Between St. Petersburg and Europe - One Woman's Story...

Written in times when the Soviet Union collapsed...

This is a fairy-tale I wrote suddenly some Christmas day in the times when Soviet Union collapsed... and maybe it is such a fairy-tale I might read to my unborn children in my dreams...

Outside a faraway town there lived a man and a woman in their miserable cottage. Their cottage-home seemed to be very poor and was very dirty and their clothes seemed to be rags...

However, the man was very handy. He even had some poem-vein that burst out now and then and then he uttered his great poems with his powerful voice. But the woman was really strange – selfish, greedy and mingy. All day long she was looking her face in the mirror and thought she was the best one in everything on this planet. She loved all kind of lies. She thought that by the help of them she could get all kind of advantages other people who tried to manage and get their income with honesty and truthful from one day to another didn't. However, she had lost half of her memory and maybe that was why she didn't know at all how come she had ended to this place where she lived now. Most of the local people knew she didn't belong to them, but was a stranger that maybe just tried to adjust to this environment despite all strange things she represented. She even tried to domineer the local people somehow through her husband even if she lacked the right to this. All this often ended in some kind of a mess and the locals thought she was a nervous, pretending bitch whom no-one liked. Step by step she became the ghost of this town about whom the locals didn't know any more if she was still alive or dead, because no-one had seen her in times. However, horrible and unbelievable and even horrifying stories were still told about her.

But the man, her husband, used to drink a lot. Then he left to the town passing there from one tavern to another and ended mostly in some drinking-company having fun. When he was drunk he cultivated his money around to all kind of places and the whole company was celebrating and having fun at his expense. Now and then his poem-vein burst out for full when the company was having fun and his companions thought he was very amusing. No-one knew from where his money came from but they were wondering because his clothes were rags and he lived in such a miserable cottage. However, nobody envied his life that seemed to be very miserable. His appearance reminded of a skeleton and turned to something still more horrible when times passed. People were talking about his connections to the town-ghost and those who had never seen him regarded him as being the real town-ghost as well as his wife, too...

When the man returned home from his drinking-trip the woman started to shout and accused the man because he had wasted some riches that he had turned into some huge sums of money. She was shouting until she calmed down and conciliated. Then she gave him some snake-drink of hers. After having drunk this drink the man fell asleep like a log and was even uttering his poems when still in sleep – he must have felt happy!

But even if the cottage seemed to be very poor the man had built there some secret passages. Through these secret-passages you could enter wonderful secret rooms situated underground. The man had planned and built all these by himself. One of the rooms underground was like a big hall or ball-room, another was like some sleeping-room and the third was a common room, but huge. It was their treasure-room where every corner was filled with all kind of treasures of theirs.

Every evening when the darkness came the man opened the door to this secret apartment of theirs and the couple crept into their secret treasure rooms. There they immediately turned to the king and queen of their own world. When the morning came again they changed their rag clothing after having had some morning-coffee and having smoked the first cigarettes of the day. Then they crept again back into the rooms of their cottage like some ragamuffins and lived their life just as they had done every day before - nobody really knows how how many years.

But what did they do in their treasure-chambers? Among other things they were smoking their cigarettes. Some cigarettes were of ordinary kind, some more great ones and some really very great ones. Smoking these cigarettes gave some great scent and an incredible, completely stunning smoke. The smoke covered all treasures in the chambers as some fog and haze. Nothing at all could be seen. Naturally even the couple was covered by this fog-smoke. If someone had found these chambers they had not seen the couple and nothing else there due to this fog-smoke. For sure every visitor had been walked into the treasures and furniture, but seen nothing of it. And in case somebody wanted to take out something from these chambers it had been impossible - only the couple themselves could do this, but the husband had even built security doorways that prevented this.

The man had built even the passages very cunningly when everything else was ready. The passages were so low that it was really difficult to get and move there. The man – he was so brilliant and got some bright-sparks – had invented and planned all this by himself. He had left nothing to any kind of a chance. And when the couple entered their secret chambers they carried always their special lamp with and it lighted up everything in a very different way as some common lamps. So the couple puffed all nights long in their secret chambers so that this drag-smoke gave them just everything they wanted, desired and craved: still more treasures, eternal beauty and eternal life – everything people could desire for! And the drug-smoke in which they were living in just reproduced and multiplied their treasures and happiness every night and they were in the power of the smoke they puffed into being. And this was how years passed... puffing smoke and still more smoke every night in the secret chambers...

