The Experiment of Naum Manivilov

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The Experiment of Naum Manivilov

That night the bed would not receive Naum for rest. It rejected him from under the covers, and the next moment the poet stood barefoot in his night shirt, trembling excitedly. He walked from one end of the room to another, sighing and rubbing his eyes. Then he sat with a sheet of paper in his hands and started writing:
“I, Naum Manivilov, have had a strange dream: I turned into a large feather, a big bird, and fell through an abyss of glass, weightless like air. I rotated and swooped in a circle, I, Naum Manivilov, a mere feather, and after an eternity I reached the bottom of a huge glass tube. At that moment I felt that I had regained my weight. I had turned into a big black stone. I awoke in fear and I could not calm myself until I stood before the mirror. My reflection peered back at me.”
Then Naum went back to bed with a vague, peculiar thought on his mind. While falling asleep he felt an inexplicable, heavy sadness: as if departing from himself and, at the same time, from the whole weight of the world, gathered in a huge black stone.

* * *

The morning came suddenly. It was the day of the Great Experiment and he could not let himself be late. Naum hurried running up Vodnyanska Street, towards the newspaper offices. He climbed the stairs of the old building, which smelled of lead. He bumped into familiar faces that greeted him with surprise. He ran away; when he reached the last floor, panting, he looked around, and once he was sure that the only witnesses to his experiment were the old, empty corridors with musty carpets, he climbed to the railing at the top of the staircase. Beneath him was a black gaping square space, with a chute wide enough for his experiment. He felt a strong excitement as one feels before the great fulfillment of intuition. Below, in the darkness, he could see the abandoned shovels in the coal bin. The experiment was to begin: he lifted himself upwards, stretched his arms like a bird and dived. While falling towards the bottom of the huge black chute, he understood that it was too late to record this: I, Naum Manivilov, a large, black stone, as heavy as the earth, fell long into a dreadful chasm. And I saw this: I, a large, black stone, crashed against the bottom and instantly became a large feather, an unusual bird. And I tell all who remain: a bird is a stone, a tired, sad bird, a bird that eternally awakens never to awaken.
The last thing he could remember was the scream of a woman who, upon entering the building, was faced with a bird banging its head against the glass of the door, and, finding an exit, a way out, it flew towards Vodno. In the crowd which started gathering above his body he could clearly see the reddened and envious face of General Moren, now triumphantly saying: “I said, I said that blood will be shed because of this. The birds are already dead; they have no meaning at all.”

* Naum Manivilov, poet – bird from the Macedonian 20th century. During one of his flights he committed suicide. Naum Manivilov, poet – bird from the Macedonian 20th century. During one of his flights he committed suicide.

Translated from Macedonian by Zoran Ančevski and Richard Gaughran

AuthorVenko Andonovski
2018-08-21T17:24:04+00:00 June 1st, 1998|Categories: Prose, Blesok no. 03, Literature|0 Comments