from what her mother splashed him in the face of the scoop of ice water. "Quite opoloumel drunk! I bathed to devils and yelling all night as if I have nerves of iron! »
It took several weeks. At first Fyodor could not shake the feeling of anguish as if it stretches out over the heavy wings, which closed the sunlight. Appetite, desire to laugh, to work, to breathe. But gradually he somehow recovered, regained consciousness, began again to ask his mother the morning pancakes, glancing at the most beautiful virgin villages Yulia long thick braids and the devil in his eyes. With Barbara he tried not to meet - however, it was not difficult, she rarely left his house and garden, and if they went out into the village street, then huddled to the side and looked at their own dusty galoshes instead of colliding people. Gradually, the strange night vanished from memory - and Fedor is not even quite sure it was a reality. His mind seemed to snowball blinded - real facts and consequential nightmares, did not even understand - the truth, and that - a terrible image, fabricated inner darkness.
Winter came.
Winter evenings Fedor usually carpentry - craft taught by his father, both had golden hands. With all neighborhoods accessed - who put together a dining table, someone to fix the fence, to whom and to attach to the house terrace.
And in late November, one day a strange thing happened - knock on the door insistently, as if it was an urgent matter, and when Fyodor opened - on the street was empty. Man disturb evening quiet family like dissolved the ice spitting sleet space. Only on the floorboard, pinned down a wet stone was white envelope. Looking around, Fedor took him up, looked inside, and even more surprised - the money inside. Not millions, but a substantial sum - so he just asked for the construction of a summer veranda. To the realities of the village it was something out of the ordinary - the neighbors certainly did not starve, but to save money was not where, but for the work of all preferred to pay in installments. Together with the bills from the envelope had the note. "I ask you to make a coffin, length - 1 meter of material - oak or pine. Take the money immediately, but for the work I'll be ready at the first opportunity. "
Not easily frightened was Fedor and certainly not superstitious, but something inside him went cold when finished reading. Length - 1 meter. It turns out a coffin - child. Why him ready to pay so much? If a customer asked him the price, Fedor would call a sum twenty times smaller, and it would not consider himself offended. Why did you choose such a strange way to make a reservation? Such grief that from those of others sickened? But it turns out that he is not even a choice left - to whom money is returned? You can, of course, and leave them in the envelope, and when the customer will be, the threshold put in your face. On the other hand ... And if there is a child dying. And people will come, and nothing is ready. The towel to bury him or something?
It was hard on the soul of Fedor, but still the work he performed. For two evenings council. The best board took, tried as if the casket for the imperial jewels did. Even carvings adorned the cover - to do something still winter evenings nothing.
A week passed, then another, and then began the third, but the work so no one came. Small coffin stood in the already narrow passage and acting all nervous. Walking past him, Father Fyodor said grimly: "etit ...", and his mother, one of his stumbling mechanically hit leg stump, then came to her senses, sat on the stile and briefly wept.
And now for the new year once outstanding evening when Theodore left home all alone. Parents and little sister went to a nearby village to visit relatives, and were going to spend the night there.
The night was dark and blizzard - the dense snow shawl earth, nor the sky does not see.
Suddenly, a knock at the door - the same persistent hurried knock Fedor immediately sign him, and his heart boomed - as if with infinite icy hill.
Caution came to the door, he asked - who, however, he did not answer. Why, then crossed himself, he opened the door - on the porch was a small woman, wrapped in a jacket and a big woolen shawl. He did not even recognize it Varvara - and when it saw the gray face emotionless, recoiled.
- What do you want? Why priperlas? - In deliberate rudeness he was trying to draw strength.
- It's time - dull she said, and went inside past him - I thought a few more weeks to wear, but now I see that there is. It's time.
- What are you talking about something durischa? Go otkudova priperlas.
And then Barbara raised her face, and he took a few steps, his eyes darted to the vestibule helplessly until buried in a small hatchet, which he and his father cut chips for lighting the stove. "Brad some ... Therefore I will not at her, a woman weak, with an ax ... I'm her finger pereshibit can that she did do something, miserable ..." A woman just quietly looked at him and her eyes were like flecked with ice puddles. The same dull and puppet like that night, he all these months trying to forget.
Barbara smiled - still without emotion.
- What are you, Fyodor thought porazvlecheshsya and do not have to answer. Bring water and a rag, I gave birth.
- What the fuck ... - and only then saw under her unbuttoned jerkin huge round belly.
- Any minute now begin, what are you waiting for.
She was not at all like the woman you care about the appearance of the first-born. Bloodless calm face, chapped lips, even small voice.
