Little Lady by Valery Petrovskiy

You recall the sky of your childhood, fathomless azure, dangerous by its infinity and frightening to observe. Are you afraid to peer into the sky now, dear? I know you fear greatly.

Remember when you ran far into the field. Vast and wide, it still had boundaries, a clear-cut skyline, and the borders were close at hand.

Still, you were unaware of the sky, then, though it ever was there, even if you didn’t see it.

You were tearing through the field in bright new flip-flops, and you jumped and limped with bliss, whirling after your head that was spinning round.

You felt easy as you’ve never felt, whirling and twirling over the weeds and above the flowers, following the butterflies around. Still, you didn’t see the sky, little lady, and the sky fell down on you when you dropped off to the ground.

Why it is so that one has to fall hard to have a look into the sky? You pressed up against the soil, tumbling, and then you turned over on your back and were startled. For the first time, you peered up into the sky, and then you stopped laughing. There was nothing beyond you there, nothing at all, and missing was your familiar sky, where the steel and stone silhouettes rose up from gray pavement, and you were afraid, soundless, petrified, grasping handfuls of firm ground  to stop you from falling into the abyss yawning in front of you.

With your eyes closed, it was even worse, the spinning descent faster, and faster, but you couldn’t bear to look at the noiseless hollow above you, and so you began to weep, your tears coming to aid and overshadow that unbearable sky.

Yet you, not conscious of yourself, knew, in some way, that heaven was above you. You ran home, away from that intolerable sky to escape under the roof. You wept and wept, and someone, so kind — you don’t remember who — consoled you.

Nonetheless, you continued on, stuttering about the bottomless sky, and your fear was ever lasting. The fear is still with you, even now. It ever catches up with you whenever you lie down on your back. No man can understand it. They say, “You have nothing to be afraid of, my little lady.”

But the skies above you ever observe us all.

© 2012 Valery Petrovskiy

Valery Petrovskiy is a journalist and short story writer from Russia. Не studied English at Chuvash State University, Cheboksary and journalism at VKSch Higher School, Moscow. He has been writing prose since 2005. Some of his Prose has been published in The Scrambler, Rusty Typer, BRICKrethoric, NAP Magazine, Literary Burlesque, The Other Room, Curbside Quotidian, DANSE MACABRE, WidowMoon Press in the USA and one in Australian Skive Magazine as well. http://www.proza.ru/avtor/valerka

Tomcat Tale by Valery Petrovskiy

Snowflakes flight is alike Tomcat purring, lulling they affect the same way. In a moon night Tomcat purring in or snowflakes whirl out is like the same. In a day light snowflakes don’t draw much attention; they remind one of office girls that hurry to a bus stop in the morning. They nudge each other in hurly-burly and brush their eyelashes against men, troubling them. Women eyelashes are alike snowflakes then, they go up and down while snowflakes float but round. Afterwards the snow is lying underfoot in a lacy coverlet. I don’t dare to march on the just fallen snow, it seems blasphemous. One is not to step on a white tablecloth, and I’m waiting for anybody to tread a hasty chain of footsteps.

Thus I follow Tomcat, extremely patient when needed. But it happen Tomcat to carve a way for me in a winter morning; he teaches me to overstep the limits, my grey brother Tomcat. He is running leisurely against me, and he never would stop and rub his furry neck against my leg. He is my brother, that’s enough. Every morning he hurries to me drawing a fresh pass. One never knows which side he crops up next. Only his traces display me my daily course.

Tomcat neglects ladies. But they attract me, unknown creatures in a cloud of snowfall, vanishing in wreaths of perfume. Ladies leave a trail of scent long like Tomcat’s tail when he is marching against me to pass the door. I am holding back my door every morning when we meet.

I open him the door; it’s just a trifle to me, and Tomcat reveals me a day pass. I never tread upon his track on the snow, and never cross it. I walk along the rosary of his pace and always get to an open spot. It seems to me, Tomcat is an astronaut descending to the ground and starting with a scratch his beaded pace to my door. I can imagine Tomcat to advance on the snow in night twilight, he knows his way and I don’t.

I had watched his trace after a sudden shower in summer. People left wet prints and Tomcat left a dry track on a wet pavement. I watched it after every rain, so Tomcat strikes me even more. Не is my brother and I can leave bare traces as well, I believe. But I never glance back at my traces, particularly when in a downpour.

And I don’t pay notice at women in rain, only in a snowfall.

© 2011 Valery Petrovskiy

Valery Petrovskiy is a journalist and short story writer from Russia. Не studied English at Chuvash State University, Cheboksary and journalism at VKSch Higher School, Moscow. He has been writing prose since 2005. Some of his Prose has been published in The Scrambler, Rusty Typer, BRICKrethoric, NAP Magazine, Literary Burlesque, The Other Room, Curbside Quotidian, DANSE MACABRE, WidowMoon Press in the USA and one in Australian Skive Magazine as well. http://www.proza.ru/avtor/valerka