Now my consciousness goes dim more often leaving shorter spells for my keen senses. I am growing less and less capable of carrying responsibility for my actions; my memory is left almost unemployed as once my mind\’s thread is severed unheard I am either unable to analyze the events or my memory turns into a leaky bucket.
She still visits me, but now less frequently; and the time is ripe for her to cross out my telephone number from her pocket-book. Soon I will be moved to a doubtfully pleasurable institution with impeccably white walls and kind and smiling doctors and nurses…
The world has acquired some odd shade of pink, the air seems to be filled with spirit evaporations, someone is singing behind my back…
I am again late to write down the thoughts…
It is a pity, because I have so much to put into these knotty lines…
Will I be able to do it before complete degrada…

 

On a winter day, when the snow turns into muddy mash and finally stops grumbling at your feet, and when the sun that had just condescended to you has begun to turn sour, while the winter smelling a nearing coup-d\’etat and even knowing the name of the instigator sets to give it hot for the last time, I, taking shelter from winter bites in a clothing store, has met a bald girl.
I have made three tours around all departments, felt sick from the smell of the leather exuded by the heaps of multi-colored and multi-sized shoes and was forced to sneeze by the miasmas of too new suits. It occurred to me that the clothing store is similar to a drugstore in its specific smell, my ubiquity made the staff\’s plastic smiles weaker, and when I was about to make my way out, I suddenly noticed a shiny bald crown perfect in its absence of bumps, so clean and even that I involuntary stuck my gaze to it. I was standing quietly behind the couch taking pleasure in contemplating the crown\’s accuracy, admiring the baldness for the first time in my life. I took a turn around the couch in an attempt to see the owner of the beautiful nothing, but lingered to throw a curious look at the target. I came up to the tie rack that was located opposite the couch pretending I am busy with studying it. And only some time later pretending that I suddenly remembered something, I turned around and looked at the bald person.
I was stunned. I can\’t remember now what struck me most — the fact that the owner of the young and beautiful bald crown was a girl, or the beauty of the girl and the immaculate set of her features that were so regular that all the previous beauties my eyes have focused upon seemed but mere sketches made by a drunk and shaking hand from this template. Her appearance and her features can be described in these words exclusively: her prominent forehead was prominent to the degree that made it perfect: had it been a bit more prominent, it would be ugly, a bit less — and something would seem wrong; her nose neither pug nor crooked was pleasant to the degree that made it flawless: had it been a bit smaller and the magic would be gone, a millimeter longer and the effect would be different. The same can be applied to the rest of her features: grey eyes on the rocks, which were fanned by the eyelashes able to stir flames, flashed cunningly sideways to catch the effect they produced on me. It was followed by an absolutely unique sympathizing-with-the-whole-world smile automatically developed by her tiny lips of a shy rosy color…
Pink…
I am living on her lips!
I am full with her lips…
I mean the world as I\’m leaving it acquires… the color of her lips…
All in all, my state of affairs is not that hopeless since I admit that I have been a bit woozy recently…
A true nutter will never — as far as I know — will never concede that he is what he is.

The tiny pink lips of the shy rosy color probed the dirty air, silently whispering something to their owner, a smooth chin deprived of any slants and slopes gave her face a look of well-balanced perfection, cute ears embellishing the surrounding desert stood off the scalp a little as they should. And I think, had those ears been different, had they been stuck out a bit too much or leaned more to the head, or, for example, had the nose been bigger or eyes been of a slightly different color, or the chin been sharp, lips — thinner or plumper, and I might not have fallen under her spell. However, her features were regular, they had a rare finish, completion, and there I stood numb, looking at her lips, eyes, nose and ears trying to draw a comparison to something, anything and was unable to do it. I was trying to frame them and store in my memory, but it was impossible due to the shortness of memory. I was lost trying to comprehend why for Christ\’s sake she shaved her lovely head so thoroughly that not a stubble, not an accidentally saved hair was seen — nothing — just a bald defenseless crown. She wore a short grey coat, the visible simplicity of which hid a high-price tag. The big flat upper button was unfastened and let a thin black-and-white scarf out for some air. The coat ended on her thighs revealing slender legs that found refuge in dark heavy boots with a scary ribbed sole as if created to excruciate the snow.
