The Doe

The asphalted public road, terribly straight, lay among a wooded forest, always green and disappeared somewhere in the horizon. If you observed carefully, the horizon would give the idea of a loss or more exactly of a mixture of colours in a unique heinous colour, without a clear name, extremely provoking, hateful, terribly hateful… The eternal blue of the sky, the green of the trees and the grey of the asphalt melted away and that nameless colour rose…Oh, what a hateful colour!… Hateful and horrible at the same time, maybe because it was an eyesore with that view of a monotonous veil, which could arouse an immensity of corrosive feelings, exactly contrary to that sensation that the white veil of the bride arouses to the groom in front of the altar. That nameless colour would remind you the veil of death and it seemed as if the public road threw you away to Hell… Did that street lead you somewhere or not?!…
Behind the back, somewhere tremendously far away, started the city, with a grey colour too, as though the death had clutched it to the throat, smothering slowly the colours of the nature…
Where could you go?!… Behind the death’s door, alongside, to the left, to the right an immense forest, stately and tremendous, in front a frightful immensity… Hell…
– Oh! – I screamed with a howling voice that came from the profoundness of my chest.
– Oh God, give me the force to understand this mystery of the crossroads!
Surprisingly, without being in a desert crossroad, I was experiencing some ghoulish feelings. A tempting voice was intonating in my ear:
– Everywhere you go, you go and you don’t come back, everywhere you go, you go and…, everywhere you go…
Maybe I was lost in the lands of fairy-tales and who knows what kind of sylphs, dragons, divas and ghosts were going to come out of the forest to engulf me?!… Who knows?!…
I revaluated my situation and I couldn’t understand if I was dreaming or not, if I was asleep or awake, in this or in that world… I couldn’t explain to my self how I had arrived in this situation… It seemed as though I was robbed at my own home and so bewitched, I was left far away the humanity, in an extremely straight way, among an immense forest, me-the complete ignorant man… And that way couldn’t lead you anywhere. It could only fling you in the death’s lap…
It seemed as if a coma had me in its power, from which I couldn’t extract a reaction to myself, neither the finest muscular movement, as if my reasoning was numb, my instincts too, and I had no desire to move in any direction…As if I were a dried tree with the legs amidst the asphalt… And what can you expect from such a tree in a crossroad, immense everywhere?!
Suddenly something moved… Absolutely… I began to spy on it…
– Prrr, prrr!
It was an empty sound, like that of a piece of leather crumbled from the trunk of a dried tree… Was it an extraterrestrial sound? Maybe I have not good ears!
– Prrr, prrr!
The sound was repeated with the tempos and the dimensions of the real…It was an illusory sound, wasn’t it?!…
Excited by the sound-waves, I was constrained to turn sideways. And a lively ball that had rolled off the nearest pine close to the public road, appeared in front of my eyes. What was it? Was it a squirrel or a weasel?
The little ball opened and an extraordinary little animal, with a small oval gray face, took shape. It jumped on the back legs and caressed the face with the forefeet. Its small eyes brightened like the just burnt cinders. It wheeled round itself, wagged and shook the tail, which was bigger than its body, as though it wanted to brag with its pride, that fleecy mass, which was standing upwards, arching like an umbrella over the little head.
– Prrr, prrr! Prrr, prrr! – The sound was heard again and it seemed as if the small creature or a voice that I had heard once talked to me.
I froze.
– You don’t know me?!… You act as if you have never seen me before?!… I think that you have forgotten me!…Hi, hi, hi – exploded that creature with a human voice, followed with a derisive laughter and I don’t know why I had the idea that a nymph, a jinn or the Beauty of the Earth itself was hidden behind that little creature…
That voice sounded known as well as unknown and when the waves were still sounding, the silhouette of a girl, whom I had met once, somewhere, suddenly greyed…
– Poppet, you are? – I screamed instinctively and I felt a wave of warmth and vitality permeating into my freezing body.
– No, I am the Doe! – laughed the creature in front of my naive astonishment.
– The Doe?! Which Doe, because you are driving me crazy! – I sprang in myself and I felt released of that numbness that had seized my whole being.
– You have to know that I revived you from that madness that had invaded you! I am the Doe, the daughter of the Squirrel… I am the queen of this forest, – replied that jezebel, insulted in its dignity from my ignorance.
– Aha, you are the Doe! The queen of the forest! But it seems as if the death has devastated this forest, where are its habitants Your Majesty?! – I continued not less astonished and bewitched by the discourse of that mysterious creature which I still couldn’t remember where I had met in the past times, before losing the vivacity in that endless way…
– I am that Poppet, coming from the high mountains of Muji’s Fairy, I am not the Doe! You forgot me very soon… Which Doe are you talking about, you good boy?!
– The Poppet?!… The Poppet or the Doe, my beloved, because you are driving me crazy, with forests’ kingdoms and legends’ high mountains?!…
– You should thank me because I cleared up your memory from the magic of madness, you sleeping beautiful boy?!… Neither that Poppet nor the Doe can you remember?!… You deserve to stay in this endless way, like the bride’s and groom’s relatives, frozen from the Fairy’s power in Muji’s high mountains! – Interrupted me, really disappointed, the Poppet-Doe and immediately made a quick about-face, disappearing among the woods of the deserted forest…
The word “disappearance” itself used to terrify me; moreover I was really lost in a magical way that couldn’t lead me anywhere… Endless way… The death’s way… Suddenly the symbol of vivacity had appeared in this way and weirdly it was leaving me alone, with the veil of death, because I didn’t know how to deal with life…
