Frog

It was chilly, cold, and somehow foggy in the early morning. Though it wasn’t fog at all, but something like a humid cloud. It wrapped the road, bare branching trees, and last year’s aventurine-colored grass in a fatherly, caring embrace. The sun had recently awakened, but its light was so dim in the embrace of this cloud that one could look directly into its clear face, hidden behind a translucent veil, without fear of being blinded for a moment. The rays acquired physical density and pierced the air, and when they encountered obstacles of evergreen bushes in their path, they scattered into billions of fragments, turning into silvery frost.

His breath on her shoulder was imperceptible. He leaned even lower, peering into the pattern of tangled strands on her cheeks, forehead, pillow, trying to decipher in this lace of curls the fairy tales of her dreams.

Butterfly-eyelashes trembled and she opened her eyes. Awakening was always difficult for her. The mercilessly revealing morning light frightened her, accustomed as she was to shadow, the alienated glow of the nightlight, and the half-hints of twilight. But today everything was different. The haze that covered the earth was gentle to her, and awakening under the force of a dark, warm, consuming gaze and rhythmic swaying of hips was like plunging into slightly cool water. Submerging completely, whispering and sighing, she herself began to spread like a lake for him across the bed with a deep moan. He dove into light drowsiness, she finally emerged onto the shore of morning. For a few more minutes her motionless, wide-open eyes glistened wetly. Then she slowly turned, propped herself on her right elbow, and with her left hand began to dispel the waves of drowsiness, unhurriedly drawing circles on his back and shoulders.

Forty minutes later, having washed away the remnants of sleep and kisses, they were already taking turns dipping their lips into dark coffee and speaking quietly with that light indifference to the topic that is characteristic only of very close, kindred beings. Slowness and pleasure, an almost blissful fatigue of shipwreck survivors, showed through in every half-smile, glance, nod.

“Let’s go for a walk! Come on, let’s leave the house today before this wonderful fog disperses.”

“It’s cool, of course, but a little frost isn’t scary for us at all.”

“Not scary anymore…”

“Well, shall we go?”

Two figures flickered in the unclear haze: a tall masculine one, and lower, feminine. Holding hands, they walked along the deserted road, meeting no one on their way. Bare tree branches closed their crowns above their heads, dark green grass carpeted their path, motionless rows of bushes solemnly accompanied them.

Thus, passing monotonous rows of two-story brick houses, they approached the park. Only once did they stop, when a majestic abandoned building rose in their path, towering compared to the squat, awkwardly cozy cottages. The three-story torso of the monster with mansard windows was decorated with a multifaceted projection with a cozy little balcony above it. But the friendly end facade was merely a romantic deception. Its main body was enormous, with colossal stained glass windows almost two stories high for the century before last, whose rows were interrupted by rhythmic supports of buttresses, wide, reaching upward with their brick knees. Blinded without glass, the dormer windows, obeying a rigid rhythm, rose with pointed slopes toward the sky. This gigantic brick beast ended with a regal six-story tower that rose like a descendant of a knightly donjon, deprived of former riches and retinue but not of noble lineage. Its ancestor once, in times of dragons and fairies, towered on a shaggy grassy hillock, surveying its domains that stretched to the horizon. Now the tower, squinting with all its loophole windows, gazed upon the plebs of monotonous rows of little houses with undisguised superiority and distrust.

“What a gigantic abandoned building!”

“That’s an old orphanage for sailors’ children. Their fathers either drowned or went missing.”

“I never would have thought… How do you know this?”

“I walked a lot, studied the surroundings while I waited for you here.”

The man said and rubbed his wrists with red stripes.

“The watch chafed, I hadn’t worn one for a long time… forgot what it’s like, with a watch.”

“Does it hurt?”

“No, just thick wrists,” he smiled with his warm, coffee-colored eyes.

And they walked on, passing through the park gates, turned off the path and walked slowly on the grass, slightly silvered with frost. Approaching the bushes, the woman smiled joyfully, bustled about, thrust her hand between the thickets, plucked her prize and opening her palm, with a triumphant smile revealed two dark sapphires of berries on it. They had somehow miraculously survived summer and autumn, birds hadn’t touched them, the sun hadn’t burned them.

“Here, take it!”

“Eat it yourself.”

“One for you, one for me?”

“Alright!”

And he swallowed the berry from her hand. She was about to bring the second one to her mouth, but the black-eyed little rogue rolled across her palm, and in an attempt to catch the falling treasure, the woman awkwardly pressed it against herself and on her sweater, somewhere near her stomach, a small reddish spot appeared.

“Ah!” she sighed.

“Oh, what a pity!” he picked up, tenderly voicing her thoughts.

“Was yours sweet?”

“Not at all.”

“Then it’s not a pity.”

At that moment a ray of bright light broke through the veil and illuminated everything around. And the lawn shone like a silver field.

For some time they stood in indecision, then took each other’s hands. Trying to understand what was happening, she said:

“Are you thinking about this too?”

“You speak first.”

“It’s so deserted here and we’re so happy… we simply died and are in the afterlife.”

“Yes… I simply died in prison.”

“And I simply never came to after the operation.”

Grasping each other’s hands even tighter, they stepped into the fog.

If paradise exists anywhere, it can only be like this, for two and in the fog. If happiness exists, it’s only like this, like a suspended cloud between heaven and earth, without boundaries, without future, without doubts and only with spilled silver light on the grass.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​