Promise

 I was watching about woman's lunar cycle today. Which made me realise that health is impossible in the current situation.

The cristal was working fine. Which is great. I should be grateful for things working correctly. We are surrounded by comfort things: crystals, which can show you anything you want, there is plenty of food, of course if you can afford it. Yet I am so bitten up by this reality, that I went to bed early. It is a 4rth year of war, but it actually has been much longer, but in my mind the beginning of all of it was yesterday. But also… Also that “yesterday” was in another life. So I went to bed. Woke up, because Kato crawled under the covers and told me that he saw on cristal that there will be an attack tonight. 

“Who told that?” I ask, secretly hoping it is someone not important. 

“Some priest, I don’t know him.”

We ruminate a little, about random priests saying random shit, which you have no capacity to check yourself. 

I slept a little bit, having nightmares about some death tournament, and then I woke up, because I heard the jays. High pitched sound, spreading like a wave over wawe. The priest was right, and I knew he would be, even before I heard the jays. From the beginning these attacks go one after another, hundreds of death-whales onto the peaceful cities, most of the time at night. We are not the frontline, it is just how butcheras act. We are the main target. Those who are without weapons, art guilds, craft guilds, well - any guild in a matter, who can’t or won’t directly fight back. But the attack soon was inevitable, unless all butcheras disappeared all at once. Before I heard the jays I was quietly hoping for that. But no. They are "answering" - quote on quote, for actions of our warrior guild. Recently they successfully destroyed a lot of butcheras skates - death-whale holders. I was hoping butcheras were out of stock now. But no, of course not. Planty for new terror. Kato says that butcheras will eat their own shoes, and drink their own piss, but scrape some gold for making death-whales. It is a joke but kinda truthful one. Also - there are slopes. Unlike death-whales, there are a lot of them.

I woke up and stared at my curtains for a while. Jays stopped.

I caressed Kato’s shoulder. He woke up and stared bluntly.

“Jays.” I said. 

“Who would have doubbed…” he mumbled.

We were talking about something, when explosions began. Distant at first. I was trying to guess what it is: if it is ours trying to shoot down whales or is it slopes exploding in the air, or is it something that hit a target. Knowing that targets are usually just civilian houses - doesn’t help. I am afraid of being frightened, at this point it is my main concern. I don’t want Kato having me with a full blown panic attack. It is not that much a conscious fear of death, it is just the body reaction. I learnt how not to be afraid of death, just because sometimes I feel like I don’t want to live in this world anyway. It is not really a truth and not completely a lie, but I would rather die on my own terms. 

I am calm now. But sometimes it is hard to control the body. Sometimes explosions are so strong, that windows shudder from the soundwave.

Slopes are slow, unlike death-whales they make rumbling sound. Unlike death-whales, which whistle over your head if not directed at you, slopes like an annoying bug flying around, back and forth, closer, farther. I listen to it. I listen to it paralyzed. Waiting for the explosions, waiting for it to be shot down or… 

It flies farther. The sound faints.

“Do you still hear it?” I whisper. 

Kato flinches his big fluffy ears. “Barely.”

I don’t hear this well, so I breathe out now, noticing my heart beating faster. Breath! I command myself. 

After successfully avoiding a panic attack I got up to drink water. Took from the shelves a pack of herbalcalmer pills.

“Do you want some?” 

“Maybe…”

Kato also got up. His tail looks so shabby. Mine isn’t better, sand foxes are not really resilient to stress in general. 

We take our pills in silence. We discussed how fucked up all this so many times now, that it is nothing to say. I hug him, even though it is hot.

It is stupid to even try to sleep, so we are talking again. I said that with this life I wonder if I should have eaten those poisoned berries from the bush near the school, and he said that he should have done the same. I am a little upset that I actually mean it. Jokes about ending it all are common here lately. 

But I am with him, I tell myself. This is a big plus. With this absurdity - it is better to enjoy the absurdity. Better to have a fatalistic approach, have fun, and dream about morning coffee. But my thoughts were interrupted with a series of strange sounds, it sounded like lasers, but it can’t be. Then explosions after explosions. Herbalcalmer obviously kicked in, because now we even laugh a little.

“What do you think that was?” I wonder. 

“I have no idea.” He grumbles.

Explosion again, and then whistle and explosion far away.

“Wow…” I muse. 

“That was close.”

“Yeah.” I say. And as always there is nothing more to say.

We lay in bed holding our hands. 

***

When morning came I actually dossed out. Had a dream, or, should I say nightmare again, about rain, jays and me alone in some strange vintage house.

When I woke up I felt beaten. Though I know it is understandable, while making a coffee, I think about new tactics on how to not go mad, or at least not completely. But I had to pause that unproductive endeavor, because I’ve got distracted by my sketchbook. I tried to draw what I felt. It didn’t work at first, because I was recording it on a pocket cristal. Coffee tasted nice, and I heard on a newsair that four people were killed today in the city we live in. It sure sounded like more. But I am glad it is not more, though it is a tragedy anyway. But in another city, which is actually a lot farther from the frontline, it is fifteen. I was thinking about a dark irony, that a lot of people actually moved to that distant city to avoid attacks like this.

The worst thing about this - is not the attacks themselves, but how it makes you think. I found myself in a position, that day after day I want nothing and I believe nothing. Yes, sometimes I want to eat salty nuts and drink some light syrup with lemonshade taste, but nothing global, nothing big. 

“There is no point in living in a capital! Especially with these prices!” 

I halt my charcoal, listening to conversation. Kato is talking through the pocket crystal, I don’t know to whom. He went to the kitchen, so now I barely hear him. 

I would like to leave this place too, if only we could leave. I sigh and continue my drawing session.

Then I came to the kitchen too. Kato was still there.

“I would like to live in a smaller city too,” I say, “maybe have some rainbow goats, collect wool, and milk and… I would like to have swings near the needlecypress.”

“Lucia, some day I will make a swing for you.” He promise.

And I believe.