Author: Ivan Marinić, III.gimnazija Osijek
As I roam the hallways of my mother’s home, a chant breaks out of my soul and sparks in a tune:
When the suns in the skies do shine no more,
doth the humans turn to lore.
The purpose of lore, which oft stars forget,
tells us that we’re solely left.
And as we’re left with no hope or guide,
soon there’ll be not one place to hide.
I stepped into my old room which I was once proud to call home. There lay a very old picture of mine, on it I could see the faces of old friends; my sister – her brown eyes were covered in a layer of grime (I feel bad calling it grime), and her beautiful – once beautiful hair – it was scaratched off of the photograph, so it resembled greyish strands of greasy, clumped hairs. My father – I looked as I tried to invoke his face in my mind, a picture that I couldn’t remember anymore – my father had been burned from the image. There was no sign of fire anywhere, so I couldn’t help but wonder question what happened.
I left the photo on the ground – it felt an invasion of privacy (not even mine, I just felt that this – they didn’t belong to me anymore) touching or moving anything. Stepping on any place without making a sound – cracking some glass, or shushing dry leaves, or stepping on squeaking roaches – was the hardest; it was as if – even though I knew nobody could be alive anymore, not here in this infertile waste disposal, at least for another one thousand years – as if I was inching toward waking up the hounds of hell with every unauthorised noise; I knew I shouldn’t be here anymore.
I had come to the stairwell. There is no way but down, so I started the path very carefully, moving only when necessary, only when absolutely and perfectly calculated. Once I had established a certain sense of safety and comfort, I let go of what I knew of this place and how much it really hated me. I let my feet become faster than was comfortable, and I felt home again; I saw the repainted walls, greyish green and full of ability to inspire our household, the hung photos, the stairwell was again of polished hazel, I could even see our living room from the corner of my eyes. I found myself running down the stairs, as they felt endless underneath me and I felt as if nothing could harm me again, because I was home. But I only thought I had seen home, and that’s when the rotten wood under my left foot began to crumble, instinctively making me pull my right foot forward on the same board; with the old stair having to support my body – still full of electricity from moments ago, thus propelling me onto the wooden plank with far more momentum than was allowed – it caved in and let me down with it. As I was travelling down with an accelerating speed, the next wooden board, which was right
ahead, therefore also below the now shattered one, was steadily waiting for my face (which I had pointed toward it to, naturally, see the ground I was standing on). The board came closer and closer, and I only reacted when my chin was already crushed by it, sending a loud pang of shattering and breaking teeth through my ears. When my head was sent flying backwards, the back of it met with an unknown material, but judging from the sound it made and how it now made the back of my head match in pain the front of it, it was pure iron. I fell for a few moments with nothing to focus on but the bright red, and momentarily black and white sharpness I felt coming from the inside of my brain, signalling to me obvious emergency.
I had finally made my way down, my neck holding my melon up on one thread. I knew this was the moment, so I calmly watched the bright green leaves come out of the black foreground, all connected on a few strong strings of cellulose, and coil around my wrists, my feet, my fingers. I let them be, and went to sleep.