I was unable to take my eyes off her looking at her numbly. I suddenly found myself hollow and empty of ideas and words, all the beautiful jokes and introductions that were supposed to start an impressive acquaintance seemed to slip my mind. Hungry calm and silence pervaded the place and everybody appeared to shut up as if on purpose and their hairy ears behaved as if wanting to dab in an intrigue. Not to act would be stupid; I was either to say something or to withdraw. I felt the wind\’s blow to my back and I moved towards her. We exchanged a couple of words, she said she had to go and I offered to walk her home, and she replied «Ok» in an indifferent voice.
We had a long walk on that day. The walk was really long, as the night set in to paint the sky black and even several stars, which are a rare view nowadays, exuded. Soon we came across the house, the entrance, then the lift and then she was gone leaving me alone with her address and telephone number.
We began seeing each other regularly. I don\’t know how she felt about me; when I spoke she carried a sweet smile and listened attentively, when I phoned her she answered without any irritation; when I, nervous and shivering as if before an operation and trying to make my arm weightless, gently embraced her waist, she didn\’t resist, and when I summoned enough courage to touch her wet lips with the corner of my mouth dry with fear, she replied. My heart was aflame with feelings and emotions. At that time, I was full with them and they were like a hot cocktail. My chest seemed to be too small for them: they weaved together to the degree of being unrecognized, they got interlaced and shimmered in the form of affection, respectful awe, ownership expressions and gross jealousy that came in groundless flashes.
Soon our relations underwent a change, they grew steadier and acquired some stable value, when I could throw a joke about her head and she, without reservations, could play a vicious insult. However, despite the seemingly happy relationship, I could smell that something was wrong. Something got hold of me, something, which I couldn\’t identify at first, which I couldn\’t grasp. Something about her that I hadn\’t seen, though it didn\’t take long to become closer, something that I could only had in my imagination. It was then that this conversation took place for the first time, after which I should have calmed down and never gone back to it again.
«Why?» I asked.
We stood in the bathroom and I witnessed the procedure, to which I have been a witness a number of times. Her head was covered with a foamy snowbank that she took a painstaking effort to make a white and slinky hat of.
«You don\’t like it?» she asked, carefully taking a straight razor in her hands, opening it and looking at the flecks of sunlight born by the shiny blade. I noticed a change in her expression, a stunning darkness touched her face and like any other kind of mimicry of a beautiful person didn\’t spoil her at all, but, on the contrary, provided an opportunity to enjoy yet another aspect of her beauty. I remembered the short stubble that recently made a sketch over her head and that due to its insignificant length seemed to be painted with coal. However, when I touched it, it pricked my hand, and though it was just the beginning of hair\’s life, the prospective beauty of it stirred my imagination. Each day and with each new millimeter of hair, she grew dearer to me, I saw these changes in her and when I observed them closer, my eyes became darker and my temples swelled with blood.
The razor laid flat a bit above the ear and she turned to me with a question in her eyes.
«Not at all,» I said, seeing the blade stood on the edge and cautiously crept upward, taking foam and hair along with it and leaving naked and smooth skin behind. «Unique…»
«So what\’s the problem then?» she asked making an even wide path that led to the top of the head. While I was silent, she shaved out a cross dividing the white cover into four parts. She didn\’t look at me any longer, but I saw the reflection of her face in the mirror.
«I would like to see you with long hair,» I ventured to voice it, and it pained me to see her crafting the UK flag. I really wanted it, I was obsessed with the idea, I imagined how she would look like with long hair and how her appearance would become more devilish, and how she would change from being unique to beautiful and exciting.
«You\’d better not,» she snapped, finishing the foamy cake with the last two strokes and getting down to catering for the wonderful nape revealing a dimple.
«Why?» I insisted.
«You\’ll go crazy,» she explained. She cleared her nape, put the razor on the sink and threw a heavy look at me in the mirror.
«Did it happen before?» I tried to fight her look, but lost. «How do you know?»
