The Monstrous Soul. Chapter I

It was Morwenn's assignment. Not mine – the words slowly oozed through Kiri's mind like a thick, mucoid plash of liquid sliding on a slippery surface, as the creaking van rocked back and forth, crawling on the uneven road. Again and again that night, Kiri fell for sleep's embrace as it seemed to be approaching, and every time sleep rejected him.  Insomnia is double the torment when there is nothing but a thin layer of frosty glass under your head serving as a pillow for two consecutive days. His exhausted senses already adapted to the monotonous tapping of raindrops right under his ear, no longer bothering him at all and now the only source of restlessness for him was the endless torrent of thoughts – thoughts, which ran like mad after several days of both physical and mental inactivity.

It was all to do with Morwenn. Wasn't it? The promotion he went on about, his pride to lead the research unit, his high zest. No, I never wrote a dissertation on protoplasmic reversion, simply because I couldn't. But Morwenn did write the damn thing, oh yes he did. He deserves to experience every second of the fourty-eight hour journey, which I made so far on his behalf. Him, not me.

And suddenly the familiar silhouette of a scientist, Morwenn McMorrow, giving a late evening lecture on biochemistry with his ordinary enthusiasm would gradually start hazing up and, little by little, evanesce completely from Kiri's inner sight. To replace him, along shifted lonely fragments of memory, reminiscence of recent days. Owing to Kiri's mind being completely inebriate with languor, these fragments now somehow aligned in a faint, but fairly accurate kaleidoscope of circular images. The kaleidoscope spun round in a slow motion, projecting various scenes of the past on the dark background of his closed eyelids.
One of the scenes detached from its orbit and seemed to become clearer than others. Kiri could now distinctly see forming contours of a painfully familiar place, illuminated with rays of a crimson sunset. Next became visible the outline of a shore, the line of division between land and sea. On the verge of that line stood a lone figure, furled in radiance of a white silk gown. And there he saw himself too, wavering like a specter, steadily moving towards the radiant figure. With every quivering step he took, doubt made way to certainty, and now he was sure of it – the figure was definitely She. He carefully moved forward his ghostly hand in order to touch her, but in a heartbeat he realised that she was already looking at him, as the veil of shadow lifted from her splendent countenance. Caroline gazed at his ghostly presence with no alarm, smiling at him like she used to in the distant realms of reality, at times, which they quietly spent together.

"It's strange, isn't it?" she would suddenly say, her sweet voice carried to him by gentle oscillations through the thin air, "Several days ago we parted for a month, and now I see you as clearly as I hear the clashing waves, as I see sunlight withdrawing into the murkiness of cosmos, whence it came.
"I'm dreaming, you're aware of that. Am I dreaming?"
"Haven't you yet realised?"
"Yes. yes, I have. You tried to summon me and, somehow, you succeeded."
"May I ask you something?"
  "Anything."
"Why did you leave, Kiri?"
Kiri remembered that he had put this question to himself numerous times after he left home. Caroline was asking it now, and, be it in a dream or not, it was time for him to say the truth. If only Kiri had known the truth.
"It was just another day when obligation knocked on my door. But isn't this what both of us wanted? How else can I ensure to be able to provide for the two of us?"
Kiri noticed that she was neither looking at him nor smiling any longer. Her gaze was fixed upon the gleaming circumference slowly being devoured by the horizon of dark waters.
"You may be right," she would respond after a pause, "Just listen to me, whining about your flawless career, the fruit of your ambition. But every bed of roses has its thorns. You may not feel them, lying on one side, whilst someone's heart is being slowly punctured on the other. Thorn by thorn. Sting by sting."
A bitter wave of guilt struck Kiri's core. He couldn't stand to hear Caroline's scorching words, which made him want to plummet through the sand.
"I will come back."
"Obligation knocked on the wrong door and you didn't expect to leave. How can you be so sure of return? "
The wrong door, echoed in his head. This brought the unpleasant image of Morwenn, with his intellectually composed physiognomy, glimmering with arrogance. Obligation knocked on the wrong door. Why the devil did I open it?

Kiri never found an answer to Caroline's question. They spent the rest of their mutual dream in each other's caress; night came as silently as day departed, and the ocean quietly wailed in a recurring loop of threnodies. In them resounded everything the two lovers were now both scornful of- longing for tender years, the blind infatuation, monstrous grief for their unborn child, the unceasing waste of mind and body for the sake of duty…
A ripple of distortion slithered through the dream. The less willing Kiri was to wake up, the more nebulous his vision became. Caroline began to dissolve in the breeze, escaping Kiri's embrace. The gust of wind took him as well, pulling him farther and farther away into reality. There was no more ocean or sand, or the moon, or the white silk dress, or anything at all: his perception of the real world was coming back to him, words of distress still pulsing in his head.

The wrong door…assignment…Morwenn…duty, duty, duty. Why did you leave, Kiri? Why did you leave?


"We have the end of the line ahead of us, Mr. Nolan, sir."
Kiri woke up. The threadbare cabin of the van was lit by first rays of dawn. He had slept through the stormy night, or at least, a portion of it.
"What is it, Thompson?"
"I'm sorry to wake you up, sir, I suspect you had an uncomfortable night. But the arduous journey is now behind us. Our destination is a blink away. So brace yourself, Mr. Nolan, you have long, toilsome days ahead of you", chanted Thomspon in his deep voice, unhurriedly articulating every word.
Kiri looked out the window. Outside stood a forest of tall, leafless beams. There was nothing animated about this word of eternal autumn and for a moment he wished it would just be another dream, which replaced Caroline's.
He wished reality wasn't so inhumane, forcing him to leave behind the dearest things.
He wished he had never left.
Long, toilsome days. What an accurate depiction of life to come.