Rasa Aškinytė

There was so much snow that the woman was sinking up to her knees. The furs wrapped around her muscular legs made walking difficult. Her shoulder had been badly wounded: blood was dripping from it slowly, the red droplets were absorbed by the whiteness even before they reached the ground.

The woman was completely alone. She knew there wasn’t a soul within the range of her senses. Otherwise, she would have smelled or heard their existence.

The camp was far away. She knew that whichever direction she took, she could orient herself perfectly, but her survival depended on finding the others. That was why the woman had been walking towards the camp for several days. She was hungry and exhausted, but she couldn’t stop. Sleep meant death.

Nothing could be seen except snow, and more snow. And wolves. For now, they were keeping their distance. But they had begun furtively making a large circle around her. The woman’s nostrils flared. She quietly breathed in the air saturated with aggression and the instinct to live at any price. 

The woman was not afraid. This land had never been hers, it had never belonged to her. Just like her life.

…I could no longer tolerate being in love. I couldn’t stand my heart living independently of my body.  Nothing remained, only Sylvia. I was nothing. She was all that mattered. I existed only when I was breathing her, when I was remembering the last detail of what she’d said, when my fingers and my entire body were remembering her skin, when in my thoughts I was touching her, sensing her closing her eyes and opening them again, when I saw how much she loved and wanted me. Whenever I would shut her apartment door behind me, nothing of me would remain.  At that instant, as if doused with Sulfuric acid, I would disappear into a puff of smoke.  I would wander the streets with nothing to do, and then I would go to bed.

I hadn’t found my other half; I’d found myself.  Now what?... 

…You know what? I decided to be happy.  What’s wrong with that?  Everyone has the right to be happy. From now on, I’ll spend five minutes every morning telling myself a story about how pleasantly I will spend my day.  I’ll make a pledge to myself.   I’ll set myself up for goodness and happiness.  This attitude will make it impossible to be distracted from my goal.  These morning discussions with myself will indeed be useful moments in my life. 

I think that happiness is like smoke.  The more you blow on it, the more there is…

...I feel like dust under the rug.  Nobody sees me. That’s why they trample me without any regrets. Oh, sorry.  I forgot that I had decided to be happy, to inspire my life with new fire.  I just don’t have time today. I have to work...

…What if I were a feather, a two-centimeter-long brown feather? I would soar across the sky. A bird would find me, carry me to its nest, place its eggs on top of me and hatch baby chicks.  Then it would throw two of them out because there wouldn’t be enough worms, not enough for all four chicks.  And I would witness it all. Next year, the birds wouldn’t return to that nest.  In a few years it would rot and I would drift to the ground.  The wind would lift me up and I would soar across the sky…