«Everyone goes crazy,» she said. «When they see it…»
She slipped out of the bathroom, snatching a towel and leaving me tête-à-tête with my bewilderment. She quickly removed the rest of the foam off her impeccably clean shaven head and then brought the towel back to the bathroom, when I was no longer there, and refused to talk to me for the whole day.
That could have been the end of the conversation. Since that day my yearning has acquired a new heavier quality to it, now I dreamt about it, and in my dreams she had no face, but a blank spot instead. This blank spot did have hair, which made me look for and find some tiny hairs in the sink and store them in an envelope and peek in it occasionally in an attempt to imagine its possible beauty and grandeur. When looking at this weightless hair, I grew it in my mind\’s eye imagining it on her pretty head, where it was destined to be born and die almost immediately to never reach maturity. Since then I began collecting hairs in the sink — one, two, three, sometimes the harvest was richer — and put it off in that miserable envelope. I collected them as some collect stamps, I moved them with forceps only, linking together trying to make a lock. She shaved her head very often, once every three or four days, or sometimes five-six when being too complacent. Therefore, my collection became more extensive and richer in black identical hairs that reminded soot. Each of them carried her warmth and perfume, though I admit it could be just my imagination…
Fantasy…
Envelope…
…………………………………………………………………………………………….

It seems I passed out again.
I stored the envelope in my desk locked by two turns of the key, and sometimes after walking her to a taxi or metro, I took this white neat thing out, extracted its insides on the wide drafting sheet and contemplated them. I was sick with her beauty, I was proud of it, because I owned it, because I touched it, I held it in my sight all the time, smelled it, felt with the cells of my body. But something that I could own, something that was no less beautiful than the rest of her features, something that I wanted to feel slipping between my fingers and bury my hands in it — that something was not there and that is why I was extremely mad about it. I kept her photograph, in color and rather big, which once dropped unnoticed from her bag. I picked it up, but I couldn\’t, I didn\’t want to return it to her. Well, I did show it to her just to have it back with a couple of nice words written at the reverse side of it.
Soon an idea popped up in my head. I started to accurately arrange the capricious hairs and apply them to her nice bald head on the photograph. I worked hard, often at night, to fix and even out the hairdo. The most tedious thing about it was that when she ringed the bell or before each meeting, after which we came to my place, I had to destroy the masterpiece and to remove the hair covering off the top of her head. Moreover, however hard I tried to be tender and attentive, several hairs were lost after each attempt to endow her image with hair, and so I headed for the bathroom to replenish my stocks.
«Can you shave at my place?» I asked her once, when I failed to find any hair in the sink on the third day, while a nice fluff, so sweet and tentative, that recently appeared on her head had disappeared.
«Why?» she was sincerely surprised.
«If I cannot see your hair, I would like to watch them dying,» I replied. She was pleased with the answer and I had no problems with the material ever after.
I wasn\’t particularly good at the photograph arrangement. Hardly had I learned to hold my breath to install another fragile hair, hardly had I managed to make my hand act confidently, and still I couldn\’t make it right. I tried modeling different hairstyles, long and short, fluffy and slick, built some patterns, but I wasn\’t able to achieve the image that I repeatedly constructed on the pale and foggy screen of my imagination.
Once after a stupid quarrel, which was more of a folly than a reasonable dispute, when she left and I was left alone, I was overcome by the wave of fresh creative flow caused by the thought of the desk where the material and the photograph were kept. I took them out, threw on the drawing sheet and deployed the hair army on it. The forceps flipped and I started building a hairdo; it was a usual arrangement, but this time I was strong with extraordinary confidence that wrapped up my movements, remarkable composure let my hands play it cool and they started putting hair to hair slowly, thoroughly and accurately. I worked all night in non-breathing intervals; I took breaks to get some fresh air in the balcony when my head began to spin. I stretched my hands and then made them rigid again. By the morning the image was ready and the sunlight lit the perfect features and beautiful hair that was made into an elaborated poetess\’s hairdo of the brunette.
I looked at it.
