 Farewell and Return(A story by © Jonathan Dilas)
It was night. A very clear night. We stood at the edge of a forest and my friend took a short glance at me. I saw that he felt the same sadness as I did. As in my dreams, he walked back and forth, when he was waiting for something and so he did now. But then, he leaned himself against a tree undo looked on the ground, scraping with his foot in the earth. I looked out of the forest on a field and on a path. I knew, she had gone this way. Suddenly my friend started humming a song. It was a classical song, and he hummed so perfectly sad that a sensation of loneliness flowed through me, which I never felt before. In this emotion of absolute loneliness I wondered, how that could be, because my friend was there, who always gave me the feeling of not being alone. He continued humming and I was astonished at the variety of tones, which he produced. They resounded in the woods, over the field and thus, my loneliness increased. Suddenly, a glaring light streamed over the forest. It illuminated the trees, turned slowly to the right, lighted up the field, moved forward and then it vanished. I was convinced, it has been a car, but my friend only smiled. A car which had kidnapped her without coming back ever. He still smiled and looked at me and continued humming, as if nothing has happened. Meanwhile, I thought, a whole orchestra was hidden behind the bushes, in order to play a trick on me, because I heard the strings so clearly, although I knew, it could not be true. "You know, she has gone and won´t come back!" "But she will! She will come back and take me with her." "No, she won´t do that!" I knew he was right. She would not come back. She could not come back. She had decided to leave. "Will I see her again?" "Only, if you go to her." "This I can do? How??" "For that purpose, you have to beat both creatures, I told you of." I remembered. He once told me about two very dangerous creatures that lived in the woods and liked to be in the neighbourhood of old buildings, but they were almost invisible for the human eye. "Not far away from here, there is a castle", he read my thoughts. I hesitated. Should I went to war against those invincible creatures, whose existence was only in the knowledge of children, who fear their visits in the night? I wanted to do it! I would do everything for a single moment with her - that I knew only too well. I nodded to my friend. We stood on a little tower of that castle and could look into a front garden. With a nod of his head he signalled that I should watch the garden carefully. I only saw some shadows, which were created by the moonlight and the trees, but suddenly, I noticed a dark shadow that did not wave back and forth,( as the others,) but moved linear. I blinked my eyes to rule out any error, but the shadow stayed visible without a doubt, in the meantime he had already passed some trees, creeping. "Have a close look !" I saw, how he took shape and turned out to be a three-dimensional creature and when he stepped into a free area of the garden, I got a shock: He had changed into an old, very gaunt man of about two metres. The right side of his face, as well as his right shoulder and arm, seemed to be covered with a brass coloured armour. He had a white beard, which even stressed his bony face. "This is the first creature, you have to defeat. It is not very strong, although dangerous, but it can be beated. You should already be able to do so. The second creature, however, is much more than the first. It will come soon, pay attention!" he said and again he pointed with his chin to the garden. I heard a buzzing in the air, it reminded me of a swarm of bees, then, all of a sudden, a rotating cylinder shot out of the undergrowth. As I looked more closely, I saw, that it was of earthy colour and it permanently moved around itself. It looked like a turned round baking tin for children´s’ sandboxes. The creature was about an average of 7 ffeets and it was at least 5 feets tall. I felt a little dizzy, because the buzzing had increased immensely, then suddenly, a loud Plop! was heard and the ghost was gone. "This creature is a something! You have to be careful, for it is dangerous. I will give you a man and a woman as company. He is distinguished for his logical thinking and the woman for her intuition and quick actions. They will help you! If you defeat the creatures, you’ll have enough energy to search for her." I understood every word he said. Nothing in my life had ever been so clear for me than that situation he described. I turned away and went. I met that woman and the man. We did not even say hello, since they were informed well enough about the further course of our acting. There was nothing more to be added. During our way to the castle, we smiled at each other every now and then, but beyond that, we did not exchange words. A short time later, the entrance of the castle rose in front of us. We went inside. Within the castle, we stood in a large hall. Right of me there was a very solid door, made of wood, with remarkable metal fittings. I laid my ear on the door and listened. When I did not hear anything, I nodded to