Jetzt fängt der Mann zu weinen an
Fragt sich was hab ich getan
Ich wollte nur zur Aussicht gehen
Und in den Abendhimmel sehen
Und sie schreien
Spring**
Down below, people are waving and shouting something. Hundreds of sparks are flashed by the cameras: they are trying to capture him. Why? Or maybe it’s not about him? Maybe it’s the building, burrowed into the ground like a giant tree, that catches their attention. Maybe no one notices him at all.
He looks around, looking at the rugged silhouette of the city, illuminated by the setting sun. It looks like the forest he encountered on his way back home. It is distantly similar, because the forest is much larger, more majestic, because the forest spreads so wide that at times it seems insurmountable.
And now he doesn’t even want to overcome it.
Although… it’s all his own. Maybe he could find solace there.
Many people there almost worship them like gods. They call them sacred. They celebrate approaching happiness if they see them.
There are no cities there that look like a bunch of needles poking into the sky. Everything and everyone are closer to nature there, at least if you get to the right place.
So why did they come here? What called them to this distant land?
They came for warmth and sustenance. They came because they are used to coming. Because they didn’t know how to change, didn’t know how to seize new territory like humans. They came to the only place they knew.
On the shore of a beautiful lake they found their shelter, as they had always found it. The place was still there. Worse was the food.
That’s why the two of them went on their way. That’s why they came here: to the city, to the man.
That’s why she died.
Randomness: life is a chain of accidents.
Regularity: people trying to help in small things do not notice how they hurt in big things.
They cried when they found her. Dead. They cried. But do tears change anything?
Their fault.
Their fault!
Why does this world put up with what they do to it?!
The same song cuts through the crowd’s clamor again.
…tausend Sonnen brennen nur für dich…
Spring
Erlöse dich***
He’ll have to go, even if it’s without her.
Make their usual way for both of them. To worship the flourishing of that land as bequeathed by their nature.
It’s time. It’s time.
He opens towards the wind, clinging to its flow.
The fall… and the rise.
He makes a sharp turn and crosses the river and heads north, away from the city, into the night that engulfs its silhouette.
***
«Will he jump or not? Do you think he will?» the guy tosses the empty cup into the trash. «It should come out beautifully, I think.»
«I guess. They’re rare around here. I mean, in the city. Usually they stick to the park, the lakes. They say it’s good luck to see one. Have you heard of it?»
He nods.
«Yes. It’s full of these symbols: posters, magnets, stamps,» he points the camera phone again at the green and red lights illuminated on the pavilion, the silhouette standing almost motionless on this man-made cliff. «They are weird, really: the proportions, the colors.»
«But beautiful,» objected his buddy. «White always looks great.»
«It’s a pity he’s alone. I think they usually travel in pairs. I’d love to see them dance! Oh! Look, look! He jumped!»
Above their heads, spreading its snowy wings, the Siberian Crane plummets from the roof and, with a long cooing sound that resonates throughout the neighborhood, flies north to catch up with the spring coming to its homeland.
* Here is an approximate translation. With great gratitude and respect:
* Rammstein, Spring
The crowd begins to rage,
They want his insides.
And they shout.
Jump
** Rammstein, Spring
The man begins to cry
He asks: «What did I do?»
I just wanted to look at the view
And the evening sky.
And they shout.
Jump
*** Rammstein, Spring
…a thousand suns burn only for you…
Jump
Spare yourself
Down
Two pairs of eyes watched through the narrow pupil of the porthole as the thin cable unfolded in the darkness, stretching more and more, almost indistinguishable against the ghostly blue glow of Earth’s atmosphere. The graphite-gray strand emerging from the A-11 airlock had already gained full length, and the platform attached from below must have already reached the South American stratospheric port, flying a dozen kilometers above the planet’s surface. So, it would be no more than an hour or two before we descended.
«Has the guy changed his mind? Still want to risk it?» an elderly trembling voice cut through the quiet hum of the thirty-third compartment’s walkway zone.
«No. You can’t talk him out of it once he’s made up his mind,» the respondent said, not hiding a bit of regret. «You know… that’s why he’s here, if you think about it.»
«Yeah… What if… what if he makes it? After all, they do work on those costumes, Ars.»
His friend shrugged his shoulders. His cheekbone face, riddled with a mesh of wrinkles – the evidence of a tumultuous life – twisted into a grimace of doubt.
«Well, so far, none of them have been successful with that option. And anyway… Tell me, Charlie, how many people have gone back down? In your memory? Not just like that, almost directly, but through other experiments? How many have won their freedom?»
The old man scratched his bald head, sighed, and hunched over more than usual.
«Two…»
«Yeah! And how many people have tried? Two dozen? Three? Five? I’ve lost count.»
«Actually, this guy seems to be on his game.»
«Yep… But I don’t understand why he’s so eager to go back. What’s pulling him there? I mean, he’s struggled with this new system himself.»
«And he’s got it, isn’t he?» Ars grinned wryly, «no one chip here. Consider it the freedom he wanted.»
«Freedom?!» his interlocutor rounded his eyes, smiled, and laughed, clucking. «Freedom… oh, I can’t… Here on the „Daisy“? Hey! Freedom!»
Continuing to cheer, Charlie took a dozen steps to the right, bumped into a silvery wall,