Читать книгу Medusa´s child - Bernhard StoEver - Страница 7

I had been travelling around the world for several years when it took me to the Seychelles. I wanted to visit an old girlfriend of mine. She lived here since many years.

Before I wanted to look for her, I rented myself to a secluded hotel and enjoyed the overwhelming nature, which in its splendour and opulence intoxicated my senses and my mind. Freed from most of my agony, I walked the next morning barefoot along the beach. Waves rushed up, clawing at boulders and were sucked back into the sea. Nervous crabs ran disorientated behind the dwindling water, while screeching boobies bickered about a carcass that was lonesome and half-gnawed. It smelled of salt, fish and sea.

I ran faster and faster. Fresh endorphins flowed through my brain. I leaned panting against one of the huge boulders, which laid around as forgotten by a Titan. It had darkened noticeably. A tropical storm announced. Dark clouds approached fast, first drops already slapped my face.

Not far lightnings shot threateningly into the sea. Within seconds, the sky was full of water. Palm trees did bent in the wind. The thundered rain pressed the leaves mercilessly down. He blurred the contours and hid everything behind a misty grey. I felt how the whole island bowed to the storm.

The wind was gaining strength, tearing clouds and rain with it and then raged out over the sea. Within minutes, the sun came back and evaporated the left-behind water. Only small puddles that had formed in the hollows of the boulders were reminiscent of the inferno that just had taken place.

Inwardly and externally cleaned, I made my way back to the hotel. I bent down, grabbed a flat stone and threw it over the sea. The stone struck on the water and jumped up, again and again. I counted to seven before he was sinking after a last, desperate splash. For an unknown reason I was proud of myself.

In the distance, I saw a girl in a white dress, playing in the waves. She knelt down, splashed the water over her head with both hands and laughingly tried to dodge the falling drop. The little girl was one with nature, belonged to the sea and the sky. She had no idea of the adversities in which cemented a life. She lived the moment. She was free.

A few days later, I found my girlfriend's small, enchanted cottage, which was laying between palm trees near the sea. I heard a bell-clear voice approaching quickly. "Mama, Mama." It was the little girl from the beach. She was wearing the white dress again. But the young lady who now stood before me was no longer a little girl. I guessed she was in her mid-twenties. She had the body of an adult woman. Graceful legs, a slender waist and her mother's dark eyes. The hair was long and black and a little wavy. The face was even and had a golden tan. It was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

I looked at that gentle face with the big eyes that glared at me without suspicion. They were empty eyes. Eyes that only could ask questions, but never gave answers. Questions were innocent, answers were not. Mary was innocent. Her consciousness had never left childhood. She would remain a little girl until her death.

She proudly presented the shells collected on the beach. She smiled at me, how she smiled at everything in her life. Then she hopped among flowers, crouched down and listened to the birds whose language she seemed to speak. She merged with the small garden, became a part of him. Like a butterfly fluttering from flower to flower and breathed them a soul. A deep love played around my girlfriend's face when she saw her daughter being one with nature.

I swayed and almost lost control of my body. She looked at me in amazement. "Everything alright?" I just nodded. But I felt strangely weak, as if an invisible force wanted to pull me to the ground.

It was her eyes, Mary's innocent eyes. In them I had discovered something that I thought I had lost it long ago. At that time, it seemed worthless to me.

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