Monday, October 2006

Unusually hot day in a Central Serbian village

Two ladies are knitting in the shade of a country house. It's a sunny day, unusually warm for this time of the year. 

"So, here we are again. You are late. I expected you yesterday," says the smaller one, in an innocuous voice. 

"Really? I didn't expect me to come yesterday. I wanted to read again the legend first and then decide whether to come or not," snaps the other. 

"You tried to do what?"

"To read. Have you ever tried that?"

"What, the old legend about Sava Savanovic or reading in general?"

The other remains silent, pulling at the threads she intertwines together into a complex, artistic work.

 She looks offended by the question; on the other hand, her face always looks offended and angry. It doesn't change, as if she was born with such a face, wearing it even in sleep.

"So you read the legend," the innocuous looking one says, with curiosity in her cute eyes. 

"You didn't believe what I told you. And, do you believe it now?"

"I don't know what to believe. It seems that he was born a normal human being some five centuries ago. Do you know what I think? He grew up a big guy, lived his life, died and nothing except bones have left of him."

"I don't think so. And neither do you. Otherwise you wouldn't be here. We are serious hunters. At least I am, I don't hunt ghosts, I prefer flesh and blood."

"Maybe we catch something, but not the legendary creature. Not because our trap is not strong enough, but because he doesn't exist. Who knows if he ever existed?"

"But, he did. They have found his grave two years ago, as you well know. When they opened it, they found it was empty. That inspired us to come here in the first place."

"Maybe. But I found a different story, one which doesn't mention the girl."

"Oh, come on, without the girl nothing would've happened."

"What a mawkish second rater you are! Have those corny romances you're addicted to boiled your brain? How many times should I tell you there was no girl? And I checked."

The angry looking lady now looks angrier, her stern eyes flashing in attempt to prove her point.

"But, there was."

The innocuous and cute one doesn’t give up. She is, like all hunters, persistent, too.

"And they were madly in love. They were meeting secretly and she got pregnant. The girl's father took a gun and went straight to his house and shot him, because he was unsuitable for a husband. He came back to kill his own daughter, too, but she was already dead."

"Phew! It's rubbish. How can you believe such a thing? There was no girl. 
Sava was a very bad man, a landowner who terrorized the villagers. He couldn't sleep well if he didn't punish someone severely. See? Now this is a serious and true story. He would impale them with a stake, right through anus and along the spine, raise the stake and leave them to die on it."

"Maybe that was the reason the girl’s father thought him unsuitable for a husband."

"Are you listening to yourself sometimes? I should record you and play the tape."

"Don't you see I'm just kidding? He was not cruel, actually, only just with the villagers, and they were lazy…so they invented all kind of lies against him." 

"Let's not fight. If you say there wasn't a girl, okay, there wasn't. Both stories end the same way, anyway. One or two human beings are killed and their desire to live and love, or only to live is so strong that they continue living as vampires during the night, and as moths during the day. 
And, the moth part is what we are interested in. All I am implying that there are two moths instead of one for us to hunt."

"There's only one. For all I know, and I seem to be the one who reads here, the villagers feared Sava even after his death. After a couple of gruesome murders in the village, a group of peasants decided to uncover his grave and pierce his heart with a hawthorn stake. Just in case. But, when they did it, a moth flew out from his mouth. Today, when an unexplained murder happens, people say Sava still lives."

"Was it a fat moth?"

"Yep."

"Only if we caught it. You remember last year? We waited and waited, until November. Then the rains started and ruined our webs."

"I don't remember last year, I hate rainy weather. But, I hope, girl, we catch him.
 All my business partners say his flesh is an aphrodisiac. You know how aphrodisiacs are expensive at the spider market. Besides, humans will be grateful."

"Humans? They won't even notice. They'll continue to live in fear." 

"Now, isn't this web beautiful? All we have to do is to wait now." 

Spiders, the cute, innocuous one, and her friend, the angry looking one, have finished knitting the web. It seems strong enough to catch a big, fat moth, and satisfaction is obvious on hunters' faces.

Ema