Illustrator Darya Zhdanovich

Translator Ilias Aisin

© Dmitry Bolesov, 2019

© Darya Zhdanovich, illustrations, 2019

© Ilias Aisin, translation, 2019

ISBN 978-5-0050-6863-7

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

The secrets of the sky

Another one can afford to panic a little, but you do not need it. You will understand why, if you listen to this story.

This story happened near to places of little-known, but not without interest. The mountains there pass into the plain, and the plain itself lies before the newcomer, offering him peace and relaxation, protection and good sleep. There must have been more than one traveler who was able to accept its hospitable call and paid his body back of merit…

A few years ago a traveler came to the plain, not much different from his brothers in vagabondage. His clothes were as untidy as other wanderers. Just his legs weren’t crushed by the stones of the roads, despite the fact that he walked along the roads by foot, and even, hanging on his neck a somewhat strange medallion in the shape of a man with a crown on his head instead of the usual hat, gave him a certain mystery. There was no one to be curious about the vagabond, they did not cause interest if they were able to pay for an overnight stay and did not give a reason for the guard to drive them into the night field without sleep and rest… So this person would have remained without special signs, unrecognized, if in the village which stood near the mountains at the very beginning of the plain, didn’t appear a blind girl in simple peasant clothes, but without a guide or other helpers. She came by herself, she laid her own route, which in those days was absolutely unbelievable.

For a long time this village has not attracted so many guests who were \ready to look at the blind girl and listen to her. Our stranger also came to her. He stood at her side, covered by other curious people, and began to listen to her stories about the distant lands she had visited, the noise of the sea surf, and the tumbling of a spring drop that she had heard. Her story poured non-stop, she absorbed a lot, a lot was revealed to her in sounds, touches and smells. Only one girl could not tell – she could not express in words the light streaming from the hot sun. She felt his burning heat, she knew how the sun’s rays affect the singing of birds and the movement of the wind. But what the sun is and where it is – remained a big mystery to her.

They gave the girl different explanations, pointed to the sky, waved their hands in front of her blind eyes, compared the sun with a large hot stove, or talked about a heavenly god who gives people light every day. But these explanations did not help, but only confused. After all, God cannot be both a stove for cooking and that huge colossus that every day rises above the surface of the earth, pouring its power on it. Our mysterious stranger was the only silent one, not a word having spoken about his understanding of the heavenly luminary.

The blind girl could not stay at this village for a long time. Long time ago she made a vow to the Mysterious Power that she would not stay in one place for more than three days and nights, but would go around the world and in every city, every village she would tell about what she had felt, but had never seen.

—

We could not continue our story further, but the mysterious stranger who walks on the ground without scratching his legs and wears a medallion that clearly does not correspond to his rank. He must have been imbued with sympathy for the girl