SUNTALES (English)

Two Stories About People Who Deal With Emptiness

One man concluded that everything in this world comes out of Emptiness and disappears into it.
He looked around and saw that she is always a hungry beast and a few could escape her teeth.
And he decided to tame this beast.
Every year, when the fog season began, he took his vacation, pulled out his old backpack, stuffed it full with sandwiches and left for the mountains.
There he, roaming the milky clouds, climbed atop the highest rock and threw his sandwiches one after another into the abyss.
By doing this he whispered:
- Here is your food, you see? Eat and leave me alone.
Emptiness answered him with silence.
How long was he doing so – nobody knows, but one day he disappeared.
The other man, who also came to a thought that Emptiness devours everything in this world, decided to eat her himself.
That was he doing all days long – he bit and chewed all the empty spaces.
For breakfast, dinner and supper.
No one knows how this diet worked on his body but he also vanished.
These queer things happen to those who deal with Emptiness.

Mostys’ka’s Golden Gumshoes

Old Mostys’ka had only one of the unsettled problems left on this Earth – the seacoast shingle. Namely not the shingle itself but the sound that came from under the old man’s feet when he approached the sea. He wanted to hear only the water and to walk along the coast, to watch the sunset. And the stones snafued it for him. He tried to walk barefoot, another shoes – all the same sound; he tried earplugs but it was like a movie on muted TV; he had nothing but splutter at it. Nothing could help. The old man walked and cursed his feet, he called ‘em clay skittles and thought that he could stroll like he wants only in paradise. He sighed and muttered that he could never enjoy his happy eld.
And once Mostys’ka thought out new shoes for his walks. He went to the market and bought himself the most ordinary gumshoes. Mostys’ka found all them good – easy, just for the old man’s promenades, and thin – his feet could feel the ground and walk so quiet and still, and not expensive – as though it dawned the old man. The exact footwear he needed – what can you say! In the evening he put on his gumshoes – and went to the coast.
He was stepping on the stones for a long time. The rumble remained the same. Mostys’ka felt upset, stooped his head, came up to the water and started crying. Oh My Lord, why did You make us so heavy that even walking the ground doesn’t bring us joy? He was weeping, his tears dropping into water.
Suddenly a girl appeared from the water. She was small, her eyes bright as the sky in spring. She stared at the old man and smiled.
- Don’t you cry, old man, your tears can turn the see too salty for the fishes to live in. Why do you stand weeping at the coast?
The told man told her of his troubles but the girl couldn’t help laughing:
- Now, old man, is this a reason for tearing yourself? And even for questioning the Lord? People are told to bear all their heaviness in their hearts, there they hide their dearest dreams – about those who were beloved and those who answered with their love, about that ,what they could do but never done, and also about that, what they never could give up. The problem isn’t with the Lord, it’s with you yourselves! These dreams are as heavy as lead. If you can throw your lead into water far off, than you’ll forget everything that pressed you to the ground and it will stay in water. Your soul will live without memories – so you shall walk on the stones.
The old man looked at the girl and marveled. How could he part with his soul? He shook his head and didn’t want to believe the girl’s word.
- And where are you from? You’re a mermaid, don’t you? And how do you know all this you tell the old man?
- Yes, the old man, the very mermaid I am.
- My girl, where are you, so small and so smart, from?
- From there, old man, we are born by those leads. One throws his power into the water and the water washes everything from it. What belongs to the Lord – comes to Him, and what is a dream – becomes a mermaid. Few people left who know from where we are, but those greedy for their dreams are countless multitudes. So little of us have left. And no one believes in soul any more. But, if you want, you can give me yours. To hold it in my hands. And you’ll see the stones don’t make noise, you even shall walk on the water. Why the water – even on the clouds! And you can talk to angels and touch the stars.
The old man thought it over – he had nothing to lose. What does he have here… His tumbledown house and some clothes – old shorts, an undervest and gumshoes. He turned it over in his head, savvied a little and said:
- Oh well, girl, take it, but fen – I won’t agree till I walk on the water. Isn’t this soul yours. Deal?
- Deal, old man, – and grabbed Mostys’ka firmly by ribs taking his breath out of him.
The old man felt he was standing on his feet as before. The gumshoes, the shorts and the undervest. All the same. Only the girl laughing and holding something live in her hands. Something heavy, slinky and gurgling. The mermaid looked at him and told:
- Well, old man, step up to the Heaven!
And Mostys’ka went over.
First, on the shingle, without any sound, than on the water – without circles and squelches. So he stepped up to the Heaven. And the girl plashed the soul into the water and dived after it. A mermaid and a hatchling.
And no one would know about this evening if Mostys’ka hadn’t get used to come to that coast to the tourists. He came down from the Clouds and used to tell them about worldly heaviness. He himself remained as he had been – the undervest, the shorts and the gumshoes. Well, except that all he was in sunbeams and his gumshoes became golden.

