couldn’t do that. Have been divided with a wall from now on - divided with impenetrable wall for a long period of twenty years from that very familiar day …
- Do you remember that day, Pavel? I still cannot forgive myself for it - for you. Unable to forgive myself for your destiny …
- Stop it, Luyda. I have chosen that way myself, and whether I could choose differently? I have made that choice myself - and I am ready to bear a full responsibility for that. I have killed a man. I am guilty - and should be punished.
Indeed, they both remembered that day, remembered very clearly, each and every detail - in spite of the fact that more than a year has already passed since that moment. And nineteen more should pass before it will be possible to expel it definitively and forget - forget forever. Like a horror, a dream, a delusion.
Which, unfortunately, wasn’t a delusion at all …
Images slowly recurred in memory. That memorable day which have given a start to his new life here - a life that has begun after a short judicial proceedings and sentence.
Like bright flashes are these images. Sparkling and fading away …
They were returning back home from a holiday by foot … These guys jumped out of nowhere. There were two of them. One was bearing a knife in hand, the second one possessed a pistol.
“Hey, you, stand still! Drop purses on the ground, quickly! Rings, earrings, throw everything! Quickly, I’m telling ya, if you dunno want to get a bullet in ye head!” - a guy armed with a pistol cried out, having set it on them. A second one run up from behind and seized his wife, putting a knife to her throat. The one with a pistol was probably bluffing, but the second one definitely did not. “The young lass doesn’t look bad! I’ll have to fuck her a bit later. Don’t twitch ye, darling! It won’t take long, hah …”
A scared children’s shout of his wife, with a storming roar rushing into his ears …
He hesitated no longer. A blood of the soldier, who have survived the Afghani war, was boiling in him … he ceased to hear any longer … he ceased to feel the surroundings. Only the sensation, that strange sensation of the tested and survived fighter, allowing one to distinguish the incoming danger, - only it has become his guide in these instants of time …
Like bright flashes are these instants …
A kick - a pistol, pointing to him, flies off aside. Another blow - and a man holding a gun falls down and bent on the ground.
A short amazement on the face of the second guy, who has already started undressing his wife and put aside his knife from her throat for a while. Here the knife slowly moves back to her throat again …
Jump. A hand holding a knife, intercepted in the air. All three fall to the ground.
“Biiiiiitttttccccchhhhh!” - a shout, picked up by air.
A flashing iron once more - the guy managed somehow to get away a second knife. His hand, moved for interception of a strike … Too late.
A blow. Desperate shout of his wife, full of agony and pain.
“N o o o !!” - his shout of despair.
A blow. A blow. The guy screams from pain, one of his knifes flows off from hands. A struggle. Fighting on the ground. They have swept away, having seized each other.
His wife remained lying motionlessly …
Ten seconds, twenty. The guy was trying to stick his knife into him - their hands were struggling for life …
A blow. Attacking one finally managed to reach him with the edge of knife. He twisted from pain, but hasn’t ceased fighting …
Thirty seconds …
Drops of blood, exuding from his wound and generously watering the ground … Capture. Procollar of a hand holding a weapon - he wanted to beat a knife off from enemy’s hands. Blade was slowly turning towards lying below him attacker - now it will become possible to take the hand away and beat out a knife from opponent’s hands … without weapon the attacker ceases to be a fighter. Let them escape - he is not even going to pursue them …
But the guy suddenly screamed something and started turning sideways, trying to dump him from himself.
A rattle. Heart-rending agonal rattle. Turned edge was stuck in the robber’s breast, when he started turning over.
“Bas … tard”, - almost silent words, which he has heard. And then silence has reigned.
Only a guy, recently holding a pistol, was still slowly creeping, and the one with knifes was lying still … But he didn’t want to kill any of the two - had totally no desire … Only to disarm …
He picked up a pistol and run up to his wife. Has kneeled.
Breathing … that means that she’s alive. Then he looked on a wound - a wound was on the right side under the rib - a blood was slowly pouring from it. Good. Not deadly. She has to survive, she must!
Then he picked her up, propped up on himself and slowly started going forward, bearing her. He has to pass quite a little. To leave this lane and enter a populous street, and there he’ll be aided - he must be! - by others. No, he matters not! It’s she who must survive. And he will manage it somehow - he has overcome even greater wounds!
And the pistol must be destroyed as well …
Picture changed. Now he was standing in the court, listening to own sentence - a sentence for murder.
He is a murderer. Even protecting himself and his beloved - he’s still a murderer. Even carrying a necessary self-defense - he has killed a man. But according to a court’s decision no self-defense has ever taken place.
A second survived attacker has informed law enforcement department of the accident. Naturally - the way he wanted it to look like - there were no witnesses for a fight. And even words of his wife and her wound weren’t proof enough - she was unconscious according to her own words and didn’t see a final part of fight. And considering the wound … the wound can made by her husband as well, instead of the attacker … especially if his fingerprints left on the knife has to be taken into account.
So did the court conclude - and has made its decision. Imprisonment for a long term of twenty years … For such a long period, for which he has to remain here. In this stronghold of grief … and sometimes - only sometimes - repentances …
Images have gone out. He was standing close to his wife once again, and she was still crying. And thus he calmed her. Assured, that everything will finally turn out fine, that this nightmare will end soon and he once again will meet her - his beloved - this time being free.
Then he smiled - didn’t want her to see him despaired. And had no wish to despair himself. They continued talking for quite a while - until security guard hasn’t demanded a termination of their conversation. Then they were separated until a next meeting. She will once again come to him as soon as she’s allowed to - as soon as a minimal time span between visiting will pass … approximately in two months.
She will come once again - his second half, his beloved, his personal sun.
And he will come as well into her world, after these longest twenty years. He will come when a wall, separating them, will turn to ashes. And nothing forevermore will divide them! This is worthy of his return! A world behind this fence is worthy of entering into it once again. And he will return back to start a new life - in bright and solar - new world.
After almost quarter of a century he will embrace this solar world and smile. And rejoice his living.
Legend of Divine Island
- There is a legend, - the Wiseman smiled, - of the Divine Island, inhabited by singing Angels, where, seemingly, even the time ceases its movement. We transfer it to our warriors from one generation to another, and each and every year several brave ones stand out from the crowd, willing to find this true miracle.
- Have anyone of them achieved it yet? - the young man questioned.
