black_marya | Лабиринт

Проза Катерины Валенте, поэтичная, невероятная, гипнотическая, отталкивающая своей изысканностью и наполненностью... опутывает, затягивает...

Roads. Oh god, I cannot speak of it, but the Roads have filled me entirely, stuffed and crammed into every corner, oozing out of my body like icy caviar. They are my avenue-bracelets and my fat sapphire street chokers, my gold scarab short-cut armbands and my boulevard harem anklets, they are my cobblestone coin belts and my alleyway-agate earrings. Long Paths criss-cross my torso like ammunition belts, and the innumerable dead-ends pierce my breasts beautifully, hanging pendulously, swinging with laughter, slapping triumphantly against my bronzed belly.

And. There are here tremors of Doorways. They appear in the morning like dew-dampened butterflies, manic and clever. They travel in packs. At night the hinges change from right to left, or vanish completely. Some are no more than flaps of fur, iridescent in the light of the Walls, or sweeping veils of gauze and silk, long curtains like a woman’s hair. Like my hair. Some are hard and ornate, carved with a fantastic code of Arabic and Greek, letters drawn in a paste of crushed diamonds and the hooves of a drowned horse, written with the elegant tip of a black cigarette holder. These have heavy knockers and bulbous knobs, brassy and baronial, in intricate shapes; I have seen a knob like a griffin’s fierce mouth, open in a scream with her tongue made of rose quartz, feathers fanning out magnificently in silver on the face of the Door. And a falcon-claw knocker all of amber, the reptilian talon, the three terrible nails ending in their razor points, all wrapped about with the leather of bondage, the flying trails of a hunter’s bird cascading down the polished Door, ending in a large lacquered ball with which to strike and enter.

But they are not beautiful to me, any longer. They cluster whispering and break and dance in and out of vision. And they hunt. Like sleek foxes they creep along the places where the Wall meets the Road and wait. They will glide up silently and swallow you as you lie beneath a sighing willow, or stalk you through three dozen twists and turns of the Labyrinth, seizing you as you come upon one of the long boulevards. They are savage creatures, and hungry. On what do they open? I have learned only to avoid them, and I could not say. I did not exactly come here, and I will not exactly go. I have always been Here, I have always been about to escape. I have never been arrived, always in transit, slowly digested by the Road with Doors snapping at my heels. I will never tell the tale of:

"One day I woke up and I was here."

Но здесь нет выверенного, назидательного безумия Алисы в стране чудес... только поиск себя, предназначения и пути, смерти и начала... необъяснимый эротизм безумия, сродства между началом и концом, палачом и жертвой, любовью и смертью... ороборос...

Just as Maidens cannot help but eat anything they are offered, Beasts cannot resist the pull of Maidens, irrefutable and full.

Сюжета почти нет... но есть история... живая и странная. Искренняя и метафоричная. Текущая по венам, как яд... Главное, не послушаться авторского эпиграфа:

This is for you - the blame is yours.
Written on your skin
Spoken in your voice:
A glamour and a lie.