There was nothing special about it, apart from the outstandingly beautiful person, a woman, who was sadly smiling from the photograph. Her head was a bit tilted, her eyes were cold and grey. One of them was embellished with a fallen strand, as black as war. My heart was pounding and I felt the birth of a small pellet somewhere deep in my brain. The pellet was sure to have a tendency to grow, which it revealed immediately, and my head was getting loaded with a weird burden. Suddenly a headache struck me. It was so severe that I shrieked, pressed my fingers against the temples and felt it rushing through them. I lost control over my legs, they slid apart and I fell down on the indifferent parquet.
We made peace in three days, when I phoned her to recount how miserable my life was without her, and she, after being silent for a while and listening to the drumming of my heart, said that she missed me too.
It all went as before. I owned her, I loved to observe every feature of her face when she was asleep, to study her nose, which was striking beautiful, but not in the way the noses of the cover girls are, it had a different beauty, though I cannot totally deny the similarity, but her nose was more clearly cut, the beauty of it was brighter and the accurateness was overwhelming. I loved to rove the taiga of her eyebrows, over which even the sleep — that wicked joker — wielded no power. From there I rolled down to the thicket of her eyelashes, carefully breathing over her eyelids, these «shells» of her eyes, which sheltered the dearest pearls of the world. But as soon as my gaze touched the bald top of her head, I felt disappointment, and my palm scarcely tangible glided over the smooth surface trembling with pleasure when coming in contact with hardly visible stubble that was persistent in laying the path to life.
I blew the hairs that covered the photo in the window. Before doing that, I couldn\’t but throw the last look at the picture, after which I regained my senses and suffering a splitting headache with eyes red and full of broken blood vessels, with hangover shaking my body, I rushed to get rid of the horrible craft and returned the photo its initial image. The words that she pronounced at the end of our first topical conversation, after which I should have discarded the matter once and for all, acquired a new meaning. But such is a destructive nature of the human being: even when it comes to his own happiness, he is still full of destruction combined with a line of counter-virtues such as curiosity, ignorance and the life-long search for «what he really wants.»
«What do you mean they all have gone crazy?» once I began the conversation with a question and without any leads, but she understood.
«Just what I said,» she provided a dry reply.
«Any precedents?» I asked and licked my lips dry from her answer.
She didn\’t reply, so I repeated the question.
«Do you think you are the only one who wanted to see my hair?» she returned the question. Her words were metallic, she moved the razor harshly and from under the frightful blade a tender thin red rivulet flashed towards her ear, which made me scared and bewitched, but I did kill it with a towel.
«Does it hurt?» I asked guiltily.
«Yes,» she snapped in revenge and stopped.
«I…» I tried to explain.
«If you don\’t like me as I am,» she put in sharply, «I can leave.»
I did like her as she was, I liked her so much that the suggested alternative terrified me evoking a dull perspective of my tepid life, and therefore as soon as I restored my breath I stopped her from walking away. We didn\’t go back to the issue for about a month, she didn\’t talk to me for about three days, though she did show up. Some strange things happened to me, which now seem rather innocent. Some unusual thoughts about life, aim, personal relationships, and the human being came to my head, I had odd dreams where objects were constantly flashing before my eyes, but without losing a certain internal connection; actually they were similar to each other. My speculations became more and more complicated, various theories came up and some of them were not without common sense; headaches grew oftener.
I fought her stubbornness using my conviction that I didn\’t buy her bald arguments. Sometimes I articulated it and saw that she was burning from inside eager to substantiate her case, but she always restrained herself.
From time to time, we had such a conversation:
«Listen,» I said after a half-an-hour voyage along the dazzling imperfections of the ceiling. «Suppose, I believe your crazy theory, though I don\’t say that I actually believe it,» I paused. «But suppose this fiction is possible, then the destiny of people, nations and the whole mankind in your hands. You just need to grow your hair, step out into the street and the city will be full of idiots. And if you are shown on TV? Can you imagine the effect?»
«Yes, I can,» she didn\’t take her eyes off the book.
