"One Day" - Short Story

I found myself on this magnificent, velvety-soft, yellow object with delicate, rounded edges, after a powerful storm on a dark night that seemed as if it was the night the universe was being built from the beginning.  The two mountains vibrated to their very core from the thunder.  All night long the sky washed the dirty surface of the earth clean, while the flashes of lightning severed the dark horizon into terrifyingly beautiful pieces…  The grandeur of Nature one might say.  The moment of my own birth, I might say.

The moment of every birth is blessed and full of pain like those of the storm and of my own flash of lightning.  And afterwards a wonderful calm all around me and inside me.  I came…  And I don’t know how many times I have been born and died, again and again on this planet.

Full of curiosity about the world, at the crack of dawn I began to hear the birds waking up, in the distance a vehicle emptying dirty things and sweeping them up close to it, leaving dirty smoke behind it and over us.  And then this smell filled my nostrils, the smell of the damp earth, full of the scent of hidden seeds waiting to sprout forth, of the little living creatures waiting for the rain in order to breathe, to eat, to live.  Life…

And I, an observer on this beautiful yellow object that is offering me its hospitality for I don’t know how long.  I hope and pray with all my soul that I am lucky enough to live a little longer, to see as many things as I can in this wondrous world where I have come.  I looked up, I saw some enormous creatures flying and their wings glowed golden in the sun like the wings of angels.  Looking around me, green grass, in other words huge spears of green grass, lay very close to me.  Tall and tiny, diverse and beautiful yet all perfect in their own harmony, some motionless, some pass and walk by in front of me, all of them full of life.

And then the wind blew.  I closed my eyes and let the melody embrace my ears.  When the wind blows the whole forest whispers prayers.  You don’t have to do much, just close your eyes.

And after that came the sun.  A blinding light that covered and embraced the entire forest.  It doesn’t choose where it will cast its light; it sheds its glow everywhere, without distinction.  An overwhelming moment, this touch of light.

I saw many of my sisters disappear, greedily sucked into the earth.  Others evaporated and rose hastily up in the clouds, from where they had come.  And I, afraid, awaited my turn.  Yet I was in a clearing, among many pine trees and pine needles that for the time being kept the temperature low and preserved the morning dew, so I had been spared for now.  But I could see my time would soon be up.  I felt it and I didn’t like it.

Suddenly I felt myself shrinking and contracting and I didn’t know what was happening.  A black and yellow creature, a bee, began to drink of my being.  I welcomed her and she repaid me by singing to me, thanking me and then left hurriedly heading for her own fascinating community to prepare the nectar of Nature.  Quite a long time went by, according to my calculations it might even have been an eternity and I delighted in Nature, gazed at the white clouds racing above, heard the rustling of the leaves in the forest and closed my eyes feeling God speaking to me.

And then I heard loud footsteps that made the ground tremble.  I saw two huge figures standing over me.  A beautiful child with its mother had come for a walk in the forest.  “Look, Mama, the daisy is crying!” said the child who had bent down to pick my flower.  “It’s the morning dew, sweetheart,” replied the mother.  Indeed I now looked like the tear of a young child.  And as the child picked the flower it made me fall into its tender little hand too and soon what was left of me, lay on the ground.  My own enjoyable day had also ended.  Until next time…

Story: Alexandra Belegrati

Translation: Elly Petrides