life is a chain of accidents.
Regularity: people trying to help in small things do not notice how they hurt in big things.
They cried when they found her. Dead. They cried. But do tears change anything?
Their fault.
Their fault!
Why does this world put up with what they do to it?!
The same song cuts through the crowd’s clamor again.
…tausend Sonnen brennen nur für dich…
Spring
Erlöse dich***
He’ll have to go, even if it’s without her.
Make their usual way for both of them. To worship the flourishing of that land as bequeathed by their nature.
It’s time. It’s time.
He opens towards the wind, clinging to its flow.
The fall… and the rise.
He makes a sharp turn and crosses the river and heads north, away from the city, into the night that engulfs its silhouette.
***
«Will he jump or not? Do you think he will?» the guy tosses the empty cup into the trash. «It should come out beautifully, I think.»
«I guess. They’re rare around here. I mean, in the city. Usually they stick to the park, the lakes. They say it’s good luck to see one. Have you heard of it?»
He nods.
«Yes. It’s full of these symbols: posters, magnets, stamps,» he points the camera phone again at the green and red lights illuminated on the pavilion, the silhouette standing almost motionless on this man-made cliff. «They are weird, really: the proportions, the colors.»
«But beautiful,» objected his buddy. «White always looks great.»
«It’s a pity he’s alone. I think they usually travel in pairs. I’d love to see them dance! Oh! Look, look! He jumped!»
Above their heads, spreading its snowy wings, the Siberian Crane plummets from the roof and, with a long cooing sound that resonates throughout the neighborhood, flies north to catch up with the spring coming to its homeland.
* Here is an approximate translation. With great gratitude and respect:
* Rammstein, Spring
The crowd begins to rage,
They want his insides.
And they shout.
Jump
** Rammstein, Spring
The man begins to cry
He asks: «What did I do?»
I just wanted to look at the view
And the evening sky.
And they shout.
Jump
*** Rammstein, Spring
…a thousand suns burn only for you…
Jump
Spare yourself
Down
Two pairs of eyes watched through the narrow pupil of the porthole as the thin cable unfolded in the darkness, stretching more and more, almost indistinguishable against the ghostly blue glow of Earth’s atmosphere. The graphite-gray strand emerging from the A-11 airlock had already gained full length, and the platform attached from below must have already reached the South American stratospheric port, flying a dozen kilometers above the planet’s surface. So, it would be no more than an hour or two before we descended.
«Has the guy changed his mind? Still want to risk it?» an elderly trembling voice cut through the quiet hum of the thirty-third compartment’s walkway zone.
«No. You can’t talk him out of it once he’s made up his mind,» the respondent said, not hiding a bit of regret. «You know… that’s why he’s here, if you think about it.»
«Yeah… What if… what if he makes it? After all, they do work on those costumes, Ars.»
His friend shrugged his shoulders. His cheekbone face, riddled with a mesh of wrinkles – the evidence of a tumultuous life – twisted into a grimace of doubt.
«Well, so far, none of them have been successful with that option. And anyway… Tell me, Charlie, how many people have gone back down? In your memory? Not just like that, almost directly, but through other experiments? How many have won their freedom?»
The old man scratched his bald head, sighed, and hunched over more than usual.
«Two…»
«Yeah! And how many people have tried? Two dozen? Three? Five? I’ve lost count.»
«Actually, this guy seems to be on his game.»
«Yep… But I don’t understand why he’s so eager to go back. What’s pulling him there? I mean, he’s struggled with this new system himself.»
«And he’s got it, isn’t he?» Ars grinned wryly, «no one chip here. Consider it the freedom he wanted.»
«Freedom?!» his interlocutor rounded his eyes, smiled, and laughed, clucking. «Freedom… oh, I can’t… Here on the „Daisy“? Hey! Freedom!»
Continuing to cheer, Charlie took a dozen steps to the right, bumped into a silvery wall, turned around, shuffling in an attempt to imitate running, and moved back. Another thirty steps and another obstacle in the way. The laughter broke off. The old man slammed his palm on the metal surface:
«Here it is, our freedom. Thirty meters across, and that’s it. Is this cage better than that one?»
***
The Experimental Correctional Station, or, to put it simply, the orbital prison, has been circling the Earth for almost half a century.
The inmates affectionately and ironically called it «Daisy» because of its resemblance to a multi-petal flower. The visual resemblance, however, was the end of the story.
The multilayered disk with its petal compartments was spinning nonstop around the control module sphere, which also served as an intake and distribution point for new arrivals. However, the West Space Elevator’s delivery pods came no more than once a week, or even less frequently, so the central sector was not under much strain. The fully automated system coped with its task perfectly.
The most dangerous criminals on the planet were kept here: maniacs, terrorists, and also political opponents who were not successful but posed a threat. «The risk of undermining social foundations, the welfare of the population,» as they called it, those who managed to exile their enemies who created obstacles on their way to power here. Or perhaps
