Countdown (excerpt)

/, Literature, Blesok no. 120-121/Countdown (excerpt)

Countdown (excerpt)

Winner of Novel of the Year award of “Slavko Janevski” foundation for 2017


When I was far enough from the house where I lived, I called a taxi and a brief and not completely unpleasant feeling of fear of the thought that this was it came over me, I was only a couple of minutes away from my destination, where something from which there would be no coming back from would happen, but that is not a bad thing, despite the finality and unambiguousness of it. Previously, I had created various narratives in my mind, all very different, changing according to the mood of my imagination, all of which now flashed in front of my eyes in a matter of minutes, like a train moving so fast that if a person focuses on it intensely, they would not be able to determine its color, but the direction it is moving in is set, just like the direction I was moving in. That excitement, that flutter that begins in the stomach and quickly ascends, is now in my neck, it’s suffocating me although it has a sweet taste, it labors my breathing and all of that is normal because I am on my way to meet a man after I had left my own husband sound asleep.

My husband is now asleep, and he will remain sleeping for the next couple of hours, perhaps he will even sleep eight more hours, and I had no other choice after I had seen the faint light under the pile of ruin that had buried everything that was shining and everything that was moving and dreaming; like a survivor, a person who has been too close to death so when they see the light of life, they have no other choice but to selfishly cling on to it, and no one can blame them for it as this is an instinctive occurrence. And if there’s a sleeping person next to them who cannot be woken when they have to move toward the light or remain dead forever, then, they cannot be easily blamed if they leave them and move forward. That is how I moved forward, repeating to myself that this is, at the end of the day, just a pleasant meeting, a meeting that would bring me the happiness I finally more than deserve, I cannot even remember the last time I felt happiness, that euphoric sort which causes mad laughter, a laughter that cannot be contained regardless of the location and surroundings at the time of its occurrence.

My childhood was lost long ago, long before I soundlessly opened and closed the door of the house where I lived, my childhood lasted only while mom was waiting up for me, it ended when she could no longer wait, gathering unnatural or perhaps supernatural strength to greet me with a smile, my childhood ended long ago. Now one man in sleeping, another one is waiting for me, and I am a woman on a journey.

When I got out of the taxi, Ivan was already waiting for me. As expected, at least for me, I was confused and did not know exactly how to behave, but it was clear that I knew where I was coming and why I was there which was pleasant, pleasant like the easiness that sweetened the scant amount of air between us, completely devoid of the question: what kind of people are we (if we’re doing this), or any other question that could cause either of us discomfort.

None of the nocturnal scenarios I had created in my head again and again, each time playing out a different conversation, micro and macro tales containing a tragic occurrence so that the happy ending would have a greater effect, none of them came to fruition which was as pleasant as the finality of the fact that whatever was about to happen would be real.

AuthorFrosina Parmakovska
Translated byMonika Mihajlovska
AwardNovel of the Year
2019-01-15T10:40:50+00:00 September 19th, 2018|Categories: Prose, Literature, Blesok no. 120-121|0 Comments