my companions in order to point out that I wanted to go inside, looking, whether there was something of interest in it. I pressed the door and entered. Behind me, I shut the door without any sound. Above me, at the right, there was a small window, through which some moonlight fell in that was just enough to see the outlines of the room. A few metres before me was something like a round pool, decorated with stones. I made some steps towards it, until I suddenly heard a monstrous roaring so that I believed my heart stopped. My blood rushed into my head and I was like paralysed. When I was able to move my head to the left, I saw a creature that was quite similar to a gigantic monkey. Moving slowly backwards, I hoped to be faster at the door than it could jump at me. Step by step I went back, permanently peering behind me. Unfortunately, I had no weapon. We were not prepared to fight against physical creatures. Our real opponents could not be killed by any weapons. Yet, this monkey here was a problem. First, I wanted to consider the possibility, whether it had been escaped from the zoo, but then the creature made a movement which told me that it was about attacking me. In the very moment, when it started to jump, a black panther came out of the darkness that bite the monkey in the neck, at once. Screaming, the monkey stroke out at him. Immediately, I took my chance and jumped to the door, opened it and shut it behind me, relieved. Both my companions looked at me with wide open, asking eyes. I jerked with my shoulders and then we went up the stairs at the end of the hall. After another staircase, we were on a large loft. At once, I saw some big, rectangular blocks, which were covered with awnings. I was astonished, as I say hundreds of packets of banknotes. Under another awning we found packets of securities. All in all, there were some millions stored here, which laid unused in the dust. My companions did not seem to be very impressed with our discovery, but I knew, that it was a symbol for some of my spilled energy that I could only get back, if we actually succeed in beating the beasts. We left the loft and went downstairs into the hall again. Just reaching it, we saw a man standing in the entrance. In his right hand he held a revolver, his eyes flickered widely, telling us that he was only waiting for us. He raised his arm and shot some times blindly in our direction. Instantly, we separated and searched for shelter. A shudder ran down my spine, when I realised the present situation. The rotating dervish had changed into an ordinary man, which now had a dangerous gun. We were not prepared for that, at all. Therefore, it was only too understandable that we ran away as soon as possible in order to think the situation over very calmly. I made a sign to the others and we left the building through one of the windows in the hall. Outside in the garden we ran to a nearby wood, where we wanted to develop a new plan. We wanted to keep ourselves in movement and for that reason, we went along a path through the forest. My male companion tried to solve the riddle while we were walking. Intuitively I knew, he was a genius in combining everything that happened during a day. In his opinion, all information needed to solve our problem was hidden in the current day. Therefore he abstracted his whole personal past, in order to use only those pieces of information, which he received throughout the present day. Now, he spoke to himself a lot of information loudly, in which I even discovered some remarks of myself. After another five minutes, his face lighted up and he almost shouted that he had the solution, or rather, that he was quite near it. After I had ask him, how he could knew that he was near the solution, without knowing the solution itself, he said, his body had told him so. I raised my eyebrow, but when he began to enumerate some pieces of information of the day, combining them with each other, I was really astonished. He was convinced that the dervish, how we called it for fun, knew the art of changing into everything. Furthermore, he had noticed his distrustful look, which led him to the assumption that this creature was a symbol for faith. His statement took my breath! He was right! Before I was able to answer anything, my female companion acted. She shouted, she had the solution and then she ran deeper into the forest. Already at the entrance, we saw him standing there with the revolver in his hand. Suddenly, he raised his arm and shot, but my female companion did not pay attention to it, instead, she rattled with her box in the air. This sound did not seem pleasant to the dervish, he dropped his gun and fled. She ran after him and we after her. Finally, he escaped, but we got his companion, the one with the armour. He laid there and put his hands over his ears. I pulled him up and tied his hands with a leather strap in order to prevent him from escaping. Then I swirled him around some times until he became flabby. Afterwards, I put him into my body so that he would obey me from then on. His power was mine now, and I knew at this moment, who the dervish was - and that he would come back soon... |