This couple had some children, too – at least two boys and a girl alive. The children were very important for the man to start with. From the beginning the man thought the children could make his happiness to multiply. But when times passed and the smoke-drug affected his brain he changed his mind completely and ended finally thinking that these children were just a shame for him and they were just unfit for everything. ”If only I had had some other children a thousand times better ones”, the man was thinking now and then when he happened to have one of his dark days he also seemed to have at least after some of his drinking days in the taverns of the town.

But the woman on the other hand thought from the beginning that let's the children be in peace in case they don't disturb us and don't threat taking us our great state of affairs, our leisure, our riches and treasures. The woman was also afraid that the children might become more clever as she regarded herself. The woman thought that it might be good to keep these children as some kind of dwarfs during their whole life. Only a few might take some dwarfs seriously, however gifted they were. That is maybe why some clever dwarfs have suited even in the roles of some court-fools who told the rulers the truths about everything... but when the informer was just some dwarf many laughed – but did they really think it was something to laugh at! But in case the ruler was clever he might have considered the case. But the woman decided now to keep their children as short as some dwarfs forever and made a plan she thought was good. Then she showed her plan to her husband... but the decision was hers alone...

So from the beginning the man was not eager at all, but later she got him to follow her plan. But she had to use some secret means of hers. She told her husband: ''Let's puff these smoke-clouds more than ever. Let's never take the children into the treasure-chambers but let's them only live in one of the miserable cottage-rooms always. Let's give them hard work and let's them take care of their household themselves, letting them make their own rag-clothes and in case they are not able let's them be quite without. Let's not learn them anything, but let's let them just learn from each others and in case they don't it is not our problem. We don't learn them anything about people's habits – it is their problem to learn to talk etc... Children need some examples, but these are not going to have any. We are not going to show any feelings to them so that they will become cold, unfeeling and lack all feelings. Their lack of feelings is an advantage for us – as we don't even want to have any grandchildren. To become some grandma – no – it is something I never want'', all this was what the woman told her husband and then she continued: ''Let's give only poor ingredients of food to the children so that what they make is so bad that it will have some effect on their growth as well as other development. Let's see that they don't move much inside the dirty and dusty cottage from one day to another. Let's see they will hate all motion and fresh air – so they will become very clumsy. Let's give them some stinking fat so that they will grow fat and ugly so that they will hate even the pictures of themselves if they happen to see it in some mirror. Was there some mirror in the cottage? Let's give them some drugs to puff that destroys them effectively. And in addition to all this let's blow some horrible smoke into their cottage...''.

Everything passed just as the woman had planned and the children did not develop. The man and the woman were puffing the effective smoke into the rooms of the cottage, where the children lived. And they had for sure developed some new and still more effective smoke to their horrible purpose that made everything more miserable and didn't make any treasures for the children. They were rolling effective cigarettes they offered to the children and the children were puffing them and smoked them... however, they didn't know what to imitate ones parents meant as children normally learn when they see adults do something. The appearance of the children changed to something monstrous and naturally they never showed themselves among other people – or children. And these children were sitting all nights long roaring and making noises late into the morning hours. And in the morning they slept very long... Years passed – many long years – and the plan of their parents was to come true...

In the town people were wondering about this couple who were, however, not quite like the fools and blockheads on the other side of this little town. If someone asked if the couple had some children or were going to have some grandchildren, they only got some answer that nobody knows... Someone told that the youngest child, maybe an infant, still walks in his diapers or what he is using – and is trying to change them himself the best he can. And maybe the baby still needs some breastfeeding, but who was there who could give him that... They for sure were strange people, meant the people who lived in the nearby town, but in fact there was nobody who really wanted to know this family – such an acquaintance was something you just had to be ashamed of!

One day some ambassador or envoy from some remote, foreign place arrived in the town. His arrival attracted attention at once. This ambassador entered the high platform in some edge of the market-place and started to read his letter with his strong and powerful voice: ”From the powerful country next to yours we do inform the following in case you don't know this from before. Once very long ago a very large continent belonged to our country sunk into the sea with all its cities, the royal family, its good peasants and other people – so everything that was there just disappeared suddenly. And everything was then covered by a horrible mud-sea. I have now arrived from this continent, country and its big city. Now – in case you have not heard this yet – a horrible and furious thunderstorm rose and after that a still more severe storm. This bad weather, however, revealed the old town from the depths as well. Now the continent is soon in the same level as your continent and societies. Everything that has risen from the depths to the surface is, however, in very bad condition and there is a horrible chaos everywhere. Mostly people try to change things with each others, because any money can be used normally in this kind of circumstances and states of affairs - no money simple exists. What ever people try to do it is very difficult and complicated for them. However, there are some who have started to succeed by and by. But the people regard themselves as very poor and just getting more poor all the time. Some will get away and flee to some other places they think are better on this planet. Outsiders have very big difficulties in helping these people and this continent - people there just need to manage by themselves. I want still, however, remind you that this continent has risen from the depths and is soon some day in the same level as yours even if it is still under some mud-sea. Sometime and somehow people have the capacity to manage whatever horrible conditions they are living in..."

