Snovid's diary

Chapter 22. Transformation

How beautiful it is in early spring, when, brought about by a sudden thaw, the snow drips off the roofs and runs away with a cheerful murmur. The first tender rays of the sun are already warming our skin, and the air seems to ring with the joy of approaching spring. Walking with Igor, an old friend, on familiar streets, I absorbed with rapture every detail. Wet asphalt dotted with puddles, in which the sky reflected pleasantly.

We were approaching a house. The parapet and old concrete stairs leading up to the front door were covered with cracks and lichen patterns of different shades of green. And on the one-story transformer building across the street, there was still the same fissure in the wall, clumsily plastered over with concrete. We had arrived at my friend's house, and he invited me in for a minute while he was picking something up. His apartment was on the fourth floor. As we entered, it was as if his family had just started waking up from a collective nap. The mother was in the kitchen making breakfast, and we could hear those pleasant, industrious sounds of food being prepared from there: the chopping of a knife and the sizzling of oil in a hot frying pan. My friend's two younger sisters were still asleep in the room next to the kitchen. Clearly, they were much too comfortable to get up. Meanwhile, my friend led me to his room and left me alone for a moment while he searched for that thing he needed. I went over to the window, from which there was a picturesque view of the pine forest nearby. The snow between the pines, though thawing, was clearly not going to disappear until the last possible moment. There were animal tracks, marking the paths of various critters, visible. A small but plentiful creek flowed through the forest, completing this idyllic spring scenery. My musings were interrupted by an increasingly animated argument coming from the sisters' room. Excited voices were asking one another:

- What is that? What is that?

I went over to the other room to find out what was going on.

The whole family was gathered around and they were standing in a half circle around something, talking noisily amongst themselves. As I got closer, I saw an empty suitcase in the center of the room. Nothing out of the ordinary, in itself, but it seemed they were moreso startled by its, as they put it, "sudden" appearance.

The oldest of the sisters suddenly pointed her finger at me:

- It's one of his tricks! Who else could get up to such shenanigans?

The younger sister nodded vigorously:

- Yes, that's right!

Now the mother chimed in, still puzzled, but beginning to get angry:

- Is it true? Is this your doing?

I was making my excuses, pleadingly looking to my friend for support:

- It... it's not mine. I came here with Igor, and I didn't bring a suitcase.

To my chagrin, he was very suddenly no longer on my side. It didn't even occur to him to defend me. I was puzzled. What was going on here? What did this suitcase have to do with it? Meanwhile, the accusations kept piling up, leaving me at a loss for words. There just didn't seem to be any logic to this situation.

Finally, I said firmly:

- Condemn me, if you want. I know I cannot make my case because I do not understand the rules of this world!

Then it dawned on me and I repeated once more:

- The rules of this world...

This was indeed an other world. It hit me, and I breathed a sigh of relief:

- I'm dreaming.

Everyone immediately calmed down and left. Only my friend's mother remained with me. A portly woman in her fifties, in a housecoat and apron, barefoot in her slippers. Looking around again, I now realized that we were in fact in my Kiev apartment, with all the furnishings I remember from my childhood.