Back Home, Into The Sky!

by Tatiana Danina

TULOMA

  I was delighted!

  - And how will we fly? As before? Tuloma is not close.

  - You're right, now we change the style. Approaching me.

  I was near Oleg.

  - Even closer.

  - More?

  - Yes, as close as possible.

  - Well.

  And I literally plunged my transparent body into the body of my companion. I had felt it as a single whole, were listening to the heartbeat, the rustle of expanding and compressible pulmonary bellows. Even the muscles as it turned out had their own sound - easy electric crackle. The sound, which went from the head, was like the drone of the sea - a distant and powerful. The only thing that I did not hear - there were no signs of peristalsis. His intestine was silent, and it was very unusual.

  I wanted to be his part and do not leave forever. The desire was very strong. Maybe somewhere and someday it will be possible? But not on the Earth. Here everything except suffering is possible only with difficulty. What a preposterous planet! But still, it is so beautiful!

  - Are you ready, Anastasia?

  - I do not know. I think so.

  - Then let's go!

  And I felt that some strong energy field enveloped me. Apparently, it was generated by the organism of my mentor. This field revolved around us like a funnel or vortex, but it did not interfere to see all around. When the rotation of energy flow was very strong, we climbed high above the Semenovsky Lake. And then we suddenly flew. Yes, we just raced at an incredible speed!

  Port, lights, lights, houses, streets, lights again - this all was running away before my eyes as a single tape somewhere at the bottom. Bay, ships, cranes and houses again - we raced through the black fairy night somewhere at the height of rare clouds that seemed grayish spots on a background of the star darkness of the sky.

  City slept beneath us, and we flew farther and farther to the south-west. And then I saw huge gaps of forest-tundra covered by snow. It seemed to me while I was resting as in a cocoon, in the body of Oleg, that I see wild animals - reindeer and wolves, hares and squirrels. Red fox freezes from the cold in burrow. Crows and magpies get in packs. And here Bruin Bear is sleeping in his den. Sleep until spring, do not wake up.

  All my love to the North and its open spaces that lived in me earlier woke up with a new strength. I felt unbearably sorry for millions of living creatures, large and small, plants and animals, mercilessly freezing in the snow, in the wind, in this dark polar night. Of course, centuries and millennia of evolution adapted them to such conditions. However, fitness does not necessarily mean comfort. Cold this is cold. They have not central heating, as we have. How strong should it be the will to live, even so strong frosts were not a hindrance to this! But there is always hope. Probably and at beasts. The hope for the best, for example, for a thaw...

  I noticed how quickly we passed the way from one end of Murmansk to another, and then to Murmashy. And here before us there was a majestic sight - enigmatic and mysterious river of Arctic - Tuloma.

  The river of my youth. A wide ribbon, now constrained by ice, and therefore snow-white. It slides between the hills heading to the Barents Sea, and then to the Arctic Ocean. Harsh, cold waters, they are now flowing under the ice. And there river inhabitants sleep. Whitefish, perch, burbot, trout - we fished with my father the first three.

  - Flew further, still 30 kilometers, - I said.

  Oleg understood everything and it was not necessary to persuade him.

  - Childhood memories?

  - Most likely of youth.

  I spent so much time here when I was a teenager, and after school too. In general, summer and fall. How much of blueberries we gathered, cowberries, cloudberries and cranberries! And of mushrooms! These pantries fed us every long winter, year after year, without demanding anything in return – only just to we were coming here. It seemed to me that everything is live here, and it loves us. And I loved in return. I loved to wander between the low trees and talk to them - sometimes quietly aloud, sometimes mentally. And they noded by their heads and hands-branches.

  And now I'm here again.

  - Oleg, let's stop.

  I came out of the protective field of my companion and flew by myself.

  Darkness, snow, gleaming in the light of the moon, which appeared and disappeared between the ragged clouds, quickly flying by in the sky. And the forest - pines, firs, birches and aspens. And all this noise, swaying in the wind. Some rustles, groans, squeaks, sometimes crackles. But all this is not often and not loudly. And this all is united by a deep silence, filling every inch of space. Silence, despite the sounds. It's hard to explain. Silence astral and mental. City, the people living in it, generate lots of thoughts and feelings. Every moment. These human emanations live by their lives, barely separated from the source.