The was just on one of his drinking-trips in the town and was sitting in one of the taverns next to the market-place when the ambassador was informing about his message to the locals. Because nothing new or more interesting had taken place since long, the man left to go home and was going to tell the news to his wife. This was the first time he heard the ambassador talking.

But when he arrived at home he was horrified about all he saw. The whole enchantment of the drugs was away from his eyes and now he could see with his clear eyes how horrible everything was. He was astonished about everything he saw and felt so depressed he had difficult to breathe. He had to go out in order to be able to breathe and went in and out several times in order to be able to breathe properly. And every time he entered the cottage he was still more astonished and surprised. He hold his head with his hands as he thought he might go insane and as if that might have helped. He saw the selfish, greedy, foreign woman who was his wife in drugs – and he understood all lifelong pretending and all lies.

The man was horrified when he realized that they had really made a real plan about how to treat their children. They had made the smoke and everything else and they had then puffed the drug-smoke into the cottage and all over as much as they had been able to. The man couldn't understand his own deeds any more. He could feel how his brain was not working any more and he was not able to understand about this kind of things and deeds. And everything was just too painful so he stopped thinking and did not try to understand anything any more. And for sure he did not have anybody who could have helped him in his now so miserable situation. Desperate as he was he slammed the door of the cottage and walked back to the town and to the nearest tavern. There he drunk everything possible and was ordering pailfuls of drinking, strong drinking... Finally he was so drunk it is difficult to describe and he did not want to be reasonable and sober a single day any more in his life – it might have been too much for him. And it might be impossible to find any person more desperate as he was now. The man understood that everything they had done was irreversible and impossible to do anything about. But the puffing-drug didn't have any effect any more for some reason, but he did not understand why. He understood only his own deeds and how bad, irrational and horrible they were, but he could not understand the reasons. But he understood what horrible pain he had caused his children with everything he had done with his wife. And now everything was different as everything had been revealed in just some short moments somehow.

After this last visit to the town nobody saw the man anywhere any more and didn't hear anything about him. The story, however, goes that when tired he had walked alone into the woods and felt asleep there somewhere. Then some miracle took place and he turned into some rather great stone. What ever season those who passed the stone could see how beautiful flowers were flourishing next to this stone. If you gazed the stone and the flowers some time you could see how the flowers grew visibly a lot in your eyes. In just some moment tiny flowers grew big ones and then they faded away and new ones grew instead at once. You could not find some more beautiful flowers anywhere in this world and the flowers grew there even during the winter.

But the woman started to wonder why her husband didn't return and where had he gone and why. However, she had no-one to ask. In fact she didn't care much her husband was not there. But she was worried her husband could gossip and tell things to people, something she didn't want him to. He could tell about their treasures and the ”money” they had grown. He could do this by accident and even tell about the secret apartment and the treasure-chambers. She was really nervous and when nervous she shouted to the children still more and behaved just horribly beating and slapping them, too. But she even smoked and puffed, lighted one cigarette after another and was walking around the cigarette holder in her mount from morning to evening even if the smoke didn't create anything any more. But her husband had already turned to a stone so all this worrying was already unnecessary.

One day a new ambassador arrived into the town. Even he started to inform the people in a corner of the market-place and let them know the following news: "I come from your neighboring continent, the one that has risen from a mud-sea . And I am looking for our queen. According to our investigations and the messages we have received she ought to be still alive. Somehow, the queen had been floating and ended in your area. I am looking for everybody who could have seen her or could know something about this. We promise a high reward to the one who can tell us something that leads to us finding our queen. If the person wants he or she can come and live in our court and will never lack anything." However, nobody here knew anything.

After some time still a third ambassador arrived looking for their missing queen. This time the ambassador clothed himself exactly as the locals and didn't go to any corner of the market-place to inform his message. He even talked like the locals. He had been specially educated to this task. But he was even changing his roles. Now and then he looked like some beggar then like somebody else in some other kind of a role. He was changing his wigs, noses, ears etc so that people didn't understand he was the same person going around to places and from one house to another.