– Oh God! Give me life to follow the life! – I screamed with all my force and I rushed as fast as possible to the forest, trying to pursue the Doe-Poppet…
I was running blindfold from the exasperation when I felt my head bumping into the pine’s trunk.
– I am here, above the fir! – I felt the familiar facetious voice.
That voice made my whole being shudder and it filled me with life and vivacity.
As if God’s power rejuvenated me at once to triumph over the uniformity of death…
– Hold on, Doe! – I shouted elated and nebulously I hugged the fir.
– I am the Poppet, not the Doe, you unmindful boy! I am at the pine sideways…
– I am chasing after you, Poppet. I am almost catching you…!
– I am the Doe…! The queen of the deserted forest… The daughter of the Plumed-Tail Squirrel, – laughed and made fun of me that melodic voice and I was ready to explode from the anger, from the inability I had in those moments…
The Poppet-Doe or the Doe-Poppet reminded me an invention of my imagination that used to caper only in the desert of my ill fantasy. And I crashed in the abysses of desperation, so tired of that unlucky hunting. So it passed a long time of drowsiness and of fighting with the desert pines and firs and my hunt didn’t appear anywhere, except its voice that was echoing everywhere…
In an instant I decided to give up living my life and to be submerged in the death’s lap. It was exactly then when the Poppet-Doe appeared in front of me, more captivating… It looked like a sparkling lightning plume and it was sufficient to fire it and, with the speed of light, it would permeate into all the spaces between the eternal green woods…
Although I was haggard, practically lost in the doze’s arms, I gathered strength to view with love that fantastic creature…
– It’s me. I am of meat and blood, I have a soul and I am mortal like you, but I know how to survive…Here I am, touch me if you want! – said all of a sudden the Poppet-Doe, the Queen of the forest, with a soft voice, very fond, burdened with regret notes, but I had no energy to move the fingers…
I noticed curiously her lips, the white teeth, small and sharp like all the gnawers, its small oval face, a little pinched from the eternal gymnastics of its kind along the forest woods, the forehead hair, that starry view, that time after time used to disappear under the crest of pride, that showed a rare feature of that being: the savage freedom, and I thought how difficult its domestication was…
– You don’t love me anymore?! – It furrowed the face and meantime, rushed and grasped my neck like a fur with magic warmth, which I had dreamt for so long…
What warmth…! It seemed as if I was hugging in my chest the Beauty of the Earth…
– Why, have I ever loved you?! – I murmured surprised.
– Always…but we have missed each other for so long…!
– Then, come, come with me! – I said and jumped with the idea that, being accompanied with this fabulous creature would drive crazy all my friends, who had acted high and mighty with those living creatures that moved around them…
With the passing of days, weeks, months and years my love for the Doe was not ending… Neither her love for me… It seemed as if the world was breathing from our love…
But happiness doesn’t last forever, as being a matter of another world…
Then I figured out that my friends began to trick on me… Maybe jealous of that rare creature that God had brought near me, surprisingly, in stead of congratulating me, they tried to diminish its values, exalting their inventions, some lionesses, tigresses, puppies, cats, mouses, foxes, chickens and every kind of ostentatious creature, which were worse than lyrebirds, more talkative than parrots… Eh, the friendship…! It’s necessary to beware by it?!
– The Doe…! A small and capricious thing… Wild, wild and mysterious, maybe it will never be civilized…! You would better choose a lioness… A lady in the jungle and in the zoo… Look how happy we feel with their grandiosity! –the masters of the jungle’s queens didn’t leave me alone…
– My happiness is enough! – I responded to the envies.
– As you want, but the lionesses are the delicacy of this life! – They insisted.
– The Does too… Everybody has his own likings… Then the forest can’t be enjoyed only with the lionesses… The roes are necessary too, even the… each creature has its own beauty and this makes more varied the forest’s life, with its presence… Even the Does…! Even the Does…! Even the Does…! They are the rarest thing of the wildlife! – I teased the evil friends, as far as to make them turn their back and disappear immediately, appearing next day even more annoying…
What have they got with me?!… As if my happiness was troubling them?!… Did the Doe’s particularity make them furious?!… Did they want to see me like themselves, near ordinary creatures or lonely?!… I had different likings…The Doe made me happy…!
Eh, this life! Overstrained… Cruel life! The man gets tired of its vicissitudes one day… Even the superman gets tired of intrigues… Once I got tired too… I was tired of intriguers… Those whom I called friends and mates… All my companions … All my envious acquaintances… I was so tired of them…
With or without my desire, I decided to change, to deny myself again… Far away from intriguers and intrigues… I let the Doe go in the forest… I left it dolorously… I brought it back in the forest…. There, among the trees, among its species, the squirrels… And I turned the back to it, thinking to get separated from it forever, but I don’t know what used to keep me attached with the common past… A kind of unconfessed sorrow…
I used to get out sometimes close to the forest and hiss, keeping my ear to the ground and spying… I could feel how the forest gave the hissing back… The woods’ leaves would swish and the Doe, like a wind plume, trunk to trunk, appeared amidst the nearest wood’s branches…
– Prrr, prrr, prrr, prrr! – It used to greet me with its immemorial tongue.
Its eyes used to shine from the tears… It used to spring around and wander as if liking to remind me the past times and, while being faced with the glacier of my soul, slowly, so unhappy, it would turn back crestfallen in the squirrels’ kingdom…
Finally I felt that this adventure was torturing me… And I decided to follow the way of solitude, with an old longing in my soul, in the endless public road of desperation, among the forest, at the same time near and far away the Doe…
I was lonely… Who knows…?

Shefki Hysa
Writer

Advertisement