The Mist and the Lightning. Part V - страница 11

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It was so weird. The whole world around was different, it was his world and at the same time not his, completely alien. But this is probably even more attractive. His body also became different, denser, heavier, wider at the shoulders. A very strong body, but some kind of clumsy, it didn’t seem to work, because it needed “water”, “water”, “water”, “water” …

Now he felt that he had not eaten or drunk for a long time, but these feelings were somewhere in the background. Perhaps his body needed it, but the brain did not care. His brain was empty. No thoughts, feelings, emotions, just some echoes of thoughts, vague fragments that he could not catch and realize. And sheer indifference. Where is he going? What for? Arel did not know. Did not understand. And he didn't care. When he was himself, he always knew what he needed or at least he thought he knew. He knew where to go and why. What he has to do. He always went somewhere, toward a goal, did something, or did not, but also thought about it, at the same time already thinking what he would do


next, what he would do tomorrow, and what he must do. And that he had to do necessarily, but did not. And only now he understood how all this knowledge weighed and limited him.


His legs were confused, he had never walked so slowly in his life, and vague spots around him were frightening. He did not see what was happening, and it was dangerous. And if they attack him? Strangely, these thoughts did not cause any emotions, just as the thought that he was hungry and dying of thirst. Such aloofness in Arel caused some kind of incomprehensible pleasure, some kind of perverted sense of freedom. He probably still fainted for a while, as if falling out of this continuity, and then regained consciousness and realized that it was dark in the street and he could see better! And he hears nearby the murmur of water.


Arel made the sound and soon found himself in a small courtyard, and almost in the middle of the courtyard he saw a well, and he went to him. He didn’t look for water on purpose, it just happened that at that moment he caught a well. He didn’t say to himself: “Oh, here’s the water, now I’ll get drunk, then I have to decide what to do next, where to spend the night, where to get food.” So would say Arel. But he wasn’t Arel. He never said anything to himself. It was not important.