- Besides, I paid. All honest. Did what I asked? Managed?
Fedor did not even understand what it is, and when he realized suddenly felt small and defenseless. As in those days, when his father scared him leshim and Bannikov, and Fyodor then the whole night trying to calm the breath - it all imagined noises and clatter, some other, hidden from adult life, which begins in the home, when all go to sleep. I wanted to rush to his mother, to breathe its soothing warmth, but shame prevented.
- Why should you ... a coffin? - The last word in almost a whisper, he breathed in the face Barbarians.
- Well, of course - she smiled - Somewhere because he wanted to sleep. Mertvenky fact born - and stroked his taut stomach.
Fedor sickened.
- Water is becoming, - commanded Varvara - drag and rags. Begins.
As in a dream he came to the oven, she took a kettle, then climbed into the trunk mother found some old sheets. Everything that is happening to him seemed stupid jokes. He could not believe that a village idiot and the truth is going to give birth to his porch, he will have to take part in it. And the damn money, and the coffin. "Mertvenky born because ...»
When Theodore returned to the porch, he was lying on the floor, with his skirts and spread apart bloodless legs, her back arched, as if the woman was struck by lightning, but the person is still not expressed any fear, no pain, no anticipation.
Sister Theodore, too, was born at home - a sudden bout started, it was winter, too, they do not have time to drive to a rural hospital. He remembered flushed, sweaty face of the mother, her uterine shout, more like a feral growl, remembered how spread out on the pillow of her matted with sweat, hair, and what the smell was in the room - a hot, dense interior, and how he, too, was not in itself - but then there was another fear, the fear of the presence of a certain eternal laws. The mother then asked to drink, then put to her forehead a handful of snow, then open the window, then close it. And then he heard a muffled cry little sister, and she and her father drank a drink, rejoicing, and her mother looked so happy, despite the fact that all the blankets were soaked with her blood.
Barbara silently, his teeth, give birth to a new life, she worked her hips and back - smartly, like a snake, and also filled the canopy of odors - peat bog, compost, wet tree roots, rain worms. Suddenly out of it rushed, as if the valve was opened - a greenish-brown, as the stagnant pond water. Fedor had to jump - the water was stinking so much that the entire floor in the hallway was flooded. He did not even notice that this swill Select from her womb into the light a tiny creature, a baby, a gray and lifeless as his mother. Varvara village, back of his hand wiped his forehead, lifted the baby from the floor - he languidly moved his hands. His eyes were open and veiled like a whitish film. Fedor looked away - look at the child was somehow unpleasant, something it was not. He even cried, but turned his head, obviously trying to look around.
- What do you stand - grimly called Barbara - You need to cut the umbilical cord. Ali did not read books.
- I do not know - almost fainting from exhaustion and disgust, he mumbled.
- What is there to be able to. There's also the ax is - and they chopped.
- What are you talking about. Is Well, you can, with an ax. Now I'll call grandma Alekseev - suddenly came to him saving idea - just run for it. She knows how to deal.
- No one should be calling - Varvara stopped him - himself guilty, and he'll respond. Bring an ax ... I'll teach you. And the coffin Carry. He already wants to sleep, you see.
- Barbara, so why should he coffin, what you say is terrible - could not resist Fedor - Where is it kind to baby slept in a coffin. You said - mertvenky born, and here he is - moving.
- So I mertvenkaya - gray lips stretched, but it was not like a smile - Ali did not understand? ... Carry Coffin. And the most you need to relax. And that in fact he will soon be hungry. Here you wake up, and I'll teach you how to feed mertvenkih.
The last thing he saw Fedor, before he covered the dark velvet wing was old, branching into crannies, ceiling.
When the next morning, his parents and sister came back, his body has cooled down, but open eyes have kept a wary expression of anguish. What happened to him, so no one knew, but the entire floor porch was flooded with a thick swamp water, which his father Fyodor and the day could not scoop.
And when dredged dryness is still a smell - decay, mold and rot - was for many years, sometimes promising subsided, but inevitably back to the beginning of each winter.
Barbara is in that village were never seen - but for many years to gossip, ostensibly because of its deserted house sometimes came the dull and monotonous infant crying.
© masha-koroleva
Source:
After the war, the confusion was gone, many, aliens, by contrast, came, some were good. Probably, it was one of these pilgrims in search of a better fate. She took the most extreme of unoccupied houses in the forest, very old and small, and for ten or twenty years drove him to a state of total desolation. Sometimes compassionate neighbor repaired her roof, and then mumbled in stained mustaches: no, well, thanks, she rainwater loudly dripping in the substituted pelvis, I did, it was dry, and the Barbarian is not enough that "thank you" is not said, so not even looked in the face. No one knew what she lives, what he eats. She always went to the same dress deryuzhki which hem heavy with dried mud. In the same - but the smell of it is not thick musk of human excreta, which are not washed from the skin, and underground and mold.
