Coffee Stained Pages. Part 1. Lilla Somn

often. The Kantinian still remembers how surprised and enchanted she was the first time seeing a living selva. It was rude to stare, but book pictures didn’t give any idea of what the selvas were really like. It’s… Like the difference between a map and a landscape.

      Well, ghouls are with this damned appointment. Let it be.

      Who is she trying to cheat? She will gladly get away from here again. Even being indifferent and powerless. Even if it’s not for a long time.

      She will just go, just because. Whatever. Even for appearance’s sake. Just go there and come back with a dejected look: “I didn’t succeed again. It is fine.”

      It’s not her coveted Prime, but at least it’s something.

      …Damn Mother Universe with her stupid manner of care, feeding us not with something “tasty” we want, but something that corresponds to her perverted ideas about “healthy”…

      …but “it is fine” again.

      So, as it seems, despite the violent internal protests and seething hatred, there were obviously many good reasons for going to Omill.

      What made Ami especially happy was that she would supposedly leave Kantine before the start of the Fertility Festival, hated to the point of gnashing teeth.

      She almost forgot about it. Then… It was worth a lot!

      It was even possible to simply go to Omill under this pretext and quickly come back here after that to continue to rot here.

      At least minus one time of stupid songs, forced fun, accelerated by ale, unfunny jokes and inappropriate and unpleasant signs of attention and literally sickening round dances!

      Good good. What could be better for the psyche than the absence of odes to one’s own unwanted fertility. This place already has enough of all types of fools.

      “It’s not the city’s fault that you feel bad here. And not people. They get along well with each other. It’s like you’re something foreign here.” – she reminded herself. – “And not everything is black and white. This city has its own virtues. Here, in the Mainland’s food capital, you can be sure of tasty, nutritious food in abundance, quiet sunsets, walks in the Forest and flowery streets.”

      Alrighty, but in order to try to avoid one day of fertility, one could agree to almost anything. Now we have no doubts.

      Yes, it’s a big holiday for the locals. Many people look forward to it, and decorate their houses with bouquets of beautiful leaves and carved fruits, and prepare special foods and drinks. They get beautiful tablecloths and draperies, and dress themselves up too. Almost everyone here enjoys the lively jamboree, even people from neighbouring towns come to see it. Ami saw enough.

      What kind of allergy is it? What’s so terrible about it? Why was she clinging to it now, when it was just happening in her head? Why not just walk by indifferently if you’re not really interested? Otherwise it means you’re still “interested”, you know, but in a perverted way. What is she resisting? Why?

      No answers. But she can’t deny her eagerness to stay away from these pleasures. And she’s a great master of playing dead.

      If something is systematically imposed on her, she will do her best to systematically avoid it.

      Additional reason to escape the Fertility Festival is that those days made their mother nervous too. And even more withdrawn. This was something they had in common, but it didn’t bring them together at all.

      Every big cycle Yvette simply locked herself in her room with a supply of food, tea, and… a hygiene bucket. And no amount of screams, threats, or persuasion from her relatives could lure her out of there.

      However, persuasion-threats-screams were another holiday tradition, repeated from cycle to cycle, as stable as the very presence of a swamp holiday.

      No one planned to stop it. Everyone seemed to love this boggy theatre.

      Even the dialogues have not changed over time. Immortal recognized classic. And nobody ever got tired of this unfresh scenario.

      The mother was asked not to disgrace herself in front of her neighbours. She answered in a calm voice that she would not disgrace herself, since from here she would not be able to greatly harm everyone who congratulated her on her still fertile age and the ability to reproduce further. She only went out at night to empty the bucket and threatened to douse its contents on anyone who interfered with her self-isolation.

      Ami winced.

      Every cycle of her life she felt as if she had already been doused from this same bucket. Desire to quickly remove herself far far away from home and the glorious traditions, ancestral memory and great city became almost invincible again. To find herself as far as possible from the concentration of those toxic things that already killed her morale.

      Far away from the comfort of home. From the family bonds. From the mother with this permanent verbal and non-verbal hygiene bucket. Great.

      On the other hand Amelia couldn’t say she doesn’t understand mother’s behaviour. It was probably painful for the older failed tramp to see her mistakes and especially one read-headed ridiculous reflection. No matter how hard she tried to forget who she was before, she wasn’t successful.

      One can’t cheat one’s soul. She had to look. She had to look at all of them. Her past mistakes. Amelia was one of three. Mother made them systematically. For what’s sake? One never knows.

      Maybe she believed that this would transform her from a fractious tramp into a respectable citizen. Maybe she wanted to be accepted in the house of her husband and in the city in general. But she didn’t succeed either.

      And with new hope she switched to the desire to see her daughters become respectable plant growers and mistresses of the house and fields, she had never become herself.

      Quite a dysfunctional family. Though… not everyone here was a failure.

      Ami’s sisters were much more promising individuals. They fit well here.

      Aunt Tata took her part in raising strong in body and spirit peasant women and hard workers.

      For some reason this not-magic didn’t work with Ami. A bad seed. You can’t slap genes with a slipper, the mother should only be displeased with herself.

      Can’t say Tata abandoned the attempts. Although nothing could be cut out of the grown-out part, persistent methodical attempts to tear it into shreds and sew it together in a new way were periodically renewed.

      That’s why Ami tried to show herself as little as possible. Not to catch the eye of her family became her main goal, and she reached it by disappearing at work, in the Archive or, if she was really lucky, on a business trip.

      And at her favourite secluded edge of the Forest, of course.

      Under this delightful starry sky, among the trees and on the moss-smelling earth. Where one can stop to pretend “normal”, or try to hide away from everyone or to please someone if they got “caught”.

      Isn’t it a wonder… This is probably only possible in communication with nature.

      Everything is easier here. Just wander aimlessly and sing along with the voices in your head. The Forest will take you as you are, alive or dead, it doesn’t demand you to change, to “make an effort” and “stop being a bungler”, to behave, to be “as you should be” so that “it wouldn’t be ashamed in front of the sky” or something.

      The Forest smelled wonderful and looked great. Maybe they must move to a Forest some day. It has food and answers to almost everything. Perhaps they would do it in the end, because none of the other cities like her either.

      Or they can travel to the Ocean! Some maps say there’s a real unimaginably huge Ocean on the other side of the Forest! Imagine!

      No, you can’t. Boundless