Art Of Fishy Tongue

One lad could speak fish.
He spoke fish into anywhere he wanted.
For instance, he filled his sink with water, dipped his head into it and spoke everything he wanted.
Nobody knew what happened with the water afterwards but when his beloved girl, who lived hundreds miles away of him, turned her tap on she could hear words of tenderness breaking through the noise of the raging flow.
That was their living.

Chap And Death

Once lived a chap and he hadn’t a cent to his name – one of his pockets was empty and the other – with a hole. Neither house nor home. He knocked about the world all by his lonesome and what he did was helping people.
And one day Death came for him. Told: “Since long have I been searching for you, vagabond, and finally found. It’s high time for you, enough to tramp the Earth. Let’s go have the Divine Justice. It’s your turn.”
The chap agreed: “Death, let me do one last good deed until I stay on this Earth. Get into my pocket – I guess you’ve got much walking and your old legs surely sore. Have a rest. You see, I wouldn’t calm down until I do something good. Get into my pocket.”
Death thought it over a little and got into his pocket. After all, where could the chap escape if he got only one pair of pants in which she was sleeping herself! Nowhere could he run away from her. And got into. Though showed him where to go to get for the Divine Justice.
So started the chap to pace where he had to.
He reached the Heaven. Found where the Divine Justice was being done, stood into a queue and began to wait. When his turn came, the Judge called him out. Asked: “Where is your Death, chap?”
- Here she is, in my pocket. Having rest, – said the chap.
- Take her out of the pocket. Because the justice cannot be done without her.
The chap fetched the pocket – and it’s empty. Fetched the other – there’s a hole. Probably the Death fell out on his way. Took his hands out of the pockets and only stretched them aside.
- I lost it.
- If so, return. And don’t get back until you find her. No Death – no justice.
And turned the chap to look for his Death. Back. So wanders the chap since then. Nowise can find it or doesn’t want to…
One his pocket is empty and the other – with a hole.

Danger Of Clairvoyance

One man woke up and felt he was clairvoyant.
He knew the illnesses that killed him in his previous lives.
And deceased at once.
Because of horror.
Those are dangerous secrets of clairvoyance.

Piotr Semionovytch And The Lord God

One gaffer had three questions to the Lord God. And he went into a field to finally settle them.
His first question was – how long has he to suffer on this Earth and when will this end.
The second was – what is the God. And the third – what he himself is.
When he came out into the field and asked his first question a lightning stroke him. He fell, than came to his senses but remembered nothing but emptiness and darkness.
When he asked his second question, the lightning stroke him again. When he came to his senses he understood that this darkness was brim-full with something.
When he asked his third question, the lightning stroke him again and the gaffer understood from where it came. And from where came the sky and the earth, grass and clouds, rivers, seas, mountains, people, birds, bugs and everything in this world.
He went home and became saint. He began to prophesy the future and cure people.
And when came the time for him to die, he went out and disappeared.