Then one day, in the early sixties, one of the local guys, having touched vodka, he broke into her home - whether it podnachil who, whether abstract femininity desire was so strong that the object did not matter. It was a night in May, quiet, clear, full moon, with dense aromas of blossoming herbs and crickets awakened - and before the whole village celebrated the victory, played the accordion, smelt pies, drank, ate, walked. Man named Fedor, and it was the twenty-fifth year. [next]
He broke into the house of Varvara, and already once, in the hall, such as the uneasy he felt. The house was a strange smell - of emptiness and decay. Even the village drunkard uncle Sergei in the house smelled quite differently, though propyl soul back in those days, when the baby was Fedor. Uncle Sergei smelled warm oven, then tough, dirty feet, sour milk, rotting doormat - it was disgusting, and yet in the cacophony of malodorous scents felt let almost degenerated into existence, but still has life. And Barbara smelled as if the house it did not come for decades - wet basement, dusty curtains and mold. Fyodor suddenly wanted to turn around and took to their heels, but somehow he persuaded himself that it was not "manly." He moved forward - touch because the house was dark - curtained windows the moonlight in some rags.
Jabbed exposed arms forward in a door - she succumbed to a quiet and creaked open. Fyodor cautiously stepped inside, slightly hitting his head on the bar - Barbara was the increase is small, and the door to the house - it matched. The room in which he found himself, was as dark Fedor quickly lost orientation in space, but suddenly someone gently stirred in the corner, and animal terror, which leads to most of the people darkness combined with the unfamiliar place, suddenly awakened in him a warrior and barbarian. With a short cry of Fyodor he rushed forward.
- Go, - a voice Barbara, quiet and dull, and Fedor could have sworn he heard him the first time. Many were convinced at all that the eccentric of the last house numb even during the war years, but never regained consciousness.
She held out her hand somewhere, pulled back the curtain, and Fedor finally saw her - in the bluish light of the moon it seemed to calm the ugly face of the dead.
- Here's another! - He tried to sound cheerful, but because of the excitement of what is called "gave the rooster," and at himself for that angry, he shed the gloom at Varvara, jabbing his fist in her lifeless face, - Come on, come on ... I'm fast.
She did not resist, and it gave him strength of mind. "Perhaps she dreams about it, glad to death and did not believe their happiness, - he thought - a man something, I suppose, for twenty years she had, if not more.
Barbara was all wrapped in some rags, like a shroud. He's, like, the top unbuttoned jacket, wool, but it turned out to be a kind of mantle, and even deeper - something that looks like nylon, slippery and cool to the touch. In the end, angry, he pulled a rag, and those cracked and almost fell apart in his hands. Varvara as well as all lay in silence, stretching his arms at his sides, as the deceased, who is ready for bathing. Her eyes were open, and the corner of his mind, Fyodor suddenly said that they do not shine. Matt's eyes, like a doll.
But his blood is already boiling lava wishing to pour out, freeing him from the fire, and he was nearly still, who will unlock the mouth - whether the woman warm, poslyunyavlenny fist or whether this gray doll.
Chest Barbara was like a blank canvas sacks, in which the mother of Fyodor kept nuts, gathered them in the woods. It was neither the completeness nor breast softness, and her nipples were like wood mushrooms, rough and dark, touch them did not want. The moment seemed to mind Theodore bifurcated - one often do not understand how can you ask for it faded wax body is terrible, disgusting same and the other - as if bewitched, was just a blind will, impulse and passion as it is. Knees, he spread her thighs - the same cool and greyish like wax and a wrench into her - and the part of Theodore, which was terrible and disgusting, it seemed that his flesh includes not a woman, but in pitcher with cold fermented baked. Inside Barbara it was loose, cool and humid. And now, the spout in her seed, Fedor left, on the road entangled in the pants. He felt as if he was plowing all day on deforestation, but wrote off this weakness and dizziness vodka. Trudged home without undressing, lay down to sleep.
All night he had nightmares. He dreamed he was walking along the village cemetery, between graves, and on all sides to him stretch his hands stained the ground. Try to grasp the pant leg, and fingers have icy and hard. His ears stood hum - devoid of juice life voice pleaded: "And to me ... and to me ... please ... and me ...»
