Каминяр Дмитрий Генаддьевич : другие произведения.

Henry Lyon Oldi, Annabelle Lee

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   Henry Lyon Oldi. Annabelle Lee.
  
   ... This manuscript was found in a semi-ruined, neglected bungalow on the island San-Sebastian - one of the last strongholds and the refuges of humanity in the troublesome, problematic time after Great Sundering. Banished from the cities, given to themselves, people partially yielded to the persuasions of the running things (Voiders) and emigrated, after signing the agreement; partially they adapted to the new way of life, rapidly losing the restrictive moral factors. However, some departed to the centers of the vigorously developing Necrosphere, and their further fate remained unknown. Then, still only few souls matched the formation of the Necrosphere with the Great Migration, which was tied to the signing of an agreement between the man and the Voider...
   The manuscript itself has essentially rotted, so that an impression was created that the sheets for a long time remained in the water, and the remaining pages were written in rough, unstable handwriting, as if the writter found it difficult to hold the quill in the hands - or in whatever he held the quill, whoever wrote this fairy tale, too similar to reality...

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee; --
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

   ... The turquoise waves, bending in foaming white crest, fell upon the scattered gold of the shore, and I sat on the sand and looked at the sea. I looked at the sea, and it licked my bare, scratched feet. Me they called Reynaldo. I was born on this island, where the impossibly enormous coconut palms cut into the unbelievably dark blue and deep sky. I loved my island. You feel that? The adults said that the earlier San-Sebastian (thus was the name of our island) was a part of the continent. But that was long ago, even before the Great Sundering. This is why we lived in the stone, white houses - although there is nothing to build them from - and we have a school, and a church, and even a power station. But the adults nevertheless are frequently upset and miss the life on the continent, where the people, according to them, had many interesting things... But to me it is good even without those things. I had the sea, and the sky, and the shells of the coconuts for different games, and a house - and rest I did not need. Grandfather Ignacio says that I am similar to a Runner of Things, but I had nothing to compare with. Two times I saw a Voider that came to the settlement, and both times I was immediately sent away to the coast - to play - and from a distance the Voider was mundane and dull. I am well. I can sit and look at the sea, and think about different things, and the sand flows between the fingers, which is why the fingers feel barely ticklish...
   "Greetings, Reynaldo!" somebody's shadow shields the sun, but I know all the same that this is Annabelle - she always follows me. It is always her... And what does she need?!
   "Greetings," I mumble without turning around. For a while Annabelle keeps silent and looks at me, or maybe not at me - because at last she says:
   "Sea is beautiful today."
   "The sea is always beautiful," I agree and unexpectedly for myself propose: "Sit down. Let's look together."
   Annabelle quietly descends alongside me, and we look at sea. For a long time. But then I continually look not at the sea, but at her, at her tanned arms, at her ashy hair that flutters on the wind; and then she turns around, and we look at each other, and I for the first time notice that the eyes of Annabelle are deep and sad, and not at all mocking and venomous, and...
   "And here comes the bride!" a mocking cry comes right next to us, and an entire pile of wet sand falls on us, and the eyes of Annabelle fill with tears. Turning away not to see these tears and the sand caught in the strands of her wonderful hair, I see Fat Garcia from the next street and his friends, who jump around us and yell their mockeries - and then I jump up and grab in Garcia, and we roll along the sand, but soon I am below him, and there is sand in my mouth, in my eyes and in my hair... Suddenly Garcia releases me, and I hear a terrible, choking cry, which immediately is cut off. Wiping my sand-filled eyes, I see the creeping up the shore slippery tentacles with the flat, whitish saucers of suckers, and a boyish figure of one of the friends of fleeing Garcia, dragged into the sea. The victim is grasped by the thick, pulsing cords, and just in time I grab paled Annabelle by the hand, stumbling and...

She was a child and I was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love --
I and my Annabel Lee --
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

