What do you know about fear?
Maybe it's the trembling in front of the dentist's office?
Or the excitement during the exam?
A first date? A broken bottle in the store?
Fear is when you stand on dry branches, look ahead and realize that it's over.
The trampled path led far ahead, into the very darkness of the forest aspens. To where the trees stand more and more densely, until they begin to look like a family of five living in a one-room apartment. It's also cramped and uncomfortable. Without stopping, my feet led me forward to the cawing of crows overhead and the distant howl of wolves. The shining ball under the sky was already rolling behind the birch crowns.
Having gone far enough into the thicket, when the sunlight finally stopped illuminating the barely noticeable path, I began to hear sounds. No rustling of leaves, no snorting of animals, no fluttering of bird wings. It was something else. It came from the trunks of trees, from under the lying stones. From a distance and near the ear. From everywhere and nowhere. The sound that you feel with all the atoms of your body. Something between a shaman singing and a rumbling train.
My throat was dry from dizziness and increasing disorientation. I took a canteen from my belt, took off the lid, and began to absorb the water like a thirsty man in the desert. And only on the last sips did I feel the taste of swamp mud.…
After 20 minutes, I realized that I had stopped hearing any sounds other than the mystical hum, and snow-white bones were no longer crunching under my feet. The right path was finally lost in the gloomy forest. The dense horror was embodied by a thin coyote. With his ribs sticking out, sitting humbly under an aspen tree and looking gloomily at me. He stood up and moved forward, beckoning for me to come with him. There is no turning back. I rushed after him. The coyote got lost among the birches, and reappeared behind the bushes. Visions began to sparkle in the darkness. It's a white mushroom with worms instead of a leg. It's an eel swimming out of a hollow. Either a boy with a dog's head running across the path, or the laughter of a girl chewing a rabbit and sitting under a bush. There's a car sinking into the ground, and there's a face watching me. I was chased by spirits until I found myself at the edge of a forest clearing.
The moon covered the field with a white haze of light. Bright flowers sparkled in the grass. There are remains scattered all over the area. The raven's cry mingled with the singing of the depths. The trees lined up around the wall. The coyote was lying down. And he was dead, if I'm not lying, for five years. The sound that accompanied me half the way reached its peak. And he was standing in the middle of the clearing. A ragged cloak, crows on his shoulders, big claws and a white deer skull instead of a head. The skeleton trembled from his hum. The vibration under his feet was ready to tear the earth apart. He's whispering to the roots beneath me. He instills fear in the growing grass. He inhales the musty smell and exhales the dead flies. The deer that had given him his skull presented it as an offering. His eyes were empty, but there was a twinkle in them. In which my soul will burn.
After death, everything was strangely similar to what it was during life. The room he was in was his own office, where everything was as he was used to. A large oak table with many drawers, a single hard-backed armchair, carved wooden panels on the walls, a sideboard and bookshelves. His native bronze inkwell with familiar scratches on the lid, his favorite pipes and an always filled tobacco box. A bottle of sweet "grape juice" invariably appears in the cupboard, and the books on the shelves are regularly updated in a way unknown to him. Thick folders of papers clutter the countertop, forcing both phones to be pushed to the edge. However, phones have been silent for more than sixty years anyway.
He doesn't have many classes. He smokes, paces the office, drinks a symbolic half cup of semi-sweet every day, flips through yellowed folders tied with twine, writes poetry and reads a lot. Sometimes he picks up the phone and listens painfully to the silence on the missing line, even though he knows it's useless. There is no view beyond the single small window, which is covered with green velvet curtains. Only lazily crawling wisps of white fog in the utter emptiness.
The only variety was the muffled, barely distinguishable sounds coming from somewhere outside and everywhere at the same time. The measured blows of a hammer on an anvil, the knock of an axe on a tree trunk, the dull echoes of shots — single, volley, machine-gun bursts… Desperate human screams and the distant rumble of a cheering crowd... and sometimes, on the same days of every year, music… And also the ticking of a large wall clock, the hands of which froze forever at ten minutes to ten. This is what prevents him from being completely silent. A small thin thread, stretched... no, not to life, but only to his own past.
He clearly feels and understands the passage of time, no matter how meaningless it may sound. They do not allow him to dissolve into eternity, they do not allow him to completely go into memories, they make him feel like every minute is passing by him in the world of the living. This is the most painful thing for him, but he knows that everything is as it should be.
Therefore, when suddenly, quite unexpectedly, one of the phones comes to life and begins to rattle violently, he cannot believe it for a long time and stands frozen, looking at the device in amazement. Finally, very slowly, as if with difficulty, he reaches out with a trembling hand and picks up the phone, terrified that he will hear only silence in it again. But no — the noise and clicks of the connection, someone's restless breathing. And then the incredible, impossible, long-awaited words:
— Get ready. You are being called back.
And only then — a beep and silence…
He hung up the phone, but he couldn't take his hand away and just stood there, slightly hunched over, not realizing that he was trembling all over. The wall clock struck ten. He woke up, came to himself, took his cap from a hook in the wall and put it on, mechanically adjusted the star of the hero of social work on his tunic. Doubts raced treacherously in my head: "Will they find out? After all these years? Is it really necessary again?" And my heart was beating excitedly, joyfully in my chest. He walked over to the door and put his hand firmly on the highly polished brass handle. He was sure the door would open this time.
