STORIES

Đorđe Pisarev

AND IF HE DIES BEFORE HE WAKES?
Excerpt from the novel

He arrived on the outskirts of the real Novi Sad, although he has always believed that this city is much larger. The setting sun was an immovable ball and he was sure he not in his world. And when he came across a huge bungalow with a roof made of gigantic palm leaves, and saw the nearby eucalyptus tree, with a piece of wood hanging on it and written letters „Elephant Hunting Station“, he just laughed at the offered reality. Here used to be the children’s playround, he remembered well, with slides, swings and seesaws. There were no people and he felt that there must be a favourite place where people go to lie down and die.

During the walk, he discovered more buildings that in reality could be placed in such park: a village, a whole city, a lake, even a shore of seaside, a cementary, funeral mounds, many paths and small bridges, ports and piers, wells, springs and geysers, hills and mountains, streams and watering places, even a sand dune, road and river station, two churches and an old sanctuary, a waterfall, two abysses, several watersprings and huge shipyard. Then, a stone desert, a savannah, a trading outpost, a cane field, a tavern Skinny Antelope, a butchery, a windmill, a sausage shop, a Counceling for dark and family, a knife shop, a snail’s house, a farm of shorteared rabbits and Queen’s house.

He saw ships in the port, loaded with Lebanese trees, houses on stilts near the lake, in the shade of palm and sycamore tree, with the incense dripping from its leaves.

On the graveyard, he saw golden pots, sea shells, precious stones, silver figures of wild goates, bull’s heads, harps...

He left the park through the main entrance and found himself on Futoška street, where fifty seven police patrols joyfully penalized the joyful drivers. Slowly did he go to the green market, charting the houses and filling the whole wide world with life. He observed with pleasure that there are more and more people, especially women, whose breasts were ever larger, after each birthday. At the same time, he concluded that this was the day for the women with crooked legs. When he arrived to the deserted barracks, he turned into Branislav Nušić street, taking the direction to his flat, to her, being lonesome on the island of nothingness.

He has almost forgotten how she looks like. Something was wrong with time, so it seemed to him that he did not left the flat that morning, but many years ago. How she looks like, what is her taste... The only thing he remembered was the fragrance of acacia honey. If this is a dream, and if he dies before he wakes, he will never find out how she looks like. She would stay frozen in her flat-asylum forever, on her birthday, streched temporaly as long as the world in time, in which the hands of the clock were forbidden to move.

Roses grew everywhere in Branislav Nušić Street, both white and red, blue and violet. It was the street in which only roses grew. Only now did he realize that on Boulevard Oslobođenje he saw only oleanders. Their branches protruded from the small oppressive terraces, they grew from the small islands of grass, from the holes on the damaged tarmac, on the sidewalks, they floated from the roofs of the houses and buildings on a warm windy day. It was not clear to him if this was a coincidence or a plan designed by the inhabitants of the street. Or even by the municipality, which was less plausible. He has never heard of any municipal service, which deals with planting the flowers on the streets of Novi Sad, although it would be good if such service existed. Or if there was a person, appointed to judge if the flowers and trees were planted correctly. Judging people would not be priority to these persons. It looked good to him, therefore it was unreal. Suddenly he laughed – is there any border between the „real“ and the „unreal“? Is it a case, that one of the respected titles in this world is a „horse engeneer“? Although these were the horses that alienated from their breed early, in the school years...

It could easily be the case that the type of flowers depended on a microclimate in particular street. Moreover, he was sure that climate changes from house to house!

He walked slowly down Branislav Nušić Street, charted house by house and, for the first time, he admired to the diversity of life. Nes sky, new people, new stars, that resebled the swarms of glowworms. The history is one day old, he pondered. It was born today, on the green market in Futoška Street.