   ... I was almost seventeen, and I and Annabelle stood at the parapet and looked at the stretched-out night sky, covered in large stars, and the boundless sea, in the lazy heavy waves of which sank the fires of stars. I was lately permitted to go put for a walk at night, and father of Annabelle signed an agreement with the Voiders a year ago, and since then to no one forbade her anything... However, such jaunts became increasingly more dangerous - too often the coast got approached by krakens, and the shelf-fish with their countless, fanged mouths, and the huge cleaving crabs, and the jumping sharks, and the electrical cords... Many monsters have made their appearances, and with each year they increased - some said that this began after Great Sundering; others connected this with the increased number of people who risked selling their souls under the agreement of the Voiders, the third...
   This is why we stood under the protection of parapet, far away from the water, and under us were the tiers of fortress bastions, with sockets of flamethrowers, muzzles of rocket-cannons and rays of searchlights that scanned the immovable sea... Grandfather Ignacio grumbled that in the mad cities the man was brought low exactly by the love for weapons, but you will not stop a devilfish by grumbling... But as before we loved our sea, and San-Sebastian, and the blackening-at-the-evening sky with the appearing multicolored fires, which lured towards themselves... We kept silent. I embraced Annabelle by the shoulders and...
   "And here are our doves!" came over the ear a hoarse, broken voice of Fat Garcia. On him a black leather jacket with rivets shone, a cigarette was stuck to a gap-tooth grin, and the smoke suspiciously smelled of something sweet, cloying... He demonstratively revealed and closed a fishing knife, and behind him loomed the figures of his friends.
   "And just what did you find in this weakling, Bell? Come with us, and let him stare..."
   A ringing slap broke the next epithet that was ready to be come from Garcia's lips. The cigarette flew away to the side. At the next moment Garcia rushed onto Annabelle, but I intercepted him, grabbing the lapels of the jacket, and flung him onto the parapet. And immediately felt sharp pain in the side. Eyesight dimmed. Something sticky and warm flowed from my side, percolating through the pants that swelled...

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me: --

   ... I lay on my back. Weakness swung me on its swings, and the side, stabbed by Garcia's knife, was in pain. I raised myself and sat down with great difficulty. And I saw.
   I was located on the Surveying cliff. Here the cliffs broke vertically downward at a one-and-a-half hundred feet, and there, in a resonant abyss, the Eye of the Devil twisted and roared. Right next to me, several steps away, stood Garcia and with an inviting gesture he indicated at the abyss. He no longer smiled. His friends - also.
   "You still do like to look at the sea, Reynaldo? Don't you want to glance at see it from within?"
   From the funnel of the Eye no one has returned. True, grandfather Ignacio once said drunk that if we fall exactly into the center, into the "pupil", then Satan blinks - and surprising things occur... And yet...
   The friends of Garcia gripped me by the hands and dragged me to the edge. Garcia himself stood only short distance away, twisting thick lips in a stressed grimace.
   "Hands off! I'll do it myself!"
   Startled, they let go me, and I took a step to the edge. The brown, foaming whirlpool roared below, twisting into black gap of the "pupil", and I jumped off the edge, bending my sick, hackneyed, ripped, but still obedient body...

And this maiden she lived with no other thought
than to love and be loved by me.

   ... I was twisted by spasms, I melted, I fell to pieces... - maybe that was death? - but death was not unpleasant, it remade me, altered me, it mixed me with water, with air; it seemed to me that I saw myself from a side, my transparent luminous body, and it melted, it changed...
   ... I felt the elasticity of water that slid along my body - a smooth, resilient body! I noisily inhaled air, exhaling. The Eye of the Devil roared more than a mile away from me, all around there was the open sea, and in it swam, a glossy black dolphin that was me!
   The fins wonderfully obeyed the brain, the tongue sensed the aftertastes of iodine, algae and different marine inhabitants, and the invisible fluctuations were reflected in the brain as the crystal-clear coast relief... The coast! Annabelle and Garcia's scum!..
   I rushed back, easily avoiding the electrical eels and the embraces of a gigantic kraken. However, they all not especially tried to catch me either. A wild thought sneaked into my head - and what if they were also...
   Funnel was already next to me, when I finally saw high above me the orange dress of Annabelle. "I saw" was not entirely the concept, but right then I didn't have any other. The friends of Garcia crowded around her, and he himself stood there, grinning, speaking something - and he finally grabbed the still girl.
   A moment later he clumsily swung hands, falling backwards, losing his balance, parting from the cliff, vainly attempting to detach from himself the tenacious fingers of Annabelle - and the orange dress with the black jacket hanged above the precipice! And I knew, knew with my new whole dolphin knowledge that the cursed Garcia will fall into the "pupil", and Annabelle...
   Annabelle!..
   I rushed into the Eye of the Devil, a furious torpedo that exploded sucking force of the funnel, thanking sky, God, Satan for the fact that I no longer was human - I came through just in time - and cast the new obedient body into the air, meeting Annabelle, directing the orange dress to where the silent void turned black...

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we --
Of many far wiser than we --
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee: --

   ... After several minutes, five miles away from the island two dolphins emerged and, after briefly lingering, swam away, heading for the open sea. To the left of them loomed the fog-covered continent of crazy cities, wild things and emerging legends. To their right lay the quiet island San-Sebastian, with its Surveying cliff, the loop holes of the parapet and the Eye of the Devil, from which slowly rose a slimy ink-black body of a colossal devilfish...
  

It was many and many a year ago,
in a kingdom by the sea,

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