Бесплатный фрагмент - Dragon of the commode silent

At night they read her a children’s encyclopaedia. They could as well be citing a phone book or a periodic table — Shell enjoyed the voice not the content, and only some words reached her sleepy consciousness, for example, «dragon of the commode silent».

«Nonsense,» she thought, «Dragons and furniture don’t come together, and commodes definitely have nothing to say, why point out that it’s silent?» She was imagining an antique chest of drawers as she was drifting away.

In the morning she didn’t care about lizards and their peculiar habitats — she scolded herself for going to sleep far too fast, not having enough time to enjoy the reading rare enough. She had to learn to read as fast as possible.

The encyclopaedia, once a collections of lullabies, had to end up in her hands sooner or later. The disappointing title «Dragon of the Komodo Island» in it with a picture of a thick-hide goanna passing by on heavy paws made Shell realise that some mysteries better stayed mysteries…

That all was, of course, long before she started to call herself Shell, meaning it was before the school trip in the 7th form. Music in her headphones occupied her much better than the teacher’s voice, and the view from the bus window — much more than the destination point. Once the group got out of the bus in some historical park, the girl agreed it was not so bad and immediately got lost. Wandering among linden trees and mossy fountains while her classmates were yawning in stuffy museum rooms she stepped on something in the long uncut grass. It was a bullet.

Not willing to find out where it might have come from and from what weapon she imagined all the cause and consequence just to replace them anew a week later.

She took it as a sign, the trove, and set on calling herself Bullet from then on, but it didn’t grow on her, so trying the neighbouring words she got to Shell quite quickly the «shhh» sound landing pleasantly on her tongue.

***

Shell was standing on the balcony thinking that the urban landscape before her eyes was drawn with ink and coloured with watercolours: angular roofs, thin lines of antennas, cirrus clouds… The sun had already went down but day hadn’t yet turned into night. July in its glory.

She was surprised to find that she was 18 and living the life she only had dreamt of: in her own tiny studio apartment with a kitchen in the corner and almost no furniture, but a mattress, an easel and a vintage three drawer commode to take in all her clothes and no place even for a bookcase — but alone and free to do whatever she wanted.

Shell wasn’t a loner per say rather that she didn’t always enjoy other people’s company and happily she didn’t have to too often. When one works as a freelancer and studies online it’s easy to stay comfortably at home for weeks. But that night she realised she needed a breath of fresh air.

«I need to go for a walk,» she was encouraging herself afraid that the sudden impulse, first in a few weeks, would fade out, «Or I’ll get completely uncivilised. I can’t go out in that paint spattered T, so I need a fresh one. And jeans. A blanket would work just fine as a poncho».

The commode drawer greeted her with an old sweater, a reminder of cold winter nights, and a few large-knitted scarves.

«There must be jeans underneath», she stretched her hand and pulled it back the same second. There was something sharp. A spike? A needle? There could be no needles. Silence was ringing in her ears.

«Commode silent,» — she thought.

The scarves moved, mounted, and the coloured wool parted to show a slim black head. The head yawned showing white fangs, long as knitting needles.

«How do they fit inside such a sleek head?» — a thought jumped into her head for a second and left.