The ambassador knocked on the doors. He asked if he could stay overnight. But he always wanted to stay over just one night. He used to pay huge sums of money for his stays so that no-one wanted to refuse his staying overnight even if they had tried to get rid of this guest to start with. In some houses the price was so shameless high that people were afraid of their neighbors who could suspect them for something criminal. People had started to be afraid of the visitors of all kind. Nobody talked about them and people stayed at home. And the atmosphere in the town told something strange was going on there. However, the ambassador was let in wherever he wanted – and people kept their mouths shut about everything...

When the night came – in every house he stayed – he lit his fire-candle. In addition to his fire-candle he had a little bottle he opened and slurped a little. Then he changed the cork to another one that was some kind of an incense, even this some kind of smoke and belched it out around in the room. Then he waited something to happen. If he was in the right place the ground under the house was going to start to swing. And there was going to be flashes of lighting around. The whole house was going to collapse and burn down. However, nothing had happened in the houses the ambassador visited until now. When the morning came and he had eaten his breakfast, packed his things, payed and thanked for everything, he left.

Finally the ambassador reached the puffer's cottage. It was late afternoon when he knocked the door of the puffers. The woman shouted to the children with her horrible voice that these might go and open the door. The woman had become still more horrible after her husband had disappeared. She looked like a bitch for sure getting uglier and uglier day by day. But the children were lazy and did not obey but were dawdling and pretending they did not even hear the knocking on the door. But the knocking did not stop. Because no-one had ever knocked the door of the puffers cottage the children started to get curious and finally opened the door.

Outside the door a very wonderful creature, a wonderful young lady, was standing and the children got frightened and slammed the door shut in front of her. The woman was again shouting to the children to open the door and went now to see herself, too, but she didn't show herself to the visitor. Still the children did not let the young lady in. Then the woman shouted to the children to go into the kitchen and she disappeared into her secret-passage. There she waited what was going to happen and peeping now and then from her hiding-place. And there she stayed. The guest was knocking the door rather persistently over and over again until the children let her in. The terrified children were afraid of this beautiful lady but they were very curious and naturally didn't understand themselves there was something wrong in their whole situation...

The woman was looking at the wonderful creature horrified through her peeping-hole, but she did not come out from the secret-chambers and -passages and reveal herself. Suddenly she got a horrible headache – she got her memory back and she suddenly understood! The creature, the young lady – the ambassador – had been clothed as the woman's double-being and picture of her as young. The young lady was now how the woman herself had once been. She started to remember things and suddenly remembered everything: how the continent had sunk and was covered by mud, she remembered her horrible flight from the sinking continent through the sinking grounds and masses of mud. And she remembered how her husband had found her somewhere tired and very dirty. Her great clothes had turned to rags. However, she was a woman who had experienced the most horrible things during her getaway-journey. The man had taken her to his cottage – to this hut – where they now lived. However, the woman had in fact hated her life since then so much that in fact she had hoped she had rather been dead.

When the man found the woman she had carried some very fine and unbelievable jewelry and great lockets on her. Some of them had small boxes and pockets where you could find some strange substance. The treasure-chambers started from this jewelry and the substance in the boxes and pockets. The substance had turned into the puffer-drug that reproduced itself and drugged both the woman and the man. Year by year the treasures were reproduced due to the power of this substance and they needed to build a suitable place for the treasures as it was not possible to puff everywhere. The secret-passages and the chambers were built for all this.

First they were puffing only one quality and later all kind of qualities in some special order. This puffing ended in them having a lot of different ashes. And when they started to burn the ashes some miracles happened and they got more treasures. When they were in their chambers even their appearances changed and they looked like the real king and queen.

And now the woman could remember everything and she was horrified about everything. She understood that she had turned to some horrible bitch when she could not have become like the locals here. No-one could understand from where she had ended here. But here she could not have anything of the real power that belonged to her. And now – the whole enchantment – or what did this appearing of this ambassador, young lady, mean – had gone. And who could this young lady be who dared to force herself into their cottage with such an imprudence. Then the woman went deeper into her treasure-chambers and puffed and puffed as a slave of her habits. There she sat nervous all night long as if she had been sitting on her throne, alone in her royal highness rounded by her treasures. However, now and then she peeped from the peephole curious about what was going on in the kitchen and the room of her children. Now she did not peep any more with her pure eyes but she had a golden thing like some binoculars decorated with some valuable jewelry as diamonds and rubies... and with it she could see everything still more differently than just before...

The woman saw, however, her terrible children welcome the young girl. The children started to offer her some dinner, some soup made of lizards together with some stones and mud. As some desert they served something made of some flowers and blueberries. However, these were not any wonderful flowers from the great stone in the woods. That might have been something good for the children! After this dinner the guest claimed to have a room and they did agree about the price for the night. They didn't understand anything about the value of some money... After this the kids went to kitchen and fell into some other kind of sleep than usually and slept more sweet than they had done ever before.

But during the night the guest did everything exactly in the same way as he had done in every house every night before since his arrival in the town. But this time strange things started to happen... just unbelievable things... The woman tried to follow with her binoculars all this what the person in the appearance of the young lady did and what was going to take place. She could even see through the walls and did not need to use the peepholes...

The children woke up earlier than ever before and now they hardly knew each others any more – so much had their appearances changed. They had turned to be some persons like some high noble ones. Naturally they could not understand what had happened. They couldn't understand who and where they were or how they had ended there. They were horrified about the terrible mess around them and hated the smell of the place as well as the fog that was hanging over the whole place. They had difficulties to move where they were. They just had to get out! They didn't notice the ambassador in the clothes of the young lady who had even he started to wake up. Even his situation was very uncomfortable and even he needed to get out from this horrible cottage. Some horrible thunderstorm started and the ground under everybody started to tremble.

When standing outside the cottage they saw how some irritating smoke-fog rose from the place and it also smelled very bad and was suffocating. The ground under them started to shake still more and even broke from some places. The air was sweating and the thunderstorm was severe. Then the whole cottage fell together and no-one could see the cottage any more. It was all just ashes. Only fog and smoke and some horrible smell were left – just disgusting! But soon a very fresh pouring rain started and cleaned the air. After a while you could see the sun start to shine and even the beautiful rainbow appeared.

These ”royal people” and the ambassador were now standing alone in the middle of the woods... everybody feeling very strange and maybe still somehow drugged. There they were not understanding anything about what had happened and gazing at the place that had once been their home, the miserable and horrible cottage. Then suddenly they saw how the place became filled with disgusting snakes of all kind and size. Some looked in fact very great and were of different colors. One of them was a very special one – very thick and long. It was coming towards the children spotting all the time. But the children did not understand the secret of this snake – who the snake was in fact and why it wanted their company...

But the ambassador knew. The ambassador knew that this snake would go back to the hole and into the treasure chambers where it could enjoy alone its riches in the middle of the smoke-fog and not bother anybody with anything – something good or bad. If the snake once dies – if it dies – and has not turned to an eternally living snake – all treasures will be still left. The ambassador knew many secret passages and chambers from his own country, because he had seen when and how they had been planned and built. Now he was sure he had found some really high royal people even if these people didn't understand it by themselves. How could they have known due to the living conditions they were born into and ended in. And such chambers could only the highly royal people plan and build.

But the children did not remember anything about their former life – nothing about their mother, father or the cottage-home they had been living in or the country were the town lied. They had lost their memory completely and that was only good. Now they were on their way to something new - to the new country and new future. Their journey might be very long and it had just started now. And it would take them even to some new and unknown times. And no-one knew what still waited them.

The big snake had followed their walking to the great, miraculous stone... When hurrying they had, however, been forced to stop to wonder the beautiful flowers that were growing there next to the big stone. There they stood gazing at some very little flowers that grew bigger suddenly in front of their eyes. And when big enough the flowers faded away in front of their eyes. And new flowers appeared immediately... and this was going on and on...

When next to the stone the snake relaxed and wriggled through the flowers into some hole under the miraculous stone as if it had its home there. Maybe that was the case and maybe there was some passages, too. Maybe the snake found there even something else valuable it loved. Maybe there were the secret-passages that led to the treasure-chambers that are still ruled by the king and queen that the people don't know anything about – this couple that once had been some oddities living in the woods outside the faraway town.

This is a story no-one could understand or believe to be true. But this story is true even if you don't believe it. And in case you look around you might understand that some are living next to a continent that is rising rapidly from the mud-sea.

Written in December 1989.

Between St. Petersburg and Europe - One Woman's Story...

Wednesday 21 April 2021

Home and whole life in ruins...

Abortion and Abortion Madhouse in some drawings - maybe some self-portraits...

Puffers - ragamuffins... a fairy-tale...