Here on the track in front of him there was a girl - she was standing with his back, fragile, low, long wheat hair scattered over her shoulders. She was wearing a wedding dress. Fyodor rushed to her as a savior-goddess, but she slowly turned around, and it became clear - also dead. Pale face greenish spots went once plump upper lip half otgnila, teeth bared, his eyes were not shine.
- To me ... - she repeated dully - Come ... I purposely buried in the wedding ... I waited for you ...
Fyodor woke from what her mother splashed him in the face of the scoop of ice water. "Quite opoloumel drunk! I bathed to devils and yelling all night as if I have nerves of iron! »
It took several weeks. At first Fyodor could not shake the feeling of anguish as if it stretches out over the heavy wings, which closed the sunlight. Appetite, desire to laugh, to work, to breathe. But gradually he somehow recovered, regained consciousness, began again to ask his mother the morning pancakes, glancing at the most beautiful virgin villages Yulia long thick braids and the devil in his eyes. With Barbara he tried not to meet - however, it was not difficult, she rarely left his house and garden, and if they went out into the village street, then huddled to the side and looked at their own dusty galoshes instead of colliding people. Gradually, the strange night vanished from memory - and Fedor is not even quite sure it was a reality. His mind seemed to snowball blinded - real facts and consequential nightmares, did not even understand - the truth, and that - a terrible image, fabricated inner darkness.
Winter came.
Winter evenings Fedor usually carpentry - craft taught by his father, both had golden hands. With all neighborhoods accessed - who put together a dining table, someone to fix the fence, to whom and to attach to the house terrace.
And in late November, one day a strange thing happened - knock on the door insistently, as if it was an urgent matter, and when Fyodor opened - on the street was empty. Man disturb evening quiet family like dissolved the ice spitting sleet space. Only on the floorboard, pinned down a wet stone was white envelope. Looking around, Fedor took him up, looked inside, and even more surprised - the money inside. Not millions, but a substantial sum - so he just asked for the construction of a summer veranda. To the realities of the village it was something out of the ordinary - the neighbors certainly did not starve, but to save money was not where, but for the work of all preferred to pay in installments. Together with the bills from the envelope had the note. "I ask you to make a coffin, length - 1 meter of material - oak or pine. Take the money immediately, but for the work I'll be ready at the first opportunity. "
Not easily frightened was Fedor and certainly not superstitious, but something inside him went cold when finished reading. Length - 1 meter. It turns out a coffin - child. Why him ready to pay so much? If a customer asked him the price, Fedor would call a sum twenty times smaller, and it would not consider himself offended. Why did you choose such a strange way to make a reservation? Such grief that from those of others sickened? But it turns out that he is not even a choice left - to whom money is returned? You can, of course, and leave them in the envelope, and when the customer will be, the threshold put in your face. On the other hand ... And if there is a child dying. And people will come, and nothing is ready. The towel to bury him or something?
It was hard on the soul of Fedor, but still the work he performed. For two evenings council. The best board took, tried as if the casket for the imperial jewels did. Even carvings adorned the cover - to do something still winter evenings nothing.
A week passed, then another, and then began the third, but the work so no one came. Small coffin stood in the already narrow passage and acting all nervous. Walking past him, Father Fyodor said grimly: "etit ...", and his mother, one of his stumbling mechanically hit leg stump, then came to her senses, sat on the stile and briefly wept.
And now for the new year once outstanding evening when Theodore left home all alone. Parents and little sister went to a nearby village to visit relatives, and were going to spend the night there.
The night was dark and blizzard - the dense snow shawl earth, nor the sky does not see.
Suddenly, a knock at the door - the same persistent hurried knock Fedor immediately sign him, and his heart boomed - as if with infinite icy hill.
Caution came to the door, he asked - who, however, he did not answer. Why, then crossed himself, he opened the door - on the porch was a small woman, wrapped in a jacket and a big woolen shawl. He did not even recognize it Varvara - and when it saw the gray face emotionless, recoiled.
- What do you want? Why priperlas? - In deliberate rudeness he was trying to draw strength.
- It's time - dull she said, and went inside past him - I thought a few more weeks to wear, but now I see that there is. It's time.
- What are you talking about something durischa? Go otkudova priperlas.
And then Barbara raised her face, and he took a few steps, his eyes darted to the vestibule helplessly until buried in a small hatchet, which he and his father cut chips for lighting the stove. "Brad some ... Therefore I will not at her, a woman weak, with an ax ... I'm her finger pereshibit can that she did do something, miserable ..." A woman just quietly looked at him and her eyes were like flecked with ice puddles. The same dull and puppet like that night, he all these months trying to forget.