  And yet - the people themselves - the object of high interest from all sorts of creatures. All this mishmash creates that strange noise of city, even if it is asleep and there are no cars. This is a noise of thoughts and feelings.

  And in the woods there is a real silence.

  Trees also can feel. But their feelings are clean and simple. They are quiet and peaceful, unlike the violent, human. Exactly in the woods I always slept well and it was easy to think.

  In winter, we came to Tuloma or on fishing, or on a ski trip. We drove with my father. Mom does not like the cold, so she rarely joined.

  - Thank you, it's a real gift. I always wanted to come here, but alone was afraid to go.

  My teacher smiled, but a little sad.

  - For you, for people, memories mean so much. Especially childhood memories. Sometimes you just live by them.

  - And what's wrong with that? - I was surprised.

  - That they do not allow you to move on. Who is so attached to the past, will not see the future, and will miss the moment. Live now, live each moment as if it was your last.

  He was right, I thought. But how I don’t want to part with my childhood.

  - You do not. It will always be in you and with you. But it will not pull towards itself, and will just quietly present as a beautiful recollection, which is repeated again and again, from life to life. After all, people are constantly being reborn.

  And yet - this river is not the only one on the Earth. There are a myriad of other equally beautiful. You just have not seen all that there is on the planet. So much beauty lives next to people and wait when they forget about their petty problems and concerns and become as little children to enjoy life and love it all - simply and artless.

  - You see, you say "as children"... So I'm not vain remembered my childhood love for this river and asked to take me here!

  - Yes and no. I mean no personal memories of childhood each of you, and unclaimed children's ability to love and enjoy, without demanding anything in return.

  - Yes, I think I understand what you mean. But do you think people will be able to? Are they ready?

  - They will be able sooner or later. Humanity has a lot of not open gifts. And the most valuable among them is the gift of love.

  - You say so good... I want to believe that all this is true.

  - It's true.

  White drifting snow traveled along the snowy river. Absolute silence in thoughts and feelings. Kind trees. Invisible forest dwellers. Dormant fish under the ice. Wind, walking in the tops. Beauty and silence by arrow pierced my mind and gave hope for the coming revival and rebirth of the lost humanity.

  The moon scrabbled the way of light and called into the distance. And I looked at it and reveled in purity. Never in my life I have seen our satellite more clearly than now. All the seas of the moon - are low, and therefore darker areas, now imprinted with particular sharpness in me, as if it were the first time.

  We live next to it, see regularly, and do not feel proper amazement! Why?!

  Looking at the sky full of all kinds of celestial bodies - stars, galaxies, planets, moons – a human simply must experience the shock of this. Sho
ck and epiphany! We live on a piece of matter, called by us the planet! During the day in the sky other piece of matter shines, called the Sun. Where this all came from?!

  - That's it! Finally, a desire to understand the sense begins to penetrate to depths! I was expecting this!

  - I feel that in me takes some inner transformation. As if a soft wave - it moves, heats everything in its path. Everything in me is melting like snow in spring. Everything is changing. Old things no longer seem the same.

  - This is the process of initiation, and it is not yet complete. On the contrary, in the very beginning.

  - And what will become of me then?

  - All will be. Eternity. Knowledge. Love. Force. Everything and nothing. Just live. The time will come - you'll know.

  It was surprisingly easy to me. I could soar so here day and night, forgetting about time and space.

  Time...

  I thought about it. Yet it exists. And on the Earth its factor especially brusque in relation to people and their dreams. Work, study, and do not you dare be late! What a cruel and wasteful our world is. We do not have the time because we spend it wrong. How much aimless work.

  - I wonder what time is it? Maybe it’s time to go back to bed? - I still decided to attend to voice my question.

  - We have time yet. Now 6am. And your mom is still asleep.

  Whence he knows everything? And I again looked at my companion with admiration and respect.

  Oleg read my new thought. In response to it this amazing beautiful blonde smiled softly and quietly. Definitely, it was not a Hollywood grin.

  - My mom usually gets up at 8 am or so.

  - We'll be back to her awakening.

  - Yes, I would. If I sleep too long, she will begin to wake me up. I would not want to scare her so that she will not be able to wake me.

  - Everything will be okay.

  - I want to thank you for this gift - for the travel here. My soul is kept warm by childhood memories of which I had dreamed long ago. Where do we go now?

  - Well, if you're ready to come back, let’s by the usual, not accelerated flight return to the city. And you come back on time.