«And maybe you are some sort of Messiah?» I continued. «The so-called Second Flood packed into a pretty little body to inflict punishment on people when they have sinned enough. Just need to grow the hair and darkness will set in. Curious, what might happen if you shave half of your head? Will the effect be less profound? Will the hidden talents be revealed? Can it be a way to do without working? The living can be earned by writing books or songs. And anyway, I am ready to go crazy just to see you in full beauty. And after that, if you love me, you will also take a look at yourself in the mirror and follow me. Crazy love… Listen, I think I have discovered a hidden talent now, this is an almost finished plot…»
Oh, my God, what a bad headache…
……………………………………………………………………………………………….

«After witnessing all those horrors of our time,» I went on. «There is no guarantee that you will continue shaving your head and won\’t go on a tour around the world.»
«No, no guarantee,» she nodded indulged in her book.
The conversation faded away.
Various thoughts about the responsibility that I shared started trickling in, as I, in some way, was holding the perfect weapon sent by someone for some unknown purpose, if the fiction be believed. Now she was not only the object of admiration, but also something that can destroy everything around, or to be more exact, everyone around. Then all the other things would be made useless, as idiots don\’t need much, though, I have to admit, everything that I am talking now about had a rosy color about it and carried a certain degree of condition.
«What for?» I asked her once.
On that day she was in high spirits and didn\’t take offence, and hers was either a joke or a flirt:
«God makes a woman imperfect, so that a man,» her voice was melodic and velvety, «this societal male, won\’t go crazy, and so that the other women stay sane, though they have different reasons to go mad. God gives a perfect body to one, but forgets about brain, while the other receives a beautiful mind, but a less attractive body, some are lucky to have both of good quality but with some defects. It is the wisdom of nature that acknowledges beauty\’s destructive force. I was given everything in perfect condition. So I had to create…» she fell silent looking for the right word.
«A defect?» I prompted.
«You think it\’s a defect?» she lightly passed her palm over her bald head.
«No,» that was my sincere reply.
«More of uniqueness,» she explained. «Uniqueness somewhat neutralizes the drink, which is better not to be drunk by anyone.»
«Antidote,» I said in a low voice.
«Antidote,» she smiled slyly. «It\’s a good word.»
«You\’ll look attractive with long hair…»
«Then you\’ll turn into a monkey.»
«HE gave you everything…»
«Don\’t you see?»
«That wasn\’t a question…»
«A statement?»
«The mind and the body and…»
«…»
«Then, the hair alone won\’t fly you to the Mars,» I suggested. «More needed…»
«What?»
«Communication…»
«What for?»
«For your mind to show…»
«When a man looks at me, it won\’t even occur to him that I could be silly…»
«As far as I know, there is a common belief that cuties are…»
«A cutie is not a phenomenon,» she raised her finger. «It\’s rather common.»
«Aren\’t you a cutie?»
«No…» her eyebrows got offended along with their owner.
«Who are you then?»
She returned to the book. The answer was unknown. When I asked the question, I knew how crushing the reply would be. She was smiling at the book, while I was scared. I was thinking about the insanity, her bald top, about myself, about reality and illusions, about the absence of possibility.
«Will you shave my head?» she asked.
«Yes,» I replied experiencing a short confusion.
«Will you shave my head?»
«Yes.»
«Will you shave my head?»
«Do you like it when I am shaving you?»
«Very much. It\’s so intimate and exciting. Besides, I am tired of shaving myself. I have been doing it for twenty years now and I am pretty fed up with it.»
«What if I refuse to shave you?»
«Then you\’ll kill the world, but unlike your predecessors, your name will be buried unknown…»
I would take the bone handle of the shaver and fix my interested gaze upon the defects of the bone, open it slowly extracting the straight razor and holding it safely. I would take some time to enjoy the flares, which delivered by the lamp and the razor died in the narrow bathroom, then I would turn to devote myself to the foamy head of hers, which was the creation of the decorator asleep in me. I would apply foam to her head with precision and care like a good decorator paints the wall, our eyes would lock in the mirror. I would take long pauses to admire her image melting in her smile and finally I would use the weapon enjoying the petty thought of having the power to destroy this beauty and save the world from going sour. Then I would mow clean the wonderful pasture that was about three or four days old. I took to the process very much and sometimes I asked if I could shave her. It helped me to rid of excessive strain bringing the desired rest that some achieve through watching the fish moving in an aquarium.