Pilgrim And His Inexplicable Wisdom

One hot noon a sage came out to the town square. He went up to its very center than stopped and thrust his forefinger into the ground. After that he pushed the ground off with his feet, put his head down and stretched his legs right into the sky. And so he froze – his legs in the sky and his finger – in the ground.
People immediately gathered around him.
- The sage decided to propose a riddle, – whispered the crowd. – What does he want to tell with this? How long would he thus stay and what do we have to do now?
No one on the square could answer these questions. The sage smiled, looked at his countrymen and said nothing. In the evening the crowd dismissed.
Morning he still stood on his finger. People went by him and whispered between one another but no one knew how to reposit the old man in order everything in this world to return to its place. The sage stuck into the ground and the placid sky whirled at his feet with white clouds; so several days passed.
Then a week passed.
After it – a month.
The sage didn’t even think of getting back onto his feet. His beard reached the ground and seemed taken root into it. Even street market women, coming to the town from faraway villages, didn’t pay attention at this freak any more. People used to go around and sometimes, accidentally touching him by an elbow, remembered the queer riddle.
- You say, still he stands, – said some gaping townsman, – he wouldn’t languish!
The sage remained silent and the townsman hurried busily as if no mysteries existed at all.
The sage would stand on his finger till the end of days but one day a pilgrim came down to him. His clothes looked shabby and his face was like an old tree’s bark. The wanderer sat down near him and stared at the sage’s finger.
He was sitting wordless for some days and than uttered:
- Only he, who needs no point of support, has enough power to hold the Earth with one finger; tell my, have I unriddled this?
The sage put his feet onto the ground, shook the dust off his beard and answered:
- Even if every big fish would contain a Job inside and every egg would have two yolks, even then a scholar would hardly have more answers than questions in his head. And miracles remain as such so far their nature is inexpressible, thus I don’t know what am I doing, and frankly – I don’t want to know it.
Told this, turned around and went his way leaving the puzzled wanderer by the dusty stones. A strange man with his inexplicable wisdom.

About Girl Who Thought She Was Sea

One girl decided that to be as a sea is the best thing in the world. All days long was she wandering and thinking: “That’s what it is, the sea. Tremendous. Calm. When the wind blows – waves raising higher, when it calms down – lower. And do fishes care how high the waves are? Higher or lower they are good for them. And also for jelly-fishes and crabs. And the sea is indifferent for how strong the wind blows and how high the waves are. Because everybody in the sea feels calm. ‘cause the sea is always the sea. The sun shines – the sea is blue; the moon comes – it’s black and silvery. But the sea is also indifferent for this. Because it is the sea.”
So thought the girl.
Or was it the sea?

About Light

One fellow had a dream that he was a red light. He woke up, came to his wife and told her – she asked him: “How’s it?”.
The fellow only shrugged his shoulders. Told his friend, he also asked, how’s it?
The fellow but could explain nothing. He simply knew what the red light was. And just shrugged his shoulders.
And he couldn’t explain anything if somebody asked him.
Could he dream of such a bullshit!

Stream

Two tired wayfarers halted under shadowy trees by a stream. They eagerly crouched to the water to drink because they had been walking a long way.
One of them slaked his thirst, raised his head, washed his face and sat on a stone staring at his companion.
The latter rose to his feet, looked at the water and said:
- I cannot understand why, but for some reason I absolutely don’t want to stop drinking this water. I feel like getting younger when I drink it. As though some mysterious power enters me instead of it and I guess I drink it not because of thirst but because of greed. I can’t restrain myself.
Pronounced it and squat on his knees, bent to the water.
His fellow traveler only clucked in response. He felt no kind of power or, say, any youth. And no greed he felt because he had drank his fill. Clucked, though himself stuck to the stream. Just to check his friend’s words. They drank and drank the mysterious water.
Until they burst.

Professor Petrovskyi’s Secret Smile

Professor Petrovskyi felt that he understood everything in this world when he was going to his work by tram. He looked around – at the people and into the window and all at once saw that everybody was sitting silent. He noticed that the passengers were wearing dark clothes and that they were riding somewhere with very pensive faces. Professor suddenly guessed that people take things too seriously.
And it amused him.
Because nothing existed and the professor knew this since long ago.
But he did not say anything to anybody and didn’t try to prove anything.
There was no need in it.
The professor went out of the tram and saw the same picture – serious people looking at their feet and hurrying for their businesses.
He looked at the sky and smiled.
Then he went to his work too. And while he was walking – he nevertheless looked askance at the people and, moreover, smiled enigmatically.
Suddenly a rough man smelling with sweat held him up. The man didn’t ask anything but plainly noticed that to smile so shamelessly was quite indecent and he’d better not to walk this city with such a contented face. Even because the others could take offence.
The professor hid the smile into his pocket and apologized.
They left each other at the same crossroad where they had met. The man went in one direction and professor Petrovskyi – in another. He all the same walked and watched his sides but not smiling. He looked like the other passers-by – wearing grey summer suit with a briefcase and ve-e-e-ry serious.
But there was a smile in his pocket. And he all the same felt good.

