By Shefki Hysa

The false miracle

When he opened the eyes, he saw how the sunbeams were toughing lightly the opposite wall. It was time to wake up but however he didn’t move from his bed. He only gasped and moved his arms out of the linens. He brought to mind that last night he had considered changing something in his life. Doing absolutely something worthily, which could serve to the people but he had no idea what to do. Thinking was necessary before deciding the step to take.
He had all the time, until two o’clock in the afternoon when he had to start the work in that old buses machine-shop. He was a mechanical engineer.

Recently, he had to repeat the same actions all the days. Getting up at about eight o’clock, prowling awhile until he could wake, then bathing in the old cracked wash-hand in the corner near the door, combing his hair in the blind mirror, nailed within the wardrobe covering, getting dressed and going out.

After leaving behind the long-standing hotel of the singles, along a still unpaved street, with five-storied buildings on sides, he could draw in at a crossing where he had the possibility to meet any friend and have a coffee at Piluri’s club. Then he could climb down at the city center to have breakfast at “The seaman” tavern, near the buses agency or at “The Fish” restaurant, in the boulevard which originated from the harbor. Later you could find him away the seashore, toward Bistrica embouchure. He drowsed himself in every kind of hypothesizes as far as that poppet, the schoolgirl appeared at the highroad. With black apron and white collar she could surprisingly arouse the nostalgia of the visitants, the swallows, maybe because she had to migrate every day from the village to the town, where she was doing the secondary school and conversely. His heart was flickering while he was making his steps slower, waiting for her to pass close to him. He could feel with every cell of his body the coming of the girl and suddenly, the heartbeats were intonating in her trot that was similar with that of a hind. He could hardly take heart in those moments, with the back quivering and the nape chilling from the sweat. He could feel even her flurried breathing in one of his ears and he didn’t have courage to flounce about. A voice tightened him from inside to talk to her but they had never said good-bye to each other. Her collar swished as a spring rustle while she was leaving and he damned himself that once again he hadn’t been man enough to talk to her.
But what was she thinking as she was walking anxiously awhile, without hazarding to pick up her eyes from the asphalt?! The girl was going away and he only whispered with the thinking that tomorrow he had to burst without fail. He was going to pour out his heart like the crack of a gun shot.
But the tomorrows, following quietly each other, were never ending. Every time he looked at the girl, the wing of a swallow in flight seemed to graze his face and further his heart.

- Bo! Perhaps it’s time to go to work, - he suddenly called up to himself and jumped frightened.

He began to get dressed hurriedly, but surprisingly the clothes were not the initial ones. He noticed that he was wearing a brand new suit, made of one of the most expensive and uncommon coating, that was glittering like the room itself, drowned in a wonderful, blue light, like a sleep light, but more sparkling. He wasn’t realizing if it was the sun shining this way or the flashlight. Even the furniture wasn’t the same. They were fabulous and smelled as they were just taken from the joinery. He wanted to observe a long time this fabulous change of the environment but the thinking that the bus could run away pull him out from the seat. He rushed outside.

A forest with monumental trees, whose garlands were thrilling like green fountains that throw themselves into a copper air, rose at the building entrance. He stopped for a while, terrified of that fancy view, but the voice of a red horse, which appeared suddenly from the forest profoundness, shook him.

- Come on Sir, get on and I can take you wherever your heart wants, - pronounced humanly the humble horse.

- I just wanted to go to work and if you want, take me at the bus station, - asserted the boy, almost disconcerted from that horse with a man tongue.

- It’s late Sir. At this hour you return from work…I would better take you to your girlfriend… It’s been so long that she is waiting for you… She said to me that you have to meet each other today, - was felt lowly the horse, like those old-time servants of the kings’ stories.

- What are you saying, I don’t know her, and neither do I have a girlfriend?! - rebelled astonished the boy.

- You know each other Sir, you know each other! You have met each other many times in dreams, - insisted the horse.

- Then as you want, take me there, - gave in the boy and hunched at the horse’s back, which meanwhile flied across the trees that were whistling every kind of magic carols and melodies.

They stopped under the garland of a gigantic, thousand years old olive, whose bole hardly could be carried even from the arms of seven giants. The tree cleaved with a crash and in the just-opened door appeared a phosphorescent creature, with the form of a known as well as unknown girl, who looked like that schoolgirl and she was irradiating with a grace, kindly fascinating.

- I am the Beauty of the Earth. Give me your hand my sweetheart, - intonated her voice and the boy sensed that that melodic voice was shuddering even the stone and the tree.

He held out his arm, she grabbed it and in mid-air, as in dreams, they lost across a range of royal hallways and stood amidst a grandiose library, with infinity of books. The boy wondered. He forgot the Beauty of the Earth and began to browse those strange books that could tell their title with a human voice when you were touching them.

- All the thesaurus of the human knowledge is in this Library. Here you can find even the books of the famous Library of Babylonia, disappeared thousand years before. They are yours, if you like them, - said the Beauty of the Earth.

