Bomar Critique
Simona Vinci: Dark Star
There was only snow, snow everywhere, as far as the eye could see, and ice, all was white: the sky, earth and the horizon.
It was the last place on earth where snow still fell.
He knelt down on the frozen snow, his naked arms embedded in the roughness. He couldn't feel anything. Not even pain. It was as though instead of hands, arms, feet and legs he had artificial limbs of titanium that were perfect and immune to everything. He thought about what it would be like to really be able to run with those limbs and was struck by an overwhelming sense of power. The trunk hurling itself upwards, the artificial limbs that could withstand the impact with the ground and that could launch his body into the sky, his eyes shut. He tried to recall the image of his mother's face, but failed. He then opened his eyes and in all that whiteness, that blinding, evil whiteness he made out the miniscule outline of something dark red that moving towards him.
Far away. Still far away. And then closer. It was a familiar face but one that he couldn't put a name to. He articulated a few syllables, but none that fitted another.
*
Many years ago, he told me, it started snowing here. And at times it was known to start snowing at the end of August, unceasingly until the spring. Yet now this is the only place on earth that is always cold, it's always shady. Can you see the moss clinging to the houses? It's always there, even in the summer, even when the snow begins to melt. Touch it, take your glove off and feel its smoothness, it's always alive.
The walls are dark green, almost black and damp.
I run my fingers along the sticky substance. He starts talking again, without looking for my eyes, as if he were talking to himself or to someone else. But there's no one else here, only the two of us surrounded by a deafening silence that almost hurts my ears. And I have to translate his words in my head. I must break down the sentences and construct them in another language. But both are broken. One I don't know very well and the other I have forgotten. Only my thoughts are clean, even when I write, it's clean, but a jumble of words come out when I speak and I need time.
And he speaks and speaks and uses a heap of words when he need only use one. They're all the same. Even the old man used to say: the man with whiskers on his cheek uses too many words because he doesn't know how to think. You're different, you think you're worse and everyone around you will do everything they can to make you feel worse, but you mustn't believe them. Never. Don't allow them the get into your head and bombard you with their false beliefs.
I sink into the icy snow, it's already a week old. Last week it snowed for 48 hours solidly and the world looked totally different. When it stopped the sky became clear all of a sudden, the clear blue split open its white cover and took its rightful place. But the snow didn't melt away, it did in the middle of summer for a week or so, but no more than that.
The old man told me about that as well. He told me everything. The past, present and future. Stories of days gone by and of today. He said there's a place where anyone can go, it's for those that have more, and those that have less. A place were inequality is good, it's not a weakness. This place really does exist and you'll go there one day. When he spoke I remained silent and just listened, but I never looked into his eyes. He had the eyes of a blind man and they scared me. I thought that if I looked into his eyes something horrible would happen.
But I wasn't going to go back to the old man on that day. From that day on I would never go back to him. It's just that I didn't know that then.
I walk up to my hips in the snow retracing his footprints, these smoking oval craters, it's as though my shoes are boiling hot. I see his back muffled up in a green parka and the misshapen blots of his military socks dancing in front of my eyes, which are unbearable against the blinding whiteness of the snow. He's wearing his hood, his mirrored ski glasses cover half his face and his scarf is tightly wrapped around his mouth. He's limping in a strange way. When he turns round to say something the sound of his voice is softened and faraway, as though he were talking across a closed door.
Careful of the drop, he says.
There's a hole here, he says.
Watch out for the branch on the left, he says.
There's half an hour of walking ahead, he says.
Don't be frightened, he says.
We're almost there, he says.
And instead I don't say a thing.
I wrap my arms around my body and I feel as though I'm about to disappear. I can feel my bones poking out where there's no flesh under my lightweight red parka. It's the cold, I tell myself. The cold has made me feel sleepy all over, but we're nearly there, I'll warm myself up under the roof and within those four walls where a warm fire awaits me.
There's a whole in the earth. Hidden behind a jagged rock half covered in black moss. I see him slide into the hole and it feels like he's being swallowed up and sucked away. I'm still outside, the cold air lashing against me, I'm surrounded above and below by white. I'm scared. I'm scared that he's really disappeared and that the hole has sealed up. I'm scared of finding myself all of a sudden alone, amidst the wind and whiteness of the snow. I'm scared of having to retrace the whole of my steps back, of having to climb down the mountain and of going back to the old man to ask him to let me in. Then I see his hand. His skin scorched by the cold, rough and covered in fresh cuts. His fingers move, one after the other, beckoning me to follow him.
There's a tunnel that's been dug out of the snow, the light filtering through is blue. We walk along it bending over, icy flakes scroll down the back of my neck getting into my parka. I lift up my hood in order to cover my head and I feel it rub against the top of the tunnel.
Then all of a sudden the tunnel finishes, we're out in the open again, but in a place unlike any other we've seen.
There are no trees here.
The trunks are bodies.
The sky is always dark. Jet black, as black as the bottom of the sea, as black as the darkest resin.
Do you want to follow me?
Now I see them. They're everywhere. Silent and immobile. Some have no eyes, others have no mouths. They are like me, and I'm like them. We're the same, they scare me.
You reach your hand out towards my face but you stop short by just a millimetre. I feel the heat of your splayed fingertips that warm my skin, but you don't touch me.
Are you scared?
Your hand is still, your fingers outstretched, I gaze at the thin lines of your hands and I read your history.
But you can't read mine.
My past does not exist. It no longer exists.
I draw my hand towards the face of the first girl. Her mouth is sown and her big grey eyes are fixed in a stare. She can't speak but nevertheless I hear what she says. Her words echo in my head, the volume of sound gets louder and then softens, just like a tide.
You want to touch me but you're not brave enough. You have a tiny nose and onyx eyes. A root grows between the parting in your hair and every month you have to pluck it out so that nobody can see it. It is rose in colour and deep and when you pull it out you take great care in covering the hole with a lock of hair. You've never let it grow, but now you can. Leaves will bud and you'll have hair like wood fern and berries will shoot from your head.
The second girl I try to touch has a shiny green leave fastened above her eyes. Her mouth is open and I can see her rosy tongue. Lying on her tongue is a bronze beetle fluttering its antennae. She is without eyes, yet she can describe me perfectly, as though she were able to see.
Maybe it's not just the eyes that can see.
I've got a lot to learn.
I turn around to find him, but he's disappeared. I am here alone with them. The root on my forehead is pushing outwards, it feels itchy, it will soon sprout outwards.
There he was again, kneeling down in the snow dreaming of his new gleaming limbs made of titanium. He's there again, waiting, overcome by memories which he could not give a name to in any language. Perhaps, he thought, his were memories of the future that had been formulated in a language that still needed to be invented. And he was only a ferryman who would have never learned the language. He was waiting for two more girls today. Two other misfits from the world above. But this would be over. The new language was about to be conceived. And when this happened he would have been able to walk again on his shining titanium legs. That was the promise.
The snow began to fall again and around us there was only whiteness, snow and ice, as far as the eye could see.