«Have you seen your own hair long?» I asked.
«Once,» she said.
«And?»
«And what?»
«Why are you ok then?»
«How do you know?»
My interest in her hair in no way subsided, on the contrary, it piqued. I both believed her — she didn\’t like jokes herself — and disbelieved equally. I believed the story, because it was she who told me it, and I didn\’t believe it because it was impossible. And this impossibility excited my curiosity greatly, it was a seduction, and sometimes when I shaved her I felt an urge to tie her up and feed her with a spoon till her hair grew long. Occasionally, this desire inflated gigantically and my hands holding the razor started trembling and I had to stop shaving to regain the control over my fingers. Now I tried to shave her as rarely as possible and avoided talking about her head or hair in an attempt to postpone the shaving operation hoping she would forget about it. However, my attempts appeared unsuccessful, and therefore I had to see the gentle stubble disappear under the sharp razor\’s teeth.
Soon I arrived at a strong and stupid conviction that I must see her hair and all the endeavors of my mind to change my mind were fruitless, as I didn\’t want to hear any arguments as fanatics are reluctant to listen to any wise advice. I was mulling over the way to do it and looked at her pretty head with an evil eye. I put a great effort into inventing the way to quench my unabated curiosity, but at the same time I was careful not to set off the fatal mine of her displeasure. My brain as if sensing the danger of the step resisted coming up with anything worthy attention, which threw me into a raging fit and sent into anxiety. However, soon something happened that foredoomed the further development of events.
One morning I, wrapping up in a thin windbreaker and cursing the icy rain, was taking a walk with a recently appeared — in every sense — spaniel puppy, which she had saved from the cold street\’s jaws the other day. And suddenly I froze in front of the shop window of a new store. It was still almost empty, except for the mannequin that had an unnatural stature and a then bald head, as a thick black wig dropped off it. I was struck by the similarity of the wig with what I had created using her hair and the photograph and that I saw in my dreams. Sweat covered my back and I scanned the pavement expecting to catch a look of someone, who fumbled in my thoughts and delivered a solution that my head had been craving for a while now. I was still in deep shock when I got back home, I plumped down in an armchair and set my mind on the thing that I had just come across. When she appeared, I tried to act as if nothing happened, but soon when I met her alert eye, the mercury of which I couldn\’t counter, I diverted my teary eyes and realized that I was no good at putting airs at that moment. She executed control over me for two days. She spent the nights with me and took me for a walk trying to chase away unhealthy thoughts that pervaded my mind and that she partially comprehended. However, on day three she decided to check on her relatives, who might have been by that time worried about her absence. Hardly had she closed the door behind herself, as I flung into the street my eyes sparkling and cheeks flushed. On exiting, I found a sharp brick chip that looked like a weapon of the cave man and that shared the warmth with my hand that clutched it and carried to the store, the window of which now showcased a straight-backed mannequin with a wig in its due place. This time the advertising poster that loudly touted some company and cloning the contact numbers joined the team. My movements were free from any uncertainty, profuse sweat that helped the rain to moist my windbreaker elbowed out the fear, my hand held the brick firmly. The street was mute, the night dispersed the crowd and therefore, without any apprehension about being recognized, I stood on the other side of the street, breathed in a chestful of air, swung my hand and saw the brick flying across the street lowering near the pavement and noisily entering the weak window glass dividing in into hundreds of splitters. I waited a bit watching the last bits separating from the framing and crumbling on the asphalt for further disintegration. Then I hastily approached the crime scene hearing the glass bits crunching under my feet, shoved my hand into the shamefully undressed window, grabbed the indifferent mannequin by the leg and pulled it out onto the pavement. I tore off the wig from the plastic head and darted away choosing unlit spots for my escape route pursued by the false feeling of being followed. In a minute I was safe at my place, sweat dripping off my spine, breath uneven and my hand clenching a bunch of artificial hair that burned my fingers with its death and sent my devilish imagination reveling.