Barbara smiled - still without emotion.
- What are you, Fyodor thought porazvlecheshsya and do not have to answer. Bring water and a rag, I gave birth.
- What the fuck ... - and only then saw under her unbuttoned jerkin huge round belly.
- Any minute now begin, what are you waiting for.
She was not at all like the woman you care about the appearance of the first-born. Bloodless calm face, chapped lips, even small voice.
- Besides, I paid. All honest. Did what I asked? Managed?
Fedor did not even understand what it is, and when he realized suddenly felt small and defenseless. As in those days, when his father scared him leshim and Bannikov, and Fyodor then the whole night trying to calm the breath - it all imagined noises and clatter, some other, hidden from adult life, which begins in the home, when all go to sleep. I wanted to rush to his mother, to breathe its soothing warmth, but shame prevented.
- Why should you ... a coffin? - The last word in almost a whisper, he breathed in the face Barbarians.
- Well, of course - she smiled - Somewhere because he wanted to sleep. Mertvenky fact born - and stroked his taut stomach.
Fedor sickened.
- Water is becoming, - commanded Varvara - drag and rags. Begins.
As in a dream he came to the oven, she took a kettle, then climbed into the trunk mother found some old sheets. Everything that is happening to him seemed stupid jokes. He could not believe that a village idiot and the truth is going to give birth to his porch, he will have to take part in it. And the damn money, and the coffin. "Mertvenky born because ...»
When Theodore returned to the porch, he was lying on the floor, with his skirts and spread apart bloodless legs, her back arched, as if the woman was struck by lightning, but the person is still not expressed any fear, no pain, no anticipation.
Sister Theodore, too, was born at home - a sudden bout started, it was winter, too, they do not have time to drive to a rural hospital. He remembered flushed, sweaty face of the mother, her uterine shout, more like a feral growl, remembered how spread out on the pillow of her matted with sweat, hair, and what the smell was in the room - a hot, dense interior, and how he, too, was not in itself - but then there was another fear, the fear of the presence of a certain eternal laws. The mother then asked to drink, then put to her forehead a handful of snow, then open the window, then close it. And then he heard a muffled cry little sister, and she and her father drank a drink, rejoicing, and her mother looked so happy, despite the fact that all the blankets were soaked with her blood.
Barbara silently, his teeth, give birth to a new life, she worked her hips and back - smartly, like a snake, and also filled the canopy of odors - peat bog, compost, wet tree roots, rain worms. Suddenly out of it rushed, as if the valve was opened - a greenish-brown, as the stagnant pond water. Fedor had to jump - the water was stinking so much that the entire floor in the hallway was flooded. He did not even notice that this swill Select from her womb into the light a tiny creature, a baby, a gray and lifeless as his mother. Varvara village, back of his hand wiped his forehead, lifted the baby from the floor - he languidly moved his hands. His eyes were open and veiled like a whitish film. Fedor looked away - look at the child was somehow unpleasant, something it was not. He even cried, but turned his head, obviously trying to look around.
- What do you stand - grimly called Barbara - You need to cut the umbilical cord. Ali did not read books.
- I do not know - almost fainting from exhaustion and disgust, he mumbled.
- What is there to be able to. There's also the ax is - and they chopped.
- What are you talking about. Is Well, you can, with an ax. Now I'll call grandma Alekseev - suddenly came to him saving idea - just run for it. She knows how to deal.
- No one should be calling - Varvara stopped him - himself guilty, and he'll respond. Bring an ax ... I'll teach you. And the coffin Carry. He already wants to sleep, you see.
- Barbara, so why should he coffin, what you say is terrible - could not resist Fedor - Where is it kind to baby slept in a coffin. You said - mertvenky born, and here he is - moving.
- So I mertvenkaya - gray lips stretched, but it was not like a smile - Ali did not understand? ... Carry Coffin. And the most you need to relax. And that in fact he will soon be hungry. Here you wake up, and I'll teach you how to feed mertvenkih.
The last thing he saw Fedor, before he covered the dark velvet wing was old, branching into crannies, ceiling.
When the next morning, his parents and sister came back, his body has cooled down, but open eyes have kept a wary expression of anguish. What happened to him, so no one knew, but the entire floor porch was flooded with a thick swamp water, which his father Fyodor and the day could not scoop.
And when dredged dryness is still a smell - decay, mold and rot - was for many years, sometimes promising subsided, but inevitably back to the beginning of each winter.
Barbara is in that village were never seen - but for many years to gossip, ostensibly because of its deserted house sometimes came the dull and monotonous infant crying.
© masha-koroleva
Source:
