Cold - Nidal Algafari /English

Cold

 

God was offended that they let dad's family pass away and sent fierce winter. Three days has been snowing a wet snow, and when it stopped, everything freezed alive. When it calmed down, there was no noise. Birds haven’t sang. There was no wolf  call . The branches, weighed down by the snow, were breaking . Whole trees were falling. And we couldn't  get out of our calibre, because in front of its door, there was a snow as big as it, and we ran out of firewood, which we had gathered, and then my mother has to swallow her resentment ,and go to her mother and father.To beg mercy for me. We took everything we had and left.

The path we knew was so swamped with a white snow that it flowed through on both sides of it. The blizzard enjoyed the white and soft rug, spun to one side as in the end of its shirt and called the fragile snowflakes to give them a lesson because they were small and fragile, they could  be tramped but if they came all together, there was no living creature, no tree to disobey them. It gathered the snowflakes and lift them high, and then it would throw them in front of us, so we wouldn't see anything. Other snowflakes, the white nymph, sent in my face, on my ears, into my nose, and as soon as they touched me, they clung to me and on pendants became. The blizzard once followed us, then went elsewhere to do mischief , and came back, or it stopped us by crushing the heavy branches in front of us.

My mother had wrapped my feet with leather, but the snow was so deep that we couldn’t pass a  hundred steps and stopped, because the cold demons stretched out their arms under the frosty mantle and clung to the leather. They pulled them out, and no matter how hard we tightened them, they slipped or filled with cold, which melted and spread on my feet.  Then it was freezing, and after I was shaking them a little bit, they were flowing again. Where I walked a hundred steps before, now I had a hard time passing ten. When I turned my clothes did not bend, but crumbled .Everything was shaking on me. Lips, hands, knees seemed to be pierced with needles.

My mother stopped. She turned to see me because I left behind, and when she saw me so miserable, She took off her coat placed it over me.

- Georgi, you're a big man now. You're going to hold on, aren't you? You have to hold on for me. "I'm not going to let you down," she said, "and she went ahead again."

I really wanted to tell her that I'm not a man. That I'm cold. That I don't have the strength to walk anymore, but I felt sorry for her when I looked at her so tiny, weak and hunched walking through the bizarre , so she can protect me. My body wanted water. We ran over water, but we couldn't get drunk. My lips cracked, so they cracked. Blood flew of it. My knees stumbled and I fell on them. I wanted to sleep. Just a little, so I can rest. Then Mom stopped. She pushed the snow in front of her and reached under a large pine tree.She opened her robes. She asked me to sit on her lap. My trembling was nothing compared to that I felt from her body. She squeezed me hard. Her legs wrapped mine,  her hands wrapped around me, her head above mine, and with her breath gave me warmth –to have.

               "Sleep, my child! – My mother heart will keep you warm . - she said, and after each word she gave me more warm from her breath.

As I closed my eyes, she raised her head, and her sad eyes stared at the showing in front of her.

"I don't know why you're so angry?
Do you reproach me or do you play with me? I beg you, as your mother I pray, please go away! Don't take his life. He hasn't seen anything yet. Go away! - said my mother to the white nymph and put her head on mine again.

Then somehow the blizzard calmed down and sat down in front of my mother. She shrugged, and snowflakes clung to her mother's forehead. Mom didn't move. The blizzard reached out it’s hands to push my mothers but they didn't move either. And then the frosty mistress may not have had a heart, but her soul was rising. It blew its whistle.

-             Oh, whoa!

It jumped in front of us and ran down the ravine. If it had been playing until now, it was furious now. It  was running. Ir was waving itsarms and throwing snow behind it. The white nymph went far away, somewhere on the peaks I could hear its howling a little more, then everything calmed down and I fell asleep in my mother's arms.

That's how good people found us. My  mother's heart had stopped, but she gave me the warmth to live.

Her body couldn’t save my arm it was frozen .She was buried in the village, and I was left in the hands of the medicine man.

 

Nidal Algafari

Painter - Oya Fandakova

Translation Bulgarian-English - Genoveva Ilieva

An initiative of Mariya Dzhurkova and Bogdana Sirakova.