The next day she chose to stay with me overnight, the wild sparkle in my eyes that housed a peculiar triumph coupled with chaotic thoughts must have put her on alert. She couldn\’t understand what was going on and that scared her. I agreed unable to contain my satisfaction, which she took for something else and smiled at her own guesses. I was hot with excitement in the anticipation that all my doubts would be cleared. I was trying hard to chase away all dull thoughts that came to my head, I simply ignored them. Instead I gave myself in to pleasant meditations…
………………………………………………………………………………………………

A beautiful person is beautiful in every situation, in every position, everywhere and any time until, of course, old age puts its wrinkled fingers on him or her, tinting delicious features with fading of the so-called departed beauty. I stopped walking along the moonlit trails, stepped away from the window and drank the sleeping beauty of hers with love. Sleep applied a haughty color to hers lips and stretched them into a cold smile, closed the eyelids, his servants, that kept from me her lavish eyes, which now probably wandered along the silver mountains of dreams, where they might have been a place for me.
I brought my hands forward. In the left one, which was quivering, I held a dark lump, which I trie Various thoughts about the responsibility that I shared started trickling in, as I, in some way, was holding the perfect weapon sent by someone for some unknown purpose, if the fiction be believed. Now she was not only the object of admiration, but also something that can destroy everything around, or to be more exact, everyone around. Then all the other things would be made useless, as idiots don\’t need much, though, I have to admit, everything that I am talking now about had a rosy color about it and carried a certain degree of condition.d not to look at. My eyes were fixed on her arrogant lips, her smooth head was dazzling in the night and the sight evoked an inappeasable itch in my palms. I stepped towards her and my left hand extended and eased its grip giving a bit more freedom to the dead hair, and the stubborn strands like coal rivulets flowed between my fingers. Her nose, small and pretty, gave out a weak whistle and made me backed up to the window, from where in a minute I approached the bed. That was the moment when I could still change my mind. The whistle woke up my prudence and something else, but my crushing will forced them to shut up. I was just invaded by the expectation that I must and had to see something second to none in this world, something that I would always remember, something complete and unique. I crawled upon the bed ruthlessly flattening the sheets with my heavy weight. My hands shaking and moist with sweat soared above her head and stayed unmoving for a while. Her face cleared up as if someone was lighting the place up assisting me and making sure that I did everything right, as if someone was pushing me to do it. I started to slowly lowering my palms, her face brightened, I stopped to see how black curls were playing along her white skin, then my hands dropped moving both to hold her head and to put on the artificial hair on her warm head.
A minute later I took my hands off her white skin and felt my eyes filled with tears that were caused by the arrival of strange pity and something else. I couldn\’t hold them back, because her cheeks were so red driving the shade away from her nose and eyelids; she was so beautiful that I bated my breath and ceased to control the process fixing my gaze on the map of her face. I stopped thinking at all, contemplating what was peacefully asleep under me, something heavenly gorgeous and with hair. I have been in trance for quite a while, because when I regained myself I realized that I was still sitting on the bed in the same position, while the sun was rising. Suddenly the ability to think and breathe normally came back to me, but it happened so out of the blue that at first I was almost stifled by harsh streams of air, my head was spinning. Then a minute of pleasure followed when my lungs convulsed with a special effort packing my head with various thoughts, and one of the first that occurred to me was that she had lied to me, intrigued me on purpose, she wasn\’t someone I used to take her for; nothing special happened to me. My thoughts were transparent, I clearly realized that the beauty she possessed was formidable, but there was no delirium and no delusion in her words.
«What did you expect?» I asked myself. «Did you really suppose that you would go crazy?»
Thought number two, which shaped up after I felt a tremendous relief that the predictions of the bald girl didn\’t come true, after a batch of reproaches sent to my own gullibility, was the thought that now she would have to say good-bye to her bald top of the head and go for luxurious like the sea ringlets, where I would be sinking remembering the hardships I had to overcome to get in there. I turned over a plethora of speculations before letting in a little but serious thought that overshadowed the rest of them. It read that for this divine composition to be complete and finished, for me to fully enjoy the logical connection and gradual transition of one feature into another, something was missing. And instead of nipping the thought in the bud, instead of trampling it and wiping it out with crosses of other, better reasons, I surrendered to it, let it oust the rest of peers which were in abundance, I glorified it gazing into the face of my bald girl, who was still asleep. I was looking for something that slipped my eye.