Awful Unrequited Love

Once upon a time there were three blind men. They blinded them with themselves. One of them once fell in love with a girl who didn’t love him. And he became upset very much. When a friend of his saw him, he decided that he didn’t want to see his fellow upset anymore – and he put out his eyes.
With a fork.
His friend was confused and he had to get rid of his own eyes so that nobody thought it was him. When they both realized what the stupid thing they’d done they set to blind their third fellow who lived at their place with them. In order all of them were equal as before. They waited until he came home from work, attacked him with forks and got him blinded. Since than they saw nothing of each other and none of them uttered a word after that.
That’s how awful the unrequited love can be.

Man With Three Ears

Uncle Volodia’s ear-ring is glittering brightly in the sun. Playing with its beams, splotches jumping on walls. Not the simple ear-ring but a present, and not from somebody but from the very Lord God. Though not always one can see it – uncle Volodia hides the precious present, as the God gave him one more ear together with the ear-ring.
Work demanding communication is the hardest. Moreover, the work in a city where cars and trams making noise, trolleybuses running hither and thither and all of them constantly hooting and beeping. And these trolleybuses, trams and others, and the metro – are spang full of people and they talking, talking, talking…
One day uncle Volodia, who used to work as a salesman, got tired of this noise. Got tired of the people that came in to his shop, he had enough of fuss. And most of all he bored of people’s gossip. Idle talk, all about the same, all days long and without stopping to have a rest. Could not stand this the old salesman and once he turned his eyes to the Heaven.
– God, – whispered uncle Volodia, – never dared I to ask you of anything but it’s awful, take this noise away from me, I cannot bear it anymore.
And the God heard his artless prayer. Once he dreamt about a hand holding a ring with its fingers. Someone’s voice, not of a man or a woman, told:
– By this ring, salesman, the God shall lift you to His throne, find it a place and keep it as the most valuable in this world. Don’t you ever reveal it. And the calm and silence you asked for, you’ll find yourself. Yourself. And don’t disturb the God anymore.
Uncle Volodia woke up, jumped from the sofa, grasped air before him – and there was nobody. Only the ring glittered on his finger. No hands in the air, no supernatural tricks… He decided to scratch the back of his head and to go to bed again but when he touched the head he never could fall asleep. One more ear grew out of the top of his head that night.
And he began to hear wonderful things with that ear. Sometimes hears uncle Volodia stars uttering words of their talk, clouds rubbing between themselves and grumbling, and then listens to snow falling or raining and knows what the scarce drops think flying down to the hot asphalt.
It comes so, that among the other heavenly fuss, he recognizes clapping of wings that are not of birds. Then he throws his head back, covers his eyes to protect from sunlight and sees an angel coming down for someone who is now riding in an old tram or by metro or, maybe, simply sitting on a bench in some park unknown to uncle Volodia.
A strange present… And maybe not – who knows. The ear itself is the Heaven’s present, it is targeted at the Heaven, what can it hear, but the Heavens? It’s a pity that there is no promised silence in them – only bustle, as down here, so as up there. Still, after uncle Volodia found the third odd ear, the first two heard nothing more, as though someone stuck them with plugs. And, except the empyrial heights, knows he nothing anymore.
The ring found its place with itself – uncle Volodia wears it as an ear-ring in the third ear. Gathered all the presents together – would never loose them. And then – bought him a kady.
So walks he around the city – listens to the sky, twinkles with the ear-ring, and when he bothers to hear the rustle – puts the cap on his nape. Here is the promised silence and calm.
When uncle Volodia begins missing the world’s sounds – please, take off the hat and listen. All the same, there, among the skies, the fuss is different.
After all, more quiet, than here.

