Tady to začalo. To je moje první povídka, kterou někdo jiný přečetl a otiskl. V roce 2010, v posledním ročníku před maturitou, jsem ji poslal do studentské literární soutěže „The 17th Annual SPUSA Writing Contest“. Ani jsem nevěděl jak, ocitl jsem se (v doprovodu své – za mnoho let – budoucí ženy) na americké ambasádě, kde jsem se při vyhlašování výsledků setkal s Jiřím Stránským, prezidentem Českého centra Mezinárodního PEN klubu. Velká čest a krásná vzpomínka! Povídka získala ve své kategorii 3. místo a hodnocení poroty (viz dole) mi vlilo hodně tvůrčí krve do žil. LV
Warm-up riddle
It was May, the tenth year of the twenty-first century. I was lying on a pier and the river Labe was flowing below me. I felt every single wave caused by ducks, wind or motorboats. Kingfishers and tits were flying over my head and darkness slowly crept in the river surroundings. I was having a rest with my mp3 player on. Prodigy song Out of space started to play and I saw the first star.
I’m gonna send him to outer space
To find another race
I’ll take your brain to another dimension
Pay close attention…
Yellow flowers were dancing in the spring breeze on the shore and suddenly their dandelion snow started to burn. The flare reflected on the sky, a silver laser ladder was created and I climbed up. In the sky I found a fountain full of bright orange mud. It looked like a living pudding. I was watching its movements and I saw how it was formed into the shape of an old man’s face. He told me a riddle:
If I was a man on the edge
With voices in my head counting down
Lizards of the Sun I would catch
But not the lizards as we know
Is the end coming closer?
Tasmanian devil wants to answer:
„Three!“
Three years of squeezing lemons in my eyes
„Two!“
Two days between the daily routine and a neverending trip to Wonderland
„One!“
One step for a man, but what does it mean for me?
„Jump!“
Free fall to the open Phobos’s arms
Right in the middle of the galaxy
Where Dark matter sets the rules
If I was a man on the edge
With your face in front of mine
You would be the one who will catch
Me and my treasure – hot summer shine
Who am I?
Who was he? I didn’t know Mud, fountain, ladder and stars it all disappeared and I was back on the pier with evening dew on my face. Three steps from me was a source of light a smoldering parchment with a solution to the riddle written on:
Fear and Scream
That is me
What will be
Truth and dream?
Am I able to find out?
What? When? Where?
Not in our atmosphere
Find the lost and lose the found
Let this episode of my early life be forgotten. Now we will focus on a story which happened fifty years later. I was a sixty-nine years old man on a family trip in Koněprusy Caves in Bohemian Karst. Stalagnates, stalaktites and stalagmites created in limestone of Devonian age were everywhere. There was some special kind of atmosphere – the air was full of ions of calcium carbonate and dihydrogen monoxide.
At one moment I was left behind the group of tourists. Suddenly I was alone in a dark cave. There was a little pool of water and at the bottom of it was orange clay which seemed familiar to me. I looked into the water and when I saw that youngster on the other side of the surface mirror I understood it all. It was me and that old man in the fountain fifty years ago it had been me, too.
Then, in the deep underground I expanded my horizons by the realization that horizon can’t be expanded. I can’t be anyone else but me. With all my fears and phobias. Enlightenment came to me through the darkness.
A little lizard which was sunbathing on the hot rock seventy meters above my head set its face to the Sun and enjoyed the rest of its lazy Sunday afternoon.