And then… Aaa!
A…
A.
B.
C.
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At this moment — maybe she felt my long and intent look or maybe there was some other reason — she opened her eyes…
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…so quickly and almost imperceptibly that I was covered with a slow sweat and got scared…
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… and then her eyes spitted… acid…
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…no! It wasn\’t acid, it was bright and uncontainable light that enveloped me ripping me open as if I had been a fish, first it made me close my eyes and then made me open them fixing my chin in one position directed straight at her…
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The last detail was there and the picture was complete now…
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… my head was torn by an unbearable headache, which drove massive tears out of my eyes, which turned on tightly screwed faucets somewhere under my skull, from which a continuous flow of thoughts flushed free, unconnected, fragmentary, short, constantly changing thought…
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… crazy thoughts…
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… I flew off the bed and fell on the hard parquet hitting my weak nape against it. Through tears I saw her sitting up on the bed a sheet dropping off her breathing chest, I saw a crow black fringe falling on her forehead; she flinched and tried to recoil, but evidently failing to attain the desired result and it took her another second to realize what was going on, snatched the foreign hair off her head and shoved it away in disgust…
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…a thunderous slap broke against my cheek; I didn\’t notice her approaching me, as my eyesight was clouded by a non-stop all-absorbing flow of thoughts; there were thousands of them, thousands of beginnings and none of them had the end, I started to have one thought, and in a second I was far away from that thought…
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…a thunderous slap broke against my cheek, her sister was dealt an equal blow from the clenched cobblestone of her fist. Then she stopped and burst into tears, burying her beautiful face in her beautiful palms covering it with her beautiful fingers and giving beautiful tears to her beautiful skin…
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… I was sitting on the floor like an idiot, smiling and choking on the beehive of my own mental processes in a crying jag, the headache intensified, while the possibilities of systematization were scattered by the wind. Most of the stuff that foamed in my head was but total delirium, the meaning of which seemed very vague to me…
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She still visits me, now less frequently, she doesn\’t cry anymore, but still she comes around. There is no love anymore. It is hard for me to get my thoughts together, I often fail to find the words and say a couple of sentences that provoke more tears of hers, my conversation is incoherent, I forget what I talked about, I don\’t understand what she talks about, I just stare. She speaks a lot, I never manage listen to her till the end as I fall into a well of unconsciousness that appears on my way more and more often now taking away the last drops of my sanity. When I\’m there I become uncontrollable, I walk in some direction without choosing where to go, and the gravest thing about it is that I don\’t remember what I\’ve done. Recently, I\’ve caught the sight of her stubble that grows bigger, bigger than the one she allowed to grow when we were together; it is still prickly, but soon it will become soft and pliable.
«Why?» I managed to ask.
«I don\’t know,» she understood the question. «I am thinking about going on holiday…»
«Where?» I asked feeling my mind going dim. The head is getting full with the disfigured images of Africa that in a minute get substituted with spatial skyscrapers of the USA, they keep changing shape, molding into ice cover with penguins performing long jumps in a long run.
«Around,» she draws an imaginary circle with her finger; she must have noticed that I am floating away. However, I don\’t understand what she says anymore. I saw the finger and now it is drawing circles in my head.
«Aaa,» I am saying just to say something. My hand is under the pillow clutching a sharp knife. I\’m doing it on the compassionate grounds to save the world that is not aware of how much the hair of my beloved means to it. That is my justification. In fact, I want to put her to death because of the same destruction, a gift to the humanity from the generous mother nature, and because I cannot put up with the thought that someone else would own my bald girl.
I feel she will stop seeing me soon…
Maybe she will go traveling, or maybe this is just an excuse, which she uses to cover her soon disappearance, her disappearance in the arms of another…
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What can you expect of a mad man…

 

Translated by Tatsiana Malochka
Здесь находятся мои рассказы, повести и опыт из нежной сферы отношений, где встречаются влюбленные люди. В унисон стучат их сердца и как только они не испытывают свои чувства, эмоции и свою любовь, наслаждаясь мистикой эмоций.

 

Ваш, Роман Коробенков