Fish-o-plane

Aerofish is just a scientific name of the fish-o-plane. Our scientists invented this creature as far as in the nineties of the previous century. It is told to bear from the successful breeding of mutant red-finned mullet fish capable of spawning with an incredible speed and unpretentious for food and habitat conditions. Red-finned mullet was a fat, meaty fish almost without bones. Convenient in all the senses. It was a milestone event in the scientific world, the next step towards overcoming presumable food shortage and global starvation.
Invention of the fish-o-plane was made for no lofty aims, unlike red-finned mullet. Neither was any valid reason for this creature to come into this world. It looks like leading minds of the scientific world made it just to satisfy their curiosity. Feeling their way to discover artificial intelligence they crossed various types of DNA, trying to get new, mighty body to put the fruit of their divine intellect into it – the artificial ego, capable of telling evil from good. Capable of keeping its life with itself by finding food. Ready to grow itself from the inside – getting more rich and colorful in the spiritual sense.
No one saw necessary creating such brains. But the works were going on and in the most secret laboratories appeared screamy, deaf monsters, crooked to all sides, that looked like the light industry products turned inside out.
Fish-o-plane, being the shocking result worth the above mentioned activities, was destined to fall into the exceptionally short list of the creatures that the scientists left alive for fun or of mercy or to demonstrate results of their work.
The strange animal with its size and form looks like the very man’s head. Like a man it has a nose from where two fluffy bunches of moustache grow ridging in all directions, ears stick out on both sides of this head and the intractable Cossack oseledets proudly flows on its bold top. As for the latter, the generation of the scientists succeeded to the first one thought that nationalistic views of the Ukrainian geneticists played an important role in designing the animal. Or they admired works of Mykola Vasiliovych Gogol, namely his outstanding flamboyant Taras Bulba – brave and unruly character.
Then, our head has a splendid waterproof beard. With it the fish-o-plane does not fear any temperature jump or frost. If you live far from the city center, somewhere on the outskirts, you have a wonderful chance to see the heads sunk in snow and wrapped with its beards – fish-o-planes’ rookeries. Cuddling up to each other they warm their neighbors with breath and silently rub between one another, melting the snow and digging themselves into the earth, already not so cold and damp.
The other distinctive feature of the fish-o-plane is its ability to swim. It has gills behind its ears. Thanks to them, and its fish-like life support system (when it receives oxygen and nutrients together with water), fish-o-plane got the first part of its name. In summer you can often watch fish-o-planes gathering in flocks near water and hunting insects. They are jolly diving in and out, spitting into each other with water, playing games understandable only to their small community. Now and then some fish-o-plane dives out too close to the beach, where ordinary people are bathing, and scares to infarct some old lady, who never seen such a miracle in her youth.
Also the fish-o-plane has a propeller and a third eye. That is namely those components that denote its belonging to the scientific world. Propeller is given to the fish-o-plane for an extraordinary capability of flying in order the rare animal to escape predators’ clutches and individuals, disposed to aggression, that happen on its way. Besides this, the propeller adds it mobility and is a means of a brood’s quick migration from the environment, unsuitable to habitat, into more comfortable one. Frankly, one cannot find an animal more, than the fish-o-plane, adapted to living in tough conditions – as mentioned above, it eats insects in summer, and in winter – plain raw ground and bark from trees.
And what is this enigmatic being the third eye amid the wide forehead for – remains a mystery. The scientists do not disclose the secret why and because of what did this extra visual ability appear with it.
One fish-o-plane observers state, that this eye performs a guarding function and is open while it is sleeping; the others, probably, liked stories about flying saucers and little green men in their past and talk of telepathy due to which this strange and a bit frightening creature raised a step higher than its creator – man.
By the way, concerning superiority – in general, despite the wildness and unexpectedness of the fish-o-plane’s appearance in our world, humans stopped feeling strange for it before long. Useless and senseless, fish-o-plane could scare only when it flies through a window leaf into someone’s home and aimlessly poking about the apartments and hiding of fear into corners or under sofas and dragging century-old layers of web and dust out of there. It does not bite, buzzes softly and would not disturb anyone if not throwing down accidentally some memorable crystal vase or impinging glassed cabinets. The problem is that you hardly could swat the fish-o-plane with a slipper. It is much bigger than a mosquito and bang on a head, which in size is as your own one, looks like killing someone who is like you. Besides this, few would like to scrub walls’ surface or even re-hang wallpapers. So some suffer hooting the silent, smiling and insane head back off into the window leaf.
So it flies the world, ridiculous and uneatable. Travels. Scares old ladies with its bold look and slant mongoloid eyes. Hairy aerofish – fish-o-plane, as the plain countryfolk call him.