Black and White (a snippet)

A coin flew up in the air. Driven by a gust of air, higher in the sky….

It fell down, landed as tails. A fifty pence coin. Something was decided. It still remained black.

*

The next morning Miss Espresso stormed into Oblomov’s room.

He was shaving in front of the bathroom mirror, door open.

“Don’t you ever knock? I could have cut my throat…”

“I’ll cut your throat if you don’t tell me what this means, right now!”

“Give me five minutes to finish here and I’ll explain.”

“I hope so.”



Miss Espresso held the laptop looking pointedly at something in front of her, when Oblomov entered the room, with a waft of aftershave trailing behind him.

“Now what’s the matter my dear?”

“This is the matter! Look at this online article. You told me there’s been an earthquake in Italy the other day, while we were in Belgrade, remember?

So why does this site talk about the first anniversary of the event? A year has passed overnight? This has got to be your fault…”

Oblomov made for the armchair with a heavy sigh.

“If I make time go slower or faster, it’s for your own good. I need to protect you.

Time passes by inexorably. I sometimes think myself centuries back and I’ve realized that I don’t really exist that far back in history. Fast forward in time doesn’t work either. Wishful thinking makes us believe we are moving, but we’re all stuck. The arrow points forward, but we’re stuck like Velcro on the fabric of time.

In a hundred years from now, many relevant names, events, situations will become irrelevant, unknown or distorted.

People adjust their watches and clocks in the spring and in the autumn, hoping to gain more daylight, wasting even more time.

I sometimes collect those hours that go forward and back and then I travel in time with you. Or rather, I let time take us on a random tour, because we’re stuck with it.

Drifting in time gives the illusion of eternity. And I am trying to keep that illusion to protect you, from many things, above all from suffering, from knowing pain, from having to deal with it.

Protecting you makes me redeem myself, my actions."

*

“I feel guilty sometimes, I wonder if I should let you go, leave you alone, set you free on your travels, and take away the responsibility of these constant searches. You deserve better. You deserve dreaming your own dream. That’s where I saw you first. You were a dream, a little girl playing in the sand, blue ribbons tied to your hair. So alone, so helpless, so determined to make a castle out of the wet sand.

You were about to leave, I knew I had to step in and fake the claim to be a relative, there and then. You are a key and I need to unlock this door."



“But what was I doing on the Adriatic coast? What was I doing in your dream? And who was going to take me away? Why did you have to intervene?”



“I don’t know….Hush now… Don’t cry. Silent tears are the worst. And your beauty is all you can take with you on the journey through time.”



She’d never seen Oblomov crushed like this before. He seemed older; sadness accentuated his Slavic features in an odd, generous way.


****
The whole story is available here: http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/black-and-white/14263553