Читать книгу An Old Letter from the Future. A Journey Through the Inner Realm - - Страница 3

This morning turned out surprisingly warm: the princess lay in a spacious bed, covered with a thin blanket, while the canopies above it remained drawn open, letting in the first rays. Her eyelids were still closed, yet the light was already seeping through them, meeting no resistance – insistent, relentless, it invaded her awareness, tempting her with its golden warmth. This persistent explorer beckoned her to leave the distant, slipping expanse of sleep and return to reality, to the waking world.

The windows of her chamber had neither glass nor shutters – they were always open, yet this hardly affected the temperature inside, as though the castle possessed a climate of its own, like the mood of a sage: calm, detached from the storms outside, impervious to the whims of fate. Only long, sheer curtains gently veiled the narrow openings, like eyelids powerless before the sunbeams that had traveled millions of kilometers just to enter within.

The princess’s bedroom was located on the very top floor of the castle, with direct access to the roof. Down the narrow staircase lay the hearth hall – a spacious room crowded with rolls of canvas. These rolls were the paintings the castle’s inhabitant would sometimes create.

And today was one of those days when, upon waking, she immediately went downstairs, unrolled a fresh canvas of dense linen cloth, took a piece of charcoal from the fireplace, sat on the stone floor, and slowly, thoughtfully began tracing patterns that resembled a script not yet invented – or long forgotten.

It was her meditation, a bridge to the world to come, where words would die out and pure, telepathic understanding would awaken – just like the one between her and the dragon.

When humanity grasps this connection, the script-paintings will reveal to them the messages that have preserved the princess’s reflections, born at the edge of the abyss of her mind – on the edge of the castle wall.

These paintings were her message to the future – letters whose answers had already come long ago, only to be forgotten and worn into the dust of time, leaving behind nothing but a quiet, warm echo of their former wisdom.

Having nearly finished the painting, she suddenly froze, sensing the dragon’s aggression: he was calling her to battle. Dropping the charcoal, the princess dashed upward with resolve – without hesitation, without fear.

The dragon stood tensely at the edge of the wall, exhaling scorching air through his massive nostrils. He looked like a trained hound poised to leap, but waiting for the familiar signal of his master. Quickly and confidently, the girl approached the parapet, peering into the horizon.

In the distance, across the green field strewn with poppies, appeared a knight with a sword and arrogantly gleaming armor. Another brave warrior, walking toward the unknown in the hope of rescuing the unfortunate princess from the dragon who held her captive. He was neither the first nor the last to give his life to such misguided ideas. So many of them – splendid, valiant warriors who had added to these fields the redness that stings the eye, that withers, yet is reborn again.

They did not know that the princess was no prisoner of her confinement: to her, these knights were a threat – an assault on her freedom and happiness, on the quiet, harmonious world she cherished. In her eyes, they were thieves, intent on taking from her everything she held most dear. And she defended her home, her world, and her harmony without hesitation or pity.

Upon seeing the knight, the princess instantly shifted from focused readiness to irritated boredom. She turned slowly and walked away. As she left, she gave a barely perceptible wave of her hand and headed downstairs to finish the painting she had begun.

That wave was the very signal the dragon had been waiting for. He hurled himself downward at once, with explosive force, toward the knight.

The princess descended the spiral staircase back into the hearth hall, picked up the piece of charcoal from the floor, and continued drawing her painting line by line, feeling how the dragon tore into the flesh of the uninvited savior with the screech of rending armor.

The painting was finished. And so was the life of the naive youth who had dreamed of glory and love. Like a long road toward hope, guided by a broken compass, doomed to failure from the very beginning.

Returning to the roof, the princess walked to the edge and looked down. The poppies stood calm again, as though what had happened was merely part of their familiar cycle – like morning rain or evening wind.

The world is made that way, she thought.

If you have a dragon, someone will always try to prove you don’t need it.

The dragon lifted his gaze to her. He knew: she was not thinking about the knights.

She was thinking about everything that had once tried to invade her life.

She ran her soot-blackened palm over his bloodied head, as though sharing with him the stains of her own soul and taking back her half of the responsibility for the spilled blood.

The dragon slipped into the sky, and the princess, marked with blood, stood on the edge of the tower, thinking of the sea that hid somewhere beyond the horizon and sometimes reminded her of itself with waves of salty air.

“It’s time for the sea”, she said to herself.

“This is not a day worth remembering.”

And she stepped down from the edge of the wall. It was not an act of risk or a craving for sharp sensations – it was the only way out of the castle she had ever used. Whenever she wished to descend or go somewhere, she simply walked into the void. And even if the dragon was nowhere in sight, he would appear beneath her feet with lightning speed, cleaving through space as it yielded before the onslaught of his scales.

Clinging to the dragon’s neck, they set off toward the sea, leaving behind the castle that stood like an impenetrable shell, untouched by fear or destruction. The poppy fields once again concealed their secrets. And the world, which had so stubbornly tried to interfere, withdrew – as it always does when it meets a force it cannot understand.