The boy didn’t take his eyes off of that Beauty, unknown from the mankind.

- Everything you are looking at is yours. I am yours too, - continued The Beauty of the Earth with her intonating voice.
- But with a condition…, - was felt the boy with half voice.
- With no conditions! The thesaurus and me belong to you, - was felt imploringly the Beauty of the Earth.
- I want this thesaurus to serve to the humanity. So this eighth Miracle, discovered by me, can be useful - emphasized the boy.
- Neither can the sun view this Miracle, - implored the Beauty of the Earth.
- Then its grandiosity is false! I don’t want a false Miracle! You have to know that the humanity has lost too much with the disappearance of the famous Library of Babylonia. - asserted emphatically the boy.
- Don’t hurry guy, put aside the humanity and its loss. You deserve the Miracle. We belong to you, only to you.
- No! - screamed he boy. - I don’t need this miracle if I don’t have the possibility to help the people with its values.

- Forget the people and take care of yourself, Sir. You don’t exist for them.
They have never thought about you. Why serving to those people, who has never been impressed with your existence?! You deserve their servings, you deserve the Miracle too. Don’t push away this blessing but open the door when it knocks. It is said that the bird comes to your hand only once, - supplicated frightened the Beauty of the Earth.

The boy thought an instant. The beauty of the Earth reached and kissed him magically as to fuddle the boy with the celestial sweetness of her lips. He was almost falling asleep as it were, afoot.
- No, my darling, I can’t accept your gift. Maybe I don’t really exist for the people and they don’t know how much valor do I have inside but I want to change precisely for this reason. I want to become someone, be among them so they can see me with their own eyes, touch me with their hands, perceive me with mind, feel me with heart and so I can diminish their sorrows and enhance the joys. This is me. I want them to feel that I am serving them a little and say: It’s our blood! So, I want to be useful for the people, I want everything that serves them.

The Beauty of the Earth whispered and laughed violently.
- You don’t believe me?! - jumped the boy with a hurt sensibility.
- You want me to serve the people?! My love too?! My love is sacred and it belongs only to you, to nobody else! I can’t believe that you are so ingenuous at all! - stressed bitterly the Beauty of the Earth with a tearful face.

The disappointment was clearly read in all her being…
The boy faded away by her reaction, even was he ashamed for that terrible misunderstanding, however he pulled himself together and exploded dolorously:

- I feel with all my soul your sacred love and neither can I think to give that God’s gift to somebody else. I am not so immature. On people’s service I want to put the “Miracle” of this thesaurus, not you, don’t misunderstand me. The poor people are so longing for knowledge and I feel so eager in front of this thesaurus, but it looks like a desert mirage if it doesn’t quench my thirst…

- This miracle is my set of clothes and together we are a sufficient gift to quench your thirst, I hope! The bride’s set of clothes, is understood, can’t be put on everyone’s service, can it?! - interrupted his speech the Beauty of the Earth.
The boy hushed.

- Do you accept this sacred gift or you don’t?! - shouted the Beauty of the Earth, impatient as much as angry.
The boy shrugged humbly.

- Do you?! - echoed languishingly her voice.
The boy swallowed up faintly. How could he convince the Beauty of the Earth that his knowledge didn’t go for anything if he couldn’t extinguish the human curiosity, if he couldn’t soften with them, just a little, the permanent glow of the unquenched thirst of its kind, so unknown in front of the Universe Mystery?! Probably it was impossible. And he was taught from the human practice that it was impossible for the man to coexist with the impossible. Coexisting with it was an absurdity. It meant a coexistence of the life with the lie. And this was unacceptable for a guy like him, with that moral, with those convictions, with that knowledge ambit of life. But he was made this way…

- Do you?! - was repeated the Beauty of the Earth’s voice, more faraway, more glacial, sharper than the edge of a homicidal arrow.
- No! - wheezed painfully the boy.
He had the sensation that the glacial arrows of her voice permeated his heart and it ruptured and fell on the ground.
- Then goodbye, guy! Have a felicitous journey in the people’s world.

- Goodbye Beauty of the Earth! Goodbye, you unachievable Miracle! - spoke through clenched teeth drowsily the boy and immediately disappeared from that dreamy world with a frightful glass crash.
Suddenly he opened the eyes and felt that an invisible hand had thrown him away from that magical dreams paradise to the reality of the cold room. He whirled his eyes and distinguished in the concrete floor, between the bed and the dressing-table, the shredded glassworks of the flagon that, as he could understand, he had pushed down while sleeping, with the instinctive movements of the arm.

- Welcome to the human reality! - shouted joyfully the boy and after throwing away the linen, jumped with the thinking that he had to change something of this equal daily life with a gray color.

He was going to color his future with the warm colors of the dreams and put it on humanity’s service. So his life could have a sense henceforth…

Translated by: Lorena Uliu