Spoiled Journey. The Roads That Take Us

«I’m here!» I answered.

«Chop off the head of sir knight,» the princess ordered.

«Just a second, your highness,» I said. «Where is that this «sir knight’?»

The princess looked around in confusion and flung her arms into the air.

«Ah, I don’t see him anymore. Apparently he escaped. What a shame! To dodge his own execution! No, I refuse to understand modern men.»

«Pat!» I called out.

«Unbelievable!»

«Pat!» I screamed right in her face. The princess shuddered and looked at me, kinda surprised.

«I’ll be back soon,» she announced. «Wait here.»

She turned away for a moment, and repeated her focus with the return of Pat. I was silent. Because, admittedly, I did not understand what was happening here. Pat sighed and knocked on her forehead with her knuckles. The sound was not very good, but it was the expected one. Impudence, audacity, love of life – all that Pat consists of are stored in her heart.

«This is a mask, Siri,» Pat said. I was silent. Maybe, in the end, my brain is just not as large as I would like. In any case, nothing clever came to my mind. Just nothing. Meanwhile, Pat raised her hand for a moment and took off her face, revealing the princess. After that, she returned it to its place at once.

«Now you see? These are just masks. Pat’s mask, the Princess’s mask… Adult girls have many masks, Siri.»

«And where is…» I tried to collect my thoughts. «And where is the real Pat?»

«Of course, she is here, beneath them all.»

«Can I chat with her a minute?»

«No, Siri, you can’t.»

She sighed.

«I can’t take off the princess’s mask. I got stuck in it. I played for too long. So, I grew up and the mask did not. Now it altogether cannot be removed.»

«What a hoax! Let me try.»

She smiled sadly.

«It will not work, Siri. I have had enough of trying already. Just believe me: they tried this way and that. Nothing helps. Nothing.»

She smiled meaningfully. Apparently, that was some kind of hint, but I know better than to ask. Nobody likes to look like a fool.

«I get it,» I said.

«There you go. But I can’t always be a princess. This is terribly uncomfortable when it comes to physiology. It is absolutely impossible to eat normally, and visiting the privy is just hell. I had to make several other masks to wear on top. This one, as you see, is the former Pat. This is the office Pat. And this one…»

«Okay, okay,» I said. «I already understood. I am not a fool here. So what about gathering a team? Are you in or what?»

Pat looked at me with pity.

«You understood nothing, Siri. Princesses don’t go hiking,» she said sadly and removed her mask.

«It’s dirty on hikes, it’s damp on hikes, there are insects there and the chamber pot is constantly lost…» the princess began to list.

«I completely agree with this, your highness,» I said «but can I talk with your maid of honor just for another minute?»

Her Highness gave me a bored look.

«Off with you, sir knight. We are not interested in your silly childish fun. Be off.»

Well, what did I have left to do? I told them all goodbye and was off.

Chapter 2 | Eddie

Just beyond the horizon the Night Country began, where I often visited when I was younger. It would have been silly to miss the opportunity to call upon it once more, hence by the evening I was already there.

Little had changed in my absence. Some parts looked a bit withered, rotted, or stale. Somewhere uninvited guests settled, but in general, it was just like I left it years ago. I even felt tears coming to my eye – to the right one, of course, which looks into the past. The left one, which looks to the future, never gave a damn; especially as it was three years now since it went blind, the darned thing.

Ah, that damned past with its rotten memories! Here, little Siri is lying in his little bed all wrapped up in his little blanket. It is dark in the room because evening is here and it is time to sleep. But how can you sleep if you are all alone? The world is so big and Siri is so small. How can you sleep, indeed? The moment you’re asleep, you need to wake up again and go to kindergarten. Kindergarten! What a shitty word! It was invented by adults. Kinda garden, ha! Like hell it’s a garden. Or, better, a hell of a garden. Hellgarten, that one would be right.

