Author Topic: A book that I'm currently translating to English - Abnormally sane  (Read 103 times)

magic-creator

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Have in mind that this is not the edited version it's only the first round of rough translation but I wanted to share it with the people.

Prologue

         A short, stout, little man, wearing heavy glasses, named Leon, was sitting in a dimly lit office. He seemed to enjoy the silence and watched the snow fall. However, he was preoccupied wih a few more complex matters. He was adjusting his glasses while his eyes wandered through the latest notes. He did not like where the situation was leading to, he wanted everything solved once and for all. He pressed the button on the phone and another person emerged by the table.
         A man started talking in a thin, low voice. “It won’t work like this. There are too many possibilities for a contact to be made and for things to go wrong for us. We need to assist.”
         A tall man just nodded his head, which was half lit. “Who should I call?” After brief thinking, a little man responded, “Contact the best people. We will go into action tomorrow. And remember, whatever happens, I want to know if he is capable of crossing the line.”
        A tall, thin man with two different-coloured eyes left the office, and a fatter, shorter one remained sitting and wondering where all of that was leading to.

Alderson villa, 8:13

         Another empty day. Is it a day already? How come... It seems to me like I haven’t slept at all...
         A warm bed rustled under his movements, a pillow moved, a quilt stirred and a pale leg emerged from beneath it...
         It doesn’t make sense any more...
         Thoughts were heavy, empty, but they were still there, in his mind, reaching to his soul. The heart was beating, the body was warm, but his soul ache was so tremendous that he barely felt his existence. I have a headache, again. What a morning... Truth be told, he has had headaches ever more often in the last one month. I might have a tumor... That’ll do... a good excuse for dying.
          The floor was crunchy, cold, uncomfortable at the touch of his feet. Any finger at any given moment could come across a crash, a splinter, which could inflict pain and cause nerves to react. But it didn’t matter to him. Nothing mattered to him. He stood up and spoke to himself, from the depth of his mind. Don’t lose it again. Have breakfast, lunch, music, and wait... It is everything he had in his life, everything he’d got left from his life...
          What followed was an empty, slow walk through a long hallway, everything echoed, even his wintery breath. Cold, freezing, these walls have never been heated. Except for when we were here. Back then everything was warm, tidy, homelike. There was light everywhere, every chandelier, as a sun of its own, heated up the halls of its universe. There was always hubbub, the laughter echoed, years ago, and it was pleasant to live.
          Now, silence echoed. Nobody knew where the ghosts of the past had gone, it was only known that they still owed their joy to this day. If everything stays as it is, there will be nobody left to pay off the debt.
         As if playing ’’hot or cold’’ with himself, he strode the long, dark alleys of his own history. The paintings, photographs, dreariness, a repulsive faded brown wallpaper colour, peeling off from top to bottom, dull baroque-style pattern and his empty steps.
        The first door – opened. There was nothing inside, apart from a French bed with canopy. Tinted windows talked about darkness with their heavy, bloody draperies. The next room – locked. And three more. Why don’t I have the keys to these doors? But that was what amnesia was like, even if you had something, you couldn’t remember where you’d put it. Those keys were waiting for him somewhere in the villa, probably in vain. Whether he was to find them that day or the day after, after all, it didn’t matter.
        Finally, he found the washroom. Tiles – more freezing than the silence of the hallway, but at least they didn’t creak. Sometimes, he wished to stay in that bathroom. I’m not even hungry, he thought. Oh, right, I don’t even want to look at myself. Empty-eyed, he stared at the wall where the mirror had been. He waved his hand dismissively. He had broke all the mirrors in the house the day after that happened, he couldn’t stand to look at himself and not know who he was and what he existed for. Then they took them away. Who did? He didn’t know. How could he know with that goddamn wasteland in his head…
          He looked through the window pane and he could feel his pupils reacting to the whiteness outside. The snow had long covered the areas around the house, making everything look sterile. Everything is so clear… Except my memory.
          He was coming down the stairs slowly. What would happen if I were to fall now? Would anyone even come to look for me, at all? It is all so empty….
          He passed by the radio and he switched it on out of habit. So, it is still not time. Time… He tasted that word in his mouth. I have too much of it, where in fact I don’t have a single second. He had time, or at least that’s what he said to solace himself. Actually, he didn’t have it, because he didn’t know who he was. How was he then to have a vision of who he wanted to be after some time? Because that was how people were supposed to function. Time was that incidental thing that helped humans succeed. The only thing that he could do is stand still. As if in the eternal purgatory. It seemed to him his life would pass in a day. He was hoping that he wouldn’t get up the next morning, but in vain – every morning at five o’ clock, he would open his eyes to a new day and he would give himself a twenty-four-hour-long chance to remember. If only he could remember! All he wanted was to remember who he was. To move away from the emptiness, set the clock in motion, bring back the memory and to move on.