Siri wraps himself tighter in his blanket and slips away into the Night Country, where everything is safe, and very tasty because everything is made of bubblegum and marmalade. The colors are all hues of pink and yellow. The flavors are strawberry and cherry. And the smell, of course, is also strawberry and cherry. Siri has his own little cottage in the middle of the woods that is buried in snows of cotton candy. Sturdy trees made of sugar protect the little cottage from enemies. The walls of the cottage are bubblegum, which, everyone knows, can’t be destroyed. No hellgarten can get through.

I wipe away water from my right eye. Ok, ok, enough. What’s the point in crying over the past? By the way, there is my old cottage, all candy and sugar, right ahead. Cool, yeah, but how small it is! Not sure if I could manage to stick in so much as my head.

Though, no. I am absolutely sure I can’t. Because sitting on the porch, gnawing on a baluster, is some kind of ant man. His body is made of swarming live ants, spiders in place of the eyes, and all that. He is gripping the baluster with both hands and chewing it eagerly. Maybe it’s not a baluster. Maybe it’s a bone – if anyone is eager to know for sure, then they are welcome to come and ask. The dude should still be there, crumbs and ants spilling from his mouth onto the ground; the crumbs falling and getting lost in the moss; the ants running back to be absorbed by the guy’s body – absolutely not the sort of thing I would ever like to see again. Anyway, not the sort of a thing to hang out with just for the sake of sticking a head into a candy toy house swarming with ants. To hell with the house. Too small, too sticky, too useless. No more hellgarten to stave off, no more childish fears to barricade myself from.

I turned around and went to play the fool elsewhere. Because I knew perfectly well that you can go anywhere in the Night Country as long as it isn’t northwest. And of course, I was too lazy to fetch a compass from the sack, and as a result headed directly northwest. When I realized this, it had already started to get dark. It was the wrong place to spend the night, but there was nothing to do: it gets dark quickly in the northwest.

I set out at once to search for a secure place to camp, but it was too late: I was already hearing howling. If only those were wolves! Wolves are fairly straightforward creatures: they will never harm you, other than by eating you. But that howling… It was the kind of howl that scares the soul right out of your body and makes it run without a single backward glance at its abandoned and defenseless home.

So, I was standing there and felt like crying, or dying, or, anything, just so I wouldn’t have to hear that sound. But, instead of the sound stopping, I heard it much better now. Meaning – closer. Having grown up in these places, I knew it was useless to run. So there I stood and waited, as everything around me was growing darker and darker, and fog continued to rise from the ground, and something howled closer and closer to me and, finally, I saw it, emerging from the fog…

A spaniel. A Russian one. It was black and white, no collar, his hair matted and dirty, his ears covered in burs – quite a monster of a dog. However, good news, it was still a dog and not a monster. But I had never seen such a miserable and stupid canine. A sagging, melancholy muzzle, red watery eyes with drooping lower eyelids, and a pink snotty nose tirelessly sniffing for something. One could recognize in it a lost dog at once. Such a thing will look for its owner until it’s dead. He sniffed at me indifferently and slouched to look further.

«Hey, bro,» I yelled, «where are you off to? You don’t have the slightest idea what this place is, right?»

The spaniel stopped and stared at me with his dark, sad eyes.

«Listen,» I said, «Don’t leave yet. I will set up my tent in a minute. Trust me, in these places, you will be much better off inside it. Besides, I have some sausage.»

The spaniel thought for a moment, sighed and lay down. He laid his head down on his paws, stuck his snout in the moss, and howled. Normal dogs raise their heads when they howl – this one lowered it to the earth. Well, not that it was any of my concern. My concern was to put up the tent, to tuck fir tree branches under the floor, and to dig a trench around it for the rain. After finishing that, I made the large fire near the entrance and lit the largest firefly I was able to find inside it. The whole thing looked really cozy.

«Come in,» I invited the spaniel, «the sausage is waiting.»

He paid me no attention – just looked at me with his joy-killing eyes and said nothing.

«Listen,» I said, «In these places, it’s either you eat inside, or you are eaten outside. As simple as that, bro.»