          Nevertheless, he would wake up to the emptiness every day. And every day he would wait for twelve o’clock. Just to hear that melody on the radio. Just for a moment to be yanked by those sounds of the violin, as thin as a rail, but as heavy as the sea. The tones dragged him, like an anchor, day by day, to some memories that he couldn’t make out. Blurry, everything had always been so blurry, but he had known that catchy melody since the first time he heard it. And he heard it the day after. After that. Since then, he had been listening to it and in fact, he would hear it every day. Somebody out there, played his grief and desolation. Somebody out there knew how he felt, knew exactly how to touch his most subtle thoughts. Every day at twelve o’clock. Without exception. Without delay. Without change. That melody wasn’t an announcement of any kind of programme, but to him it seemed like an announcement of his better life. It lasted for three minutes only (he didn’t time it, but he knew it). After that, he would feel fulfilled, stronger, more capable of bearing the rest of a silent day. He was at peace with himself and with his ignorance.
   That was the only thing that would drag him and push him at the same time. Dragged in the past and pushed in the life ahead. He could almost remember numbers, faces and names, but those were always blurry, wiped away like a foggy mirror. He saw them through a yellow stained glass; never knowing who and what he’s seeing. He knew only the melody.
He would attempt to hear it in his own mind as soon he would wake up, but kept failing. Often, he soothed himself: Maybe one day, when I remember the music, I’ll know everything. He would force his empty mind to remember but the result was always the same – gray emptiness, all up until 12 o’clock. That’s when he would lay down on his baroque bed, set his hands below his head, touch his blonde soft hair and started singing. Always precise without mistakes. As long as the music didn’t stop he would never make a mistake.  And of course, he often wondered how he knew that melody.
He had no answers to his questions.
Time passed by and the moment came.
During the time of the melody he would never become silent. He would never even think of that, to just get silent and maybe remember something. Up until now. He became silent and the music stopped.
Room slowly got filled with silence, but not the silence he got used to every day, over and over again. This silence was different: hideous, threatening and dangerous. He was afraid to think, but the human mind is a strange thing – always active and it was active now. All of a sudden he was in a state of panic. It stopped. It stopped. Why? Why did it stop? Somebody out there knows, no, somebody out there doesn’t know that the music stopped. This must be a mistake. The radio must be broken. He got up, composed, and swiftly approached the radio. The fear has risen inside of him – touch it to make sure it’s not broken, and – don’t touch it, go to your room and lock the door. Everything will be fine. Has to be, has to. He slowly put the tip of his finger on the radio button and waited. Did I stop the transmission or did it stop me? The question grew bigger inside his mind and started to haunt him, burn him from the inside. He had to know. After all, if the radio broke, that’s the least of his problems. In that case nobody made the music stop.
He was slowly turning the button around to find another station. Silence. And after the silence, a voice. There you are.
What?
He yanked his hand, ran on the other side of the room and stopped, petrified. There you are. Here I am. Yes, I am here. Somebody knows. Somebody is not nobody, somebody talked to me. Come on, don’t be insane, it’s just the radio. That works. How did the music stop? I don’t know. In that moment the melody started playing again, right from the note he stopped on. But he didn’t sing with it. Should I break it? How will I get up in the morning? Why should I? What reason will I find to breathe? This was my safe resort.
In that moment did he realize he now knew a name. Jonathan. He knew a name, one and only. He felt like he had to take all the decorations from the Christmas tree and he didn’t know where to start. The melody finished.
He quickly wrote the name on the cover of the first book he reached, he didn’t care if it was a family heritage. Jonathan. In that moment he regretted for not leaving at least one mirror in the house. He could now at least see if the name fits his face.
The attic. I have never been there. Maybe the time finally came. There was a reason why he didn’t go up there. He was afraid that nothing will be there. He always thought the attic was like his own mind, empty and that even if he tries to dig deep, he won’t find anything.
But he finally felt light as a feather as he ran, barefooted, over the staircases.
« Last Edit: June 04, 2019, 12:58:06 pm by Bookcoin2028 »
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magic-creator

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If you like my work, you can tip TRX or ART here:

TPm2oDojVHy2qPStmYQvq868cs4btKWxwS